Tina Wainscott

The community of writers is close knit, supportive, and encouraging, and I’m proud to be a part of it.  I am terribly grateful to have received wonderful advice, blurbs, and encouragement from many writers, some I’ve never actually met.  I’m also glad to have passed on the legacy to other writers.  This business of writing has its travails: solitude, promotion, business issues, sales numbers, balancing life with work, agents who don’t do their job, editors who leave us stranded…oh, yes, this life work that we have chosen—actually it chooses us—isn’t easy.  The joys, though, make it all worthwhile.  When a scene comes together in perfection; when we finish a book; when we get lost in our own story; and when our book becomes a reality, sitting on bookshelves everywhere.  Our dream come true!  There are booksignings, meeting fans and booksellers, hearing from readers who rave about our story.  What happiness! 

So I cannot imagine how something like discovering you have cancer just before your book comes out would feel.  How the chemo would drain your joy and energy and keep you from getting out there and experiencing your dream.  This is what happened to Patry Francis.  And in the spirit of the writing community, the International Thriller Writers (www.thrillerwriters.org) has put the call out for her fellow authors to take up the slack and post about her book today.  I don’t know Patry personally, but I know her heart.  I know that her soul lies in words and people and her heart aches to touch others with those words.  So, in a way, she is kin.  I have not read her book yet, but I will.  And not because I should, just to be nice and all.  It sounds absolutely fascinating, the kind of morality tale that’s so fun to sink my teeth into. 

So I introduce you to The Liars Diary:

What would you do if your best friend was murdered—and your teenaged son was accused of the crime? How far would you go to protect him? How many lies would you tell? Would you dare to admit the darkest truths—even to yourself?
Jeanne Cross is an ordinary suburban wife and mother with a seemingly “perfect” life when Ali Mather arrives on the scene, breaking all the rules and breaking hearts. Almost against her will, Jeanne is drawn to this powerfully seductive woman, a fascination that soon begins to infect Jeanne’s husband as well as their teenaged son, Jamie.

When Ali is found murdered, there are many suspects; but the evidence against Jamie Cross is overwhelming. Jeanne’s personal probing leads her to the question none of us would ever want to face. What comes first: our loyalty to family—or the truth?”

Doesn’t it sound juicy?  Check it out at http://www.amazon.com/Liars-Diary-Patry-Francis/dp/0452289157/ref=ed_oe_p.  You can read Patry’s journey at her blog: http://simplywait.blogspot.com/

Happy reading!

Tina

This is how a leisurely Sunday morning turns into…well, a mess.  I walked toward the kitchen and saw a puddle all over the floor.  I could hear water running, and I thought, Shoot, a hose in the fridge broke or something!  And of course my husband is out of town that weekend.  When I walked into the kitchen I could see into our atrium…and there’s two feet of water inside!  I’m thinking, How can this happen?  And when I run up to the sliding doors, I see exactly how it happened: a raccoon is sitting on a rock looking at me like, “Help me, please!!!” and water is gushing out of the hose and it’s a surreal moment.  He had fallen in through the screen at the top of the atrium.
 

Thankfully I realized that I couldn’t open the door because all that water would come flooding out and make more of a mess.  So after some panicked calls to find out how the heck you turn the water off from the outside, I got it shut off.  Problem 1 solved.  Many more to go!  Five rooms of flooring (wood mostly) damaged and a raccoon in the atrium.  I couldn’t really be mad at him. He sure didn’t want to be there!
 

My parents came over and we mopped up the water that we could until the water damage company came out with their equipment.  We couldn’t get the raccoon out because there was still too much water inside.  But when the water drained down enough, he started getting all crazy again, clawing up the walls, and I knew I had to get him out of there, for my house’s sake as well as his.  I went out to the garage to see what was out there and found a fishing net.  Images of me trying to catch this frantic raccoon made me laugh.  Uh, I don’t think so.  Then one of those wonderful thoughts hits me: our neighbor is a hunter.  Maybe he’ll have a trap.
 

The couple came right over and he knew just what to do.  He put on fishing boots and grabbed the net and scooped the little guy up and freed him outside.  Thank you, Ed and Kelly! 
 

What I learned is that, even in the midst of crisis (well, once I got the water turned off), you can step back and look for the blessing.  In the midst of terrible things going on in your life, there is always a blessing, a lesson, something that is trying to grab your attention perhaps.  In this, I saw that we were going to have the opportunity to fix some things that needed fixing and give the house a bit of a facelift.  All I had to do was survive the construction noise and mess…
 

Cheers,
Tina

An author’s dream is to have a buzz going about her book, so should I take it as a good sign that I was finding bees in my house?  Well, turns out that we had a hive in the house.  Well, not IN the house.  We found a bunch of bees inside in the loft, though, and couldn’t figure out how they were getting in.  Turns out there was a hive up in the overhang way upstairs.  So we had to hire a company that specializes in bee removal.  A bunch of bees!  They swarmed but luckily didn’t attack the guy, who was wearing a suit of some kind.