I am so thankful that when I was growing up my small town had a library.  For me, it was a house of books that could take me to far-away places, make me laugh, make me cry, and even possibly make me sound smarter.  Many of the books that I brought home from the library as a child and young adult had a major impact on my thinking and my life and for that I am grateful.  They still do today. That part hasn’t changed although the libraries of today have changed in so many ways.

Today we can still get books from the library to read and learn from but now we can get them in the traditional paper or an electronic version.  We can check out movies and enjoy family night in the comfort of our own homes and save the dollars we would have to spend at the movie theater for other things.    We can check out music cds to match our moods or broaden our musical taste.  We and our children can learn to appreciate art through books, dvds, the sculptures throughout the building, the contest photographs on the walls and even watercolor classes. We can access the Internet at the library.  We can take classes to get our GED’s or even classes to learn how to babysit (something a particular family in my small town wished I had taken before leaving me with their precious baby for one night!).  Our children can enjoy bedtime stories and have their pictures taken with Santa.  Some of them even got to see an actual piece of the moon a few years ago. 

All the activities and services that our Haltom City Public Library offers is sometimes overwhelming to me--especially when I’m trying to decide which one to write about for the library blog.  But I’m not complaining.  Instead I am thankful for all that our library offers us and our families.  And I’m even more thankful for all the library staff that work so hard to makes these services and programs available for us.  They are, in alphabetic order:  Allison, Ann, BeckyD, BeckyE, Cyd, Dean, Dianne,  Gail, Grant, Jamie, Janet, Jesica, Laura, Lesly, Maria, Patricia, Rina, Robbie, Rosa, Rose, Wanda and Yog. 

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving and happy reading from your Library Blog Mistress

Library and Community Honors Veterans

When you come to the Haltom City Public Library this month, you will see displays in the lobby celebrating Veteran’s Day as well as along the left wall in the main body of the library.  Please take your time to enjoy and honor these tributes to the men who fought for you and your country.  The displays will remain at the library without the month of November.  Veteran’s Day is officially this Friday, November 11^th.  However, some lucky seniors from the Sterling House of Richland Hills Assisted Living will be celebrating early at the Haltom City Public Library thanks to Allison Long and the Library’s Outreach Program.  The library’s Veteran’s Honor Program will be held at the Library’s Imagination Station Thursday, 10:30 – 11:30.  Sterling House will be making a special trek to the Library for this event that is open to the public as well.  Short stories honoring Veterans will be read aloud by Allison Long and there will be sing-alongs of patriotic songs such “God Bless America”.  As a special treat, a short animated film will be shown that tells the history of the Star-Spangled Banner.

A special thanks to Patsy & Cathy & Ann for a great display.  And thanks to Fran Burns for the flags  that are installed around the nautilus for Veteran's Day .

The Senior Center is hosting a Veteran’s Day program Friday, November 11th at 11am and would like to invite everyone to join them. They have secured former Congressman Pete Geren as the keynote speaker and will have the Mayor, several Council members, and Marcia Etie from Kay Granger’s office in attendance.    

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National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month.  I don’t know why or who decided November was to be the time for wanna-be’s and professional writers to devote every waking (and even sleeping) hour to writing a novel; an informal research (i.e., done by Google—not a librarian) indicates that in 1999 a group of 21 writers in the San Francisco area started NaNoWriMo with the goal of writing 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. A crazy idea that now has approximately 200,000+ world-wide authors and authors-to-be, including your Library Blog Mistress, attempting to somehow squeeze out 50,000 words that hopefully will one day become the “All American Best Novel.”  We can all dream, can’t we?   Lol

In all seriousness and trust me, these writers are serious, few deceive themselves that their 50,000 words will prove to be publishable or even readable fiction by December 1st.  But there’s where the genius is within the madness.  If the writer is to accomplish 50,000 words in the span of one month, especially one that has a major holiday in it, there ain’t no time for editing  our work. That means the little loud-mouth internal critic that we all have can’t stop us by saying, “Wait, that word is misspelled!” or “Stop, that sentence is incomplete!” or “Whatever made you think YOU could write?”  

It’s the doubt, self-criticism and fear of failure that stops a lot of us from reaching our goals, I think.  At least for me, it is.  There’s a quote that I have taped to my computer screen.  PERFECT is the greatest enemy of GOOD.   (I don’t remember who said it so you will have check with your librarian to find out if you are interested.) Writing 50,000 words won’t produce a literary novel for most of us; it will, however, give most of us a chance to plant the seed for a possible novel.  After December 1^st, then the real work can begin. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.  And oh yes, lots of trips to the library to research the various ways a _______ can work.  (Hey, I’m not giving my plot line away!)

It’s not too late to start if you are a writer or have ever wanted to try your hand at it.  This is only Day 3 and you’re only approximately 3,000 words behind.  If you are interested, the website with the history and rules for the annual marathon writing race is: www.nanowrimo.org.

Happy writing and reading from your Library Blog Mistress!