ROW80 Weds Week 10: Yep! Catching up.

Round 3 ends on Thursday, Sept 19. Right now, I'm still catching up. My long 'to do' list is updated. Here are this week's accomplishments:

• WRITING: Finally, after hours of fighting format (felt like a full-time job), Amazon accepted both the final update for Standing Stones AND for Years of Stone. Just have to wait that proverbial 72 hours to doublecheck all was uploaded correctly. Maybe by Sunday. The Seventh Tapestry took a back seat, but a little progress was made here too (see Weds WIPpet below). 
• COMMUNITY: Really enjoyed meeting with Glen Willow Book Club this week. These lovely 16 women asked questions, and we had the most delicious cheesecake. One woman's face fell when she learned she might have to wait 2 more years for the next book! Another point: Some readers found my books hard to read because the characters suffered. Shaped by history, my books tell how one working class family struggled for survival.  We talked about the differences between happy-ever-after, tragic ending, and happy-for-now. This reminds me of M.K. Tod's survey of readers of historical fiction. Her findings show that women readers want to be immersed in a historical time period. Many readers also want that happy-ever-after ending, for don't we all need hope? 
• Sent questions for guest post writing blog (Tana Lovett, As Long as There is Chocolate) to support her reading later this month. This sweet story with a touch of chocolate, romance, and ghosts from the past definitely has a happy-ever-after ending. 
• Set up a 'thank you' for YOU and readers that will run September 8-12: free Kindle downloads of The Mermaid Quilt & Other Tales, a collection of short stories and poems. Go for it!

Now for Wednesday's WIPpet, featuring a snippet from a current work in progress, somehow relating to the date. I'm going short this week, just 4 paragraphs (Month of Sept = 9 - 5 for Sept 5 = 4 paragraphs) from The Seventh Tapestry. Sandra, our intrepid heroine concerned about missing artifacts from the museum, meets with her boss, Roger. 

Sandra slipped into Roger’s office, struck again by the two small framed tapestries that decorated his office. “Those are quite lovely. Are they Flemish?”

“You have a good eye,” said Roger. “I’m very proud of them. Actually, though they were woven in Flanders, these two came from Spain.” He touched the frame of the two hangings. “They were a gift from the Giroux family, one of our major donors.”

Sandra wondered if the gift had been approved by the museum. She looked again at the hangings. “Were they part of the collection at the Palace of La Granja just outside Segovia?”

Roger looked at her with surprise. “Yes, I believe they were . . . surplus, or something like that.” He huffed. “I do have appropriate provenance.”

Royal Palace of La Granja de la Ildefonso, 1873
Modeled after Versailles
(Source: Wikipedia)

Ah, but does Roger have provenance?

Hope to see you all again on Sunday. Why not see what other ROW80 writers are up to on the blog or on FaceBook. Thank you to Emily Wrayburn for continuing to host WIPpet Wednesday. And, most important, have a great week in whatever moves you!