TopA GOOD READ
Newsletter For Readers and Writers

December 2009

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Welcome and thank you for sharing your time with me. Those of you who signed up for my newsletter since last month, thank you for subscribing.
 
Jo HuddlestonThis month in Guest Gab I have an article by Cecil Murphey about his encouraging book, When Someone You Love Has Cancer. Our Writing Wisdom
tips come from Dan Poynter about book distribution and promotion. In What Am I Reading?  I announce the winner of last month's book, I  have another book you could win and I review a book I've read. In Book Buzzings I highlight a Christmas novel by Lena Nelson Dooley and also give you an update on my novel. Check Inspirational Insights to read my thoughts on Christmas lists and gifts.
 
Share this newsletter with you friends and if you have any comments or suggestions about this newsletter, please email me.  
 
You can take a look at earlier newsletters by clicking the Archive button on my websiteAlways remember: I value your presence here and the time you share with me.


 
Quality Quote
 
"Home is a gift to be opened every day." --Mary Anne Radmacher

BuzzingsBook Buzzings
Yours and Mine
Send me your five favorite books and their authors and I'll list them here. Use your first name or full name; whatever you prefer.

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Update
on my novel,Caney Creek: After a complete reworking of my manuscript, I'll be contacting literary agents. The waiting game begins again!

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Forward this newsletter on to anyone you think might be interested in all things books.

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This month I highlight Snowbound Colorado Christmas by Lena Nelson Dooley (http://lenanelsondooley.com). Below is information about her book.

Lena bookTitle: Snowbound Colorado Christmas
Author: Lena Nelson Dooley (co-authors: Susan Page Davis, Darlene Franklin, Tamela Hancock Murray)
Genre: Historical Christian Romance   
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Release Date: September 2008
Available at: Amazon.com

Love Arrives with a Blizzard. Thalia Bloom's Christmas Party on December 3, 1913, is the talk of Denver, but no one dreams the gently falling snow will continue six days and accumulate nearly four feet. If they live through the storm, will love be there to greet each young woman on Christmas morn?
 



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 GuestGab Guest Gab
A Word From the Man Behind the Words
by Cecil Murphey

My friend Cecil Murphey is author of When Someone You Love Has Cancer, an encouraging book, which he writes about below. Cec is an international speaker and best selling author who has written more than 100 books, including the New York Times bestseller 90 Minutes in Heaven (with Don Piper). No stranger himself to loss and grieving, Cecil has served as a pastor and hospital chaplain for many years, and through his ministry and books he has brought hope and encouragement to countless people around the world. You can visit with Cec at his website. Here, then, is his article:


When Shirley walked in from the garage, she didn't have to say a word: I read the diagnosis in her eyes. I grabbed her and held her tightly for several seconds. When I released her, she didn't cry. The unshed tears glistened, but that was all.

I felt emotionally paralyzed and helpless, and I couldn't understand my reaction. After all, I was a professional. As a former pastor and volunteer hospital chaplain I had been around many cancer patients. I'd seen people at their lowest and most vulnerable. As a writing instructor, I helped one woman write her cancer-survival book. Shirley and I had been caregivers for Shirley's older sister for months before she died of colon cancer.

All of that happened before cancer became personal to me--before my wife learned she needed a mastectomy. To make it worse, Shirley was in the high-risk category because most of her blood relatives had died of some form of cancer. Years earlier, she had jokingly said, "In our family we grow things."

In the days after the diagnosis and before her surgery, I went to a local bookstore and to the public library. I found dozens of accounts, usually by women, about their battle and survival. I pushed aside the novels that ended in a person's death. A few books contained medical or technical information. I searched on-line and garnered useful information--but I found nothing that spoke to me on how to cope with the possible loss of the person I loved most in this world.

Our story ends happily: Shirley has started her tenth year as a cancer survivor. Not only am I grateful, but I remember my pain and confusion during those days. That concerns me enough to reach out to others who also feel helpless as they watch a loved one face the serious diagnosis of cancer.

Cec bookThat's why I wrote When Someone You Love Has Cancer. I want to encourage relatives and friends and also to offer practical suggestions as they stay at the side of those they love.

The appendix offers specific things for them to do and not to do--and much of that information came about because of the way people reacted around us. It's a terrible situation for anyone to have cancer; it's a heavy burden for us who deeply love those with cancer.

God is sometimes silent but that doesn't mean God is absent. In my new book, When God Turns off the Lights, I tell what it was like for me when God stopped communicating for about 18 months. I didn't like it and I was angry. I didn't doubt God's existence, but I didn't understand the silence. I read Psalms and Lamentations in various translations. I prayed and I did everything I could, but nothing changed.

After a couple of months, I realized that I needed to accept the situation and wait for God to turn on the lights again. Each day I quoted Psalm 13:1: "O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way?" (NLT) I learned many invaluable lessons about myself--and I could have learned them only in the darkness. When God turns off the lights (and the sounds) I finally realized that instead of God being angry, it was God's loving way to draw me closer.


I have a copy of When Someone You Love Has Cancer one of you will win in a drawing on December 25; I'll announce the winner in next month's newsletter.
 

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WhatReadingWhat Am I Reading?

In each issue of A GOOD READ I will tell you about what I'm reading or have just read. Let me know what you've read that really impressed you, tell why in about 100 words and I'll include it here. Giving your name is optional.

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It's easy to forward this newsletter to your friends: at the end of this email click "Forward Email."

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Between You and MeThe winner of last month's copy of Just Between you and Me by Jenny B. Jones is lmarrow7...@... Congratulations! I'll email you with details about receiving your book.

 
If you didn't win this month, see below for news about another giveaway.

 
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This month, on December 25th, I'll draw a winner from all current subscribers for a copy of When Someone You Love Has Cancer by Cecil Murphey.

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HorsesI've just read the best-seller Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, Scribner, 2009, 270 pages. This is the story of Jeannette's grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, a "no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother." The author didn't think of the book as fiction but because she didn't have words directly from her grandmother, she sometimes had to draw on her imagination to fill in the details. Thus, the book is labeled "A True-Life Novel." When women didn't have the vote and had to choose between being a nurse, a secretary or a teacher, Lily Casey Smith aspired to fly an airplane. At age six she was helping her father break horses and was a good ranch hand, doing well every chore that any cowboy could do. At age fifteen she became a frontier school teacher, riding five hundred miles on her pony alone to reach her first job. The journey took a month. She raised two children, one of whom is the author's mother. In a time when survival was a personal goal, this story portrays all the necessary hardships and sacrifices, some of which are not pleasant to visualize. Nevertheless, to me, among those unforgettable books. A good read.
 
 
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WritingWisdomWriting Wisdom
Distributors and Promotion
by Dan Poynter

PoynterThe following is excerpted from Dan Poynter's Fifteenth Edition of The Self-Publishing Manual.To receive Dan's free newsletter, Publishing Poynters, go here.

Distributors distribute books to stores--period! It is up to the author to generate interest in the book, to alert potential buyers that the book exists and tell them it is in the stores. Distributors do not promote books . . . the author must do the promotion.
 
The books will sit on the bookstore shelves for one four-month season. If the author has not driven buyers to the stores, the books will come back as returns. Your distributor is your partner. Work with your distributor, support the efforts of your distributor and honor your distributor. Distributors do their part--putting books on shelves. Authors need to do their part--telling potential buyer/readers that the books are on the shelves.



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Clean Chuckle

THIS FROM A MALL SANTA:


I love playing Santa at the mall. But parents often have trouble getting young children to sit on my knee. It took a lot of coaxing for one little girl to perch there, so I got straight to the point.

"What do you want most of all for Christmas?" I asked.

She answered, "Down!"


InspThoughtsInspirational Insight
Christmas Wishes
by Jo Huddleston


Those of you who have followed my writing for some time will find my thoughts this month familiar. I've chosen to approach the Christmas season with some humor and also some seriousness. I'll change up my list from year to year and the next time I write about Christmas, my list may be new to you. All that said, here are my thoughts:
 
No longer do Christmas trees and Santas always wait until the day after Thanksgiving to appear. The more to get us in a buying mood? I guess store managers figure the earlier we're tempted with Christmas music and decorations, the sooner we'll start purchasing gifts.
 
Speaking of gifts . . . As soon as they can write, children delight in making lists of what they want for Christmas. Many times those lists get longer or get changed every day.
 
We adults make mental lists and drop hints to our "Santa." Along with the children, we begin to feel the "Christmas spirit" as the time draws nearer for opening presents resting under the tree.
Lists of things that can't be packaged stay in our minds as well. This kind of wish list is good all year, not only for December.
 
Have you ever wished TV cable wouldn't go off in the middle of something good; shots that will make us feel better didn't come in a needle; we still had service stations instead of self-serve gas pumps?
 
Don't you wish you'd bought stock early on in Coca-Cola, IBM or Levi Strauss; newborns slept through the night; paper cuts didn't hurt so bad; opportunity would knock more often, or louder; experience wasn't sometimes the best teacher?
 
Do you ever wish more money than month occurred instead of the opposite; someone would invent "windshield wipers" for eye glasses; our mistakes weren't so noticeable?
 
Don't you wish light bulbs didn't burn out right when you turned them on; you could go back and do some things differently; appliances wouldn't quit two months after their warranty expires; the check-out line you're in didn't move the slowest; shoe strings didn't break?
 
On a more serious note, I wish violence would be replaced by kindness; paying health care premiums guaranteed good health; words could adequately express the feeling of love; hearts couldn't break; it didn't get dark.
 
I wish responsibility wasn't so heavy; the world was a kinder, gentler place; TV programming was more wholesome; good outweighed bad; children didn't have to be sick; grandparents lived longer.
 
I wish all good dreams came true.
 
As we compile our Christmas wish lists, may we remember the words of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale: "The magic message of Christmas is that God gives us so much more than we can possibly give back! He gave the world the greatest gift of all time. 'For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given (Isaiah 9:6).'"








� 2009 Jo Huddleston. All rights reserved.


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