E D Baker's Blog

They’re here! We’ve had three more foals since my last entry. Lexie was our first filly this year. She’s solid, meaning that she doesn’t have any white on her, but other than that she looks just like her mother. Molly, our second filly, has a white blanket (white on her rump). Our newest colt is Trevor who is so sweet and friendly. He has a white blanket too.
(For those of you who aren’t that familiar with horses, a foal is a baby, a weanling is less than a year old and has been weaned from its mother, a filly is a girl and a colt is a boy.)
I have some other news as well. I am no longer working on the book I mentioned in my last blog entry. (Although I have set it aside, I may resurrect it some day.) Instead I am doing the pre-writing for the seventh book in the Frog Princess series. Many of you will know what pre-writing is, but I’m sure some of you aren’t familiar with this step of the writing process. I have already written a basic outline for the story. Now I’m filling out the outline – what will happen in each chapter. I have the characters in the story in my head. The next step is to put them on paper and flesh them out by considering their personalities, what they look like, etc. I’ll probably also create some of the new settings before I actually begin writing the story. Doing a thorough job of pre-writing makes writing the story so much easier because you already know how characters will behave.
Sometimes I draw pictures of my characters and maps of where my characters go in the story. I’m not very good at drawing, but at least it gives me a visual reference. I usually draw a timeline as well so I don’t lose track of when things happen, like how many days it took someone to get from point A to point B.
People have asked me about how I do my writing. Generally, I write at my computer during the day, then print off everything I’ve worked on as well as sections that I believe require tweaking. When I go to bed, I take the pages with me to edit or to continue what I was working on. The next day, I get back on my computer and make any changes before I write anything new.
I’ve found that I come up with my best ideas as well as solve any problems with the story when I’m relaxed – either just before I go to sleep, in the shower or when I take a long walk. When I write, I have to have a quiet room with no distractions. I used to have a picture on the door to my study. It showed a fierce bear with sharp claws and huge teeth wearing a snarly face. The sign read DO NOT DISTURB! in big red letters, but it didn’t do much good so I took it down. For some reason when you are writing and thinking about what you want to say next, people think you aren’t doing anything and it’s OK to walk in and talk to you. Even worse are people who think that because you work out of your house, you can talk on the phone any time and are always available to do something. Fortunately, I finally have my family trained to honor my closed door and my best friends and relatives know not to call at certain times. Now if only I could teach the dogs not to bark every time they hear the neighbors’ dogs!
I’m frequently asked what I do besides write. Mostly, I help my family take care of the horses. This varies according to the time of the year. We bring the horses into the barn at night during the winter, and so have to clean lots of stalls and feed and water inside, but there isn’t as much work in the summer when the horses are mostly out in the pastures and we can feed them in pans tied to the fences. However, when the weather is good we have to mow the grass- thank goodness for riding mowers! – and take care of the garden. Every fall I plant lots of bulbs so I have more flowers coming up every year. The daffodils are blooming now and the tulips are about to start. Between the flowers and the foals, Spring is definitely my favorite season!

So much for updating the blog twice a week! I have been busy though. I’ve finished the sixth book in the series, which has gone to the copy editor. Although it was originally going to be titled Dragon Trouble, the name has been changed to The Dragon Princess. It will be coming out in the fall. (I’ll let you know a more definite date as soon as I can.) I’ve also finished Wings which is due out April 29th.
Currently, I’m working on another book that is not related to the tales of the Frog Princess. When it’s finished, I’m going to start book eight in the series. That’s something else that has changed. It looks as if there will be eight books in the Frog Princess series, not seven. You’ll understand why when you read book seven.
For those of you who live in the area, I’ll be signing books at the Bethesda Literary Festival on April 20th at the Bethesda, Maryland Barnes and Nobles. It’s a fun event with thirty or so authors scattered throughout the store. I attended once a few years ago, and am looking forward to it this year.
Aside from writing, I’ve been very busy with another important aspect of my life. As I’ve mentioned before, my family and I breed Appaloosa horses. We’ve had two foals – both colts - born since January. Brady is about 4 weeks old and Beau is not quite two weeks old. We are expecting three more foals in the next few weeks and have already started our foal watch for them. Another foal is due in April and one more in May.
Having a foal watch used to mean that we took turns going down to the barn every few hours all night long, but we have barn cams now (barn cameras) and can watch the mares on a monitor without having to go outside. This is great not only because we don’t have to put boots and coats on over our pjs, but we can watch the mares without them knowing it. Some mares don’t want people around when they foal, and can stop what they are doing to some extent. Watching from inside the house means that we can run down to the barn when the mare is obviously in labor, and be there if she needs our help. So far this year, one mare did just fine without us, but the other might have had real problems if we hadn’t stepped in.
I’ll keep you posted as more foals arrive. In the meantime – Happy Reading!