A Little More Obsessed

Last month I let you in on a few of my past and present obsessions: Running (past and present), weight training (ditto), jewelry making (blessedly past), and, most recently, promoting my first YA novel Fairest of Them All (present and, hopefully future).

I could tell you about my prairie planting and guinea fowl obsessions, but the release of A & L Do Summer is May 10. Woo hoo! So I’ll keep my focus on my promotional ideas, gimmicks, and the book-related things I’ve been hoarding that aren't likely to sell a single copy. To understand—as much as anyone who isn’t obsessed can—you need to know something about the storyline:

In Iowa farm country, sixteen-year-old Aspen and her friend Laurel plan to get noticed the summer before their senior year and are unwittingly aided by pig triplets, a skunk, a chicken, bullies, a rookie policeman, and potential boyfriends.

As you can see, the story features several non-human characters. The bullies are barely human, but that's a different post. I thought it would be fun to have the animal characters on my table during book signings, so I went on a search for stuffed animals that could sit by themselves and were the right size to be noticed but not take up all my elbowroom. As you can see, I opted for just one pig because three would be too many. Moderation in all things is my motto.

There will be bookmarks, and I love a good tassel. Beaded is better. But farm animal beads have been hard to find. I thought these cute little pigs could be skewered and strung, but, at 35 cents per swine, I passed. A temporary setback. If you find reasonably priced plastic farm animal beads suitable for stringing, please let me know. If the price is right and the beads will work--without skewering--there’s a signed copy of A & L Do Summer in it for you!

The last obsession I’ll burden you with today started out innocently enough. I thought it would be fun to assemble a little silver necklace with the charms A & L. I’ve never been a charm person (Some would say "never been charming,” but what do they know?), so I was surprised when I saw the variety out there. Why, you can find a charm to represent almost anything: pigs, chickens, skunks, policemen, etc., etc., etc. Wouldn’t a few more charms be even cuter? A few more?

Here it is--a charm necklace any chiropractor would love. Can I wear it at book signings? Not without severe neck strain. But I’m thinking there might be a book giveaway contest here somewhere. Maybe I’ll have people guess what character or event each charm represents and the person who guesses the most correctly wins a signed copy of the book. The only drawback—in order to guess correctly you’d have to read it first.

Did I say drawback? Hmm.