OLD IS NEW.
Some fix-its for my brain during this time of  lockdown.

Tucked away with this pandemic—please note no disease name and no capital letters. If I mention ITS name or use capital letters to make IT feel important IT weighs heavy on my mind and opens a fertile place for depression to take root.

NEW PASTIMES—reading, cooking, and writing.

NEW RELEASE: Overalls, Pinafores, and Pigtails – Harriet’s Story

Writing, not so much during this shut in. Had a mad rush to finish up Overalls, Pinafores, and Pigtails . I’d spent three years collecting and making notes for this biography and suddenly had to get it out of my house. My agent, promotional manager, book carrier husband took over and saved me from the formatting and all the computer work of submitting and our household has been at peace since submission to and publishing by Amazon.

WHEN’S DINNER?

And, excuse me while I peruse that list I’ve saved over the years on my computer called ‘RECIPES’. Oh, yes, old and new every day. What’s for dinner and what’s for supper? Now that I’ve completed my novel about living on the farm, Overalls, Pinafores, and Pigtails, we no longer have lunch and dinner. We have our big meal at noontime and call it dinner and in the evening we have a small something called supper.

Chicken on a stick with barbecue sauce, tuna casserole, beef barley soup (new one the best), spaghetti with shrimp and broccoli.

Comfort food, old standbys and some newbies. And, of course, we have to use up the free Culver’s certificates we received when we bought tons of gift certificates for the children and grandchildren during the holidays—filet of fish and side salad, yummm.

Sycamore Row by John Grisham, Kill the Messenger by Tami Hoag and Hold Tight by Harlan Coben .

So, with eight inches of snow out there and more on the way, I find myself digging through our library and reading books that have lived on our shelf for years, purchased and enjoyed by my book-devouring husband, but unread by me. Pulling out the moldy oldies and making them new again. They’ve helped me relax and along with my Melatonin allow me fade into restful sleep again.

LOOKING FORWARD

In this lull after the storm of cleaning Overalls, Pinafores and Pigtails from my brain, I’ve not had the itchy urge to sit down and start anew. Don’t think I’ll attack another biography. Fiction is much more relaxing for me. Maybe dig out the old—one of the several manuscripts I have tucked away in the cute little plastic drawer unit I purchased for storing my written escapes into mystery.

Thank heaven for wonderful family and friends, writing and flower gardening.

What’s keeping you going during this hide-away pandemic?

I’ve been creating and cleaning up the manuscript of Overalls, Pinafores, and Pigtails – The story of a young girl growing up in a Norwegian community on a Wisconsin tobacco farm.

In my previous novels, I wove a make-believe mystery with make-believe characters in a real setting. Now, with this story, I have a character based on true stories within a fixed historical setting.

For me this is a true learning experience since I did not grow up on a farm, knew nothing about growing tobacco and must think through the mind of my main character, Hattie.

And, talk about critique check!

I currently live in a community that grew up on farms, raised tobacco and lived the life. Lots of neighbors to help as I get my mind around the inside view of growing up in the 1940’s and knowing farm practices and farm machinery.

Fun sharing their memories and translating into words on the page the lives of people who lived and created delightful family happenings on the land and from the land.

I have been working with an 85-year-old friend who is still living in the home where she was born. She tells delightful stories of her childhood and working on a tobacco farm as far back as she can remember. I suddenly decided the actual physical abilities that a young child could put into this labor-intensive crop, combined with the tomboy antics of a growing, independent, little girl, could make a charming coming-of-age story.

The main reason it’s taking me so long to get the words onto paper and in an interesting format, is that Hattie (we will call her) does not talk in paragraphs or necessarily in chronological order. She tells her detailed, unsorted stories as I type. I then take the type-written pages home, sort them out, and work to create the magical story of a young girl growing up. 

At the tender age of six, she’d already taken part in both the understanding and physical activity of preparing growing beds and planting tobacco seed. And then, weeks later, lifting sprouts into boxes to be delivered to the field. 

Working side by side with her mother, father and brother, Hattie didn’t consider it a chore. As a child on a farm in the 1940’s, she was so proud to be able to contribute as much as she was capable of at her young age.

Tomboy, Hattie, loved living in her overalls, hanging out with her brother and proving her independence every day with her childhood antics.

My only experience on a farm as a little person was going to play at my Aunt’s house. So, when Hattie started telling me of her working and adventurous childhood, I entered into a whole new world.

Our hope is that you will travel there with us very soon. In the meantime, check out my other books, as detailed on the BOOKS tab.

A LAKE KOSHKONONG TALE
IS IT SAFE?
THE JESSICA TYSON MYSTERY SERIES:
THE QUEEN ANNE FOX
GONE MISSING IN THE UNDERGROUND
EMMA’S GARDEN

We’ve had the most fantastic growing season for the gardens and creatures. I’ll be posting garden pictures very soon. Most helpful this summer, we’ve had swarms of dragon flies so – in an area where mosquitos normally reign in warm weather – we have had no mosquitos at our home this year.

I’ve tried to research to know why dragon flies and found it has something to do with dragonfly eggs at the bottom of ponds and just mysteriously there is an abundance of them every so many years. Still looking for information. Do you have any? If so, please click on contact at the top of this page and let me know via e-mail.

And, if you live nearby, I’m off to

     Tribeca Gallery Café & Books
     401 E. Main Street
     Watertown, WI

this Saturday, September 7 at 10am to 12pm to talk about my upcoming novel, OVERALLS, PIGTAILS & PINAFORES. The story of a young girl growing up on a tobacco farm in Wisconsin. Come join us for a Q &A discussion on my new venture and share information on writing your biography or autobiography.

I have only published fiction novels, so writing a historical biography has been, and continues to be, quite a challenge. My 82-year neighbor, down the road a piece, who was born in the same house she lives in now, does not narrate her life in chapters. We’re all over the place as she relays to me happenings and time of her childhood and I’m left to sort, sort, sort, research and then ask more questions to fill in blanks.  Mostly I’m sorting what was happening to her in 1940’s (With no running water, bathrooms, TV, cell phones, computers, etc.). Then I’m learning and adding what the seasons of the tobacco crop were and at what age she was capable of doing what chores on the farm.

That’s why I’ve decided to have this little chat with readers and writers at Tribeca this weekend. I’ve learned so much about writing a historical and a biography and want to share the knowledge I’ve picked up. There are so many people who would like to write an autobiography to leave to their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and I would relish the opportunity to share and learn with some of these people, too.

Tribeca Gallery Café & Books is a delightful bookstore and coffee shop where I’ve found it to be very comfortable to meet.

Come on over and have a coffee and a chat!

Oh, yes, I have published novels, too. Check them out. Click on Books above.

Please wander around through the other headings at the top of the page, too. And, click on contact and let me know on e-mail that you were visiting.

If you have a library or bookstore near you where we may meet and learn more from one another about writing and the books I have available, let me know.

The typically bustling, congested Main Street looked like a ghost town at a midday temperature or -24 F,  the icy road surface framed with snow on either side.

When we reached the front of Mullen’s Ice Cream Shop, we had to chuckle. Looking through the steam from car exhaust, the street was lined with cars and vans. The parking lot was full and vans were pulling up, letting out hooded teens and parents to help bundled tots to the sidewalk.

As we approached the door of the shop, we were met by several young people, laughing and balancing colorful over-flowing, ice cream cones in mittened hands.

Inside the shop was warm and electrifying. Teens lined the booths, tots sat with Mom or Dad in the low soda fountain stools, and people jovially visited as they cued up just inside and across the front window, where teens lined the sill with cones in hand. Busy waiters and waitresses traveled through, taking orders or stood behind the counter, dipping  chocolate chip, cherry chunk, blue moon, and many more.

On the wall the infamous sign:

Sure enough. . . They were serving it up and it was a small-town family fun affair to watch and enjoy. A photographer traveled through asking permission to photograph the body-to-body cameraderie with smiles all around.

A real live ‘Norman Rockwell’ scene.

Happy Holiday sharing . . .

with friends and family during this season!

 And…….

in quiet times, with enthralling wintertime reading.

Be sure to add your e-mail to SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG in the upper right hand corner of this page to register for a free copy of the first of the Jessica Tyson Mysteries, THE QUEEN ANNE FOX.

  –if you win and already have THE QUEEN ANNE FOX, we can  trade up —

Strangest Fall I’ve ever seen. Halloween has already happened and still so much green in the grass and flora and fauna. Even many of the falling leaves are green. We’re just getting into Fall colors. After some ups and downs, temperatures are just now near normal, around 40 degrees and freezing at night. We say, “The frost is on the pumpkins.”

All the tropical and save-over annual flowers from my garden are now warm and cozy and going to sleep in the greenhouse. One lone, pink phlox has been vigilantly blooming out there for the past several weeks.

I enjoy decorating for Halloween, sharing Fall dinners, and a trip to Busy Barns with the children to play with all the goats and kittens, roll in the shucked corn ‘sandbox’, get lost in the corn maze, and chuck pumpkins.

As for my writing, I’m a fiction writer, who makes up stories and characters. But now I’m working on a coming-of-age story of a young girl on a tobacco farm. In addition to creating my main character, I have to follow the seasons of the tobacco growing and harvest, follow the age of the child on the farm, and remain in the years 1940-50. I’m learning to write whole new genres of biography, history and farming.  A challenge for sure, but fun.

Have  you, too, had the experience of expanding your writer-mind?  Click on CONTACT above and send me a note to the e-mail listed. I can post your comments out here so others can see.

Note: I no longer allow direct contact to this site as I received copious, intrusive pages of advertising.

And, be sure add your e-mail to SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG in the upper right hand corner of this page to register for a free copy of my novel— IS IT SAFE?

Yikes! No more fantasy gardening now. With the weeks of rainfall and extra hot weather we’ve had the gardens and lawn are lush and beautiful.

Due to 90 degree weather and/or torrential rain for the past two weeks, I was unable to get out there. So-o I finished up the re-write of my published novels.

Newly released:

EMMA’S GARDEN

The third of the Jessica Tyson Mystery Series

Also

IS IT SAFE?

The story of a young woman in the witness protection program

Click on BOOKS above for further description of each and where they can be purchased.

Both can be found on AMAZON — available on-line and in paperback. Also, in a local bookstore near you (listed with each book).

Enjoy a good read and let me know what you think. Click CONTACT and send me an e-mail, jerolanderson@rocketmail.com

I’m receiving ten different flower catalogs per week in the mail.
And, I visit the local garden center to get my winter fix of
– humidity,
– scent of the earth in the pots
– visual of plants growing and blooming.

I need that journey at least a couple of times during winter months in Wisconsin.

No purchasing—just absorbing and nourishing my soul.

15 inches of snow a couple of weeks back helped me stay on task with my writing.

Getting those edits done!

New 2018 Release:
GONE MISSING IN THE UNDERGROUND
2^nd Edition

More information?  Click on BOOKS above.

Click on SUBSCRIBE above and leave your email address to enter drawing for a free copy of GONE MISSING IN THE UNDERGROUND.

This re-writing and re-publishing of my novels for a new publisher has been a big job.

Fun job, but BIG!

I think the big part is self-explanatory, but the fun part has been my freedom to revisit the lives of characters I have already created and travel with them through their trials and successes. Grounding the story, if you will, with more depth and reality.

More proof that a writer must rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite.

If you haven’t already read A Queen Anne Fox, the first of The Jessica Tyson Mystery Series, I hope you will take a chance to read it and let me know what you think.

If you’ve already read it, perhaps you’d like to procure a copy for a friend.

Please note that I have added onto my website that you can order books directly from me by simply sending a request and check to

Jerol Anderson
P.O. Box 339
Cambridge, WI  53523
$17.99 includes shipping and taxes.

Already in the works for 2018:

2^nd edition of the second and third books of The Jessica Tyson Mystery Series

       Gone Missing in the Underground

       Emma’s Garden

2^nd edition of

       Is It Safe?

 Stand alone novel of a woman’s escape into the Witness Protection Program

See:   Books in Progress for more updates!