...That's What She Said

It is my opinion that a good book review will convey to potential readers why they would or would not enjoy a particular work without giving away the whole story.  I've read quite a few reviews in the past year that have actually deterred me from making a purchase because I felt as though I'd already gotten the whole gist of it without actually reading a page of the novel.  With that being said, here is my attempt to get more of you, as well as anyone who happens to scour reviews on Amazon, to purchase this book... I did, and it was money well spent:

YA Paranormal/Sci-Fi for ALL ages

Do you love Harry Potter and dislike Twilight? Do you listen to indie music instead of Top 40? After watching 'The Matrix' for the first time did you spend days thinking about all the "what ifs"? Have you ever lost someone that you wish you could connect with again? If you answered yes to any of those questions, I am willing to guarantee that you will like Provex City. For some strange reason, this book is...

Continue reading on Amazon.com

		Provex City (The Lorne Family Vault Series, Book 1) by Michael Pierce  (22 customer reviews) Kindle Price:   $2.99 Auto-delivered wirelessly

Happy Blogoversary to L.G. Keltner! Completing a first year in this writing community with just shy of 200 followers is an accomplishment in itself, but doing so while sending out enormous amounts of positive energy and dedicating tons of time to supporting fellow writers deserves some recognition.  I'm a fan of this blog mostly because L.G. writes awesome flash fiction in one of my favorite genres, but also because her entries never fail to inspire me to focus on the positive side of writing.  If you're not a follower, you probably should be!  In celebration, some of us are participating in the Beginnings Blogfest... which you can find more info on by clicking the photo link to the left.  As for my entry... It all began long ago in a far away place... no really, it did!

Much like another planet, I started my blogging journey on LiveJournal and by long ago, I mean December 22, 2004.  Holy cow... now that I've put that in writing I feel SUPER old.  Was that really 9 years ago?  Yikes.  I was 25 years old, newly (again) single and trying to find my way through transition. I complained about boys, friends who were boys and boys that I worked with. Basically, if I'd set my mind to it, I could have written the scripts for the new HBO series "Girls" back then.  I had an audience of maybe 5 followers, but I wrote with dedication and ferocity just about every single day. The venting was my stress relief and the party recaps were my bragging rights.  Then on March 19, 2005, I posted a goodbye to LiveJournal with the announcement that I was moving over to MySpace "in an attempt to make real friends, not just computer friends".  Spoiler alert: it worked.  My daily blog on MySpace was a hit... I received friend requests left and right... and I even got plagiarized once by an elementary school English teacher.  Through that site I made a few life long friends and racked up a couple more ex-boyfriends.  I fed off the energy of all the commentary and discussion threads that my posts ignited. Of course, my biggest fan was myself.  I would go back and re-read how clever and witty my entires were and laugh to myself in the middle of the night.  Yes, I truly was full of myself back then. Many of my favorite entries were transfered here to Blogger when MySpace died off and Facebook became supreme ruler of social networking. If you were bored and had about a week of free time on your hands, you could probably read through them all, as they were posted during the month of December 2009... but I wouldn't recommend it.  Not a single one is about creative writing or anything truly constructive. So, years later, here I am with a repurposed blog focusing on my intent to get myself published (eventually) and I have to wonder... when would my "blogoversary" be?  Surely, I can't count all the years spent pontificating my existence and making friends laugh within in a private circle. I guess I'd have to set my start date to May 24, 2012 when I shifted from a private blog meant for friends only to a public blog where I meant to join an online writing community.  That was also the point when the complete and total confidence shifted to modesty and insecurity.  No longer was I making jokes about my social life (partly because as a wife and mom, I no longer had one), but instead I was sharing my writing journey with *gasp*... strangers! Of course, I soon found out that these "strangers" were actually a group of the kindest, most supportive people I'd ever come into contact with.  Alex J. Cavanaugh's IWSG blog hop every month was instrumental in pulling me out of my shell and forcing me not to give up, even when I'd slacked off for a week or two without posting a word.  And there were several other flash fiction style blog hops that were a blast.  It's been such a positive experience and I look forward to finishing my WIPs so that I can spend more time giving back to the blogging community that has helped me so much... but back to the point: this is about beginnings.  In summary, I suppose you could say that my beginnings are really just beginning.

Thanks again to L.G. for not only hosting this blogfest, but also for providing months of inspiration and entertaining reading. Cheers to year two!

I started last year with some champagne at home with the hubs in a strange new town over a thousand miles away from everyone we knew.  Last night was more or less the same, but despite that, 2012 was the year of change.  This Florida girl had to learn how to be a Texan, and at first I thought that would mean using hairspray, putting rhinestones on the butt pockets of all my jeans and saying things like "ya'll"(you all), "podna' (partner), "airs" (ears), and "unner-yunner" (underneath and over there).  However, this was (thankfully) not the case.  All I had to do was love red meat (check) and adapt to store clerks being genuinely friendly (still working on it). Wow... I just noticed the heavy parenthesis usage in this post.  Sorry about that. It could be due to the beer I am drinking (I don't usually drink beer) or the mild concussion I am recovering from (I'm drinking the beer because it's the only thing helping the headache from the concussion)... but more about my head injury later.

Anyway, here is my list of highlights for prosperity's sake:

1. Survived the relocation from Florida and excelled at the new job in Texas.
2. Enrolled my kiddo in an artsy fancy-pants "green" preschool where he flourished and learned to read by the time he turned 4 (take that, Florida!).
3. Survived months of my spouse's unemployment and managed financial recovery (for the most part).
4. Adopted a defective, smelly, cross-eyed, asthmatic cat from a local rescue because I thought my old cat "needed a friend".  They hated each other.
5. Had an awesome birthday with fantastic food when my mother flew out to visit.  Then had 2 awesome visits back home to Orlando for BOTH of my best friends' respective baby showers (oh, now they start having kids...).
6. Did the Texas tourist thing by attending the Scarborough Rennesance Festival, The Ft. Worth Stockyards, the Grapevine Vintage Railroad (complete with staged robbery on horseback), and the Texas State Fair.
7. Decided to pick up my forgotten hobby of creative writing again and re-vamped my private blog that had been dormant for nearly a year. Then participated in blog hops and flash fiction contests for the first time and made a bunch of awesome writing connections in the blogging community.
8. Completed a 10 day juice cleanse and jump-started a healthier lifestyle by kicking my caffeine habit.
9. Finished my first ever sci-fi short weighing in at approximately 6000 words and began the editing process in preparation for publishing contest submission.
10. Adopted a seemingly normal, healthy and cute puppy... immediately labeled puppy as "worst family Christmas gift ever".  After several nights of waking every two hours to let puppy outside, began drinking caffeine again.
11. Bonus: Experienced my first ever "White Christmas" and had an unsuccessful snowball fight with my family, followed a few days later by my first ever fall down a flight of stairs and resulting head concussion.

With that, let me say a fond farewell to 2012 and set some goals for the new year that started today:

1. Write more often. Finish my memoir style novel.
2. Find critique partners for my writing.
3. Attend dog training classes.
4. Save more money. Move out of our townhouse (with all the stairs) and into a house (preferably without stairs).
5. Work out more. Participate in the Run For Your Lives 5k zombie marathon.

And since I'm on this kick where I'm posting lists of things, I think I will now try another first and participate in a blog award related questionnaire.  This one comes from a blog that I follow because it never ceases to make me giggle.  You can check out the original post here: Tammy Theriault 

1. If you could interview one celebrity, who & what is your million dollar question?
This should be an easy question for me because I thought about it in great detail in the weeks before I was scheduled to meet Stephen King at a book signing just before I moved out here to Texas.  I had it all planned out and not only was I going to thank him for his writing that showed me when I was growing up that there was beauty within darkness... but I had prepared my original question for him. I was going to ask if he had any rituals that he always practiced when he finished writing a novel (kinda like the MC in Bag of Bones).  Of course, I was too emotional and perhaps star-struck when I finally met him, that I had to suppress tears and all I could muster was a meek, "Thank you for writing"... and all I got was a smile and a nod. Epic fail on my part. So, to answer this question, I'd like a re-do.

2. Did you ever carry a pager when they were cool?
Just how old do I look? Geez... I wasn't even allowed to drive or have a phone in my bedroom when pagers were cool. Of course, my parents were super strict, so I didn't get to have a car or a landline phone of my own until I was out on my own... and then, I got an answering machine instead.  It was digital.

3. What is your fav home decor that you would be mad if I stole?
I am pretty attached to my handmade dining room table runner that I ordered from some lady on Etsy. I fixed up the dining room to compensate for the bachelor pad hollywood/movie poster theme thing my other half has going on in the living room.  If you stole his 1000 DVDs, I would not report you.

4. Pet peeves?
It's a tie between bad grammar and bad driving.  I take both very seriously and take pride in how awesome I am at both.

5. Fav magazine?
Not applicable. For what little time I have to read, I prefer to spend it on books.

6. Will you give me $100?
Yes, but only if you give me $100 in return. Fair is fair.

7. Furthest you've traveled?
As a Florida resident, I traveled to my birthplace of NY, as well as Mexico, and also Albuquerque, NM for a work conference. Each of those trumps the milage it took to move to Texas, but I couldn't tell you which one was the furthest, as I'm too lazy to Google it at the moment.

8. Do these pants make my butt look big?
It's not the pants that make your butt look big, Deary... it's the Holiday Hibernation Suit™ underneath.

9. What radio station is playing in your car as I drive off in it?
Not applicable. I've been asking Santa to put better music on the radio for like the last 8 years and I still haven't received that gift, so my iPod is hooked up in my car at all times.

10. What are you making me for breakfast because I'm not a morning person?
What wouldn't I make for breakfast? There are SO many delicious options... but I guess if I'm cooking to impress, I'd have to go with center-cut bacon and stuffed french toast.

11. How's that $100 coming along?
Show me yours, I'll show you mine.  Hey, pervs... this is still about the money.

Well, that was interesting... or at least to me, since my head hurts.  :-)  I hope each and everyone of you out there in the blogosphere had a safe and happy holiday and cheers to a new year!  I hope everyone has a prosperous and joyous 2013... and I'll see some (if not most) of you all later this week for IWSG!