Erin Bartels

Photo of a Small Boy in a Pin-Striped Suit…Need I Say More?

Posted on February 12, 2014February 12, 2014 by Erin Bartels

Hello there! It’s been a few days since I’ve had a moment to blog. No, I’m not lost in a shelf-induced reverie (though, would you blame me if I was?). I’ve been writing. My husband and I have taken the week off work to write and already it has been very productive. But I wanted to take a moment to let you know I was still here and share this with you:

And this:

One of my son’s Christmas gifts was a little pin-striped suit (a request that came straight from him). I finally hemmed the pants and the boys dressed alike on Sunday for church. We’ve enjoyed a few very sunny days here where the snow has been blindingly white. But we don’t don sunglasses. It’s too novel a phenomenon to block out with shaded plastic.

In other news, while Zach and I have been building worlds, Calvin has been building an army:

They are set to invade any minute. So watch your back.

My Beautiful, Functional, Economical Shelf

Posted on February 7, 2014February 7, 2014 by Erin Bartels

Can I justify a second blog post about a shelf?

Yes I can.

Because I love this thing.

All my patterns ORGANIZED.

All my quilting books SHELVED.

All my writing books ACCESSIBLE.

All my Detroit/Civil War/Civil Rights books for novel research TOGETHER.

All my yarn CONTAINED.

All my camera bags STOWED.

And just look how neat this organizational wonder makes my sewing area.

Honestly, it’s like a whole new room.

This is the sort of thing February is for.

The Picture of Confidence

Posted on February 4, 2014February 4, 2014 by Erin Bartels

I’m eleven chapters and 27,000 words into the novel and feeling a bit like this…

The boy got his orange belt last week. In January, the word of the month at the dojo was goal-setting. This month, it’s confidence.

Reaching your goals does wonders for your confidence. So what are you hoping for? What are you striving for? How will you achieve your goals? How will you surmount the obstacles in your way?

In late March, the boy should earn his green belt. Round about that time I hope to be in the home stretch of my book. We’ll both face obstacles along the way. But we’re both committed to overcoming them.

How about you? Are you going to let your circumstances stop you? Or are you going to have confidence in your ability to persevere?

Remember–the only thing all published authors have in common is a finished book. The paintings that hang in museums are finished paintings. The quilts that people sleep under are finished quilts.

So be confident, work hard, and go out there and finish something!

To Rearrange a Room

Posted on February 3, 2014February 4, 2014 by Erin Bartels

I used to be an obsessive rearranger of furniture. In my bedroom growing up I tried every possible configuration, moving dressers and shelves alone by bracing my back against them and pushing against the walls with my feet. I somehow avoided serious injury or destruction of property.

Nowadays, I rarely rearrange, largely because so few of our rooms would work any other way. One exception is the office. It is a hodgepodge of random secondhand furniture and must accommodate so many odd items: three sets of file drawers, fabric and yarn and thread, sewing machine, computer, two desks, printer, scads of books, and an ever-changing assortment of boxes and bags with nowhere else to go. In short, it’s often (usually?) a disaster.

As is fairly common this time of year for me, I got the organizing bug this week. “Something simply must be done about all this fabric,” I said to myself. And this yarn and the patterns and the stacks of papers and all these quilting books (thanks a lot to my enabling mother-in-law). So I jumped online to see what Ikea or Target or Home Depot might have to offer. And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that someone thought that particle board and laminate should cost more than $50 (sometimes as much as $500!). I didn’t like that nothing was real. I didn’t like that I wouldn’t see it in person before committing to it.

So instead I took my prize money for my short story award and headed down to a secondhand furniture store in town called April’s Antiques. I think I’ve only been in there twice and both times I’ve left with furniture! It’s where I bought our awesome mid-century modern dresser and night stands a couple years ago (for a song).

I wasn’t disappointed. I found a lovely, large, real wood shelving unit with cabinets at the bottom for just over one hundred bucks. On Wednesday my new shelving unit will be delivered and I shall fill it with books and patterns and fabric and yarn galore. And I’ll be sure to take a picture.

And now I must make way for my lovely new shelves.

Making Peace with February

Posted on February 1, 2014February 17, 2015 by Erin Bartels

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Ah, February. You’ve brought with you several more inches of snow. How embarrassing for you. Didn’t anyone tell you that’s what January brought too? In fact, she brought so much that front loaders have been spied filling dump trucks with the stuff to cart it off to wherever such things get carted off to. I do wish you’d instead decided to bring some sunshine. Though, admittedly, the warmer temperature has been pleasant. So thanks for that.

Friends, February has historically been my least favorite month (and I’m sure if you are from snowy regions, it’s your least favorite as well). Winter marches on so gray and dreary. We are at our most vitamin D deficient. Our pale, dry, chapped skin ages us so severely.

But in recent years I’ve worked on making peace with it. Honestly, the fresh snow helps. The days that are reaching for just a little more light each evening. The birds that are starting to sing a little louder.

And one more week off to write, capped with a three-day writing retreat for me and my husband at our friend’s house on Gun Lake. No Internet, no TV, no restaurants, no laundry, no kid. Just a fireplace, two laptops, and nothing but wide open time.

I can’t wait.

Arctic Blasts and the Reason for Fiction

Posted on January 28, 2014January 28, 2014 by Erin Bartels

Thanks so much to so many of you who downloaded free stories yesterday. What took me by surprise was that the overwhelming favorite of the day was “Beneath the Winter Weeds,” the story I wrote last January. I suppose I had thought that people would be more interested reading about summer during this second (or is it third?) cold snap.

Perhaps fiction isn’t truly an escape from reality so much as it is an exploration of reality.

In case you were curious about what Michigan has been like the past few days, here’s the Lake Michigan lakeshore:

Be sure to watch the whole thing so you can see how this photographer found shelter from the storm.

This morning it’s cold (-10 on the thermostat–that’s -23 celsius for my international friends) and sunny and definitely the sort of morning that Valerie Steele might head into the woods to make her discovery…

All Short Stories Free Today!

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Erin Bartels

Don’t forget to download any and all of my short stories for Kindle absolutely FREE today only as my thank you to you for reading! This will be your last chance to snap them up individually for free!

Water & Light

A young pregnant woman is called into work at the water treatment plant on a stormy Christmas Eve. What happens that night will test her resolve and strengthen her faith. Buy it here for Kindle.

Memory Man

People say there’s a man who can forget your bad memories for you. Lives in the city somewhere, supposedly. Problem is, I never met anyone who has actually seen the guy. Buy it here for Kindle.

Drive

When a man drives across the Upper Peninsula to retrieve a moving truck that has been missing for 25 years, he never could have guessed what was waiting for him inside. Buy it here for Kindle.

The Beginning and the End

The trip never should have happened—wouldn’t have happened were it not for that unfortunate confluence of romantic clichés the night of Courtney’s wedding… Buy it here for Kindle.

The Astonishing Moment

A pleasant kayaking excursion along the southern shore of Lake Superior becomes a dangerous affair when the weather suddenly turns and the light fails. Buy it here for Kindle.

10 Degrees Cooler in the Shade

In the light of a hot summer day at the carnival, there’s always something to see. In the dark of night, there’s always something to hide. Buy it here for Kindle.

One Endless Summer Day

In summertime, the days can seem endless. Whether that is good or bad kind of depends on what side of childhood you find yourself on. Buy it here for Kindle.

Clean

When it seems like everything in life is going wrong, sometimes all it takes to get things back on track is just one thing a little out of the ordinary. Buy it here for Kindle.

We Shall Sometime Come to Someplace

An unseasonable storm is just the first in a series of strange and surreal events that will set a one man’s life on a very different course. Buy it here for Kindle.

The Door

An aging homebound artist realizes that his life is not as it seems when something he paints leads him to an impossible–and unforgettable–discovery. Buy it here for Kindle.

Beneath the Winter Weeds

On a frigid January day, one woman must return to the forest of her youth to finally uncover what lies buried beneath the winter weeds. Buy it here for Kindle.

We did it! 1,000 Followers = FREE ebooks!

Posted on January 26, 2014December 11, 2015 by Erin Bartels

Oh happy day! I’m so pleased to see that A Beautiful Fiction has reached more than 1,000 followers! I had stated last year that when that occurred I would be giving away all of my currently available short stories on Kindle, the only exception being “This Elegant Ruin” due to current rights restrictions.

While the original goal was to hit that number by the end of 2013, I’m not feeling terribly stingy. So…

For one day only, on Monday, January 27th, each short story on Amazon will be absolutely free! Download to your heart’s content. I’ll remind you tomorrow, but for now remember that you can access all of them easily by clicking on the links found on the Books page (look above the lovely photo of seagulls over the Straits of Mackinac at the top of this page for the link, or click here).

And while you’re at it, get your own writing life energized with The Intentional Writer.

Thank you all so much for your support, your likes and comments, and your time over the past couple years of blogging. My hope for you is that 2014 will be the year you take great leaps and bounds in your own creative pursuits. Keep reading, keep writing, keep photographing, keep painting, keep knitting, keep sewing. Whatever you’re doing to add beauty and point to truth in this world, do it even better this year!

In the Dead of Winter, Life Still Stirs

Posted on January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 by Erin Bartels

This is the view through my 75-year-old windows lately.

Some of these patterns put me in mind of coral–appropriate in a part of the world that was once the bottom of an ocean. In summer we gather fossilized coral. In winter, it graces our living room window panes.

It has been a ferocious winter, one that still has the Great Lakes State firmly in its icy grip. But while the windows may be frosty and the ground still covered in snow, beneath it all the earth prepares for spring. Squirrels are fornicating in the back yard. Birds are twittering in the pile of sticks that has been stacked up by the side of the road since the ice storm a month ago. The buds of this year’s growth already grace the bare branches of trees and shrubs. In fact, looking at that last frost photo, I kind of see those bud-studded branches right there in the ice.

And within my mind is a steady running stream of story that my fingers are faithfully putting down into words.

Settling into Cold and Cloudy

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Erin Bartels

While a winter storm is apparently raging on the Atlantic coast, we in mid-Michigan have been enjoying a sunny day. But we’ll need to soak it up while we can, as the forecast calls for high temps in the teens and lots of clouds through the end of the month.

Late January and into February, my irritating habit of making the most of the weather starts to fade. The more the people around you complain about the snow and ice and wind, the more you start to resent it all too.

But I’m telling myself that it is a very, very good thing that I will not be able to get out into the garden until late April. I have a writing goal to reach and I don’t want to get distracted. With everything in my work in progress going fairly well (I’m up to chapter nine and have topped 20,000 words since starting just three weeks ago) I’ve decided to shoot for finishing the first draft by Easter (which is April 20th this year). If I reach that goal, then I can let the thing settle for a month while I get the yard and gardens in order and spend some serious time outside enjoying spring.

So I’m looking at the cold and cloudy near future as an asset rather than a reason to despair.

What about you? What are you going to get done before spring rolls along?

Author: Erin Bartels