Go Fish!

Hello!

Join me next week for a Facebook takeover and win the giveaway! I can’t wait to hang out with the Murder They Write Group. My cousin, Paula Charles, is also a coy mystery author! She is a founding member. It’s going to be fun!

Last week’s giveaway was a game of Go Fish! I put the following two truths and a lie. Everyone who guessed which was the lie won an eBook copy of Booked for Murder! One overall winner, Janice R (check your email), won a $5 Amazon gift card.

The Challenge: Here we Go Fish!

#1 I have worked as a professional artist. Two galleries sold my paintings.

#2 I speak French fluently and am saving for a second trip to France.

#3 For my 60th birthday, my daughter ran a 10k with me on the trails in Fort Stevens, Oregon. However, she made me run ten miles! I had a blast.

And the answer is... #2 is a lie. I have been to France for a day and am trying to learn French, but I am NOT fluent.

#1 I did work as a professional artist when my boys were engaged in some very expensive activities. I started selling my art as a way to pay the monthly costs. I took my first art class at age 12. I was given oil paints for Christmas. There was a class at the local school. I signed up, not knowing it would be full of retired and older adults. I wanted to paint so badly that I stayed. Later, my mother traded laundry with a BYU professor, who taught pastel, pencil, oil, portraits, and so on. I learned alongside her son.

I put two photos of my work below. One I kept because I didn’t think it was good enough to sell, and another was purchased by a family member and given to my mom. Luckily, people outside my family liked my paintings too!

The Cannon Beach Gallery and the gallery in Seaside, Oregon carried my work until they closed. I sold prints and originals. When I started, I didn’t think the galleries would want my work, but I took the risk and took a piece into the gallery manager in Seaside. She said, “This (watercolor) is great. Can you bring me 50 more (different paintings) next week? I did, and the rest was history.

#3 is also true. I’ve been a runner since I had my twins in 1986. For the last year, I’ve struggled due to two nasty bouts with Covid. The last one was followed by influenza A, a few days after three weeks in bed with Covid. However, I am slowly getting back into shape.

One of my daughters works in law enforcement and was a college athlete. She broke track records in high school. Fort Stevens is a beautiful park about ten miles up the coast from my house. It has miles of paved trails through the woods, past a lake, a WWII historic fort, a museum, and out to the jetty on the Columbia River. I asked my daughter to help me celebrate my 60th birthday by running a 10k with me, as there had been some cougar sightings and I didn’t want to go alone.

I felt safe with her until we came upon some large cougar prints in the mud, and we turned around and ran the other way. I ran much faster. Never fear, all went well. We hit the 10k mark, and I stopped. She said, what are you doing? We’re finishing 10 miles and so we did. Surprisingly, I wasn’t sore the next day.

You should all have an email reply with links to your winnings!

Check the rules for last week's giveaway invite!  

Here was the giveaway, blah blah. This giveaway was just for our little community and not sponsored by anyone. If you win an eBook, you have to be able to accept it from Bookfunnel. If you won the Amazon eGift card, you needed to be able to receive it. I am providing the prizes to increase the fun! And if you are carefully reading this, you will know that every reply, right or wrong, wins something, so this is just for play.

See you, my friends, when the tide comes in.

Shannon