ROMANCING THE VINES - Days of Wine, Chocolate, Friends and the Love of Reading Romance

Wonderful to be able to enjoy all the best things in Sonoma County with some of my best friends. We had a turnout of readers better than my expectations. I had hopes it would be a good group, and it certainly was that. Thank you to all who helped promote the event and who showed up and helped the celebration yesterday was. To my fellow authors: Catherine Bybee, Marina Adair, Susan Stoker, Kathryn LeVeque, Carolyn Jewel, Diana Orgain, Lisa Hughey, Pam Gibson, Tiffany Snow and Kate Douglas and Lori Ryan - thank you thank you thank you!! Wonderful women, great players, awesome authors and super friends for life.

I am blown away by the generosity of my writer friends, who spent their weekend, and traveled far and wide just to come share in this vision. Coppola Winery was the perfect location. Yes, I admit, we are a bit out of the way and it isn't easy to get here, but that just means you have to come and stay a few days. We are a region, not a single destination.

Funning around the Godfather desk

Today eight of us are going on a limo tour of four great local wineries. Again, I can't wait. And it looks like the sunshine will be out for us.

Readers drove as far away as 4-5 hours away and built their whole weekends around this event. The winery crowd came from all over the world, and we met new readers from Boston, Denver, New York, even a family from Canada visiting Wine Country in all its glory. We had a steady stream of people here for the 5+ hours of the signing, yet the setting was small enough that we could intimately speak with people about our stories, our books, and share our lives.

I'm definitely planning one for next year.

Our author group at Francis Ford Coppola Winery book signing event

My voice is hoarse. I slept like a baby last night, finally able to relax after all the worry and planning. But what a treat to bring our world to all of you out there willing to listen and read our stories.

Tucker from Tucker, the movie. One of only 52 made

Hello from 35,000 feet

As you read this, I will be in an airplane, hopefully watch pre-football highlights, or reading a good book, editing, or inspired to write, or talking to some interesting passenger. I'm going to be in Hawaii at an author conference and I'm so excited, they might have to unload me as a nuclear device...

I'm really looking forward to this conference. The company will be outstanding - leaders in the Romance industry, as well as all the folks who help us from Amazon to iBooks, Nook, Kobo, Ingram Spark. We'll be talking about time management, VAs, FB ads, branding, writing series, brainstorming, and there will be time for just hanging around, sprinting by the beach. For a writer, that means writing. Then on Saturday, a great big book signing at Hickam AFB (I even have an official pass) and a 1940's Swing Dance. I got my vintage dress and supposedly some young officer who has agreed to take me on the dance floor and dance with someone who could be his grandma.

On Thursday, I'm sponsoring the Pearl Harbor tour, and the trip to the Arizona and Missouri Memorials. Now that I have my camera fixed, I can perhaps share pictures.

Finished my mentoring on Friday, and now its green lights all the way from the conference to the week before my Coppola Event. Still some tickets left. This will be an outstanding Romancing The Vines, another first in hopefully a string of successful signing in the future.

The San Francisco Airport is buzzing with Superbowl fever. I bought a coffee tumbler with Superbowl 50 on it, and there's a whole group who just flew in and are having Irish Coffees here at the Buena Vista Cafe. Supposed to be in the '70's here in my part of the world, and not a cloud in the sky. Perfect day for a game. Go Niners! Wait...I'll have to wait for that.

I wasn't going to do as much traveling this year, and I've changed my mind. Now I just have to boost my sales up to afford to do it all. But meeting readers, hanging out with some of my best friends, learning and just getting outside my cave is going to be fun.

I can tell 2016 is going to be a brilliant year. Can't wait to tell you about it!

HEART IS THE SEAT OF THE SOUL-FOUND THINGS IN LIFE

Lucky Heart on a Chain by Monty Monty

What I love most about being a writer is finding things. Finding people, finding great stories, finding readers, finding tossed away things and repurposing them. I live in a recycled repurposed house. I don't like to throw away "junk" because those things inspire me, truly inspire me. If I could travel the world and explore the junk piles of every country, I'll bet I'd find objects that others throw away that could become incredible pieces of art, when put together.

If you examine this heart, (my new favorite artist from Healdsburg, California, Monty Monty) the piece says so many things to me. It has parts from the Edgewater Hotel & Casino (gamble on love?), gears from a timepiece now silenced (time for love? Love is timeless?) and a small child's heart-shaped pie tin (the passions of youth never flies away). He uses no soldering, just screws everything in place. Things once discarded are now made into a great piece of art I'm going to wear around my neck. Something a writer to muse on. A gift of love for someone special. You can see more of his works here. Other Sonoma County adventures here. More assembled art by inspirational Sebastopol artist, Patrick Arniot.

A writer's life is more than the sum of the parts. I worried about being a good writer when I first desired to be one in grammar school, then high school, then as a young bride, mother, and now as a grandmother. I have to say, this is the best time of my life. Yes my joints are creaky and the gravity still works against me in some respects, and I have lines of sorry and joy-lots of both (see my blog post on the Velveteen Rabbit, still my favorite children's book), but the stories in my head are always there, ruminating, thilling me, driving me forward, like the parts of my life I've lived, found and put together into my characters. In the process what I gain is not only satisfaction, but the friendship and bonding with readers all over the globe. I couldn't have done this in my twenties, thirties, or later. I had to be what I am now, with the stories of a lifetime and the emotional maturity to be able to look at them and organize them into a work of art, just like this Lucky Heart On A Chain.

I am reminded of our friendship with Jack Chandler, a client of ours in real estate some years ago we had the honor to be able to represent. He designs homes that are living works of art with all the whimsy and magic a true artist can inspire. Imagine living in an art piece. I mean, really living inside it!

My travels are calling me home, to Sonoma County, where I've lived all of my adult life. All the big changes in my life have happened here in this region. Like Babette's Feast, which is one of my favorite movies, I'm calling, like a pied piper, other authors and readers to come out and have a reading/signing/romantic Romancing The Vines party with me. Found things coming together. The magic of serendipity, the magic of writer friends I cannot wait to spend time with, and a sharing of the words of the heart, like this heart, all found and rejoicing together. How perfect to do this at Coppola Winery, where the movie sets and the magic and fantasy of The Godfather, Dracula, Tucker and others, are displayed near the tasting room of world class wines. If you are a reader or a writer, like our brand new Facebook page.

As a reader, you can sign up to attend this event here. If you are an author who has "found" this site and "found" me, and you want to come join the party, fill out this form for more information for the event. You won't want to miss it.

Kate Douglas, also a Sonoma County resident and one of the participating authors, and I had a wonderful afternoon together sipping water, nibbling on things at Portalupi Winery (I had to pick up my shipment), and gabbing over at a new coffee house in Healdsburg on the Square. She is like a long lost sister, a fellow writer I could spend weeks getting to know. Our paths have come from different places, but we've both arrived at this point, in this time, together. I can't wait to celebrate further with her, and all the other great authors coming.

Life is made up of found things: things of the heart and soul. Are you lost or are you found? If you've found this blog, I'd say we found each other. Let's never part. I believe in Happily Ever Afters, True Love Heals In The Gardens Of The Heart, everlasting explorations and adventures into the unknown. Please stay by my side and let's explore together!