Beware of the man of one book.
~ Anonymous ~
Sorry folks, not much to talk about in my neck of the woods today, and I didn't get it together enough to do a Local Love post (sorry Jen). So, instead, I thought I'd share some places to go win free books.
The Romance Studio gives away a bunch every day!!
The Long and the Short of It has two contests weekly. So does Whipped Cream Reviews (erotic romance).
The Wild Rose Press is giving away a Sony eReader.
Red Sage Publications (erotic romance) is celebrating their anniversary with lots of deals and giveaways.
Goddess Fish Promotions has the "Choices Meant for Gods" tour -- an autographed first edition hardback novel is being given away every week to people who comment on the tour blogs.
Goddess Fish Promotions also has the "Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading" tour starting on Monday with a cool Geek Girl gift basket being given away to one lucky commenter.
Readers Read and Writers Write has a regular giveaway (from all genres).
Goodreads has a regular giveaway (from all genres).
Bookbrowse has a regular giveaway (from various genres).
Readerviews has a monthly giveaway in various genres.
And... those are just a few places to win. Support your book habit by supporting book sites!
Happy Friday.
===========================
Friday, June 05, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Gardening, Bugs and Interviews
Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. ~Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897
No two gardens are the same. No two days are the same in one garden. ~Hugh Johnson
I was reading June's Reader's Digest and came across a one page article called "Big Idea, Small Detail". This one was had one column on gardening and one of the quotes was "It's incredibly messy, ruins your hands, wears holes in the knees of your jeans, ends up costing 40 times more than you think it will, sucks up whole weekends in a single gulp, takes over your dreams and frequently breaks your heart" (from Jennifer Reese on slate.com).
As I sat outside yesterday attacking the hordes of weeds that have taken over nearly every one of my gardens (there is this one particular weed that has an amazing root system -- each plant is connected and when you pull one the roots lead to this maze of more plants... I HATE THEM) I thought of that article.
Yes... by golly, I DO get my clothes dirty. And my hands. I keep my nails short (can't type well with long nails), so don't worry about my manicure. And, since I start many of my plants from seeds, and my flowers are usually swaps from my friends and family, it's NOT more expensive. The heartbreaking part you guys have gone through with me (VOLES!!). Yes, I'm perpetually doing something to maintain the garden, but that's half the fun. Weeding is very "zen" for me: it's mindless, hard work that I do with a the end result of seeing that I've accomplished something. I can contemplate other things while I'm working (I've figured out more plot problems while weeding...) and I love that, when I'm done I can step back and see how much I actually got done. I suppose everyone has different priorities in life, but for me? Keeping my hands clean isn't near the top.
The only downside for me, yesterday at least, was that I came in with ticks. ICK ICK ICK... I was washing my hands and felt a tickle on my neck, looked up into the mirror and ARGH! TICK TICK TICK... slap slap... and down the drain she went (I say "she" because the females are the blood suckers, just like the black flies). Of course, at that point there was no way I could just go on about my merry way... I was certain they were crawling all over me (I'd been weeding underneath bushes, so my whole body had been where the ticks were). I showered and scrubbed my entire body (hair especially) so hard I'm surprised I have skin left.
As you all know, I'm not particularly bug-phobic, but ticks make me flip out. BLECH.
==============================
We saw the prettiest moth on Tuesday. Mostly we have brown or white ones, but this sucker was pink and yellow. I looked online and discovered it was the Rosy Maple Moth.
Aren't they gorgeous?
===============================
Otherwise, it's life as normal here. I might be going to interview with Romance in the Backseat on Sunday if I can rearrange my schedule. It would be much easier if I had someone who could go with me and watch DD and Dd THERE while I was busy. **sigh** DH doesn't like to tell me his plans, so it's difficult to plan anything. In any case, RitB is going to be in Salem, NH (anyone else want to play?) and I'm going to try to get my behind down there. Of course, I'm going to have to... yanno... comb my hair and stuff.
Blog interviews are much simpler. *G*
================================
No two gardens are the same. No two days are the same in one garden. ~Hugh Johnson
I was reading June's Reader's Digest and came across a one page article called "Big Idea, Small Detail". This one was had one column on gardening and one of the quotes was "It's incredibly messy, ruins your hands, wears holes in the knees of your jeans, ends up costing 40 times more than you think it will, sucks up whole weekends in a single gulp, takes over your dreams and frequently breaks your heart" (from Jennifer Reese on slate.com).
As I sat outside yesterday attacking the hordes of weeds that have taken over nearly every one of my gardens (there is this one particular weed that has an amazing root system -- each plant is connected and when you pull one the roots lead to this maze of more plants... I HATE THEM) I thought of that article.
Yes... by golly, I DO get my clothes dirty. And my hands. I keep my nails short (can't type well with long nails), so don't worry about my manicure. And, since I start many of my plants from seeds, and my flowers are usually swaps from my friends and family, it's NOT more expensive. The heartbreaking part you guys have gone through with me (VOLES!!). Yes, I'm perpetually doing something to maintain the garden, but that's half the fun. Weeding is very "zen" for me: it's mindless, hard work that I do with a the end result of seeing that I've accomplished something. I can contemplate other things while I'm working (I've figured out more plot problems while weeding...) and I love that, when I'm done I can step back and see how much I actually got done. I suppose everyone has different priorities in life, but for me? Keeping my hands clean isn't near the top.
The only downside for me, yesterday at least, was that I came in with ticks. ICK ICK ICK... I was washing my hands and felt a tickle on my neck, looked up into the mirror and ARGH! TICK TICK TICK... slap slap... and down the drain she went (I say "she" because the females are the blood suckers, just like the black flies). Of course, at that point there was no way I could just go on about my merry way... I was certain they were crawling all over me (I'd been weeding underneath bushes, so my whole body had been where the ticks were). I showered and scrubbed my entire body (hair especially) so hard I'm surprised I have skin left.
As you all know, I'm not particularly bug-phobic, but ticks make me flip out. BLECH.
==============================
We saw the prettiest moth on Tuesday. Mostly we have brown or white ones, but this sucker was pink and yellow. I looked online and discovered it was the Rosy Maple Moth.
Aren't they gorgeous?
===============================
Otherwise, it's life as normal here. I might be going to interview with Romance in the Backseat on Sunday if I can rearrange my schedule. It would be much easier if I had someone who could go with me and watch DD and Dd THERE while I was busy. **sigh** DH doesn't like to tell me his plans, so it's difficult to plan anything. In any case, RitB is going to be in Salem, NH (anyone else want to play?) and I'm going to try to get my behind down there. Of course, I'm going to have to... yanno... comb my hair and stuff.
Blog interviews are much simpler. *G*
================================
OH! Congratulations to...
I forgot: I did the drawing for my monthly contest, and this month's winner was DRU!!!
She chose an eBook copy of "The Sweetheart Dance" by Patti Ann Colt.
I'll get this month's contest up and running at some point today.
Thanks!
She chose an eBook copy of "The Sweetheart Dance" by Patti Ann Colt.
I'll get this month's contest up and running at some point today.
Thanks!
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
What, When, Where, Why, How with Aston West
Give a big "howdy" to Aston West... this week's victim guest!
What do you want to be when you grow up?
I'd like to be a writer who's paid enough to be able to lounge around the house and do nothing but write all day long. :-)
Unfortunately, until I either win the lottery or somehow find a way to channel JK Rowling (What? She's not dead?), I'm going to be stuck working a day job while trying to crank out more short stories and novels for readers to enjoy. And if the writing gig never pans out, maybe I can be a CEO of a bank or auto company, because doing nothing and getting millions of dollars thrown at them seems to be what they're good at as well...plus, they don't have to make people happy to continue getting all that money (unlike writers...at least until they've written 5 books in the series, at which point they stop caring, and so do their fans). Have you ever seen what these CEOs get paid if shareholders get mad and kick them out??? Insane!
When is the happiest time of the day?
Depends on the day. On Friday, the happiest time of the day is when I get to go home from work, with visions of weekends dancing in my head. On Monday, it's the time just before my alarm goes off (while I'm still asleep). Aside from those two, I'd say the most common "happiest" time of the day would be when I read something from a friend or fan (or both) that makes me smile. Cheesy? Perhaps. Lunch at Arby's comes in a very close second on any day of the week when I get the opportunity.
Where would you keep a pet rhinoceros?
In the basement, to scare the mice away. Our cats have gotten too fat and lazy to be of any use in that department anymore. So, when all else fails, go for the big guns! Granted, I imagine the foundation might not take much of that. Maybe we could breed miniature pet rhinoceri (rhinoceroses?) like they do with horses. Whatever way we go, I'm not going to add cleanup duty to my list of chores, as I'm already forced to take care of the cats. So far, my plans for self-training them to use and flush the toilets have been foiled at every opportunity.
I could imagine a pet rhinoceros could also serve as a fun pet to lounge on the futon with and watch movies together on the basement TV. Sure, a dog would probably be more comfortable, but when was the last time a dog could pop open your beverage of choice with their horn? Dogs would just chomp their teeth into the can and spew it all over the place. Bad doggie!!!
Why do fools fall in love?
Because if it was left up to all the intelligent and logical thinkers alone, our species would come to an end mighty quick. All of those would be calculating how much it cost to marry, have kids, raise them, school them, and marry them off to other fools in love, and say "Forget that. I'm taking the money and heading to Maui!"
That being said, one could also make the argument that it becomes a chicken and egg issue. Do those who fall in love start out as fools? Or does the act of love make a person so foolish that they can't form rational thoughts any longer? Some of the smartest people I know have become complete loons when they fall in love. Not to worry, my wife is asleep in the other room, so I'm completely safe from a major slugging. At least until she wakes up and reads this...thank goodness my pet rhinoceros will come to the rescue!
How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?
At least a half-dozen. One to actually change the bulb, one to point out how they did it wrong, another to point out that the second shouldn't hurt the first one's feelings, yet one more to point out that they changed a light bulb at least twenty years ago and they have much more experience in light-bulb-changing than the others, another to point out how silly all of them are being about such a simple task as changing a light bulb, and one last writer to point out they heard an agent blog about the fact changing a light bulb was not a requirement to get an agent and get published, so why bother?
But then, you'd also have the writer who philosophized about changing the light bulb and wondered if it was symbolic of something bigger in our lives. There's also the one who would want to write a mystery about how the light bulb came to need a change anyway. Not to leave out my friends in science fiction, there would be the writer who wanted to change the light bulb for brand new technology, that then somehow hopped out on the internet and took over the world until the misunderstood genius loner finally convinced the beautiful lab assistant that he could be a fool too and then saved her along with the rest of the world.
Hell, I lost count already...and crap, there went the light bulb.
Born and raised in Kansas, Mr. Hunter always had a fascination with aerospace and travel to other worlds, earning a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas.
He has had several Aston West stories published, with his short story “Little White Truths” (RAY GUN REVIVAL, November 1, 2007) winning a top ten finish in the 2007 Preditors & Editors Readers Poll. HEROES DIE YOUNG is his first novella.
People can find me most of the time at my website: http://AstonWest.comand even more of the time at my Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/astonwest
What do you want to be when you grow up?
I'd like to be a writer who's paid enough to be able to lounge around the house and do nothing but write all day long. :-)
Unfortunately, until I either win the lottery or somehow find a way to channel JK Rowling (What? She's not dead?), I'm going to be stuck working a day job while trying to crank out more short stories and novels for readers to enjoy. And if the writing gig never pans out, maybe I can be a CEO of a bank or auto company, because doing nothing and getting millions of dollars thrown at them seems to be what they're good at as well...plus, they don't have to make people happy to continue getting all that money (unlike writers...at least until they've written 5 books in the series, at which point they stop caring, and so do their fans). Have you ever seen what these CEOs get paid if shareholders get mad and kick them out??? Insane!
When is the happiest time of the day?
Depends on the day. On Friday, the happiest time of the day is when I get to go home from work, with visions of weekends dancing in my head. On Monday, it's the time just before my alarm goes off (while I'm still asleep). Aside from those two, I'd say the most common "happiest" time of the day would be when I read something from a friend or fan (or both) that makes me smile. Cheesy? Perhaps. Lunch at Arby's comes in a very close second on any day of the week when I get the opportunity.
Where would you keep a pet rhinoceros?
In the basement, to scare the mice away. Our cats have gotten too fat and lazy to be of any use in that department anymore. So, when all else fails, go for the big guns! Granted, I imagine the foundation might not take much of that. Maybe we could breed miniature pet rhinoceri (rhinoceroses?) like they do with horses. Whatever way we go, I'm not going to add cleanup duty to my list of chores, as I'm already forced to take care of the cats. So far, my plans for self-training them to use and flush the toilets have been foiled at every opportunity.
I could imagine a pet rhinoceros could also serve as a fun pet to lounge on the futon with and watch movies together on the basement TV. Sure, a dog would probably be more comfortable, but when was the last time a dog could pop open your beverage of choice with their horn? Dogs would just chomp their teeth into the can and spew it all over the place. Bad doggie!!!
Why do fools fall in love?
Because if it was left up to all the intelligent and logical thinkers alone, our species would come to an end mighty quick. All of those would be calculating how much it cost to marry, have kids, raise them, school them, and marry them off to other fools in love, and say "Forget that. I'm taking the money and heading to Maui!"
That being said, one could also make the argument that it becomes a chicken and egg issue. Do those who fall in love start out as fools? Or does the act of love make a person so foolish that they can't form rational thoughts any longer? Some of the smartest people I know have become complete loons when they fall in love. Not to worry, my wife is asleep in the other room, so I'm completely safe from a major slugging. At least until she wakes up and reads this...thank goodness my pet rhinoceros will come to the rescue!
How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?
At least a half-dozen. One to actually change the bulb, one to point out how they did it wrong, another to point out that the second shouldn't hurt the first one's feelings, yet one more to point out that they changed a light bulb at least twenty years ago and they have much more experience in light-bulb-changing than the others, another to point out how silly all of them are being about such a simple task as changing a light bulb, and one last writer to point out they heard an agent blog about the fact changing a light bulb was not a requirement to get an agent and get published, so why bother?
But then, you'd also have the writer who philosophized about changing the light bulb and wondered if it was symbolic of something bigger in our lives. There's also the one who would want to write a mystery about how the light bulb came to need a change anyway. Not to leave out my friends in science fiction, there would be the writer who wanted to change the light bulb for brand new technology, that then somehow hopped out on the internet and took over the world until the misunderstood genius loner finally convinced the beautiful lab assistant that he could be a fool too and then saved her along with the rest of the world.
Hell, I lost count already...and crap, there went the light bulb.
Born and raised in Kansas, Mr. Hunter always had a fascination with aerospace and travel to other worlds, earning a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas.He has had several Aston West stories published, with his short story “Little White Truths” (RAY GUN REVIVAL, November 1, 2007) winning a top ten finish in the 2007 Preditors & Editors Readers Poll. HEROES DIE YOUNG is his first novella.
People can find me most of the time at my website: http://AstonWest.comand even more of the time at my Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/astonwest
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Pantser ISO Plotter for Writing Help
"The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story—and then your story!" - Ford Madox Ford
So... I had challenged my fellow JaNo-ers to write a scene about chicken and/or chickens last week. I posted my scene (I think I'm the only one who did the Spontaneous Chicken Incident, lol) at the JaNoWriMo blog and then remembered how much I loved those characters...
I've decided I'm an ADD writer. Seriously. I can't seem to stay focused on just one story and keep spreading the love around. At this rate, I won't have anything finished for another year... but then I'll have twelve complete novels! LOL...
Currently in progress: Camilla, Playing House, The Cartoonist and the Cat Lady, Drive Me Crazy, A Jewel for Geoff, Perilous Love, Queen and Assassin, an unnamed story geared for HQ American, and about fifteen short stories.
I clearly need focus. I think I need to sit down and work through rough outlines of all of them... some are nearly finished (Playing House IS finished, but then I made a plot change and it needs so many edits, it's essentially being rewritten, and Camilla is at 44,000 words) and some are just in their infancy, but I love all the story ideas and truly wish to get them all done.
So...
Instead of actually writing for the next week or two I'm going to try something I've never done (except once in F102 on Playing House): writing outlines. Anyone have any tips or ideas on how to write a good outline? All you plotters out there... this pantser is crying for help.
===================
I checked back to last year's Pillar Place to see when we found our first butterbabies and it was on June 15th. The eggs I saw laid a couple weeks back must not have hatched, because we never found any pillars, darn it.
None of my parsley came back this year, which concerns me greatly as that is what they laid most of their eggs on (and the dill, which is also not growing yet).
What to do? should I got buy more parsley plants? I don't WANT them to lay eggs on the dill, so that doesn't bother me, but the only thing we have for them currently is rue (and carrots... which, if they lay eggs on those we CAN'T bring them in and this distressed DD to no end).
Being a butterbaby parent is a lot of responsibility.
==========================
So... I had challenged my fellow JaNo-ers to write a scene about chicken and/or chickens last week. I posted my scene (I think I'm the only one who did the Spontaneous Chicken Incident, lol) at the JaNoWriMo blog and then remembered how much I loved those characters...
I've decided I'm an ADD writer. Seriously. I can't seem to stay focused on just one story and keep spreading the love around. At this rate, I won't have anything finished for another year... but then I'll have twelve complete novels! LOL...
Currently in progress: Camilla, Playing House, The Cartoonist and the Cat Lady, Drive Me Crazy, A Jewel for Geoff, Perilous Love, Queen and Assassin, an unnamed story geared for HQ American, and about fifteen short stories.
I clearly need focus. I think I need to sit down and work through rough outlines of all of them... some are nearly finished (Playing House IS finished, but then I made a plot change and it needs so many edits, it's essentially being rewritten, and Camilla is at 44,000 words) and some are just in their infancy, but I love all the story ideas and truly wish to get them all done.
So...
Instead of actually writing for the next week or two I'm going to try something I've never done (except once in F102 on Playing House): writing outlines. Anyone have any tips or ideas on how to write a good outline? All you plotters out there... this pantser is crying for help.
===================
I checked back to last year's Pillar Place to see when we found our first butterbabies and it was on June 15th. The eggs I saw laid a couple weeks back must not have hatched, because we never found any pillars, darn it.
None of my parsley came back this year, which concerns me greatly as that is what they laid most of their eggs on (and the dill, which is also not growing yet).
What to do? should I got buy more parsley plants? I don't WANT them to lay eggs on the dill, so that doesn't bother me, but the only thing we have for them currently is rue (and carrots... which, if they lay eggs on those we CAN'T bring them in and this distressed DD to no end).
Being a butterbaby parent is a lot of responsibility.
==========================
Monday, June 01, 2009
Choice Meant for Gods Blog Tour
Fantasy author Sandy Lender will be a guest on this blog on the 11th -- for a special What, Where, When, Why and How... but in the meantime, you should visit her other blog stops. Her book sounds amazing, and from every excerpt I've read, I CAN'T WAIT to read it. The best part? Sandy's virtual book tour will run June 1- July 3 (with the exception of June 8-10). At the end of each week one commenter will be randomly drawn from the blogs to win an autographed, hard cover, first edition copy of Choices Meant for Gods.
So... seriously, go check it out.
Agility Competition
“While it's important to win, it's imperative to compete.” - David Weinbaum quotes
We had our first ever agility competition yesterday -- it was called "Fun Agility" because everyone could compete, regardless of level. There were two different trainers there and so, two different teams, competing for the trophy.
I let DD run Dakota the first run, and she did so well (and I was unbelievably stiff from sitting on the floor...my hips, my hips... OW) that I let her run Dakota the entire time. Here is *most* of the first run. She started before I was ready, but you only missed the first jump:
That run was 37 seconds. Her second run was 35 seconds. Both runs were enough to tie us for third place and the right to run in the "championship" run: our team's four best dogs, and the other team's four best dogs.
Dakota messed up the last run -- she missed the chute, and it added time, so she got a 42 second run. BUT...
They took all three runs and averaged them to decide the winners. And, though our team didn't win the trophy (darn it -- I think the other team had some ringers, lol...), for our side, Dakota got SECOND PLACE! The winner was an amazingly fast border collie with an average time of 29 seconds. Third place went to a tiny Yorkie and fourth to a Golden Retriever.
DD and Dd both got the cutest silver medals -- Paw prints with the name of the competition on the back and hung from red, white and blue ribbons. DD wore hers the entire rest of the day. She was so excited.
Now, we have six months to get Dd's speed and accuracy up to that of the un-freaking-believably fast Portuguese Water Dog that won the overall competition. Holy cow -- that thing was a blur and so accurate!
========================
Except for the fact I don't feel very zen, this is pretty close to accurate.
============================
We had our first ever agility competition yesterday -- it was called "Fun Agility" because everyone could compete, regardless of level. There were two different trainers there and so, two different teams, competing for the trophy.
I let DD run Dakota the first run, and she did so well (and I was unbelievably stiff from sitting on the floor...my hips, my hips... OW) that I let her run Dakota the entire time. Here is *most* of the first run. She started before I was ready, but you only missed the first jump:
That run was 37 seconds. Her second run was 35 seconds. Both runs were enough to tie us for third place and the right to run in the "championship" run: our team's four best dogs, and the other team's four best dogs.
Dakota messed up the last run -- she missed the chute, and it added time, so she got a 42 second run. BUT...
They took all three runs and averaged them to decide the winners. And, though our team didn't win the trophy (darn it -- I think the other team had some ringers, lol...), for our side, Dakota got SECOND PLACE! The winner was an amazingly fast border collie with an average time of 29 seconds. Third place went to a tiny Yorkie and fourth to a Golden Retriever.
DD and Dd both got the cutest silver medals -- Paw prints with the name of the competition on the back and hung from red, white and blue ribbons. DD wore hers the entire rest of the day. She was so excited.
Now, we have six months to get Dd's speed and accuracy up to that of the un-freaking-believably fast Portuguese Water Dog that won the overall competition. Holy cow -- that thing was a blur and so accurate!
========================
Your Door Says You Are Simply Zen |
 You have simple tastes. You like the classic basics, especially when they're done well. Lots of space in your life is very important. You don't like physical or mental clutter. |
Except for the fact I don't feel very zen, this is pretty close to accurate.
============================
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