A few comments on the value of "keeping up appearances."  For writers,  this means, "sowing seeds of pleasantness as you keep contact with writers you have known in the past.  In my case, I had an e-mail a couple of months ago from a woman, now a columnist for a magazine in an area of California where I lived for about 20 years. Diane Slocum.  I did not remember her but she said she had known me when we both belonged to a Central Valley branch of California Press Women.  She told me of the column she writes 'News on Writing, Books and the World of Publishing."   She said she would write in an up-coming issue of the magazine about my recently-published book, Long Distance Grandparenting.  I responded with gratitude but heard nothing else.

However, I have remained in touch with  anoter  former member of California Press Women in that area and e-mailed her to watch for this–if, indeed she ever sees the publication.  I expected it to be a tabloid enclosure in a newspaper. Last week I received in the mail a copy of a slick magazine, Lifestyle.  My name and a nice blurb about LDGP is there,  first of eight entries in Dianne's column.  She refers to my publisher, AND to my other books.

Lesson: Keep the road you have traveled strewn with pleasent encounters.  

And here is Diane's closing quote from William Saroyan: "If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rottren, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."