Labor Day, Turtles, and Smores

Happy Labor Day!  Labor day…ahhhhh.  A day of lazy.  No work.  No School.  Even…no dance.  It’s a great day.  We do a lot of different things here in ole Ohio on Labor Day.  We cook out.  We go to Swapper’s Day.  We make smores.  This year was a bit different, as Hurricane Isaac came into town from the South, which means, rain.  Lots and lots of rain.  So, we have had to do a few things a little bit different than usual. 

We made it out to a few garage sales and found this awesome piece of deco.

(Yes, those are sea shells)

Eh, Seren loved it.  Had to have it. So…

Then headed out to Swapper’s Day, in Johnstown.  This is a GIANT outdoor flea market with so much crap, you can’t believe all the things you see.  There’s a food court, a potty section all on its own, an animal section where you can buy all sorts of different animals, and a pond where they hold water races for raccoon type dogs.  If you don’t know what this is, here’s the quickie explanation.  A dead raccoon is affixed to a board attached to a zip line.  They line the pooches up on one side of the pond, with the dead raccoon.  At the starting gun, the raccoon is pulled across the pond and up a pole.  The raccoon hunter dogs, dash into the water, where there swim swim swim across the pond and the first one to reach the other side and the pole, wins.  It’s kinda fun to watch.  Those dogs look so happy it’s not even right.  They are barking and dancing around and waiting for the fun to start.  After a few races though, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, and off we went to see what else we could find. 

We found the honey station.  I love this table.  Sticks of honey in different flavors are 5/$1.00.  I grab a handful and Seren grabs a handful and we are happy as clams, sucking out honey all through the market. Then right before we left, you will never believe what we found!  TURTLES!  Yes, really and we had to buy not just one, but two of them.  See!  We have them set up fat and sassy in my kitchen for the moment.  I have been reading up on the care and keeping of turtles today.  Ooooo fun. 

The next part of our day would include smores.  Now, as I said there is rain and water everywhere, so there is no chance at starting a fire.  So, we city folk, smore’d it.  What is that?  Well here, I’ll show you.

First, here are your ingredients (as if you didn’t know):  Grahams.  Chocolate.  Marshmallows.  Skewers.

 

Set up your grahams with the chocolate.  I like more marshmallow than chocolate, so I only use two squares, whereas Seren likes more chocolate, so she uses three.

 

Next you put your marshmallows on the skewers, and:

 

Yup, toast them right over the stove burner.  Yes, it works.  See?

Then you squish them off onto the grahams and chocolate and enjoy.  Mmmmm, taste just as good as outdoor fires, just minus the ash and char.  There you have it.  Indoor, city folk, smores. 

 

So that’s my Labor Day.  Hope you all have a wonderful break, and if you are one of the few that is stuck working today, my condolences.  Maybe next year…

La!

 

Back on Track

Happy Blog Monday! 

So much has been going on in my world lately, that I have gotten a bit behind scheduled. 

First, the Harlem Days Festival went very well.  My banner turned out very nice.  I sold a handful of books, and met a lot of new people.  I also had the privilege of meeting author, Tom Nelson.  He is the author of three historical fantasy books titled:  The Paladin Callendro, The Winds Wharhalen, and a new book Warrior of the Dusk. We had about two hours to talk shop and chat.  I can honestly say he is a very interesting fellow and I enjoyed my time spent at the author meet and greet all the more as I had someone talk with. 

Second, I am happy to announce that my quest for a radio interview has come to fruition.  I have made it through all stages of the process, and completed the interview.  If you are interested in having a listen, all you need to do is go The Children's Author Show on August 29-30, 2012.  I will be listed in the “ON AIR” box.  Just give it a click and turn up the speakers.  It was a fun interview and although I talk really fast and say the word BOOK a little funny to my ears, it was worth the effort.  Now I can say I have at least completed one of my goals on promotion this year.

Third, I am finishing up the final, last, totally complete edit of Shadows End and then my good people, it goes to production!  Yay!  I have been working with the cover artist as well to complete the cover.  So much to do in order to get it out and published.  Stay tuned for a release date.  I expect late September or Early October.  I am not certain exactly at this moment.  I will see if its posted yet and let you all know. 

Fourth and finally, I am excited to announce that I have been invited to attend the Kentucky Book Fair on November 10, 2012.  Woo Hoo!  I am very excited as I like the book fairs and festivals.  As I don’t know if I can attend the Tucson Festival again this year due to our competition schedule I really wanted to get into Kentucky.  Not sure yet what I will be doing at the festival as of yet, but I am sure they will let me know when they can.  For more information you can go Kentucky Book Fair or Kentucky Book Fair Face Book Page.

This week I will finish catching up and next week should be back to normal, or whatever will pass for normal anyway with my schedule. Have a great week everyone!  

ctny

A Day in History - August 13, 2012

August 13, 2012.  This is one of those days that seem like just another day.  Blah.  Surprise!  It’s not.  In fact, it’s quite an impressive day.  Many people don’t realize that it is National Left Hander’s Day.  The best day of the year! 

Even if you didn’t realize the importance of the lefty day, here are a few marks in history that occurred on the 13^th day of August. 

13th Aug. 1905 : In Chine, residents were tossed about by an earthquake and then to add insult to injury, nine hours of aftershocks..

13th Aug. 1920 : The U.S. Deputy Marshals, went out and rounded up 212 draft dodgers in the Chicago area.

13th August 1920 : The Soviet Union began it's assault of Warsaw, Poland.   

13th Aug. 1943 : The German Army, after an assult of five hundred anti-aircraft guns, fled in full retreat across the Messina Strait to Italy.

13th Aug. 1953 : Four million workerd in France went on a massive strike, as the unions argued with the government over economic policies. The situation was so bad that convicts were pressed into service in order to fill the gap left by the union workers.

13th Aug. 1961 : The German Communists started putting up barbard wire, the first step in the building of the Berlin Wall.  

13th Aug. 1969 : The Tic-a-Tape parade through New York City, saw Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins exuberantly welcomed and cheered.   The paper tossed into the streets in celebration of the first walk on the moon was ankle deep!

13th August 1979 : After Watergate and President Nixon’s downfall, President Ford promised to listen and cooperate with Congress. At the time Congress was predominantly Democrat and Ford was a Republican, so the relationship was particularly challenging. During Nixon’s presidency the limits of executive power verses the power of Congress had been a huge issue.

13th Aug. 1988 : Actress, Anne Ramsey, died of throat cancer at age 59. Her most famous role was the harping mother in the movie, “Throw Mama Off the Train”. Other flicks of Ramsey’s were, “Up From the Sandbox”, “For Pete’s Sake”, “Weeds”, and “Goonies” (my favorite).

13th Aug. 2004 : The Summer Olympic Games in Athens Greece, kicks off.  These games are officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad.

13th August 2004 : Hurricane Charley, a Category 3 hurricane, with winds in excess of 150 MPH makes landfall in Florida. This hurricane caused 10 deaths and over $15 billion dollars in damages.

13th August 2007 : The Taleban freed two South Korea aid workers after three weeks of captivity.

13th August, 2011 : Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, hosted its first gay pride march in the city.

13th August, 2011 : At the Indiana State Fair, due to a fierce storm, a stage collapsed just as the band Sugarland were about to perform.

And last but oh so not least, 13th August, 2012 : Sidney Marie turns 17 years old.  A milestone of great import, as her parents were amazed she made it past 13.  Love ya, Boo!  Lets see if you can make it 18.

See you had no idea how exciting this day in history was did you?  It’s amazing what you can find now-a-days on line.  Simply amazing.

Have a great week everyone.  Happy Birthday, to my Sidney.

Ctny

The End…of a Blog Tour

All things do have to come to an end, sooner or later.  Yes, even the fun ones.  With that in mind, my blog tour through Goddessfish has reached its end, but with that end comes the best part…PRIZES.    

For my blog tour, representing my latest release, A Howl in the Night, I decided to give out $5 Gift Certificates to Amazon.  Now I don’t know about you, but I can get a great deal of books on Amazon for $5.  Esp. when you add in all the free ones I find when I am searching for a good read.  Without further ado, the winners of the Gift Certificates are:

1.  Allyn

2.  Jane

            *You both should be getting emails from me yet today with your prizes.  If you have not by say…5:00 EST email me and let me know!*

Congrats!  I am not surprised that these two ended up being the winners.  I think they commented on almost every single blog that hosted my tour.  The odds were in their favor.  I do wish that I were able to give out more than just two prizes.  There were a lot of great commentors last week.  Thank you to everyone that came over to play at the stops. I appreciate the support and the words.  Hope you enjoyed it as well. 

Upcoming Events:

1.         I will be taking part in the community festival know as Harlem Days on August 18, 2012 in Harlem Township (Center Village).  I will not only have a booth set up for the day where I will be selling my wares, but I will also be in the building from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. doing a meet and great and discussion event.  If you will be in the area, stop by and say hello.  Need more info? Let me know, I will happily provide it.

2.         Radio event is still moving forward.  I have an actual pre-interview scheduled for August 16, 2012.  I will keep you all posted for it and when the event does actually happen.

3.            Shadows End is set to release Early October.  Mark your Calendars now for the 3^rd and maybe the final installment of the Shadow Dancer Series.  I have ideas for the additional books in this series, but as of write now there is not one single word written to this effect. 

That’s all for now in the way of the up and coming.  Trying more and more things on my list of promotions so let’s hope this list gets longer. 

A Howl in the Night - Blog Tour Schedule

My blog tour with Goddessfish has started.  As promised, the following is a list of my blog stops for the week.  Please come over, leave a comment, and check out the reviews and interviews, and all the fun stuff that I have going on.  There are a lot of different posts throughout the tour.  Not JUST interviews, or JUST reviews either.  Plus you can enter to win one of two Amazon Gift Certificates just for commenting. 

July 30, 2012: From Me to You

And: Long and Short

July 31, 2012: Bajan Rosa Books

August 1, 2012: Coffee Addicted Writer

And: It's Raining Books

August 2, 2012: Welcome to my World of Dreams

August 3, 2012: Tara Len Walker

~*~

Also, as an update to my radio discussion of last week.  I am still working my way though the process, but I am 3 of 4 steps through.  Maybe in the near future I will be able to promote a radio event.  That would be fun and scary.  But as I have been told, we have to put our big girl panties on and deal with the things that scare us.  So onward I go to the land of scary. 

Hope to see you all at the blog tour stops.  Have a great week!

ctny

...and then I thought, RADIO

As an author, I am finding that I spend more and more time trying to find new and better ways to market my books.  I can’t sell my books to people if they don’t know they are out there. 

So this week, I spent time looking into radio, both advertising and interviewing.  Advertising is way, way out of my league.  So that left interviews.  I googled, I researched, and I found several options that I am looking into. 

Why radio?  Truthfully?  Cause internet is not working for me.  There is just too much information out there to trunnel your way through to find things and my book is one of them.  My latest release, A Howl in the Night, spent one day at #65 on Amazon.  That was due to a huge marketing promotion.  Once the promotion ended, I went right back up to #135,000.  How are people supposed to find my book when it’s listed that far down the list.  I can’t run a promotion every day.  I wish I could, but I can’t.

I have tried google “Adwords”.  I have tried Facebook “Adsense”.  I have tried so many things and I have come to realize, I just don’t know enough people to get the word out.  This weekend I learned that ½ of 1% of the people that know about you and your book or whatever you are trying to get noticed out there, will actually buy your book.  That means 5 people out of 1000.  No wonder I am having a hard time.  I only know like 250 people! 

So I am working on trying to get a radio interview.  We will see how that goes.  I’ll let you know. 

Speaking of promotions, next week I will begin my blog tour with Goddessfish. Come over Monday and I will post my links for the week. Please visit at the stops and comment.  Not only could you win some fun prizes, but it would make my day to see the comments and let me know that maybe something in the promo department is working, at least a little. 

Have a great week everyone!

Here I Am

Hello all blog readers!  Where have I been?  You would not believe the two weeks I have had! 

It all started off on June 29, 2012. A lovely summer storm rolled through our area and knocked us flat!  That was quite the drive home.  The wind was so strong I was truly worried about being pushed off the road.  I didn’t care how long it took though I was getting home to my girls.  I pulled up front of the house and see this!

Oiy.  As you can guess, I didn’t know where to park.  I ended up in the front side yard, praying that my car did not end up like my husband’s truck. 

Poor little truck.  What did our truck ever do to you, big stinky tree!  As you can guess, this did not go over greatly with my husband.  Anyway, I get inside and the lights are flickering, and smoking, and popping.  My girls are safe down in the basement, my husband is racing down to the main circuit breaker and off goes the power.  The house is smoky and dark, and immediately humid as all heck.  The firemen are making their rounds.  They see our mess and stop to make sure we are all right.  They tromp through the house, note the smoke, check our circuits, and say to leave the main off until the electric people can come out.  Our power line has been hit by a tree coming down, and has popped partially away from the house.  Great.  So that begins the fun. 

The next day is book release party day.  I can’t shower.  I’m not even sure I can get out of the yard.  Is there power at PJ’s?  We get to work on yard clean up.  Hahahaha.  That’s a joke.  We have 2 people with chainsaws, and me and Seren with a rake and bags, and after 2 ½ hours of work you can not even see much of a difference. Thankfully, PJ’s calls and says they are set for the party.  Yay.  One thing good for the day.  I hit the showers, get dressed and cleaned up as best I can in the dark, and I head off to the party. 

Not a great turn out.  Thanks to the storm so many people couldn’t make it.  I got several calls saying how sorry they were.  They did however, order books, so all in all it wasn’t a waste.  Not as great as I wanted or hoped, but not a waste.  That’s something.

Day 3 begins.  Sunday.  Still no power.  Hot as heck (100+). 

Day 4:  Monday.  Still no power.  Hot as heck. (100+)

Day 5:  Tuesday.  Still no power Hot as heck. (100+)

Day 6:  Wednesday, also known as the 4^th of July.  I get up with the intention of going into town for the parade, but I sit up and see that we still do not have power and I just have a complete breakdown.  Thankfully my sweet husband got up and went out to get breakfast and coffee and I was alone during my tears of self-pity.  Then, thank you LORD! Around 3:00 p.m. while we are sweltering away the day, AEP finally comes.  Five minutes later, the power if fixed, and they are gone.  FIVE MINUTES!  That’s all it took!  Freaking 5 minutes!  We go through the house to see what has died in the power surge.  We only lost a few light bulbs, a clock radio, and the netflix refuses to reconnect to our blueray.  Not sure what that is all about, but all in all not to shabby.  Cable is out, and internet is out.

Day 7-10:  Still no cable.  Still no internet.  This is even after 2 phone calls, an in home appointment and 2 additional phone calls.  I had to get snarky on the phone for them to finally get the problem fixed.  So Tuesday, July 10^th, in the evening, was when we were finally back to normal. 

I wont say how much food had to be tossed, how much patience was tested, and how many tempers were lost during this period.  All I can say is thank GOD we are finally back to normal as I truly don’t think I could have taken much more. 

On the good side, Seren’s softball team won their first game, and their tournament game to end the season in 3^rd place (Out of 5).  Congrat’s Orange Crush, it was quite the intense season. 

As for writing, without any power or internet, I didn’t get crap done in the way of writing.  I am finally back to it and making headway, but am so far behind.  So if you haven’t seen me at your blog lately this is why.  I hope to play catch up today and tomorrow. Then I have promos to do and then finally it’s back to my current WIP:  Angels Fall.  Yay. 

See ya next week.

Ctny