Deb BakerMurder Grins and Bears It
Publisher: Midnight Ink
Pub date: May 2007
Agent: Jacky Sach
(Click to Buy)
Deb Baker writes two mystery series. The Yooper series features Michigan amateur sleuth Gertie Johnson. She has a stun gun in her purse and a nose for trouble. In the Dolls to Die For series, Gretchen Birch, an Arizona doll restoration artist, unravels dollicious mysteries.
Author Web site: www.debbakerbooks.com
Murder Grins and Bears It: On opening day of bear hunting season in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a game warden is murdered right under Little Donny’s tree stand, and Little Donny has gone missing. Sixty-six-year-old Gertie Johnson is forced to use her “unique” investigative techniques to try to find her favorite grandson.
Are you a destination or a journey person? When I get in the car with my husband for a long ride, I’m already groaning and complaining even before we leave the driveway, because I know exactly what he’s going to do. I want to get there as fast as possible. “Any stops,” I announce, “five minutes tops.” But I’m wasting my breath. He likes to pull off the freeway every hour. Topping off the gas, another cup of coffee so we’ll have another bathroom break soon, reading announcements posted in waysides. How can he like diesel-smelling truck stops and highway blacktop when the tropics are awaiting us ahead?
All I can focus on is the destination. He enjoys the journey, talking to other travelers along the way.
I want to learn to slow down, make every minute count and savor the moment. Because there is no final destination in the getting published and staying published business. If you aren’t published yet, you probably think that getting an agent or publishing contract is Baja California. If you’re published, you’re thinking you’ll arrive in Key West just as soon as the numbers add up. You pick up speed, desperate to get there before the hurricane season.
I’ve had a great ride. This month, I turn in my sixth book. Two series, two contracts fulfilled, three of those books still to arrive on the shelves. I’m halfway around the world in my travels. I want to believe my final destination is right around the next corner in the form of another contract, bigger and better than the last. I could focus on that and watch the highway miles fly by, and miss all the action along the way.
But I’m trying to learn to enjoy the journey. I have to remind myself to live in the moment, to stop thinking ahead, to stop worrying about what’s coming next. We need to celebrate every little victory—a good writing day, a plot twist that surprises even us, a new story we want to tell. Anything over and above that is a gift.
Enjoy the journey, because it never ends.
See you on the road.
—Deb Baker
Feel free to ask Deb questions in the comments section. She'll pop in during the day to answer them.
To learn more about Deb Baker, see Our Books at www.BookEnds-Inc.com.
6 comments:
"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving." - Lao Tzu
If we're heading out, I'm in your husband's camp. The journey itself is part of the pleasure and I want to make stops at cool places along the way. But if we're on our way back home--let's get there ASAP.
I used to be a destination person. Then I spent a couple weeks in the hospital and realized how much you can miss out if you're not a journey person.
These days, in a car, I'm a journey person. On a plane...yuck, the lines at the airport, the tiny squished seats...I am still a destination person. If I get to the point where I can travel First Class all the time, I'll think about becoming a journey person there!
I'm trying so hard to change my ways.
First of all, Ms. Baker -- that title -- I LOVE IT!!! And I love the artwork, too. Very fun.
I struggle with this sometimes of course, I think we all do -- this problem of focusing on the outcome (or destination, as you say)and our expectations about what it's "supposed" to be -- but I really think I'm getting better. I've, mostly unconsciously, set myself up this way so many times and been hurt that I think I'm finally learning not to do it so much. When I catch myself now I try to do a little sort of "note to Higher Self" thing (note reads "Help me STOP that, please!")and it really works!
Great post!! Thanks!
Hi Deb,
Long time no chat! Congrats on the new release and on the completion of your latest MS. Sounds like your journey has been a colorful one. What more could a gal want? Hope to see you in the flesh sometime soon. 'Til then, keep truckin'.
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