Rich Farmers Update and Giveaway!

Yes, this is another shameless plug!

People tend to enjoy my music posts more than my book posts, but hey!  A gal's gotta make her $11.98!  Total.  Seriously.  And that's mostly because my friend took pity on me and bought a copy.

Be that as it may, I wanted to announce that Rich Farmers is now available on iTunes and Barnes and Noble (for Nook). 

I was going to say how honored I am to be featured (to use the term loosely) on iTunes, but then I realized that some of Red River's songs can also be found there; not through any effort (or knowledge) of the band.  It seems that one of our music libraries, Audiosparx, put together a few compilation CD's of various artists, and some of our tunes were stuck on five or six of those CD's (No sales to report!  Just like my book!)

So, I guess I'm an old hand at iTunes.....

Now is a good time to put in a plug for my book formatter and cover designer, Elijah Toten.  You can view his services here. He was very nice to work with, and I think he did a great job on the cover design.  Granted, I gave him a picture that I insisted he use, but the graphics, especially with regard to the subtitle, really convey the scariness and, I guess, shakiness, of that time, growing up.

I bet there are tons of self-published authors who only sell one or two copies (I write, sobbing).  I can still say I did my best, and I slaved over writing my book; and I'm GLAD I did it.

And now without further a-dewww, I am giving away three copies of Rich Farmers in whatever digital format you choose.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this post.  Guests on my author site will also be included in the drawing.  I will use the Randomizer to select the three winning entries.

Winners will be chosen on Friday, May 3, 2013.   

Thank you for reading!

Rich Farmers Update and a Preview

I have sold three copies of Rich Farmers!  Scoff if you will, but I didn't expect to sell any!

Within the next couple of weeks, Rich Farmers should be available on iTunes and other places that I haven't decided upon yet. 

Excerpt:

Maybe it was a good thing we didn’t pack more stuff.

This place was tiny.

Not the motel itself, but the living quarters.

Curious as I was to check out the place, I despised the little kid who showed me around.

While Mom and Dad were huddled with the woman they’d bought the place from, Elsie; pouring over balance sheets, David Lee, Elsie’s son, became my official travel guide.

“Now, this is my room,” he intoned.

Well, no. This is now my room, and will a bed even fit in here?

Stomach churning, as I pranced along the short household tour, I tried to stop thinking about the new school, the new kids, that I would have to face in a couple of days.

Jay and Lisa were lucky. They’d have plenty of time to assimilate. Me, I was about to be thrown into the fire.

“Here, behind this sliding door, is the office. Right off the living room!”

Seriously?

Our privacy stops at this door?

How quaint. And I hate it already.

The little second bedroom was little, all right. A set of bunk beds hugged one wall; Jay and Lisa would be on the bottom bunk, me on the top.

There was room enough for a narrow dresser on the opposite wall, and a wooden door was built into the wall at the foot of the bed, opening up to a closet with three shelves, where I would stow my important possessions; i.e., my record player.

I felt unable to catch my breath.

I’m going to live in here?

It’s about three steps from my parents’ bedroom!

Life truly sucks.

On my farm, I could stretch my arms out wide, and not touch anything. Here, in this room, I couldn’t even stretch out my arms.

What had I gotten myself into? And can I just go back?

“Here’s the bathroom.”

Well, isn’t this nice? I have to get up at seven. If I’m quick, I can jump in the shower and wash my hair before anyone’s the wiser.

My big brother had pulled up behind us in his red Ford Fairlane. He got out; stretched.

“This’ll do”, he said.

“I can remodel a whole bunch of this stuff.”

My brother’s girlfriend, Kathy, was back at home. It was a drive, but he’d gladly run it.

I didn’t know anybody, and there was nobody worth knowing, least of all David Lee.

Jay and Lisa toddled on over, past the pines, and made the acquaintance of our new neighbors, the Merkels.

Friends for life.

I had nobody.

I shook a sheet of loose-leaf out of a folder, and wrote a beseeching letter to Cathy. “Come visit me!”

I was keenly lonely. And alone.

Read more here

When You Write A Song For Someone...

I once wrote a song about my dad, but I was either too much of a novice at the time, or I simply couldn't capture what needed to be said.

My dad passed away in 2001. He was a lot of things to me, but if I boil all those things down, what I come up with is, he was a hero. And not necessarily a hero in the John Wayne mode, but more in the way he faced life. He was, after all, like all of us. We all have our challenges and our weaknesses and our downfalls. His was called alcoholism.

I lived through the years of turmoil that his disease wreaked upon all our lives. It was a bitch, but you know, I am what I am today because of the stuff that I went through when I was growing up. I learned a whole lot of stuff that I didn't even know I'd learned, like empathy. And acceptance, and forgiveness.

The thing that my dad did that made him a hero to me, though, was that he never gave up. He went through substance abuse treatment three times, until it finally "took". I think he was just stubborn enough that he wasn't going to let it beat him. He was going to reclaim his life. And that he did, in 1976.

I was pregnant with my first son at the time (although no one knew it yet), and I attended the dreaded "family week" that was part of my dad's treatment. When the day was done, I went home and laid on the couch with a throbbing headache and wondered if I could even face the whole thing again tomorrow.

But, selfishly, I only considered what I was going through, and it never even occurred to me what he was facing. Six long weeks of having his life laid bare in front of a bunch of strangers, and admitting a whole lot of things that he didn't even want to admit to himself.

I don't know what got him through it, but all I know is, he came out of Heartview after six weeks as the man I knew when I was just a little kid. He actually started caring about other people, just the way he used to, when I'd follow him around on the farm and make a pest of myself, and he'd delight in the little person that I was; his daughter.

So, I finally figured out what I wanted to say about my dad, in song. I tortured myself over the lyrics and melody of the thing. Harder than I ever worked on any other. Because I had to get it right, you see.

If my dad could hear this song, I think he would cry. And I do think he's heard it, you know? I hope that he thinks that I captured it just right. I don't know, but I feel like I did.


Is this a church or a prison
The windows aren’t stained
And I can’t even tell
If that woman is prayin’

“Six weeks you’ll be here”
My head hurts like hell
“Admit you’re powerless”
Well, how can she tell

But the angels sing
Oh, the angels sing

Accept what you can’t change
Recognize the difference
You’re not a prisoner
Unless you choose it
You can’t stop the world
Or tell it how to turn
But you can have the courage
To live in it

I needed to get outside
I needed to clear my head
A guy offered a smoke and asked
Surprised that you’re not dead?

I said I can’t go back there
He said you think it’s tough in here
This part is easy
Try lookin’ in the mirror

And through my tears
I heard the angels sing

Accept what you can’t change
Recognize the difference
You’re not a prisoner
Unless you choose it
You can’t stop the world
Or tell it how to turn
But you can have the courage
To live in it

© Michelle Anderson 2008

Here's the song:

Heartview

And here is the video I made: