Remembered Joys

Posted on December 5, 2024 by Gail

Recently I received some copies of my latest novel, PROVIDENCE.

I have to admit, I don’t get as excited about these boxes as I used to, because

my health has forced me to slow down about promoting books. Some authors

despise all aspects of promoting their work, but I especially enjoyed sharing about

the writing process face-to-face, and recalling those times still makes me smile.o

However, it’s still a joy to hold a fresh-off-the-press story that I labored over for

so long–especially this one, since it took longer than any other I’ve ever tackled.

Why? I’m not sure. Maybe I needed to arrive at this age…note wrinkles in photo below…

to have developed a deeper understanding of how essential PROVIDENCE is in

any of our undertakings.

Or perhaps it’s because to accept what life hands us requires trust, and mine has

taken quite a while to grow. Bottom-line, part of trusting is NOT demanding to understand.

So if you or a friend loves Westerns (not WWII this time), this set-in-the-Civil-War-era

tale might make a good Christmas gift. The heroine learns an incredible amount about

herself, her presumptions, her tough-as-nails surroundings, and the astoundingly faithful grace

of what her generation refers to as “Providence.” There’ll be lots of joys in looking back for her

as she ages!

Providence

Posted on November 2, 2024 by Gail

For your winter reading pleasure, a story of old-fashioned pioneer grit on the Westward trail melds with a Texas cowboy’s tale.

In the midst of a catastrophic Civil War, what role does Providence play in everyday folks’ daily challenges, and what might we learn from them?

Historical Fiction Novelist Gail Kittleson Unveils “Providence,” a Pioneer Adventure-Romance
NASHVILLE, TN (October 24, 2024)—Amazon.com bestselling author Gail Kittleson is celebrating the release of Providence: a novel of the West, which impacted retail on October 9, 2024, in hardback, trade paperback, and all major ebook formats from WordCrafts Press. Kittleson’s latest novel, set during the waning years of the American Civil War, is a bit of a departure from the World War Two era the celebrated novelist is known for. But fans can expect the same level of meticulously researched detail that breathes life and authenticity into all of her novels.

This man—strong as the oxen who would pull their wagon on the trail and as determined as the Union Army—this man she had wed.
From the Novel
Autumn, 1863
I cannot say the date for certain, but surely November must be close. The cold seeps in through every hidden entrance, in spite of our careful mudding.
Like sorrow. Like guilt—the reasons I have neglected to write. But now, with the sure knowledge of Franklin’s return and the pullets laying, and Della giving milk like always, hope has taken up steadier residence in my heart.
Who can know their weaknesses? If anything good comes of loss, I expect this sort of understanding might qualify. Frail of faith, fragile of mind, and scrawny of will—ah, how clearly I see myself now.
And yet, I continue to live. Providence knoweth all and so must see some good in me.

“Providence required more time than any other book I’ve written,” muses author Gail Kittleson. “I’m not sure why, but the characters developed slowly, and along the way, my writing skills grew, too. Several times I thought this manuscript must be just practice, never to see the light of day. But when my health took a jolt, the characters called to me.

I had a lot of time to ponder their stories and found I liked them too much to toss them out. With considerable more historical research, they started to cooperate, and the result is this novel.”

AIthough the Civil War serves as the backdrop for the novel, the story follows those hearty pioneers who braved the Oregon Trail in hopes of carving a better life for themselves and their families.”I hope readers will learn more about the Civil War era, as I did during this process, and appreciate the parallels to the world we live in today,” Gail says.

“Each season of history has its share of challenges and everyday women and men who rise to meet them. We don’t often think of ourselves as heroes or heroines, but in the long perspective, we may well be, as we seek guidance from what our ancestors called Providence.”

Providence: a novel of the West is published in the US by WordCrafts Press and distributed globally by Ingram Content Group, the world’s largest distributor of physical content.Product Details
Hardback: 352 pages
Publisher: WordCrafts Press (October 9, 2024)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1962218665
MSRP: $33.99Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: WordCrafts Press (October 8, 2024)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1962218672
MSRP: $18.99Ebook:
Publisher: WordCrafts Press (October 8, 2024)
Language: English
ASIN: B0DJ58XM5R
MSRP: $5.99Free review copies are available in all major ebook formats. For additional information or to request a review copy, please contact:
wordcrafts@wordcrafts.net

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Debut Novel!

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Gail

Remember when your very first novel released, or looking forward to that day? Here’s a new story on my reading list: Tamelia Aday’s The Filbert Ridge Miracle. I welcome Tamelia to share a bit of background info. And she’s offering an e-book to one fortunate commenter, too.

I started writing The Filbert Ridge Miracle when my oldest son was in grade school. I wish I remembered the exact year, but it’s one of those things where you are piecing something together little by little. And in reality, maybe I don’t want to know how long it took me.

The Filbert Ridge Miracle is about a pastor’s family who live in a small town. They are scrutinized for their unruly children and the wife, Rose, is especially considered odd.

I had a germ of an idea of this mom, feeling the judgement of others, trying to escape into a world that no one knew about. To have a secret life of feeding the homeless and helping the needy. I then considered what if one of her children went missing. I pictured her on the streets looking for her son. The raw parts of this story had their moments on a word processor floppy disk, marked “Free Time.”

Years later, the whole direction of the story changed with a miracle in the church parking lot. At that moment I was in the voice of Patrick, who before had almost no part in the story. Everything shifted and Patrck’s feelings and aggravations flowed across the page becoming the first chapter which changed the rest of the book. I found my voice the same time Patrick let me use his.

Piecing together a parking lot miracle to a missing child was a challenge, but through a lot of throwing out of material—another whole book’s worth probably—it came together.

The Filbert Ridge Miracle is published by WordsCraft Press. Available on Amazon in e-book, paperback, and hardback https://a.co/d/3n2pHkU

From the back cover

It was October 7, 1967.

The festival in Filbert Ridge, Oregon, came early, and many wondered if they had followed the usual tradition of celebrating the hazelnut harvest on the second Saturday of October, perhaps things would have gone in a different direction.

Instead, town history and the lives of its citizens changed forever.

Get in touch with Tamelia

https://www.facebook.com/share/BhmEfBrsufNfRhmR/?mibextid=LQQJ4d

https://www.instagram.com/tameliaaday?igsh=MTFkbWZvMTc4amZoag%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

https://tameliaaday.blogspot.com/?m=1

New Word

Posted on April 19, 2024 by Gail

Our middle school teachers told us it’s good to increase our vocabulary, right? I mean, most often we prefer a variety of flowers in our gardens, not all tulips, all primroses or ALL daisies. Pretty soon we’ll be planting or cultivating our plot, so flowers have been on my mind lately.

I’ve also been working on a story set in Texas the early 1920’s, not my usual timeframe. Like every era, this one has its share of unique sayings, and the state of Texas? It’s rampant with dialectical goodies!

Our language provides such a wide variety of words and phrases that it’s also fun to learn new ones. Some of my recent new words have come as a result of studying Spanish, but others just pop up in my reading.

Ever hear of agathokakological? This eight-syllable word teeming with awkward letters means “composed of both good and evil.” Difficult to repeat, but it fits in so many settings–offhand, how many can you think of?

It’s kind of like ambivalent–we’ve all experienced feeling this way. Mixed emotions often get our attention. Our ideal is for things to be perfect…just the way we’d like. But that rarely happens, so we find ourselves liking some parts of certain situations, others not so much.

I doubt I’ll be pronouncing agathokakological any time soon, but this ungainly word will most likely stick in my mind. And I’ll probably think it at times, even if I don’t say it.

A REAL WRITER

Posted on February 1, 2024 by Gail

I’m so pleased to introduce Monica McCann to you all. She’s one of the contributing authors in A Hill Country Christmas- Truths for Troubled Trails. A former teacher, she’s helped introduce writing to many students, and now gets to GO FOR IT herself! I appreciated her thoughts here, since I’ve also written notes for a novel on many an unworthy scrap of paper. We’ll be hearing more from Monica, I’m sure of it!

Monica says…

I always imagined when I “became a real writer” that my writing would be this organized, linear, easy telling of a story on paper. After all, I have been telling stories to myself, to my pets, to my best friend my whole life. Ha! Silly me.

I have two novels and two short stories that I am in the middle of and none of them just flow from my fingers to my laptop. I have sticky notes and legal pads and 30 tabs open on my computer screen for research (yes,30, I just counted them). I am not claiming this is the best way, this is just my way.

What I have found to be true is that “writing” happens at all hours, in inconvenient places and not always on paper. It can be messy. Stories appear as we go about our day. Inspiration will dawn suddenly and as my daddy always said, “Gotta make hay while the sun shines.”

Sometimes that happens while you are on a plane dutifully reading a book to help you with your fear of the editing process. The exercise in this book shed light on one of my unfinished novels that lays waiting in the dark. I knew my aging brain would remember only part of the idea if I wrote it later, so I wanted to get it down.

I hadn’t brought my laptop or a notebook, and the tiny napkin from my airline refreshment would handle very little of my swoopy cursive. What did I find? The airsick bag! My whole row’s air-sick bags. Yep, I am a real writer.

One of my short story ideas started with a person and a geographical location. That led me to his sister, who authored a book about the place, which led me to another historical website, and there was my story waiting for me.

Driving to town yesterday, a song on the radio made me think about what it would be like to look someone in the eye that you had thought was lost to you in time. Suddenly my idea became two living, breathing people. I get horribly carsick so writing while sitting in the car is not my favorite, but I grabbed my new notebook out of my bag (My husband, appalled at my behavior on the airplane, bought me two.) I wrote feverishly, and oh so messy, in my notebook for the entire hour drive.

Today I am back at the computer, translating my scribbles from yesterday, and the voice memo I made for myself while walking this morning. A few more tabs of research will be opened. The husband or the dogs will interrupt me a dozen or more times, so the “writing” continues in my head.

I will continue to gather sticky notes and other pieces of my story here and there. None of this disqualifies me as a “real writer.” I am so thankful for people that encourage me to just tell the stories.

I think the truth I have been learning is the same truth the Velveteen Rabbit learned.

“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

Becoming a real writer is something that happens as you write. It is sometimes painful, often messy, and in the end, wonderfully real.

Tools of the trade

Monica McCann is one of the contributing authors in

A Hill Country Christmas- Truths for Troubled Trails.

A Christmas Gift

Posted on December 27, 2023 by Gail

I’ve gotten to know my Words With Friends partner, Erma Ullrey, a bit better. She’s a writer, too, and it’s fun to banter as we endeavor to beat each other at the Scrabble-like game.

Just recently I learned more about the story she her husband have lived for the past six years–what a challenge they’ve faced! During this time Erma has written a children’s book…here’s the cover. Don’t you love the concept of a snowflake afraid to fall because it knows it’ll melt?

You can read all about it as we reflect on Christmas 2023 and the New Year. May Erma’s words increase our appreciation for every breath we take.

merryheartink.substack.com

CHRISTMAS IS…God’s Breath of Life

By eMarie

More than six years ago, my husband Bert and I reeled when he received the staggering diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. No signs or symptoms, and never a history of cancer in his family. From that moment on, when he fell on his knees, I knelt beside him. When he rose up in faith, I cheered him on. When he felt well, we celebrated.

I wore an impenetrable stoic face all day, every day. Although I believed God and took Him at His word, in my quiet moments I felt and acted more like Jacob. I didn’t have a visible wrestling match with the Lord, but an intense spiritual battle raged. Especially after reading the statistical prognosis for Bert’s disease. “Hopeless” fit the percentage. The doctors had already told us as much. But faith said these outcomes and statistics hadn’t met our God. Faith said nothing is impossible with Him.

The Lord invites us in Hebrews to come and reason with Him.

I came, but I was beyond reason. I didn’t have the peace of an overcomer, the peace that insured the battle had been won. I cried out to the Lord asking, wanting, needing something personal from Him. Something to demonstrate that even though I didn’t see it, He was at work, able to heal sicknesses of every kind, including cancer. That He cared about what was happening to Bert. That every promise in His word was still true and still ours. Jehovah would continue to be faithful, able, and in control of every aspect of our lives.

A snapshot flashed across my mind. I glimpsed the crossroads in Sacramento, CA where I first became a believer at age 19. Then, as if He needed it, I reminded the Lord of His covenant, His many promises throughout all generations. And that one of His names is Emmanuel—God with us. I prayed – Lord, if you’re still with us, show me that you are.

Crickets.

https://unsplash.com/@jannerboy62

I got in the car that day to go to lunch with a group of Bible study friends. As I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, I again asked for some revelation that He was the same miracle-working God.

Beyond frustrated with this unanswered prayer, I walked up to the restaurant and released a deep exhale. As I watched, my breath formed a vapor, lingering in the frosty air.

God’s word awakened my spirit.

“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…” (Gen. 2:7)

I stood stunned at the answer He’d shown me!

Every breath was, is, and always will be proof of God’s existence, love, faithfulness. He graciously made visible to me what He’d provided all along. Life! For, from, by, and in Him!

My wrestling ended there and then, and a deeper sense of wonder was birthed. That afternoon, in an effort to capture what God graciously demonstrated in that spine-tingling moment, I penned the first words to A Snowflake’s Adventure.

…six years later, by God’s grace and strength, my husband praises the Lord for each new day he’s been given to live for Him.

A Snowflake’s Adventure is a story of God’s breath of life to every child He’s ever created. Unique. Purposeful. We are His one-of-a-kind design. Each. And. Every. One.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

(To the glory of God, we have donated A Snowflake’s Adventure, a #1 Amazon children’s book to more than 500 children around the world through OCC/Samaritan’s Purse. For every book sold, one is donated!)

I appreciate your purchases, and please leave a review on Amazon. Thank you! www.amazon.com/Snowflakes-Adventure-eMarie/dp/B09HFXX3N

Of burrs, the heavens, and Christmas…

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Gail

Winter’s Upon Us

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Gail

You can feel the moisture in the air, smell the snow over the mountain. Well, at least I think so–we haven’t seen much yet, just some rain and hail squalls a few days ago. But since I’m writing about the pioneers who lived so close to nature, I think I can smell snow? And my joints have been complaining, maybe more than usual.

We’ll see, right?

But in the meantime, it’s puzzle time on Holly Drive. This one, a vista of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, reveals vibrant greens, rusts, blues, aquas and up in one corner of the sky, gold and yellow. Small pieces awaiting their places, their unique spots, in the final tableau. And Lance making every effort to get them to where they belong.

Yesterday I was reading about the great meteorites of 1860 over parts of India and New York State. I suppose native Americans and settlers and other citizens stared in awe at the night sky, wondering about this portent. As the year passed and tensions grew, some attributed prophetic powers to the never-seen-before-show.

A Great War was about to commence…a terrible, senseless war no one wanted. But people simply could not find common ground on the days’ issues. I also recently read William Carlos Williams’ short story, “The Use of Force.” Such an abrupt ending, leaving all the pieces in my lap to deal with.

Seemed odd, when we’re so used to authors “tying up all the loose ends.” But there you have it. Another way of arranging things.

Williams said about his style, “In my own work it has always sufficed that the object of my attention be presented without further comment. It doesn’t declaim or explain; it presents.”

Read his classic story here: https://www.classicshorts.com/stories/force.html

What do you think?

A Grateful Heart

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Gail

“The thankful heart opens our eyes to a multitude of blessings that continually surround us.” James E. Faust

What is it about gratitude that alters everything? Here in the Ponderosa Forest, I never tire of seeing the elk and deer–each siting gives me joy. And Lance’s ability to capture these creatures in action makes for photos worth sharing.

I’ve been researching for my Civil War manuscript and recently came across Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation. Issued on October 20 that year, the text really made me think.

What? Give thanks? Over fifty thousand American soldiers had died at Gettysburg alone that year, plus thousands more in other battles. As Mr. Lincoln noted, many women had become widows…many children orphans.

But he also highlighted the lack of foreign powers involved in our in-fighting–one good thing. And the physical size of the battlefield was shrinking. Progress was still being made in settling the wilderness, as well as in communications (the telegraph and the transcontinental railroad.) Other new inventions had come forth, as well.

Like George Washington and other Presidents before him, Lincoln focused on Thanksgiving in spite of dire circumstances.

In the light of so many losses, it’s amazing that a National Thanksgiving Day even crossed his mind, and it might not have, were it not for one woman, Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, who wrote to Lincoln on September 28, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.”

His response? He searched for positive news as the nation lumbered on toward eventually ending the war. Realizing how much longer it would take for the South to surrender, we find little comfort here.

But this example of thankfulness in the midst of horror can hearten us…So much suffering still lay ahead, yet President Lincoln led the Union in offering thanks for the good he could find.

No national “turkey pardoning” took place that year. Now, we watch football and pay little attention to Thanksgiving Days of the distant past. But this holiday, as we taste pumpkin pie and all the rest, hopefully we’ll pay a little extra attention to our hearts.

Even with many challenges here and abroad, and a great deal of suffering, we have so very much for which to give thanks.

Second Chances

Posted on November 9, 2023 by Gail

Second Chances can mean everything…think of all the dramas revolving around this theme–nothing new, but at the very center of the human heart. One of my favorites, the tale of Les Miserables, reveals the struggle involved in second chances. Oh, sometimes someone wins the Lottery and their life gets turned around pronto, but more often, second chances involve taking one plodding step at a time until an opportunity comes along.

That’s what happens for Dottie and Al in WINDS OF CHANGE, my latest release. First of all, let me say I have “redone” this very first published novel, because ten years has taught me a lot about writing. Enough that I knew this story deserved better.

Especially, the characters, who have been with me every since that first pained attempt, deserved a stronger entrance into the world. So here we have it: a World War II widow and Gold Star mother, grieving the loss of her only son in a far-away battle. She merits every honor we can bestow on her–she stands for all those Moms who waited for letters from their sons and one day received a telegram instead.

And then there’s Al, Dottie’s next-door neighbor, and her deceased best friend’s husband. Ah, the dreams this man harbors! And the vast hidden wounds from another war, the Great War, meant to end all wars.

So I offer Winds of Change to my loyal readers a little bit early–I’ll be posting the press release on my FB author page later today for more details. But for now, I just want to present Al and Dottie to you–may they remind you of the hope we have, and the possibility of second chances, no matter what has befallen us.

One reader says: Please believe me…this story of second chances will pull you in, draw you from page to page, warm your heart, and leave you sighing. It’s simply wonderful from the first page to the last.
I have a digital copy, but I already ordered a paperback copy as well. It’s that good.