2024: November 2 Enid Writers Club Workshop

Posted on September 15, 2024 by peggylchambers

The Enid Writers Club will present their fall writing workshop on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at St. Matthews Episcopal Church, 518 West Randolph, Enid, OK 73701. The workshop will begin at 10 am—registration, coffee, and doughnuts at 9:00. We have 4 speakers, Rene Gutteridge, Laurel Thomas, Peggy Doviak, and Nick Lyon.

We are offering pre-registration and payment electronically or by check. But pre-registration is a must, so we have a headcount. The price of the workshop is $20 and that includes lunch. The boxed lunch from McAlester’s offers a choice of ham, turkey, or vegetarian sandwich with a cookie and chips. Please mark your choice when you pre-register. Drinks are provided.

Above is the detailed poster. You can pay by clicking on the QR code on the poster, by using the link, https://serendipitylanecreates.com/products/enid-writers-club-registration (online registration handled by our friends at Serendipity Lane) or by mailing a $20 check and your choice for lunch, before October 28. The check should be made out to EWC and mailed to St. Matthews, 518 W. Randolph, Enid, OK 73701.

Feel free to print out and share our poster where writers are found.

I hope to spend the next few weeks getting you acquainted with our speakers, but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Colorful Gardening and Brown Snakes

Posted on September 8, 2024 by peggylchambers

It is already the beginning of September. The kids have gone back to school and the nights are getting cooler. And my flower bed is overgrown! I had no idea that periwinkles would reseed, but they have, and I have tons. I planted moss rose and periwinkles in pots and they both fell out and reseeded to come up in the dirt around the pot. I also have volunteer petunias from last year.

There’s only one reason for this: I am trying to pair down the flower bed and just have bushes and rocks. They know! I’m trying to streamline the garden and make it easier to care for and they are rebelling. Flowers are growing everywhere.

My plan was to clean out the big flower bed and move the bulbs to the little flower bed. I would get rid of the pots (and the blue wine bottles) and make the life of a gardener a little easier and now I have an abundance of flowers. I water in the evenings unless it rains and that is all. They like it here.

Yesterday I walked out onto the sidewalk and was accosted by a DeKay’s Brown snake about six inches long. I thought it was a worm, and as I tried to step over it, the little critter coiled and prepared to strike! I have night crawler worms twice as big as the little snake. I called my husband, and he shooed it off into the garden. I know he’s lying in wait for me, now. Even though he is nonpoisonous, I don’t want him around. All snakes can kill you when you run into a wall trying to get away from them.

But back to the original thought for this blog, fall is just around the corner. I plan to start digging out unwanted plants and cleaning out the fall garden. Let me know if you need any petunias, periwinkles, moss rose, or a pet DeKay’s Brown snake. They are going cheap but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: It’s Writing Season!

Posted on September 1, 2024 by peggylchambers

It’s once again the beginning of the writing season for me. I don’t really take off and not write, but club season is a renewal. My club, The Enid Writers Club, breaks for the summer months though some of us continue to meet for critiques. But come fall, we once again get together to get our creative juices flowing. School has started once again, summer is winding down, and fall is in the air, even if only in my mind.

Next week is the September meeting of the Enid Writers Club. We meet on the first Thursday of the month from September through May at NWOSU in Enid. Like minds with the need to create come together once again. Come join us and check out what we do. You might find a home there.

This month, we will have an exercise to get us started thinking about story writing and we will renew old friendships. We’re planning a workshop on November 2, 2024, at St. Matthews Episcopal Church in Enid and have four speakers scheduled to speak that day. Lunch will be provided. I will have more information on that in the near future. But we always have a great turnout and learn a little something.

If you’re a writer and not a member of a writing club, you are missing out. It’s not just the camaraderie, but a great way to meet new people with like minds and knowledge to impart. We help and encourage each other. We read each other’s work and offer criticism, and mostly we just offer moral support. Writing can be lonely craft, but when we get together we realize our ideas are good and we should be proud. There are so many kinds of writers and so many stories to tell, that we never run out of material, but that is Another Story for another Time. Join a local writing group and let the stories flow.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Glome’s Valley at the Heavner Runestone Park

Posted on August 25, 2024 by peggylchambers

This blog is about the little story that could, Glome’s Valley. Many years ago, my husband and I saw an Oklahoma travel show on TV that talked about the Heavener Runestone. At that time, the park belonged to the State of Oklahoma, and we were wanting to get away for a fall weekend. We went to Heavener, got a hotel and drove to Mt. Poteau. It took a while to find the faded signs and the route that got us to the top of the hill but we did it.

It’s a beautiful part of Oklahoma in the southeast corner of the state and it was fall with all the magnificent colors of the leaves. We came to see the runestone and then on over to the Talimena Drive. The drive is famous in the fall for leaf peepers and motorcyclists as well as anyone else who is looking for a beautiful weekend.

We parked at the top of the mountain and walked down the stairs to find the runestone which is now enclosed in glass to protect the sandstone monolith. The stone stands upright with carving which is said to be ancient Viking. There are many across what is now the United States and there are those who believe that white Europeans were on this continent long before Columbus. Whether that is true or not, a story was born.

We went into the gift shop at the top of the hill and found a book by Gloria Farley, In Plain Sight, that I came home and ordered since they only had one copy. She was from the Heavener area and talked about these ruins and others. While we were in the shop a young man came in with his preschool son and wanted to look at the book. I overheard him say he was an archeologist working on his PhD. I thought how cool for the boy to follow his father in his research.

That is when the idea for Glome’s Valley came into my head. Though Ethan is older than the boy with his dad that day, the premise is the same. In Glome’s Valley, Ethan comes to the valley with his father and the Oklahoma fairytale begins. Did I mention the area was magical?

Lately, I reconnected with the gift shop and they asked me to have a book signing there. They have an employee of the park who is an artist and she has created a coloring book and we will be together signing our books on October 5, 2024, from 12 – 2:00 pm. Come see us at the gift shop where it all began!

I love the forest near Heavener. They have a sign on the trail to beware of trolls! Ethan bumped into more than his share of those on his journey in the book. The area around the stone is magical and anything can happen, but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: At the Heart of the Game

Posted on August 18, 2024 by peggylchambers

My mind is wandering as I eat breakfast and look out at the beautiful blue sky and green grass. Beautiful from inside my air-conditioned home. It’s been in the upper 90s and low 100s. I got out of the equally air-conditioned car this morning, and my glasses steamed up.

I watered the gardens at my sister-in-law’s house early this morning and then back to mine. She’ll be home soon. My husband laments about mowing the grass when it is too wet, but if he waits until it dries out, the afternoon sun beats down unbearably. It’s August in Oklahoma.

Inside I write my blog and I’ve been putting together a book for the pilots I used to work with at Vance AFB. They are creating an anthology of their flying stories. I am writing the forward and putting them in order creating a book they can give to their heirs someday. They lived exciting lives and though we are all old now, it is fun to look back.

Next week I will interview Paula Benge on LA Talk Radios’ Rendezvous with a Writer Rendezvous With A Writer | LA Talk Radio Thursday, August 22, 6pm (PST). Paula will talk about her new book At the Heart of the Game https://books2read.com/u/3LEjNe. Paula is a personal trainer and athlete, and her daughter played college softball. She knows the game, and her writing is exemplary. The book is about a young college-aged softball pitcher living her best life, playing for a coach she’d only dreamed about, and finding her dad who has disappeared. Pick up a copy and tune in on Thursday night for her interview.

Such is the life of a writer, and I love it. But that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Rainy Days and Sundays

Posted on August 11, 2024 by peggylchambers

It’s pouring outside as I sit at my computer warm and snug on a rainy Sunday morning. Here on the Great Plains in the middle of August, it has cooled down and we are getting rain. So unusual. Oklahoma City is in the middle of the state, and I live about 90 miles northwest of there. It is normally hot and dry in July and August. I always say after tornado season and harvest (June) it won’t rain another drop until October. Hmmmm.

According to the weatherman it is flooding in Oklahoma City. My daughter lives there and she says its not at her house. Who know where the flooding is taking place. But this is unusual for us this time of year. My son is at the lake in the northern part of the state. I wonder what it is doing there. He’s probably not boating.

On October 10, 1973, when my daughter was a baby we had an historic flood in Enid with 16 inches of rain that mostly fell in a four-hour period. We lost some people that night. The old house we lived in sat in the higher section of town and in the middle of the night, I heard water run across the yard and under the floor furnace. But we were lucky. I doubt that we will have another historic 100-year flood like that one, but it is raining and that is unusual for Oklahoma.

So, it seems like a good day for a cup of hot tea and a book or two. Mother Nature is in charge. I say let it rain. Do I have a choice? But that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: The Mystery of the Multiplying Blue Wine Bottles

Posted on August 4, 2024 by peggylchambers

I have a mystery this week in my own front flower garden. The mystery of the multiplying cobalt blue wine bottles.

I planted some boxwood bushes a few years ago separated by river rock and pots of flowers. I thought it would be easy to keep weeded and take care of itself. I was wrong. Weeds still come up in between the rocks and around the bushes no matter what I do and in this weather it needs nightly watering. But it’s pretty!

Cobalt blue is my favorite color. My house has gray-blue trim and I love a Riesling wine. And they bottle it in blue bottles. I had read that you could fill a bottle with water and stick it in the soil for self-watering. If it doesn’t just all run out at once, or clog the bottle neck with mud, it is a sound idea. It seldom works as it should. But they’re a beautiful cobalt blue!

People often ask, “Did you drink all that yourself? All at once?” No, I collected them and asked a few friends to do the same for me. I stuck them in the pots and dirt so the blue would shine in the sun. It works as a decoration and conversation piece.

I water each night in this 100-plus-degree heat and last night I noticed the bottles were multiplying! I know nothing about the mating habits of blue wine bottles, but they are replicating! There are several more bottles in my flower bed tonight than last night.

I asked the contractor who is doing some work for us. He had mentioned them. But he said he knew nothing about the mystery of the multiplying cobalt blue bottles.

Recently a neighbor I didn’t know came by with her granddaughter selling candy bars for a school project. Of course I bought them, they were chocolate and had something to do with books for a library. I was hooked. We talked about the wine bottles as we stood on the porch. I need to ask her if she was so kind as to add to my collection. But that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: 100,000 Miles!

Posted on July 28, 2024 by peggylchambers

I officially have an old car. Sigh. My 2014 pearl finish Equinox is about to run over 100,000 miles. It lacks 24 miles and I watch it like a hawk. I want to see the transition. I can’t believe it will be 10 years old in August and it still looks new, well almost. There was that blind driver who left a deep gouge in the driver’s side front panel and drove away. I found it that way when I got back to the parking lot.

Monday the Equinox goes into the body shop to buff out the wet concrete that the concrete cutting machine slung on it as I crossed the overpass in town. I filed a claim for enough to buff it out. Car washings didn’t get it clean.

I’ve put 3 batteries and 2 sets of tires on this car and there was the one time that it blew a chip in the traction control area, which blew another, and then another . . . That cost me almost $1700. But aside from that the car has been great. I even bought the CD to update the GPS. Yes, it has a CD player.

I may have been born with new car fever. My dad was always buying and selling cars and restoring old ones. I was often in the garage with him to help with minor things. He used to pay me to wash, wax, and clean the inside of his vehicles and taught me to shine up the white sidewall tires before I could drive them. I tried to get Dad to read Stephen King’s Christine. He wasn’t much of a reader. He was a mechanic.

I love a shiny new car and that new car smell. My local dealership obviously knows this and I get emails and texts weekly showing me what they have that they’d love to sell me. I love new cars. I hate car payments.

So, for now, the Equinox and I are good friends. When it starts to break monthly costing me more than monthly payments, I will trade it in. But for now, it is clean, full of gas, and in the garage waiting to roll over the last 24 miles. But that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Lucky Number 13!

Posted on July 21, 2024 by peggylchambers

I am once again honored to tell you that I just signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press for (drum roll please) book number seven with them! This is the final Sandhill Island novel. The first two novels were Secrets of Sandhill Island Secrets of Sandhill Island: A beachside mysterious romantic thriller – Kindle edition by Chambers, Peggy. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. and Stones of Sandhill Island Amazon.com: Stones of Sandhill Island: A beachside mysterious romantic thriller eBook : Chambers, Peggy: Books. The novella, Strawberry Sundae Delights Strawberry Sundae Delights: A Sandhill Island Romantic Mystery (One Scoop or Two) – Kindle edition by Chambers, Peggy. Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. was also set on the fictional island off the coast of Corpus Christi. And the final one, Smugglers of Sandhill Island is finished. It is heading for edits and cover creation and should be on the shelves in about a year.

This book is my thirteenth book—lucky thirteen—and I’m so excited to show it to you. Even though I’ll be sad to see Sandhill Island in the rearview mirror, there’s more ahead. I’ll probably die with a to-be-read and a to-be-written pile. I don’t know how I would ever stop. Stories are in my blood, and I have a great support system with my family and my publishers, so how can I not keep going?

Please be patient with the process. The Wild Rose Press has many writers to care for and I’m in line with this latest story in the Sandhill Island saga. They were kind enough to agree to publish it and I am thrilled.

I’ll let you know when I have a release date and I’ll keep you informed along the way. I know there will be a cover reveal and I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the cover of the latest book (I have a few ideas). But that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: I Hope You Beat the Heat

Posted on July 14, 2024 by peggylchambers

It’s hot outside! Not a news break, I know, but beating the heat in Oklahoma seems to be a fulltime job these days. I don’t handle the heat the way I used to.

When I was young with young children, we had an old house with window air conditioners and ceiling fans. We played in the sprinkler and ate popsicles. The kids played baseball and tennis and we cooled off at the neighborhood pool where I lifeguarded and taught swimming to the whole town. I was outside as much as I was inside. My husband worked as an aircraft mechanic on the flightline inevitably in the daytime during the summer and at night during the winter. We were young and the weather didn’t affect us as much as it does now.

Lately as I water my flowerbeds before dark in the evening, I try to keep the poor plants alive in the blistering heat. I made sure I bought heat-resistant plants that take little water, but this year has been one for the books.

I am thankful for central air conditioning and plenty of water. I hydrate constantly and work inside as much as possible. My husband has a riding lawnmower and still I worry about him as he mows. We aren’t as young as we once were.

I made a donation to the local thrift store yesterday and as I drove down the alley I was in line behind several trucks doing the same thing. My air conditioner was humming and I listened to music while I waited. There were three young people out in the heat unloading the donations from the trucks and me. I hope they had a way to cool off and could get inside after my car went through. It is too hot for that kind of work. But they persevered with smiles.

The heat in Oklahoma is always bad. We’ve had storms to go with it this year but we are a resilient bunch and we always manage to survive. I hope you are staying as cool as possible and are taking care of your neighbors in this heat. But that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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