Announcing My New E-book!
Happy Without a Home:
Advice from a House-Sitting Nomad
Please buy it this red-hot minute!
Life is good, don’t you think? For me right now, life’s a travel adventure and an experiment in creating a mobile, productive, satisfying lifestyle. And one that’s fun at least 90% of the time.
My modus operandi? I’m a house sitter. I’m also a writer, a retired high-school teacher, an amateur photographer, a global nomad, a former Camino de Santiago pilgrim, and a grandmother.
Since 2012, I’ve loved the freedom, flexibility, and novelty this life-style provides. If there’s wifi available, I can write, photograph, work on projects, and stay in contact with those I love from almost anywhere.
Because I get questions about how this house-sitting lifestyle works—how I find places and people, how it feels to move around a lot, what I take with me, how I make new friends, what I do if I don’t have a house sit scheduled, and so forth—I decided to write an ebook.
Perhaps you’d like to lean into more adventure and travel in your life? If so, you’ll likely enjoy and get ideas from Happy Without a Home. Just click on the cover picture on the right which will take you to the Amazon web page where you can download it.
You don’t have to have a Kindle or e-reader. The Amazon page has a link explaining “How to Read on Any Device.” You’ll be able to read it on your computer or phone or other devices.
In my blog here, I post occasional pieces and photo essays about places, people, books, trips, and art. Sometimes I write about challenges I have as a writer, or questions I’m mulling over. Please follow me by entering your email address in the box on the right so you’ll be notified when I make a new post.
Please know I’d love to hear from you, to have a written conversation, but please use the Contact form to reach me. Because of spam, my settings don’t allow comments. You can unsubscribe at any time and FYI, I’m not informed about who subscribes.
My Book-in-Process
I’ve recently finished my first novel, WALK: Jamie Bacon’s Secret Mission on the Ancient Camino in Spain. It’s a middle-grade (age 8-13) travel tale about the mishaps and mysteries encountered by 11-year-old Jamie as he hikes the famous 500-mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.
The character Jamie is walking with Lily, 13, and their home-school teacher, Mom. Things get complicated for him from the first night they’re on the actual trail, when he secretly promises two young men to deliver a lumpy envelope, unopened, in their destination city, Santiago de Compostela. Jamie has no clue what he’s carrying, yet he’s determined to keep his promise (and hide it from Mom) until ….
The purpose of literature is to teach and to delight. WALK, I’m pretty sure, does both. Along with the typical trials of pilgrims like blisters and bedbugs, Jamie, Lily, and Mom survive accidents and charging bulls and getting lost. They meet the wise and the eccentric. They explore castles, cathedrals, and caves. There’s plenty of sweat and a few tears, but no blood. Plus, plodding along that long, long, long trail, there’s story after story about medieval history and life. And, as I’m sure you can guess, in the end, Jamie’s a hero.
Writing WALK took me three times, so far, to Spain and the Camino with my backpack and boots.
A pretty Spanish town that Jamie and Lily pass through in WALK.
Now that the manuscript of WALK is completed, I’m on to the next stage of my book’s pilgrimage: the publishing process. Stay tuned.