Dinosaur's for Nana

When my grandson, now 13, was four years old he started sending me imaginary dinosaurs over the telephone line to help me do things around the house. It was a fun game that went on until he was six or so. After it ended I thought it would be a good kids' story. I had written down all the different dinosaurs he had sent me, but kind of put the whole thing on a back burner. Finally this past April 24th, his 13th birthday, the book was published. What a wild adventure it was getting it into print! First of all, major publishers no longer accept unsolicited material. If you're a known author they'll come looking for you. A friend of our daughter who lives nearby and is a publisher herself, was happy to give me more information than I'll ever need and guided me through the process of becoming a self-publisher. What an education! You need a bar code, an ISBN, a good illustrator, a sales tax exemption number, registration and publication of a fictitious name for your publishing company, and on and on, ad nauseum. This friend put me in touch with a local illustrator with whom I met with a couple of times. Her work was nice but she wanted more money than I could spend and we couldn't work out a payment agreement. She very kindly led me to www.Guru.com, an online source of 25,000 freelance illustrators. After five days of browsing through Guru's pages and looking over the work of many different illustrators I found Laurie Barrows from Northern California. We hit it off immediately and she did a bang up job of illustrating our dinosaurs! Finally this April "Dinosaurs for Nana" was published by Purple Turtle Books - my publishing company. Its available through Amazon and at www.creatspace.com/3719963. I've sold a few copies to friends and given away even more just to get it "out there". Now this is the hardest part of all when you self-publish. You have to do an awful lot of footwork - you are your own marketing person. The local bookstore has 20 copies of the book but is reluctant to set up a book signing until some copies have been sold and people are aware of it. A shop in New Jersey wants publicity money up front before scheduling a signing. I have links to Twitter and Facebook from my webpage, www.purpleturtlebooks.com, will have a blurb in the local newspaper, and on it goes. This simple dinosaur game has burgeoned into a large, ongoing project that will keep me on my toes for some time. I'm not complaining - its been a real education and a lot of fun - just sayin'

I have been collecting dolls since I was eight years old when I was confined to bed for a period of six months with a serious illness. My eighth birthday happened during that time and all the neighbors chipped in and filled two laundry baskets with books, games, toys, dolls, and craft kits that I could use while sitting in bed. The dolls were the seven inch "fashion" dolls from companies such as Duchess, Plastic Molded Arts, and Virga. I was absolutely fascinated with them and played with them constantly, albeit very gently because I wanted to keep them nice. Then for Christmas the year I was ten I got a wonderful Ruth Gibbs china doll. (More about those later) She and the dolls I had gotten when I was eight were the foundation of my now extensive doll collection. Over the years I would pick up inexpensive dolls at various places, but most of my dolls were never seen for lack of a proper place to display them. When my two older children were around five and seven my husband bought me my first "artist", a beautiful Asian baby. And still most of the dolls were never seen. Over time I joined a local doll club (Bux Mont Doll Lovers in Bucks County, Pa.) and finally!, the former boyfriend of our younger daughter, who was a carpenter, built me a wall to ceiling cabinet for the dining room. The point of this story is that I can't believe and am constantly amazed by, the lovely people I've met and friends I've made by being part of the doll world. They are the nicest people ever. I've attended doll luncheons, regional conventions, and UFDC (United Federation of Doll Clubs)national conventions. Everyone is so eager to share what they know about particular dolls and learn what I have to tell. What UFDC says is true - the study of dolls is the study of mankind and our history. I'm involved in a lot of things. I write and publish, sew, play violin, spend as much time as possible with my grandchildren, scrapbook and do crafts, and on, and on. I enjoy everything I'm involved in but nothing beats being with doll people at doll related events. I come home from those events on such a high, I can't help but think "who needs drugs?" Do you have a hobby that gives you such great pleasure? Please let me know. Nana

I'm headed to the Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, Pa. today to set up a book signing for "Dinosaurs for Nana". Will let everyone know the date.nThis is all very exciting:)

Nana's Chat: My husband and I went to the New Jersey Shore on T...

Nana's Chat: My husband and I went to the New Jersey Shore on T...: My husband and I went to the New Jersey Shore on Tuesday and stayed one night with our daughter and son-in-law and three grandchildren. Desp...

My husband and I went to the New Jersey Shore on Tuesday and stayed one night with our daughter and son-in-law and three grandchildren. Despite the gray and misty weather we had a wonderful time, even went crabbing standing on a pier in chilly thirty mile per hour winds. I don't know what it is about the ocean. I have been mesmerized by it since I first went to the shore with my parents and grandparents when I was around age four. It has a strange hold over me and if I don't get there at least once in a summer I feel like something is missing from my life. It doesn't matter if its sunny, rainy, or windy, I could sit, walk, whatever on the beach and watch and listen to the ocean for hours on end. My husband and I spent our February honeymoon at the shore and I even walked on the beach in the snow. It probably sounds very corny, but I feel as if I've come home, like I'm where I belong when I'm by the ocean. It hits me as we cross the bridge from the mainland to the island and I can smell the bay. The sound of the waves crashing ont he shore at night when all is still, the bell buoys in the bay, the boat horns early in the morning when the fishermen set out for the day. And of course the ever present sea gulls. All sounds that take me home to another place and time. Maybe I was a fisherman's wife in Old New England. Who knows? Its just my favorite place to be

To contact me in regard to my post "Help Wanted" go to www.purpleturtlebooks.com

HELP WANTED - looking for out of the ordinary stories of how folks met their "significant other"