Giveaway mania...

My friend and fellow blogger PK Hrezo is having her very first giveaway on her blog. It’s called My Favorite Things Giveaway! If you haven’t been there and signed up for it then you are missing out and if you haven’t been to her blog and aren’t a current follower, then you are a little behind so I am going to catch you up because you are missing out on some really fantastic posts.

Okay, go there now…where? HERE! And sign up to follow her blog. Her prizes are fantastic but just following her is a gift enough, so you will thank me later. I promise. *holds up scouts promise sign*

Some of the things that she is giving a chance to receive are the following:

A $ 10 Starbucks gift card

2 Bars of your choice of luxury All Natural Handmade Soap from Natural Mystics

YA debut novel from author Jennifer R. Hubbard  The Secret Year

Women's Fiction novel by NY Times bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch, The One That I Want

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows original score CD

Your choice of classic Out of Print tee (the coolest tee-shirts boasting classic novels)

So seriously, race you there…

Holiday and Holland...who would have thought??

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Since this is a long weekend for me because my office is going to be closed on Monday, I am going to take advantage of the time off and spend time with some family that is coming over from Holland.

My husband's family are coming over for a visit. It is his Aunt Gusta. I can't wait to meet her, I am so excited. I really want to get the chance to go there and visit with her in Amsterdam as well some day.

I am also hoping to get some writing done and editing. I have another book idea floating around in my head but have a lot of unfinished business to take care of as well.

Also has anyone heard from our wonderful friend Laura Kaponer?? I haven't heard from her for some time and am missing her. So if anyone is in communico with her please tell her hello and that I miss her. Thank you.

Also, I did splurge and buy myself the purdiest little gadget...the iphone 4. I love it so. I am obsessed with it already and I have never owned one before. Please, no negative comments...let me enjoy my high. Now I can be internet friendly from my phone. Yeah.

Alright my precious friends. Please be careful and enjoy your holiday and weekend.

I have lost me…

I got to thinking the other day and let me tell you…ohmebegez. Once I start it doesn’t stop for like three days – promise.

So I was pondering all the work I am attempting to put into my edits as I keep getting non-stop ideas (like volcano eruption – just keep writing until it crusts up). Then I also love and mean totally LOVE to beta read for people. I read and try to keep a blog. (as you can see) I am trying to twitter and email and network and keep up with where I started on Writer’s Digest…

Then there’s the peanuts football practices Monday, Tuesday, & Thursday nights. Volleyball games Tuesday & Thursday nights. Football games – J.V., Varsity and Peanuts – Monday, Friday Nights & Saturdays.  No joke!

So here it is the second week of school and already it looks like the only night we don’t have sports is tonight – WEDNESDAY – fabulous Wednesday night. As I look at trying to edit so that I can actually …maybe one day send my manuscript out to shop for an agent. Beta reading, writing, blogging, following blogs, tweeting, following tweets, and worrying about my following – “Am I entertaining enough?”

I’m so caught up in building a platform that I am losing me. Not to mention that my routine is a little insane and after sports I still have to check homework before I can play with my friends.

I just want to say ‘hang in there’. I’m not complaining or making excuses. I LOVE MY LIFE. It’s just a little bumpy like every one else’s. We all have our moments. Up, down, happy, sad, frustrated, or just plain pissed off.  We’re all human – but I don’t have to tell you that right? Ahem! Right?? Kidding.

However, my brain got a little rattled…okay. A lot. But it will get a jump start and back into action very soon. More ideas are getting thrown to paper so maybe they will show up here. Who knows. Until then, take care of you.

A great ARC Contest hosted by Sara McClung

Ok, those of you that aren't familiar with Sara McClung, I suggest you mosey over to her blog and check her out. She is funny and has great advice for any writer. Right now on her blog she is hosting an awesome ARC giveaway. She is offering to give away some wonderful books that are going to be delicious reads and just make you itch to check it out and enter to win.

Here are the books that you will find.
A set of Beautiful Creatures and Beautiful Darkness both are signed by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
The Unidentified by Rae Mariz
Halt's Peril by John Flanagan
The Goblin Gate by Hilari Bell
Jane by April Lindner
The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke

So if any of these sound like the juice that your brain needs to drink, then float on over to Sara McClung's blog and sign up. You might just become a dedicated follower. Plus she gives you a small teaser of what the book is about. So go and check it out. Thanks Sara. Good Luck with the ARC Giveaway.

I have decided that any that I am fortunate enough to win...after I read them of course, I am going to donate to our local library. Their budget is so small that we can't get the newest books for quite some time, so I am going to do what I can to help them out as a writer.

Wine…beer…gin…or whiskey?

What will it be for you today?

I ask out of my own curiosity and am going out of my own comfort zone. When I was younger I started off with Peachtree Schnapps. Did the wine coolers and then progressed to drinking Corona with lime. This lasted for a long time when I drank which was not too often.

Then I switched to Coors light along with my husband. Just made more sense because neither one of drank much so we would split a six pack eating pizza while watching a Nascar race. Good times.

So now I am experimenting with wines. I had some Pinot Grigio one night at dinner and just the other night I tried some Sangria. I have a bottle of Mango wine in the kitchen that I have yet to break into. I was wondering if any of my fellow bloggers or just random readers who happen to stumble across my blog post today can suggest some good tasting wines.

I have no preference since I am not a wine connoisseur of any kind. Red, White, Blush…don’t matter here. Just tell me some of your favorites, maybe what it is like…color, flavor, just give me a little tease. Then as I try them, maybe I will give a little post about my experience with it.

So tell me what is your suggestion? Even if it isn’t wine, tell me what you like and why. Maybe I’ll try it and blog about it…preferably while I’m drinking it. lol

Weekly Chapter Challenge Update # 3

Things seem to be moving along swiftly now. My story is flowing now with a little more fervor then it had in the past and I am grateful as ever for all of the input that my WCC partner Trisha Leaver gives me every week.

She has been ever so patient with me when life hits and if you have read here, you see it happens here often.  Life is my everlasting tornado sometimes leaving a path of destruction and sometimes bringing me beautiful things as well. I am patient and I am glad that there are others that work well with me.

I still struggle sometimes with shut down making it hard to focus on the task at hand which is the MS I am working on during the WCC, but I also have several WIPs and thoughts that plague my mind and lead me astray.

At least I can say that with the storylines that my mind creates, I will be able to be a part of the WCC for quite some time and will be able to recommend it to everyone that I know for many, many months to come. I am still enjoying the exchange and give props to my partner for such a wonderful MS she is creating and making my heart weep at times.

Being part of the group in WCC and in Writer’s Digest is like being part of a family. I like belonging to a family of people who thinks a lot like I do. I love all the criticism and support that comes with this family. So if you are not already a part of this family…my family, come join me.

The voices inside my head are going crazy…

There are actually so many things going on that I don't know where to start. Have you ever been like that before? Of course you have, it is common. I'm not some freak…ok, ok. So maybe I am--a little. A muse as its called that leads you from project to project and keeps those creative juices flowing. WELL-- I have several. Some good and some evil. Muhhaahaaww.

 

Actually I am looking for a way to either get them to all quite speaking at one time or to quiet down just a squidge so that I can concentrate just enough to focus on some things. I admit, life is hectic enough without them all pulling me in ten different directions and about five different genres…no seriously. They don't concur on a genre, they all have a different preference too.

 

So this has been making it hard for me when doing some writing. I have like five WIPs out there because I listen to the voices and let them guide me for a bit and then another one grabs me and I take off skipping hand and hand with them down another path of sparkles and rainbows or dark shadows and cobwebs. I tell you, that I know I should just focus on one, but the truth is that I know that they all have something important to say and I am afraid that if I don't follow them all around that I may miss an opportunity not to catch their important story and that it may get backlogged in the lost forever files of the IGNORE BOX of suppressed ideas not realized.

 

Besides, I am powerless to them. I can't tell them to STFU. I like all of them unconditionally. No matter who or what they are.

 

I wish that I could say that I was organized and everything had a place and a plan and I wrote a chapter a day and that everything goes as planned, but the truth is…I am a windstorm throwing things down here and there and cleaning up the mess afterward but that's me. To be honest, I like me, I understand me. I just wish that I could calm me down a little. I feel like I get so overwhelmed with all of them (muses) that I mentally shut down sometimes and that is counterproductive.

 

Ok--So here goes. Who has some advice…ideas…words of wisdom…tell me to STFU…Just puttin it out there. LOL

Two Moons of August 27th 2010

I had a friend send this to me in an email.
Two Moons on August 27, 2010

27^th Aug the Whole World is waiting for............. 

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles off earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons.

The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. 

Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.

Momma Update

A huge THANK YOU to all of those who had us in your thoughts and prayers. Everything went well and she is back home and doing great. She is already up and moving around walking her dog. She is back on the right track so far. The doctors aren’t certain when we start back doing the dialysis, but I will try to keep everyone posted that wants to know.

I am just glad that I had so many prayers sent my way…that helped a bunch. I believe in the power of prayer. I have had so many well wishes from some of my friends here, and they were powerful to my heart that made me realize that I am lucky to be able to call you friends.

And your families are lucky to have you as well, because you are genuine, honest and caring people who took me in through the writing community and have treated me like family. I just want you all to know that I think you are fantabulous people and think the WORLD of all of you.

They say you never know who your real friends are until something detrimental happens in your life and let me tell you…I would keep everyone of you as friends today, tomorrow, next week…forever.  Big Hugs…you are truly amazing people and today I am blessed. Thank you for allowing me to be in your circle and embracing me with your words.

Take care of you.

Weekly Chapter Challenge Update # 2

So far things are going great. I have stumbled a couple of times because I am having some split personality issues of wanting to write in first person and then switch to third limited and then back to first and so on and so on.

Thankfully, I have someone who is understanding and helping me cope with my dilemma of wanting to portray the other person’s POV other than the MC. It has been a tough road, but I have been diligently reworking my thoughts to convey the first person POV only.

When we are done, I will go back and revamp the MS with it written all in first POV. I thought about it for a while and stewed on it and then decided I liked the voice it had when I wrote it in first.  I liked the third person vision to give light to the pain of my other characters so that I could explain their intensity of passion/feelings within the MS, but if I do it the right way in first person, you will get it.

I guess that means I just need to work that much harder. So thanks to my buddy, I am doing just that. I am trying to morph my multiple personality into one so that I can write my MS the best I can.

Best of luck to you writers. I believe in you. Keep writing… and take care of you.

Mind in Many Places

I apologize to many of you if my mind is in many places and I do not seem on my game.

My momma is having surgery today. She is having a port put in her arm for dialysis because she is going to have to do it again because her kidneys are just about shot. And they are fixing a hernia that she received when she had to have a feeding tube in her stomach.

Momma had a heart attack a couple years ago and went down hill to where they put in stints to open blocked arteries in her heart and eventually did a valve replacement. Through the process she got an infection and it spread throughout her body-- when to her brain causing lesions and her spine turning parts of it to mush causing her to be bed ridden for 10 months. We almost lost her twice because she also has COPD and has congestive heart failure to where she would just fill up with fluid.

I took care of her for those two years that it took to get her up and running again and it took and emotional, physical toll on me. I had to take her to dialysis twice a week and be at her beckon call when my father and nephew couldn't take care of her. My sisters didn't live in the same town so they were not much help.

I wore down and I have been worried that with another procedure that she may get sick again. I know she needs the port in order for dialysis to remedy the kidney issue for a time, but all I ask is that all of you keep her in your prayers today.

So if I am sporadic, random, lost, brainless or anything else. I apologize. I do try my best to stay connected to the real world outside. Sometimes it is just really hard to do. Ok, sorry for the rambles. Everyone have a wonderful weekend and I hope to talk to you next week. Thank you and take care of you.

BETA READERS FOUND!!

Ok everyone, I promised to talk about beta readers. I have a few and I have a place where you can find them. My friend Nathalie from Writer's Digest has just started a new community for you to join if you are looking for beta readers to look over your work. Go to Writer's Digest and join Beta Reader Central.

I promise that you won't be disappointed that you join and have others read your work and give you insight. It will be fun and you will meet new people. So go--Yes, I mean RIGHT NOW!! Get your ass moving. Sign up and help an aspiring writer out.

I read all genres. I don't care, as long as I can help someone else out. I am there, come find me. I would be honored to beta read for anyone. You never know, one day, I could be asking you for a signed copy reminding you that I once beta read for you and that even though you didn't take any of my advice...I was there for you. lol

Anyway, I think that it has been a wonderful experience for me so far and I am enjoying it more and more every day that I do it and hope to get to meet more people and read more work. It does give you a break from your own work and then puts me back into the mode where I feel I can make my MS worth reading. Sometimes it is good to hear what a reader thinks since they may be the one that picks it up in the store someday. IMPORTANT!

Weekly Chapter Challenge Post Prompt

Ok…so I am a little behind on this post because I was promising to do it on Monday and life happened as usual. Thank goodness, I am breathing. Wheew!

So I am part of the Weekly Chapter Challenge on the Writer’s Digest Website and anyone who is aspiring to be a writer really should become a member of Writer’s Digest and go to the Weekly Chapter Challenge and find a writing buddy.

I wasn’t sure I was ready for one at first so I put it off for a couple of months and then I joined and hooked up with a wonderful YA writer, Trisha Leaver, who is represented by Jessica Sinsheimer of The Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency and is diligently working on edits for her manuscript Cedar.

In her spare time, she is exchanging chapters with me, beta reading for others and maintaining her family. I look at her with awe, because she is a magnificent beta reader and she tells me directly what she thinks…with tact. She never comes across the wrong way. She is always appropriate in her comments

If it hadn’t been for EJ starting the group, then I wouldn’t have found her. So thank you EJ. Much appreciated. I also found a couple of other people that I beta read with and am having a blast sharing my work and reading others. I guess I never thought in a million years I would be brave enough to let anyone read my work, but everyone has been so kind and honest with their feedback and that makes it easier to want to share it with the WORLD.


Also, this is the fist time that I have tried to work with links and such on my blog, so forgive me if they aren't working out. I haven't mastered the blog world yet. Post me and let me know if I miffed it up bad, real bad, really, really bad, or just forget trying it again Regina. LOL.


So this is mainly about the WCC so watch out later when I give a huge shout out to my beta crew who I hope to continue to work with them on future projects. I like their input. So go... yes, RIGHT NOW to Writer's Digest and friend me. Then go to the Weekly Chapter Challenge and get cracken on those chapters. I know you can do it. I believe in you. So go, get movin and take care of you. See you there.

Migraine Suffers I sympathize

I am about half out of my mind at this point. I am having several people carefully screening over my MS showing all of my muck ups and am trying diligently to fix them and get it in tip top shape.

With a killer migraine that I suffer from often, I just want to shut myself off from the world for a couple of hours…OK, I LIED. Days would be better. It is hard to stay focused and controlled when fighting these. The doctors try to manage them with medications, but sometimes I get so side tracked with all the things that I am trying to do (ie: with work full time, family (five kids 16, 15, 15, 13, 6), injured hubby (see below ***) and of course………Writing. That I sometimes forget to take it. {ALL OF THIS MAKES ME MORE CREATIVE…..I HOPE!!}

Today I am to blame. It will cost me a couple of days and I need to kick my own ass if the migraine wasn’t already doing a great job. Anyone who suffers from them, you know what I am talking about. DARK HOLE, here I come. Climbing down in to hide for several hours. It is best if I just pass out unconscious.

Hubby wants to go workout at the gym tonight, so I don’t know when I will get to the dark hole. Don’t judge yet. ***Hubby comes first, because he, unlike me, was injured three years ago in a construction accident and can no longer drive or work because he has moments where he blanks out causing him to (if he were driving …he would wreck.) or sometimes he takes a walk and ends up out in the middle of our field. He also suffers from short term memory issues. (Let me tell you this helps give me a lot to write about also).

So when hubby is stranded at home all day and cannot go anywhere until I get there to take him, then it is my duty to take him where he wants to go. He needs exercise too. I love him to the ends of the Earth and that means that I can endure the migraine until he gets his workout in.***

Enough about my pity party. I know from now on I need to take my meds. Crazy biznatch shouldn’t forget anymore, but any of you that know me knows that I will forget occasionally because that is the nature of the beast.

Best of luck to all of my writer friends out there…keep it going and keep it strong and remember to take care of you.

~Regina

New blog that I came across. Please check it out!

Leaguewriters.blogspot.com The League of Extraordinary Writers where they Debut YA Dystopian Writers. I found it when I was on someone else's blog and promised to mention it on mine. So if you can go check it out. It is really neat and has different talents on there to read about. I found it very interesting. So if you can I urge you to take a peak...Thanks.

What is a good neighbor?

To me a good neighbor is many things. A good neighbor is one that is there to help you when you need help without you having to ask but knows when to just let you work it out on your own sometimes too.

We have a neighbor that we take turns with making sure the driveways are clear of snow. We both have tractors and before we had ours he cleared our drive faithfully for years without us even asking him to and never wanted anything in return. He would be out there either early in the morning or late at night when he got finished with his day job.

Once we got our tractor, my husband and I try to make sure we get his drive way before he gets home from work to surprise him so that he doesn’t have to worry about it when he gets home from a long day. He has always been there for us when we have needed him but doesn’t always come running to save the day.

He went through a rough patch when his wife cheated on him and they divorced and we invited him over and he would come hang out or he would have the kids and us come over for cookouts and swimming at his place to help minimize the loneliness. He has found someone new and she has been very good for him and they have done a great job together landscaping his entire yard for the past two years.

They are wonderful people to have around. If either of us go out of town all we do is give each other a call and then watch over the other’s place and make sure the yards are maintained and that no one is bothering anything that they shouldn’t. It is a blessing to have such individuals like them living across the road from us.

When storms blow trees down, we all get together and help clean up the mess to make light work of it. We live out on a highway and they are on the opposite side and we both own some decent size acreage so we all know how to keep busy but still find the time to visit from time to time. It still warms your heart to drive by and have them wave at you before you pull into your drive knowing that they are right there if you need them.