Posted by Paula Boyd
Spring Update
Posted by Paula Boyd
I received a nice mention in San Antonio Woman Magazine for my part in the Lone Star Sleuths Anthology. AND, they put in a nice picture in of me signing books at the event. What fun! Many thanks to Cynthia Leal Massey for sending me the article! If you’d like to see my part of the article, I’ve attached the second of two pages here as a pdf. 
It’s been a long road since Hot Enough to Kill first came out. For those of you who have hung in there with me all this time, there just aren’t words to say how much I appreciate it. Turkey Ranch Road Rage is being professionally edited at the moment by Carolyn Bauer, an award-winning author, journalist and editor. The book cover is again being created by Layna Boyd, yes, relation. Layna is now the marketing, website and graphics manager for an investment bank in Denver. She’s developed highly complicated websites and publications, and I hope that she’ll do one for me one day soon. Jake Schubert does a lot of the website design work as well, and he’s an incredibly talented musician. As a favor to Layna, he did a couple of demos of my country songs from back when–I wrote songs before I wrote books. I’ll try to attach those somewhere on the site in case anyone wants to hear them. Outstanding In My Field They are large files so not sure how it will work until I give it a try. Anyway, TR3 will be available through amazon.com in a couple of months.
I’ll admit that since my mother passed, I worried about whether I’d ever come up with any wild tales to fill the pages of another book. Whenever I needed to amuse myself or my readers, I’d just call Mom and asked what was going on at the Dairy Queen. I took literary license with it, of course, but some of that stuff you just can’t make up. I did get the book finished, and, lucky for me there’s no shortage of wild tales and eccentric characters here in Hot Springs, Arkansas. And, delightfully, I fit in just as well here as Jolene does in Kickapoo. So, I have ventured into a fourth book.
As with all the tales Jolene finds herself in, this one indeed involves trouble with Lucille, and well, a nursing home. There is also some serious business going on with Jolene’s relationship with Jerry Don–and some details that you just have to read TR3 to know about. There are some wayward spirits–or maybe somebody’s just drinking some–but either way is sure does look like a lot of trouble for Jolene.
Happy Spring!
Paula
There is a nip in the air
Posted by Paula Boyd
Hello!
There is a nip in the air here in Arkansas. I still have my plants out on the deck of my new condo and loving every minute of this time when it isn’t too hot and it isn’t too cold, it is just really really nice! A few leaves are starting to turn and I am hoping for a colorful show this year.
I’ve added a little content to the site, but it isn’t the standard fare. I guess I’ve just gotten to that place in life where I want to share all the profound things I have discovered. So, here we go. Just something I have to do. Unfortunately, a lot of it isn’t funny. But, my friends tell me I still am–funny, or maybe they said strange…can’t recall….
So, here we go!
I haven’t exactly figured out the way this site is organized, but will try to keep my “other” writings confined to the “Out There” category and the “Home New” page. I’ll figure this thing out yet!
Still wishing you much joy and laughter!!!
Paula
Turkey Ranch Road Rage
Posted by Paula Boyd
As my gift to all of you have hung in there with me for sooooo long, Turkey Ranch Road Rage is online now and readable for free. The version may be a bit rough around the edges as it is still going through the editing process, but you can read it now and catch up with Jolene and Lucille.
Here’s a glimpse at what’s going on THIS time!
No matter how hard she tries to escape her Texas roots, and her mother, Jolene Jackson finds herself dragged back to Kickapoo to deal with both.
This time, there’s an RV Park going in behind her mother’s house and they want her property too. Lucille’s not selling and she’s on a mission to stop the whole thing, even if it means joining up with a dubious group that just rolled into town to save lizards. Lucille’s assault on the radiator of a road maintenance truck gets her hauled in to the county jail just in time for the horny toad rally. Picket signs, a camper painted with slogans and a naked lizard girl in a cage on the courthouse lawn are bad enough, but when things start exploding, Sheriff Jerry Don Parker demands that Jolene get down there and put a stop to her mother’s felonious behavior.It doesn’t take long for Jolene to realize that something way bigger than an RV Park is at stake. Drill rigs and earthmovers are at work in the mesquites and they aren’t making camper pads. The owner of the would-be-park land turns up missing, the leader of the lizard group turns up dead and horse chow is raining down on Main Street. Before it’s all said and done, Jolene has to face kidnappers, snipers and some serious skeletons in the family closet before she figures out who has a really bad case of Turkey Ranch Road Rage.
If you’d like to read the whole book, go to the Books page and download the pdf.I hopeyou enjoy it!
Paula
Questions
Posted by Paula Boyd
Here are a few links that may be of interest to you. I attended the 2007 Arkansas Writer’s Conference in Little Rock in June and enjoyed it very much. Contact information is below. I have no personal experience with any of the others, but they are located in Arkansas.
I do have quite a bit of conference experience in other areas around the country, however, depending on what kind of conference you are looking for. Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (www.rmfw.org) and Pikes Peak Writers Conference ( http://www.ppwc.net) are both really good events. Both also have contests for unpublished authors where final judging is done by editors and agents.
Also, Women Writing the West (www.womenwritingthewest.com) is an incredible marketing and networking organization focussed on stories about women set in the west. They also produce a catalog of author’s books that is widely distributed and members participate in trade shows and conventions around the country. A panel discussion by several members was filmed for a segment of CSPAN’s BookTV a few years ago, which I was honored to participate in.
If you find any others or do attend one of these, please let me know how it goes!
- http://www.geocities.com/penwomen/
- http://www.ozarkcreativewriters.org/
- http://www.arkansasliteraryfestival.org
- http://www.whitecountycreativewriters.org/id53.html
More Australia Photos
Posted by Paula Boyd
Hello from Down Under!
Posted by Paula Boyd
Oz is most incredible and I am having the time of my life!
My son has married an Australia girl and I made it to the wedding. And since I was in the area, I decided to make an adventure of it.
I have been to Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island, where I traveled through Rain Forests and desert and drove along the highway at water’s edge. Had to pull over from time to time so the planes could land there as well. Yes, on the sand at the surf line. That’s the “road”!!! Saw a shipwreck from 70 years ago and swam in the low ph freshwater lake that made my skin feel so smooth. The sand there is rounded and good for polishing things, so I polished me! No soil at all on the island, only sand. There are colored cliffsbut they are made of sand and mineral deposits. No rock at all. Amazing place. Did NOT swim in the ocean there as a man on the beach was catching sharks.
Spent another day at Lady Elliott, a tiny island that is part of the Great Barrier Reef. Snorkelled the reef, oh, yes, I did! And it was the most glorious thing. The formations and fish and colors and drop offs and arches and all kinds of aquatic life. Three squid took a fancy to me and followed me around for quite some time. Lots of parrot fish, pink and green and blue and yellow fish, and long nosed ones, big ones, little ones… Swam in a school of small blue fish–they surrounded me. A big brown and orange fish was kind of curious as well. It was just amazing. The aerial view is flying in to the island. You can see the landing strip in the middle. Takes maybe 45 minutes to walk around the whole island. Absolutely wonderful!
Spent another day in Hervey Bay at the beach and just relaxing. Had a lovely apartment on the beach and found lots of shells to bring home.
Have been to the lighthouse at Byron Bay–the most easterly point in Australia.
Am off to hang glide tomorrow! Then to my daughter-in-law’s family beach house for a few days then to Sydney!
The big tree that I am standing in is a Morton Bay Fig Tree. They are huge. It is near where I am staying here near Ballina. Beautiful country. The house is the main house of a macadamia nut farm. The veranda overlooks the pool and a lake behind that. Palm trees, gum trees and all kinds of tropicals and flowering trees and bushes surround the place. It is so beautiful and amazing!
G’Day Mates!
Paula is back!
Posted by Paula Boyd
Where has she been, you ask?
Take this quiz to test your own guessing skills!
Paula was:
a. Abducted by aliens
b. Only recently released to outpatient status, having lost her mind and her sense of humor
c. Busy writing another book
d. Dealing with drama and trauma involving death, divorce, moves across three states and a great deal of introspection
e. All of the above
The author takes her own quiz:
Okay, clearly option “c” is ludicrous because it does not take six years to write this stuff. It ain’t Lonesome Dove, for godsakes. Therefore, “e” is invalid as well. Answer “a” is un-provable but possibly true, although I could have just had a psychotic break with reality, in which case “b” would be the option of choice. However, the answer is indeed “d,” although there is some grain of truth in all of them—except maybe the alien abduction thing, although I did toy with using it as a reason for my insanity. People steer real clear when you tell them you’ve just never been right since they brought you back. And no, I am not on medication although many have suggested it.
The truth is that “d” gives the short version. The longer version is that when Hot Enough to Kill came out in November of 1999, my father-in-law became gravely ill and died the following month. During this same period, my sister-in-law also became ill and died in July of 2000. My mother, who was much of my inspiration for Lucille, also became ill and died in October, which was the month Dead Man Falls was released. She never saw it, which is probably just as well since she didn’t speak to me for three months after HOT came out.
Now, there are several interesting points with all this, not the least of which is that three people in my immediate family died of cancer within ten months. They all lived within a few miles of each other in Texas. Yes, I have theories. Rather than go into those however, let’s just say that I learned a lot about a lot of things and leave it at that.
Anyway, I was living in Colorado, and besides several plane trips to the Lone Star state during that time, I also racked up over 37,000 miles on my Suburban. Forget weeks away from work, try months. It was a pretty traumatic time for the whole family, and, well, things just fell apart across the board. You do the best you can at the time, and then you adapt—whatever that means for each of us.
As it turns out, I had started a third book in the series, Turkey Ranch Road Rage (TR3), a while back in response to the Colorado State Parks Department great new plan to funnel over 200, 000 cars and RVs about thirty feet from my front door. I was not a happy camper, to use an unfortunate phrase. So, as with most of my writing, I decided someone needed to die, and I set about to do just that. Well, things changed and my murderous thoughts waned as the parks people made me an offer I couldn’t refuse at the absolutely perfect time, i.e., divorce in progress. Although I loved Colorado, I needed to leave for a lot of reasons. So, I took the kids and went to Missouri where my aunt, who’d been a second mother to me, lived. She was very ill—yes, you only get one guess—and had little time left. It was a good year there for me in so many ways.
Now, I am in Arkansas, which is too darned close to where I grew up in Texas both geographically and philosophically, although I must say Bony Butt would have some stiff competition here. Frankly, Ethel’s dogma seems pretty open minded compared to some of the things I’ve heard come out of real-life mouths here. So, just for fun, I sometimes try to explain that if we just honored each other’s spiritual choices as equally valid as our own rather than my way is the only way, then we wouldn’t need those pesky holy wars. Once that rock has been thrown at the hornet’s nest, I simply whip out my pen and paper and take notes. You don’t think I make this stuff up, do you?
You know, I was told by my website designer that I needed to write a few paragraphs for this opening page. Well, if you’ve read my books or heard me speak, you know how I am. Once you get me started….
Anyway, I am very glad to be back and that TR3 is almost ready. It has been a long while in coming and things have changed in it from when I started it. A lot of things. I don’t have a publisher for it at this point, and may put it online in a downloadable pdf form for a nominal fee until I decide if I want to do something different. All I really want to do is share my insights into the human condition—or, as a fan put it, make you “spit crackers laughing.” Same thing.
If, after reading this rambling discourse on my life, you fear that somehow I’ve been “cured” and Jolene is no longer neurotic, click on over and have a look-see at TR3. The first few chapters of all the books are readable online now. I think you’ll find that, if anything, my friends, she is worse than before.
I wish you much laughter!
Paula