​As I promised when you agreed to join my mail list, I am not going to fill your email box with daily prompts to visit my blog. I hope I can manage once every two weeks. On these occasions, I plan to share with you what’s happening in my writing life.
 
Marketing advisers, Kissmetrics, claim the highest percentage of blogs are read at 7:00 a.m., ET, on Mondays. I’m not certain about your preferences, but I have better things to do at 7:00 a.m. on a Monday. So, if you are inclined to tell me when you prefer to read my blogs I will listen. My schedule suggests that 8:00 a.m., PT, on Tuesdays works best for me. Of course, the blog is static so you can link in at any time.
 
Writing is a solitary endeavor. That’s not to say I don’t interact with others along the way. I do. I relate to writers, critique partners, editors, sources, and a variety of other people. But when the time arrives for me to write, for the most part, I sit alone at my computer and tap away at the keyboard. I’m not always entirely alone, sometime my companion, Mocha, is at my side offering encouragement and comment.  
 
I enjoy stretching my imagination to create characters and my plots spring from the characters I’ve created. I frequently find character inspiration by surfing the web looking for images that reflect a person that I have in mind for a specific role. This is Coyote, a major character in my current work-in-progress.  If you visit Pinterest at you will find boards for each of my novels.
https://www.pinterest.com/sharonburgessau/ ​
 
Drop me a note telling me what topics you’d like me to discuss. And if you aren’t a subscriber, don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter.

They arrived yesterday – the first shipment of Simply Provocative, A Spruce Creek Romance. The selling price is the same as for Simply Irresistible, $13.99. With sales tax, in California, the final price is $15.32.

If you wish to buy a copy you can purchase from me in person, I will always have copies in the trunk of my car. You may buy via PayPal and I will send the book to you free shipping,. If you choose to order via PayPal be sure to include in the instructions that you are ordering this book and your shipping address.or you may order on-line at Amazon.com, click on the link embedded in the adjacent cover or search on Amazon for Simply Provocative, A Spruce Creek Romance.

Of course, if you don’t wish to buy a copy of the print edition that’s fine. I sincerely appreciate your support and encouragement. I’m happy just to receive your congratulations.  
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The Kindle edition will be available just as soon as I am able to get some cover issues resolved.

I am excited. My final proof of Simply Provocative has been received and reviewed. The final manuscript and cover go to the printer tomorrow. Just think, the new book may be available before the end of this month!

Also, I just discovered that Amazon has a romance category clean and wholesome. As soon as I figure out how to change my category listings this is where you will find my books in the future.

I have been really busy this month. Besides getting Simply Provocative finished—editing, formatting, proofing, reformatting and sent for printing—I have also tried to be pro-active in the marketing department. I have set up my author page on Amazon.
You can check it out here:
www.amazon.com/SharonBurgess/e/B01GUEMNB8/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1465510617&sr=8-1

I am working on the rewrite of the third and last novel in the Spruce Creek Romance series, Simply Outrageous. I hope this will move faster than the previous two books. I also have a new work-in-progress titled A Year and a Day. I’m not certain if this will be a novella as originally intended, or if it will grow into a full length book. This is a departure for me from straight contemporary romance to light fantasy with romantic overtones.

I heard back from a number of you about the icebox blog. Reactions varied from “I remember those, we had one too,” to “So that’s how food was kept cool before refrigerators, I can’t believe it.” I love it when readers chime in with reactions, so keep the calls and letters coming—the email anyway.
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Until next time, enjoy the end of spring and the beginning of summer.
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“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
—Ernest Hemingway

I was chatting with another writer, a friend of mine, about the difficulty I have finding things of interest to blog about. Somehow we got onto the topic of our personal histories. I know that to my younger readers – those under the age of fifty – I must appear to be a fossil. But I clearly remember how things were after the end of World War II. My friend thought that this memory might be of interest to my readers. I am certain that WWII seems like ancient history to many of you – the dark ages.

I was a small child living in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. This was years and years before the invasion of the flower children – a remnant of the Viet Nam War – and civilization was on the cusp of the first technological advances of the twentieth century. Televisions – black and white – had been created but were not common in the average household. Telephones still had wires. Most cars still had manual transmissions. 

The refrigerator had also been invented, but my family did not own one. We had an Ice Box. This appliance – I use the term appliance loosely – required that a large block of ice be deposited at regular intervals and then perishable foods could be stored inside to keep them cool.
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We lived on the top floor of a three story walk-up. If someone came to call on us, the caller pushed a button which rang a doorbell in our apartment. A member of the family was then required to trudge down the stairs to open the outside door – which was itself at a level eight steps above street level – to admit the visitor. This then, was how we received our twice a week delivery of a fifty pound block of ice.

The ice man arrived driving a horse-drawn wagon, loaded with blocks of ice intended for delivery to the customers along his route. He wore a black rubber garment with a padded segment over his left shoulder. Taking massive steel tongs, he laid the block of ice over his shoulder and lugged it up the long flight of stairs to our third floor walk-up. Thinking of this now I am amazed by his strength and stamina.

​But the thing I like most about the visit from the ice man was that I was allowed to pet his horse. We are not talking about a small town in rural America. We are talking about San Francisco, California, one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the twentieth century. It was a big deal for a horse to be on a city street. 

I was saddened when the horse was retired in favor of an internal combustion engine. And then eventually the ice box was retired in our household in favor of an electric refrigerator. Eventually we got a black and white television and my father got his first vehicle with an automatic transmission – a two-tone Kaiser Frasier.

It is hard to believe all the changes I have seen in my lifetime – some good, some not so good. I have watched computing go from the ENIAC, the size of a large room, to Michigan Micro Mote which is smaller than the American one cent piece.

​Today, we have remote controls to change the TV channel on our color TV’s. There was a time when someone was required to get out of the chair and walk to the black and white television to change the channel (of which there were only three). That was always the job of the youngest member of the household.   We have microwave ovens to heat our pre-cooked frozen meals and boil water for our instant coffee. We have electronic devices that can store thousands of books and allow us to read them anytime and anywhere.  There are three dimensional printers which can manufacture plastic guns which can escape detection while going through airport security to fly on jumbo jets which can span oceans and whole continents.

Then there are all the little things which have made life easier: Tupper Wear, disposable diapers, cat litter, aerosol paint, barcodes, zipper storage bags, sugar packets, Post-it notes, tilt and roll wheeled luggage. These items just barely scratch the surface of the inventions which have occurred in the past seventy years. We won’t even mention the things that have come and gone like floppy disks and eight track tapes.
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I am only sorry I won’t be around for another seventy years to see what’s yet to come.

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
—Ernest Hemingway
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Well friends, some of you have purchased the print copy of my book from Amazon. Others have purchased directly from me. I know some of you have been waiting for a less expensive version. With any luck it will be available on Kindle today or tomorrow.  


Since my book is not the only one titled Simply Irresistible if you look for it on line, search for it under my name or use the subtitle.


Whichever version you read, please post a review on Amazon.