Over the last year, I've spent a lot time on my blog, talking about  My Novel Freshman Experience. Yes, I've gone back to school and talk about learning new things (so far just about ceramics, but maybe someday soon I'll take another type of class LOL).  But here's the big thing I hope to share...learning something new doesn't

require going back to school.  This weekend Himself (my husband's online name) and I started stoning behind the woodstove at The Cottage.  That is something very new.  We've laid tile before, but this is a different process altogether.  We're hoping to finish it over the course of a few visits.

It's not just people who learn new skills.  Since we lost Ethel Merman, Ella Fitzgerald has had to learn to be an only dog.  She's been more than a little lost.  But she's getting better.  We've been trying to convince her she's a camp dog.  She's pretty sure she's not, but we're still trying.  After we finished our stoning this weekend, we headed out to the truck. I didn't bother to put Ella on her lead...she's always happy to leave camp and head back to the house.  But this time...she took off.  She found her inner-wolf and led us on a merry chase.  Well, merry on her part.  She is very fast for a small sausage dog.  

But in the end, we lured her back to the truck with a treat.  She learned that camp can be fun.  We learned that she is a dog who will continued using her lead...even if it's just a short walk to the truck.  (This picture was taken after her wild wolf run...she doesn't looked the least bit sorry, does she?)





I'm still loving ceramics, but it's led me to painting as well.  I'm enjoying that as well.  That's the thing with learning...one thing leads to another.  I'm hoping Ella's done learning about her inner-wolf, but I know I'm not done learning about pottery and painting and stoning and...  Well, I'm not done with any of it.  Wishing you something new to learn about soon!

Holly

Speaking of news...check out my new releases:

PTA Moms: the Collection

Polished Off

Something New....

I was talking to someone about the publishing industry and said, "It's changing so fast." 

It is.  But then again, there's that old adage that says the only constant is change.

So I try to be open to trying new things.  My buddy, Susan Gable, and I are doing just that...trying something new.  We were on a road trip to Syracuse to do an all day workshop and taped parts of our conversation.  We called it Trippin' With Holly and Susan. Take a look...

You can see all three videos.

We thought it was a fun way to introduce ourselves to new readers and to hang out with reading friends. It's new and we hope fun.

Something else new I'm trying? Radish.  It's serialized fiction. That's not exactly new for me. I had books serialized in Japan years back. I thought it was cool then...and I think it's cool now.  So I put up The Moments there! If you're using Radish, check it out. If you're not...uh, check it out! LOL

More new things... I started ceramics classes last fall and I'm loving them. I have a new one class fall.  But in the meantime, I've been playing with acrylic paint, seeing what I can do. I'm no expert, but I'm so enjoying it!

Trying something new is imperative not only in writing, but in life in general. We have a pond at the cottage...it's spring fed and there's always new water feeding into it. It's beautiful.  Unlike the stagnant hole filled with water just a bit down the way from it. Other than the rain, nothing new feeds it. It smells wonky.  I'd rather be like the pond. LOL

Holly

Polished Off: Maid in LA #5

Maid in LA 1-4

PS One more new thing...the fifth Maid in LA book came out yesterday!!

One Thing Leads to Another...

I started back to school this year.  I took Ceramics I and Ceramics II.  I signed up for Ceramics Independent Study in the fall.  My first term we had assignments, but the second term was pretty much trying what interested us.  I gave myself a theme for the term...folk art.  It's the kind of art I gravitate to.  I focused on faces and nature.  Lots of trees, santas and even the quilt to your right (which was sized to fit over the electric panel at camp).

 But all the playing with textures and some underglaze painting left me wanting to know more.  I started looking at the world around me with new eyes.  I noticed textures in a way I never had.  One thing Lead to another

I started studying folk art.  My father-in-law was an artist, though he'd never have called himself that.  We have a cabinet full of santas that he carved and painted.  I tried to recreate his designs at first, but then I tried some of my own. I incorporated the trees I'd been studying with the fact I spend a lot of my summers splitting wood for the next winter and added a dash of my FIL's santas and that study of faces.  One thing leads to another.

And that idea of one thing leading to another is still playing out.  I'm going to start throwing clay on a wheel.  To date I've only hand-built my projects.  And I'd done a bit of underglazing on those, using them as paints.  So I wondered how I could make my painting better.  I'm envisioning a line of cups with rural scenes.  Now, I have no intention of being a fine art painter, but folk art...I wanted to explore that in order to add that dimension to next terms class. 
 
 I started out decorating some clementine orange boxes and then branched out to some small 8"x8" canvases.  I'm seeing some improvement and I'm hoping I can come close to replicating some aspects of these in my ceramics.







 Yes, one thing leads to another.

And this year's classes lead to an article in Romance Writers' Report, and my first workshop on Lifelong Learning, and I started a new book where this year's classes might be coming into play...

One thing lead to another.

I think it's a good way to live life.  Learn something new and then have that lead to learning something else.

I have a friend who calls me Renaissance Woman.  I will confess, I smile every time she posts something to me.  I am an expert at very few things, but I do so love learning new bits and pieces.  All of those feed into my writing.

I've wanted to take a ceramics class for a long time. You can see that yearning in Just One Thing.  Maybe that one thing lead to another and here I am.

I hope you all find something that enthralls you!

Holly

PS To all the Moms out there...Happy Mother's Day!

Find my books at:

Amazon

Audible

BAM

Kobo

B&N

iBooks

Google Play

In Erie, you can find my books on the shelf at Werner Books! Stop in, check them out and tell them I said hi!