My book is now live on Amazon US, UK, and Italy…Awesome! Kindle is in the works and will be out in a couple weeks.
Click HERE to see the paperback in the US!
I am currently roaming around the country, more like, EATING my way across the country. Lots of pictures and stories coming when I return home next week!  🙂
Hey Hey Hey!!!
My new book, “Okatibbee Creek,” is now available in paperback! The first place you can get it is:
More links will come over the next few days and weeks. Amazon.com and Amazon.uk will be posted within the week. The Kindle version will be out the middle of January. Other online retailers will be available soon.
Or you can get the paperback right now if you click:
Or you can just click:
2012 has been a most interesting year. Since my children were little, my years have been measured by childhood accomplishments: that’s the year he started high school, that’s the year she started piano. There have been family measurements too: that’s the year we went to the Grand Canyon, that’s the year we sold the house, or that’s the year Grandma died.
This year has been different. There have been no measurements. We didn’t move, no one died, there were no graduations, no great happenings, no exciting journeys around the globe.
This year has, however, been filled with humbling personal victories for me.
If you have ever read my blog, you know I’m into genealogy. I’ve been tracing my family for 30 years. I try to be as accurate as I can, but I realize memories are fuzzy, documents are mis-dated, names are misspelled. This is a fact in genealogy research, so I don’t worry myself too much with perfection of details. Example: I have known since childhood that my grandmother was 59 when she died. When I ordered her birth certificate this year, I found that her birth date was not the year we all thought. She was actually 60 when she died and her tombstone is wrong. See? You just can worry yourself with details. It takes nothing away from my love for my grandmother either way.
So, in 2012, I submitted my genealogy paperwork to three different organizations for membership. I didn’t feel one way or the other about the memberships, but when I was accepted into all three, I realized that my research has indeed been correct and now has been validated by others. More than becoming a member of these organizations, I have been patted on the back for my years of research. I am pleased to say that 2012 will be marked as the year I became a member of the United States Daughters of 1812, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Even better than that, the three memberships are under three different lines in my family tree.
I’ve also held a lifelong desire to write my memoirs for my descendants. I always craved more detail about my great grandparent’s lives, and wished they would have left me something. So, since I was very young, I thought I would someday write my memoirs in case my great grandchild felt the same. Sadly, I don’t really have a fabulous and interesting life, so I have very little to write in a memoir. I’ve spent many hours over the decades with pencil and paper in hand and never could find a way to start.
2012 became the year of writing a memoir! Not mine. My third great grandmother’s. I spent most of the year writing her life story and turned it into a book. I am currently holding the very first printed copy of the paperback and look forward to the official release of “Okatibbee Creek” Â in a week or so. I’ve written stories and music my whole life, but I have never completed a novel before, so I am speechless to be holding this book. The fact that it is a family history, a memoir, the family book I’ve always wanted to write, the family history I’ve always wanted to read, gives me great pleasure and validation – validation of my family history, validation of my dreams, validation that 2012 was a year well spent.
It is bittersweet to say goodbye to 2012. It will be remembered as: that’s the year I was validated.
I’m tickled pink over my new video book trailer for “Okatibbee Creek.”
This was my best blog ever, don’t ya think?
I’ve been tagged in The Next Big Thing.
The Next Big Thing is a blog interview for authors to give everyone a sneak-peak at a work-in-progress.
Authors writing more stuff…Yay! Okay, let’s get busy.
What is the working title of your next book?
“An Orphan’s Heart” — planned release date Spring 2013.
Working on the cover….
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I finished writing a historical fiction novel called “Okatibbee Creek,” where Mary Ann finds herself alone during the Civil War, raising her four children and her brother’s five orphans. One of the orphans was Ellen. While I was researching the orphans (yes, “An Orphan’s Heart” is also historical fiction), I found that Ellen moved around a lot by herself, and I was intrigued with a woman traveling alone at that time in history. I also found that she had only one child who lived until 1986 and died at the age of 98. Ellen and her daughter spanned U.S. history from the Civil War until relatively recently, which I can’t quite wrap my head around. I ended up speaking on the phone with the daughter’s grand-daughter, who is currently 73 years of age and living in Abilene, TX. After that, I was hooked on telling Ellen’s story.
What genre does your book fall under?
Historical fiction.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Zooey Deschanel for the lead and a bearded Matt Dillon as her husband.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Ellen, with the broken spirit of an orphan and the soul of a gypsy, travels alone across the late 1800s rugged and dangerous United States, searching to ease the loneliness that fate has burrowed into her heart and hoping to find the only thing that is truly important…love.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I self-publish under Lori Crane Entertainment, Inc.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It took about five weeks. I worked on it every day. I tend to write just the story, then go back a second time and describe the people and environments. I go back a third time and add color, description, more conversations, and connect all the dots. Usually somewhere in the second pass, the story changes direction. I don’t know why that always happens, but I get more clarity of the plot and the characters after the initial rough draft is completed. The fourth time through is my author edit. I then send it to a real editor, and when I get it back, I can freshly see the holes and connect even more dots. Then the proofreader. Then I go through it about three more times in different formats. By the time it’s finished, I never want to see it again.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I don’t know a specific work, but I imagine any female character trying to make it on her own, especially with the flavor of the Old West.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
I love genealogy and am completely in awe of my ancestors. I laugh, cheer, and cry as I give them life through their documents and records.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
This is the second book in the Rodgers family series. The first, “Okatibbee Creek,” will be released in paperback and Kindle December 2012. If you fall in love with those characters like I did, you will also want to read “An Orphan’s Heart,” to continue the love affair. (Shameless plug: There will also be a third book in the series, “Elly Hays,” coming Fall 2013.)
Now, I’m off to tag five more authors to write posts of their own about their Next Big Thing. Stay tuned for details once they have all agreed…
My new book!! How excited am I???
Release date: December 2012.
Available in paperback , Kindle and Nook.
Based on a true story.
Mary Ann Rodgers is a happy child of a wealthy farmer in the early 1800s in Mississippi. She marries her childhood sweetheart and creates a wonderful life for herself and her children. When the Civil War begins, her world slowly shatters, not only from the economic trials and ravages of war, but from a typhoid epidemic that sweeps through her community, devastating her family. Between October 1861 and March 1863, she loses more than fifteen family members; including her beloved husband, four brothers, both parents, and her one-year-old baby boy. She takes in her brother’s five orphans, and along with her own children, struggles to raise them alone in an old general store that was her husband’s dream. Though with no paying customers and no way to re-supply her inventory, she is fighting her own war and losing.
When General Sherman’s Union Army marches through her town on their way to destroy Meridian, she has no choice but to fight back. And fight back she does – not only with her rifle, but with her change in attitude and her rebellious spirit. Following the death of her husband, she is left with no option but to marry the only man who can help her – her widowed brother-in-law, William. Adding his four children to the eight she is already raising is a daunting task, but her marriage to William turns her life around in surprising ways. She becomes a strong and resilient woman who understands better than most the meaning of life and the importance of love and family.
Okatibbee Creek is a novel of historical fiction based on the life of my third great grandmother, including supporting documents and family photos at the end of the book. It will have you crying and cheering through a real-life story of love, loss, and survival.
Lori Crane 