http://www.amazon.com/Mounted-
http://www.amazon.com/Born-to-
http://www.amazon.com/FLAMES-
http://www.amazon.com/Braeden-
Friday, September 21, 2012
Better Links
I just realized the links I just posted for the books don't lead anywhere. These should help. Please get busy and buy, then download from noon to midnight, EST.
http://www.amazon.com/Mounted-
http://www.amazon.com/Born-to-
http://www.amazon.com/FLAMES-
http://www.amazon.com/Braeden-
http://www.amazon.com/Mounted-
http://www.amazon.com/Born-to-
http://www.amazon.com/FLAMES-
http://www.amazon.com/Braeden-
Book Buying Blitz
We need help. A group of authors who were once published by Avalon (now no longer, sigh) are posting books we've put up for Kindle on Amazon at 99 cents. Yes, you read that correctly. We're trying an experiment, to see if sales within a specified twelve hour spread make a difference in Amazon rankings. If you all would be so kind, could you download (you don't have to read them if they're not your cuppa tea), the following books on the following days, starting today, between noon and midnight, PST. (For the Easterners, that's 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. the following morning.)
Here's a pix of the cover of my brand new, never published anywhere before mystery, on sale Monday. MURDER ON THE MATTAPONI.
.jpg)
Barbara Morgenroth
Blanche Marriott
Saturday, September 22
Christine Bush
Fran McNabb
Karen McCullough
Beate Boeker
Rebecca B
Monday, September 24
Tracy Dunham
Victoria M Johnson
Here's a pix of the cover of my brand new, never published anywhere before mystery, on sale Monday. MURDER ON THE MATTAPONI.
.jpg)
Friday, September 21
Barbara Morgenroth
Mounted (Bittersweet Farm)
Blanche Marriott
Saturday, September 22
Christine Bush
Warning at Eagle' Watch
Fran McNabb
Selling as author name Fran Fisher
Forever My Love
Karen McCullough
Beate Boeker
Rent-A-Thief
http://www.amazon.com/dp/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/
Kent Conwell
Night of the Butcher
Rebecca B
Zombies for Breakfast
Monday, September 24
Tracy Dunham
Murder on the Mattaponi
Victoria M Johnson
The Substitute Bride
Mona Ingram
Gift Wrapped for Christmas
Monday, September 17, 2012
Workspace
Somewhere, I can't remember exactly where, the poster was asking for photos of writing work spaces. Looking around my room (Yes, I have a writing room. However, it's also the business room, the doing-taxes room, the extra storage room, and the no-place-on-the-bookshelf-room-so-it-gets-stuffed-there room. I swear, one day I'll empty it out and start over, but meanwhile, I thought it would be fun to point out all the stuff with which I'm surrounded. Everything has meaning to me, and I get a kick out of it every time I sit down at the desk to write.There's nothing earthshattering, by any means. It's just my personal picture of chaos. I'm very fortunate, and I know it.
 |
| To the right of my computer. My youngest painted the stilllife in Middle School. |
 |
| Filing cabinet to my left. Family pix, Vogler in outline form. Michael Hague cheat sheet. Daytona race pix, my eldest daughter's early self portrait from 20 years ago. |
 |
| Also to my left, sticky notes and Mary Englebreit poster. It says it all. |
Friday, September 14, 2012
Neil Armstrong
Through the wonders of the NASA TV app, I watched Neil Armstrong's memorial service at National Cathedral in D.C. yesterday. I'm so glad I could (ah, the wonders of modern technology). What a fitting tribute to a man who wanted no fame, no notoriety, no glamor - only to be of service.
I wish kids in classrooms everywhere could have seen it. Friend after friend cited the astronaut's humility and ethics, his unwavering morality and kindness. Just think - he was the first human to step foot on a solid body outside of earth. Yet he never exploited his fame, not for a second.
We were living in Turkey but scheduled for repatriation in August of 1969. My father pulled every string imaginable to get us back to the States in time to see the televised moon landing. Unfortunately, his reason - wanting his children to witness such an historic event - didn't cut orders for an early departure from Ankara. We missed seeing that "one small step" by a few weeks.
While I wish we had been able to see it on TV (there was none in Turkey in those days), I'm grateful our family watched one of the launches from Cape Canaveral a few years ago. I'll never forget the sound - astoundingly, ear-splittingly loud. And the light! The speed - I've never seen anything go so fast, and probably never will again.
Space is another frontier we should keep exploring. Cutting funds from NASA doesn't help this nation. We are born adventurers. When we count pennies, we're pound foolish, to paraphrase that old cliche. How many children now look at the night sky and wish they could get there?
Neil Armstrong was designing a way to land an aircraft on Mars when he was a student. How many Neil Armstrongs are there now in our schools who will never have a chance to replicate his accomplishments because we won't, as a nation, support a space program?
I wish kids in classrooms everywhere could have seen it. Friend after friend cited the astronaut's humility and ethics, his unwavering morality and kindness. Just think - he was the first human to step foot on a solid body outside of earth. Yet he never exploited his fame, not for a second.
We were living in Turkey but scheduled for repatriation in August of 1969. My father pulled every string imaginable to get us back to the States in time to see the televised moon landing. Unfortunately, his reason - wanting his children to witness such an historic event - didn't cut orders for an early departure from Ankara. We missed seeing that "one small step" by a few weeks.
While I wish we had been able to see it on TV (there was none in Turkey in those days), I'm grateful our family watched one of the launches from Cape Canaveral a few years ago. I'll never forget the sound - astoundingly, ear-splittingly loud. And the light! The speed - I've never seen anything go so fast, and probably never will again.
Space is another frontier we should keep exploring. Cutting funds from NASA doesn't help this nation. We are born adventurers. When we count pennies, we're pound foolish, to paraphrase that old cliche. How many children now look at the night sky and wish they could get there?
Neil Armstrong was designing a way to land an aircraft on Mars when he was a student. How many Neil Armstrongs are there now in our schools who will never have a chance to replicate his accomplishments because we won't, as a nation, support a space program?
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
How we write
I was agonizing about throwing away first drafts I'd done on legal pads, pen and pencil, scratched through pages and all. Why I have this almost physical feeling about those papers is beyond me - maybe it's the memory of the act of writing, the moving of the hand across the lines, the doodling I did in the margins as I tried to figure out a scene. I can still feel the accomplishment as I flipped over to a clean, fresh page.
Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't trade computers for typewriters ever again. My poor IBM Selectric got a workout. And any major changes required retyping the whole manuscript. Lawsy, as we say in the South! It's like progressing from an outhouse to indoor plumbing. Wouldn't go back again, no, no,no!
Still, I find myself buying fancy cartridge pens, colored inks I can syphon into them, and notebooks with lines spaced just right for my lousy penmanship. Every now and then, I start writing in one, and it curbs my hunger for the written word, in ink, on a piece of rag paper very quickly. It's so slowwww.
Now if the words would just tumble onto the page as fast as I can type, I'd be in good shape. Do you suppose one day we'll just have to think of the words and they'll appear, like magic, on the screen? Hope I'm around.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Getting soft. . . The Race at RIR
Well, a lot soft, if this keeps up. The garden and yard got minimal attention this summer, the heat and humidity were so overpowering. But what I'm talking about is my tolerance as a race fan, not my paunch and love handles.
Just today I found pictures of all of us, plus the girls and their buddies from university, freezing our fannies off at Martinsville one spring race. I remember thinking it wasn't possible to be more miserable, but lo and behold, the sun came out and we peeled off coats, hats, and gloves as fast as we could. We cooked in the afternoon. Yet the grins on our faces say it all. We had a blast.
Not so much after the last race. Saturday's event at RIR carried the burden of the threat of scattered thunderstorms starting at 4 p.m. This means, by the time the lightning was going to start dancing around the parking lot, filled with flag poles attached to truck bumpers and tents on metal frames, everyone was going to be good and drunk. (Not us, we use the long day awaiting the race to sit and read and cook on the grill.)
Sure enough, heavy rains drove in, tents started pulling free from their pegs, and we loaded everything up into the truck post haste in the rain. We saw the lightning, but figured it was far enough away. Yet after two hours of waiting for the race it start, it was clear that the track was going to need serious drying. Okay, we could wait it out.
Only the temps had dropped from 90 and humid to really, really cold and very windy. With soaked feet, jeans, and every inch wet that our ponchos didn't cover, we weren't happy campers. Still, we stuck it out. The race started. We hugged each other to keep warm. The rains came again, and not a sprinkle as the MRN announcers described it. It was a full-fledged downpour.
More rain delay. We'd given up on the spring RIR race because of the constant rain and wet, so we weren't going to chicken out again. As the stands emptied, and fewer and fewer people remained, we too joined the exodus as the next (third) rain delay was called. We were cold and miserable, and who was the idiot who decided to start the race that late anyway in the first place? And what moron kept it running with rain delay after rain delay, when Sunday was going to be beautiful, according to the weather reports? No race should end at 2 a.m.
We're done. The fans don't matter to NA$CAR. We're through paying for very expensive seats at an event where the fans can be miserable, for all the powers-that-be care.
It used to fun, not torture.
Just today I found pictures of all of us, plus the girls and their buddies from university, freezing our fannies off at Martinsville one spring race. I remember thinking it wasn't possible to be more miserable, but lo and behold, the sun came out and we peeled off coats, hats, and gloves as fast as we could. We cooked in the afternoon. Yet the grins on our faces say it all. We had a blast.
Not so much after the last race. Saturday's event at RIR carried the burden of the threat of scattered thunderstorms starting at 4 p.m. This means, by the time the lightning was going to start dancing around the parking lot, filled with flag poles attached to truck bumpers and tents on metal frames, everyone was going to be good and drunk. (Not us, we use the long day awaiting the race to sit and read and cook on the grill.)
Sure enough, heavy rains drove in, tents started pulling free from their pegs, and we loaded everything up into the truck post haste in the rain. We saw the lightning, but figured it was far enough away. Yet after two hours of waiting for the race it start, it was clear that the track was going to need serious drying. Okay, we could wait it out.
Only the temps had dropped from 90 and humid to really, really cold and very windy. With soaked feet, jeans, and every inch wet that our ponchos didn't cover, we weren't happy campers. Still, we stuck it out. The race started. We hugged each other to keep warm. The rains came again, and not a sprinkle as the MRN announcers described it. It was a full-fledged downpour.
More rain delay. We'd given up on the spring RIR race because of the constant rain and wet, so we weren't going to chicken out again. As the stands emptied, and fewer and fewer people remained, we too joined the exodus as the next (third) rain delay was called. We were cold and miserable, and who was the idiot who decided to start the race that late anyway in the first place? And what moron kept it running with rain delay after rain delay, when Sunday was going to be beautiful, according to the weather reports? No race should end at 2 a.m.
We're done. The fans don't matter to NA$CAR. We're through paying for very expensive seats at an event where the fans can be miserable, for all the powers-that-be care.
It used to fun, not torture.
Monday, September 03, 2012
Denny Hamlin's Fourth Win and . . .
what does that mean for Gordon? Will there be a Chase without the iconic 24 car? It's hard to imagine. I bet there'll be a no-holds-barred free-for-all at Richmond next weekend, as Gordon claws his way over Kyle Busch. Can't wait.
If there's any justice in the Nascar world, Carl Edwards is out of the Chase. I don't see any hope for him, not even if he wins Richmond, and I must say, I'm not upset. What goes around, comes around, right, Matt Kenseth? I still remember Edwards' ugliness to MK at Martinsville, post-race, a few years back. As we used to say when a legal case went all wrong and the bad guy won, there is Divine Justice. No doubt about it.
Finally, it's a gray, rainy, humid, mosquito-rich Labor Day. What else did I expect? Time to tackle the desk and get back to work. . .laboring on a Labor Day. I like that. At least it doesn't mean childbirth. Been there, done that, no drugs either time. It was a lot more than labor, believe me.
If there's any justice in the Nascar world, Carl Edwards is out of the Chase. I don't see any hope for him, not even if he wins Richmond, and I must say, I'm not upset. What goes around, comes around, right, Matt Kenseth? I still remember Edwards' ugliness to MK at Martinsville, post-race, a few years back. As we used to say when a legal case went all wrong and the bad guy won, there is Divine Justice. No doubt about it.
Finally, it's a gray, rainy, humid, mosquito-rich Labor Day. What else did I expect? Time to tackle the desk and get back to work. . .laboring on a Labor Day. I like that. At least it doesn't mean childbirth. Been there, done that, no drugs either time. It was a lot more than labor, believe me.
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