What do you do when you realize that something in your life doesn't fit as well as it used to? Do you try harder to keep it, work around it to make it fit, or let it go?

I've found myself in this situation lately. As I completed the edits on Anywhere But Here early this week, I realized that there were many things that need to be done before the book comes out in April to prepare for publicity and promotion opportunities. One thing I learned with Blurry is that it's not wise to wait until the book comes out to start publicity - you need to start building up an audience ahead of time. Promotion, of course, takes time and effort and is necessary if you want your writing to reach the readers you wrote it for. As I was considering what to check and where to direct my promotional efforts, I took a look at my life and realized that I was hanging on to some things that were no longer serving the purpose of improving or building up my writing the way they used to. I've realized for months that I'm no longer as active on Writing.com or on Open Salon as I had been a few years ago. After Blurry was published, I shifted my focus to publicity and promotion for my novels, novellas, and long stories and found I wasn't working on short stories or flash fiction the way I used to. This realization caused me to pause and take stock of where I am and whether what I'm holding on to is serving the purpose of getting me to where I want to be.

So over the past week, I've been asking myself what my true long-term goals are for my writing, and what I need to do to reach them. I realized that I am a novelist at heart, and that in order to succeed, I need to build up an audience of readers and increase my promotional skills. In looking at my online activity, I realized that although I had invested a lot in Writing.com, I wasn't getting a return. In fact, I've lost followers/readers at that site as I've been more focused on maintaining this site and my activity on other social media outlets where I get more feedback and have more connections, like Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. It was a very hard decision to make because once  upon a time, I loved Writing.com and got some great feedback there that I know made me the writer I am. But I realized that if I want to grow in my writing, then I need to prune what isn't producing fruit. Writing.com isn't producing anymore and I don't have time or energy to invest in something that's withering on the vine. So I made the difficult decision to suspend the blog at that website on Sunday and will not renew my upgraded account when it comes up for renewal later this year. It hurt terribly, but I need to focus my attention on places where I'm interacting with and reaching the most people.

With Open Salon, the decision was easier. I've never been very active on that site, and in fact suspected I made a mistake after a few short months of being there. I just couldn't seem to "fit in" and find the flow at that blogging site. So tonight I made my farewell entry and let that one go as well.

I think such realizations happen to all of us from time to time. We come to realize that something that used to be a part of our life is slipping away, and we have to make an active decision on whether to hold on to it, or let it go. Life is always changing, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes (like me in the past couple of years) you have major changes that rock your world and throw everything in a different balance, but things are still moving even when it seems like you're in a rut and nothing's happening. Slow motion can be very deceptive because it mirrors stagnation, but it's motion even if we don't perceive it.  If the sun rises and sets, then things are moving. People and things slowly pass through our lives and we may not realize it until it hits us one day that something that used to be around all the time isn't such a big part of our lives any more.

I think I got hit with a combination of the fast and slow moving kind this time. I did go through two major life transitions  a couple of years ago and as those were setting, I got my book contracts. These two blogs were there with me along the way, but I didn't realize until recently that their role in my day to day life had slipped as much as it had until I took stock and realized they weren't where I thought I'd left them.

Things do come and go in our lives, and sometimes it can be painful to face that something that meant a lot to you is slipping away. The natural tendency is to hold on to it, even if we know in our heart that it's season has passed in our life. It's especially hard to let go of something that was a benefit or comfort to us. And yet, pruning is the secret to growth. If we really want to continue to grow and be free to accept greater blessing and success, then we must be able to let go of what isn't serving our life anymore. Pruning hurts - no doubt about that - but it leads to better growth. Just as my roses will start growing after I prune them next month, so too will I grow from finding the courage to cut off this dead wood from my life. This summer, I hope to have more than just big, beautiful roses growing in my life.

Yes indeed, it's late winter and pruning season is coming to my part of the world, literally and figuratively. I have faith that it will lead to beautiful blooms in due season.

Last month, an interviewer asked me how I deal with the issue of technology in my writing. Specifically, they asked if I had concerns that including computers, cell phones, and other technological advances would "date" my work too quickly. My answer to this question was that technology is such an integral part of our real day to day lives that we can't afford to ignore it. In fact, I believe that not including technology runs the risk of dating your work by making it seem more antiquitated than it really is from the start. So I choose to use it, and in fact it's such an integral part of my books that I hope readers will grant me the grace of being as patient with this evolving nature of our lives in fantasy as they are in reality.

That's well enough, but as I was working on an article for the Mystery Readers and Working Writers Newsletter, I began to look at the issue from the other end and wonder: Am I as understanding of this issue as a reader as I am as a writer? The truth is, I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and only started reading mysteries myself in the past 3 years. Fantasy typically shuns technology in favor of magic, and sci-fi is so inventive that I can stretch my mind to imagine any number of advances for the setting. But I wonder how I'll fare as I continue to read in the mystery genre and find myself in that place as a reader where the characters are using devices that were updated last month. I'd like to say I'll be as patient as I hope my own readers would be but can't help but ponder when, say, I pick up Die Softly, by Christopher Pike, and wonder how that story would unfold now that cameras have gone digital and every home has a computer (or 2, or 3, and who knows how many mobile devices). Or Whisper of Death (also by Christopher Pike) and wonder how that story would have unfolded if they found those short stories foretelling their deaths on an e-reader instead of a notebook.I still love these books (and believe it or not, I pluck them off my shelf and re-read them typically once a year or so), but I can't help but ponder how those plots would have developed with some of our modern advances. 

Maybe that's not a bad thing. In fact, it might be good for our imagination by helping writers imagine twists on some of those old plots, and readers to keep them interested not only in the new things coming out but the older things that inspired them. For example, I'm sure I noticed that I mentioned 2 Christopher Pike books in the last paragraph. He was my favorite YA writer when I was in my teens, and I credit his work for being a huge influence on the development of Blurry and even my upcoming book, Anywhere  But Here (although that is an adult novel).

It's an interesting question to ponder and I'd like to pose it to readers. How do you feel about including technology in writing? Good idea? Bad idea? Or the unavoidable pink elephant in the room that each individual has to decide whether to address or ignore?

Happy Friday everybody, and I hope you have an outstanding weekend.

Bye!

I recently heard a sermon on BBN about how the Book of Nehemiah shows 4 ways the devil trys to stop people from doing God's will. They are derision, discouragement, destruction and division. I think this is pretty accurate. After all, God doesn't attack us. He usually changes our circumstances and/or prompts a change of mind and heart within us if the intervention is Holy and an effort to put us on a right path. I believe my story from yesterday's entry showed this at work. There were no attacks in that situation; simply changing circumstances which eventually lead me to a change of heart. Certainly I could have continued to pursue an advanced degree in a different program, but the experience shifted my desires to other areas. In fact, I felt strongly prompted to pursue writing after this incident and I had an experience last year that showed all 4 of these steps at work to divert me from what I felt prompted to do.

In April 2010 I had an idea for an apocolyptic sci-fi thriller novel. I had just completed the manuscript for Anywhere But Here, and frankly I was surprised to have an idea for another novel so soon after completing one. I'm usually exhausted and novel ideas come, at best, every 2-3 years. I was excited to already have another potential project, so I immediately dug in and began writing the first chapter of this new piece. Frankly, it was the only excitement I had in the area of writing. I hadn't had anything published in over three years, and a contract that I was offered a year earlier fell through when the publisher filed for bankruptcy (see discouragement and destruction at work). This lack of success had caused enthusiasm to wane over my writing, and people that had been so excited when I published Battleground Earth in 2004 had now dismissed my writing as nothing more than a "nice little hobby" (see derision at work). Through this dry period I did pray about whether it was a sign to stop writing and move on, but the ideas kept coming and I continued to feel compelled and prompted to continue writing, even if the stories never made it any further than my hard drive.

My progress didn't make it past the first chapter, though, because I got tendinitis in my right wrist. It took about 8 weeks to heal. During that time I had to keep my typing to a minimum. I prayed and felt that I should use the time to research and further develop this novel. In fact, I decided to use the entire summer for this task and to enter this novel idea in the 2010 National Novel Writing Month challenge for 2010. That gave me 5 months to research, brainstorm, outline, and prepare to write the rough draft of the novel, and it would finally give me a chance to enter this writing challenge that I'd had my eye on and thought about entering for many years.

I tentatively call the tendinitis a destruction attack on me. I say "tentatively" because I am aware that the tendinitis was caused by typing at work all day and then coming home and typing at night to write Anywhere But Here, so the injury was a result of actions that I knowingly and willingly took.It was just the timing of the injury and the fact that my left wrist wasn't hurt at all that made me suspicious.

I proceeded with my plan and come November 1, 2010 I was ready to start on the novel. I was fully healed and had plenty of notes ready to go. I made great progress for the first few days. I was going through a major life transition at the time from major changes in my personal and professional life, but I felt that I was on a right path. In fact, writing Splinter for NaNo felt like a claim of independence; like a way of saying this is  my life and I'm taking it and putting it together my way. It was a personal victory for me.

Unfortunately, the devil had his last punch to pack, and he gave me a wallop right when I didn't need it. It was at that time that other people in my life decided that they had a whole lot of problems with all of these changes, and it was time to do something about it. Tempers exploded and I saw sides of people that I had known for years that had never come out. They weren't angry at me, but since the change was centered around me then I was viewed as the linchpin of it all, and they saw me as the one to "make things right." They were mad at circumstances, mad at situations, and yes, mad at one another. I tried to soothe them, but tempers raged on. I even pointed out, as gently as I could, that they were reacting violently to things that usually didn't bother them, or were minor irritations. Occasionally they would stop, look stunned, say "you're right, that's wierd," then proceed to keep screaming about everything wrong with the world. Most of the time, they said I was crazy and needed to do something about things NOW. (See division at work.)

Once again, I prayed about the situation and this time, I had what can only be called a divine inspiration: Don't worry about anything else; just finish that rough draft as quickly as possible. Ignore everything else until it's done and deal with people once you get this story, which has been percolating in your head for months, out of the brain and onto the hard drive. Until then, reality can wait.

That's exactly what I did. I quit socializing, cleared my calendar, only did the bare essentials, and pounded away at that manuscript in every free minute I could squeeze out of my days. I amazed myself by finishing a 51,000 word first draft of Splinter by November 15.

A funny thing happened when I cautiously re-emerged back to reality. World War 3 hadn't broken out, and nobody had killed anybody else. In fact, all those tempers quieted. Most of them slunk away in silence, but a few did express shock and dismay at their behavior. They couldn't believe they had reacted so violently to things that were nothing more than minor irriations and didn't understand. I knew exactly what it was. Satan lit them with some hell fire to stop me, but when I wasn't there to burn then it was useless so he took it from them. I could have easily stayed angry at them and cast blame and judgement, but I realized it as an attack of division and didn't want to allow it to succeed on any level. It was hard, but I made an active decision to forgive and let it go.

I'd like to say that the devil just went away after that, but the truth is that I faced similar attacks every single time I worked on Splinter. Every rewrite, every edit, every proofread it happened. People saying they couldn't believe I was still at it when I clearly wasn't going to get published again. Illness, computer problems and yes, those tempers did flare back up every single time. But you know what? I prayed for protection, I persevered, and with the Lord's grace and help, I finished the manuscript last month. It's in the submittal process now and I pray that protection and help continue to bring it to publication.

Another thing did happen in the wake of all of this. I was offered e-book contracts for Blurry and Anywhere But Here, finally ending a 4 year publication dry spell. I also got several flash fiction pieces and a couple of short stories posted online, and that success gave me the confidence to self publish two more pieces: Quarantine, a suspense novellette, and Resonance, a horror long story. Thanks be to God that the opportunities offered by e-publishing took me from “a nice little hobby” to being an Independent Author!

The point of this story is to show that you will come up against opposition when you try to do God's will by finding your authentic self, but the rewards of perseverence are great. Prayer is absolutely essential - in fact, it's key. I think you see in my tale that prayer is how I channeled the Lord's power into my life. Through it, He provided me with wisdom, healing and protection. I can tell you for a fact that if He will do it for me, He will do it for everybody. God is no respector of persons. If you love and trust Him, He will provide, protect and comfort you.

I know it's discouraging to find you'll have to fight the devil to be who you were made to be, but the fact is that you're going to fight him no matter what you do. Satan will taunt you whether you do what he wants or not, so you might as well claim Christ's victory and piss off the devil every chance you get. Because face it: With Satan you can't win, but with Christ you can't lose. That is the most universal truth there is.

Thanks for sticking with me through 2 life tales. I hope that my experiences have given you insight for your own life and perhaps inspiration for dealing with situations that you face. Take care and keep fighting the good fight.

Next time: Personality Quirks - What's Sin, What's There For a Reason.

Hi everybody, Sherri is taking it easy today, so I thought I'd drop by. My name is Kirsten Chalmers, from Blurry, and I'm here to set the record straight. I know there's a lot of talk about "things" between me and Danny. I think a lot of people misunderstand things - completely.

I'm not after Danny for a relationship or to "hook up." Please, just because I'm a cheerleader doesn't mean I'm shallow! Actually, I've been trying to establish a better peace between Danny and Rachel. This "truce" of theirs is barely a truce at all. In fact, it feels more like a silent war. Sure, they agreed not to talk - but do you realize what kind of situation that puts their mutual friends in? It forces us to take sides, and that's just not fair.

I tried to talk to Rachel about this all summer and got nowhere. Then she had her big 18th birthday party over Labor Day weekend. Yea, pretty much most of the senior and junior classes were invited - except Danny. That was SO majorly awkward, especially since those two were glued together all of last year! It was such a shock! When we asked and she said they came up with this "you leave me alone, I leave you alone" kind of "truce," most of us were floored. We just couldn't believe they would cut off each other that completely. Couldn't they at least act friendly? Rachel said no, that Danny shot that down and she was doing what he asked. She said she was willing to try to be friends, or at least civil, but he said no, he had his own friends and would keep to them.

So the day after the party, I saw Danny at the Pizza Parlor and decided to ask him about it myself. He said that yes, this not talking truce was his idea. He said he simply couldn't be friends with Rachel after their messy breakup. I didn't think it was that messy. It seemed like a clean break to me. They were together one day and apart the next - but whatever. He also said something about Rachel not being able to accept who he really was and his other friends, and he couldn't deal with her judging him all the time.

I get it - I really do. Rachel doesn't mean to be judgemental, but her life is black and white. She's such a good girl, and she's really smart - but she's in her own little perfect world sometimes and that can be a hard thing to break through. I know. I've been friends with her my whole life. She just can't handle the shades of grey. Heck, she can't even see them! But this whole thing between her and Danny is making things pretty tough for the rest of us, and that's not fair. It seems that they could budge, at least a little, for us. I spent all summer trying to get Rachel to do that. She claimed she tried and he wouldn't budge.Fine, so I decided to try working on him. I thought that maybe if I could get one of them to back down, then the other might be willing to establish more civil terms. Rachel seemed willing to budge if Danny would - so I'm trying to get him to do his part now.

So no, I'm not "after"  him. All I'm trying to do is make our senior year less awkward. Don't we deserve that? These are supposed to be the best days of our lives! I'm just trying help - really!

Marielle, my friend on the cheerleading squad, said to let them both go and do my own thing. She said there's no way this can get any better and in fact, it's probably going to come to the point of a break sometime soon. I know it seems it would be easier to let the whole thing go and do my own thing - but I've been friends with Rachel, Sasha, and the gang my whole life. I can't just walk away from them. I'm not going to abandon all of my friends just because one of them had a messy breakup. Heck, that could happen to any of us! I just have a bad feeling that Marielle has a point, and I'm so afraid it might come to that. I hope it doesn't. I'd hate that. I can't imagine life without Rachel, Sasha, and Natalie in it.

God, why does life have to be so complicated? Why did Danny have to get so entrenched in our lives, then screw things up with Rachel? Why couldn't Rachel give Danny more of a chance to change? Why, why, why?

I don't know, but I'm going to do whatever it takes to make things better - for myself and for all of us.

That's all for today. Take care.

Author's note: We see exactly where this went for Kirsten from the sample Prologue on the front page. What happened? Find out in Blurry!

Hi everybody, Sherri is taking it easy today, so I thought I'd drop by. My name is Kirsten Chalmers, from Blurry, and I'm here to set the record straight. I know there's a lot of talk about "things" between me and Danny. I think a lot of people misunderstand things - completely.

I'm not after Danny for a relationship or to "hook up." Please, just because I'm a cheerleader doesn't mean I'm shallow! Actually, I've been trying to establish a better peace between Danny and Rachel. This "truce" of theirs is barely a truce at all. In fact, it feels more like a silent war. Sure, they agreed not to talk - but do you realize what kind of situation that puts their mutual friends in? It forces us to take sides, and that's just not fair.

I tried to talk to Rachel about this all summer and got nowhere. Then she had her big 18th birthday party over Labor Day weekend. Yea, pretty much most of the senior and junior classes were invited - except Danny. That was SO majorly awkward, especially since those two were glued together all of last year! It was such a shock! When we asked and she said they came up with this "you leave me alone, I leave you alone" kind of "truce," most of us were floored. We just couldn't believe they would cut off each other that completely. Couldn't they at least act friendly? Rachel said no, that Danny shot that down and she was doing what he asked. She said she was willing to try to be friends, or at least civil, but he said no, he had his own friends and would keep to them.

So the day after the party, I saw Danny at the Pizza Parlor and decided to ask him about it myself. He said that yes, this not talking truce was his idea. He said he simply couldn't be friends with Rachel after their messy breakup. I didn't think it was that messy. It seemed like a clean break to me. They were together one day and apart the next - but whatever. He also said something about Rachel not being able to accept who he really was and his other friends, and he couldn't deal with her judging him all the time.

I get it - I really do. Rachel doesn't mean to be judgemental, but her life is black and white. She's such a good girl, and she's really smart - but she's in her own little perfect world sometimes and that can be a hard thing to break through. I know. I've been friends with her my whole life. She just can't handle the shades of grey. Heck, she can't even see them! But this whole thing between her and Danny is making things pretty tough for the rest of us, and that's not fair. It seems that they could budge, at least a little, for us. I spent all summer trying to get Rachel to do that. She claimed she tried and he wouldn't budge.Fine, so I decided to try working on him. I thought that maybe if I could get one of them to back down, then the other might be willing to establish more civil terms. Rachel seemed willing to budge if Danny would - so I'm trying to get him to do his part now.

So no, I'm not "after"  him. All I'm trying to do is make our senior year less awkward. Don't we deserve that? These are supposed to be the best days of our lives! I'm just trying help - really!

Marielle, my friend on the cheerleading squad, said to let them both go and do my own thing. She said there's no way this can get any better and in fact, it's probably going to come to the point of a break sometime soon. I know it seems it would be easier to let the whole thing go and do my own thing - but I've been friends with Rachel, Sasha, and the gang my whole life. I can't just walk away from them. I'm not going to abandon all of my friends just because one of them had a messy breakup. Heck, that could happen to any of us! I just have a bad feeling that Marielle has a point, and I'm so afraid it might come to that. I hope it doesn't. I'd hate that. I can't imagine life without Rachel, Sasha, and Natalie in it.

God, why does life have to be so complicated? Why did Danny have to get so entrenched in our lives, then screw things up with Rachel? Why couldn't Rachel give Danny more of a chance to change? Why, why, why?

I don't know, but I'm going to do whatever it takes to make things better - for myself and for all of us.

That's all for today. Take care.

Author's note: We see exactly where this went for Kirsten from the sample Prologue on the front page. What happened? Find out in Blurry!

Hi everybody, Sherri has decided to yield to the call of her recliner, so I'm stepping in to keep her blog from getting hopelessly outdated. My name is Sasha Miles, from Blurry. I'm Rachel Shull's best friend - in fact, I've got to type fast, cause we're fixing to head to the football game. Thank God the weather is cooling off. These band uniforms are brutally hot in August and September!

I've got bigger problems than hot band uniforms, though. The problem? Our friend Kirsten is after Rachel's ex. Oh, Rachel thinks that Kirsten has no romantic interest in Danny and that she's just trying to remain civil for the sake of civility since Danny is hanging around some of those atheletes because of their fast cars - yea right. I have to tell you, Rachel is sweet - and that's her problem. She thinks everybody else is too. She just can't fathom that her best friend might be after her ex. She suspects something's up that isn't above board, but she's just too good to realize it. She thinks that the "guy code" of staying away from your friend's ex's apply to girls too. Well, it doesn't. There's no such thing as a "girl code." The heart wants what the heart wants and will go after it - no matter how many knives you stick in how many backs.

That probably doesn't make a bit of sense, but this will - I saw Kirsten getting pretty cozy with Danny outside the Pizza Parlor after band practice yesterday. Thank God that the band director has an officer's meeting after practice yesterday in preparation for tomorrow's competition, or Rachel would have walked right in the middle of it with me(she's Band Captain). I can't tell you how much luck was at work last night.

Danny and Kirsten played cool, but she called me later and said that yes, she does want to see if this leads to more and wouldn't be disappointed if it did. I talked her into using more discresion while she and Danny "explore their feelings for one another" (oh PLEASE!) and that she would have to be the one to tell Rachel if they did start dating. And I'm going to have to do a hell of a job playing dumb, because I can't get caught in the middle of this. I just can't handle it. There's already been too much drama between Rachel and Danny since they broke up. Yes, they agreed to ignore one another from now on, but people keep talking to try to stir things up and it makes it tough. The whole gang feels like they're in the middle of a silent war. And now Kirsten decides to go off on her own and do the dumbest thing possible. I just don't get it.

Maybe this will fall apart and lead to nothing. Maybe Kirsten will see the same flaws that drove Rachel away from Danny and I'm worrying for nothing. God, I hope so! I mean, what's he thinking? How can this possibly lead to anything good?

That's the problem. I don't think she is thinking.

Well, it's time to head to the statium so I better head out. Thanks for listening to me vent. I hope this is nothing. Man, I hope it is.

Bye!

Author's note: Would Kirsten date Rachel's ex-boyfriend? Find out in Blurry!

Hi everybody, pleasure to meet you. No, this isn't Sherri. Sherri's been a bit under the weather this week. She's been trying to find ways to simplify her life SO we FINALLY got her to agree to turn her blog over to the good folks from her writing from time to time. So who am I? This is Rachel Shull in Woodland, SC. You might know me from Blurry. I'm an 18 year old senior at Woodland High School. 

Maybe you folks can help me. My friend, Kirsten, has been acting weird since last weekend. When I see her she's fine and acts normal, but I swear it seems like she's avoiding me. We usually talk on Tuesdays because my band practice and her cheerleading practice end at the same time on those days, but she rushed outwithout speaking to me or Sasha this week. Then today she didn't have lunch with us - she claimed she had to go to the library, but Josh ran into her coming out of his shop class and she gave him the brush off too. Then today she came up to me before band practice and asked me - get this - how I feel about Danny.

How do I feel about Danny? Um, hello? He's my ex-boyfriend. How do you think I feel? That's odd. I mean, we talked about that break up all summer. And it comes back up now, after all these months? What the ...?

Sasha and Josh think she wants to hook up with Danny but I don't think so. I mean, she knows why I left him and she was never that fond of him while we were dating last year. Surly, she saw my mistakes with him. You can't change guys mixed up in rough crowds like that. The "bad boy" boyfriend was fun for a while but - yea, we've had that conversation a million times, it's not fun forever. She gets it.

Still, I wonder what this is about? Maybe I'll get to talk to her after the football game tomorrow night. I'm sure it's probably nothing.

Well, I better shove off. I have trigonometry homework (why am I taking that? I want to be a writer and a teacher, not a design professional! Oh well, stupid requirements) and a chapter of Psychology to read that didn't get done in study hall today. I hope all is well in your world.

Bye!

What's going on with Rachel's best friend and her ex-boyfriend? Find out in Blurry, available at www.wingsepress.com !

Howdy ho, folks, and I hope this entry finds you in the middle of a good and productive week. I’d like to open by welcoming many new people that I’ve connected with in recent days: Friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, and anybody that graces my Author Page on Amazon.com, where this blog has a feed. Some are old friends from days gone by and some are fellow writers or connections with writers. I welcome and thank each and every one of you. Thanks to all of you for the connection, friendship and support!

In honor of my recent book release and new connections, I’d like to dedicate this blog post by sharing a bit more about myself with you. Here we go!

Want to know what inspired Blurry? Nightmares. That’s right, the novel came about based on dreams I had about being in high school in college while Rick (my husband) and I built our house in 2007. Some say that dreams of school days represents a subconscious desire to return to a simpler time in life. Maybe, but I weaved a heck of a tale from those
dreams!

I’ve actually been writing for over 10 years. I started out as an inspirational writer and published a Christian book titled Battleground Earth – Living by Faith in a Pagan World in 2004. It’s still for sale on www.publishamerica.com and on Amazon.com . Unfortunately, my muse for the inspirational work went dry so I switched to fiction. I read an article on CNN about the rise of E-publishing last summer and decided that perhaps that would be more appropriate for my fiction work, so I dusted off a few manuscripts and now, here we are.

I’m publishing another novel titled Anywhere But Here in April 2012 and I have another novel in progress. It’s a sci-fi apocalyptic thriller titled Splinter and I do hope to publish it. 

The birds outnumber the people in my house. To you new folks, Rick and I have three birds: Two sun conures named Zack and Chloe and a budgie named Oliver. We lovingly adopted Zack and Chloe and rescued Ollie – the principal at one of the schools Rick works at found him in the school yard. And of course, being bird people, well, we wound out with Bird #3. Hmm. Do you think Ollie was really a rescue, or part of Zack and Chloe’s clever plan to shift the balance of power in our home from human to avian?

By the way, the birds have their own website. Rick started a test site when he was designing the church website. When he was done with it, he told me to do what I wished with it. So many people ask me about the birds that I decided to redo the website as theirs. You can check it out at http://conurecorner.weebly.com . It also includes some silly stories I wrote inspired by each bird.

I don’t have one kind of music I listen to, as it depends on my mood. But you absolutely cannot borrow one CD. It’s Cold’s “13 Ways to Bleed On Stage” from 2000. I know,  that dark stuff isn’t like me at all, but it’s catchy and I love it! My favorite songs:“Just Got Wicked,” “End of the World,” and “Bleed” (truly a ballad appreciated by all bleeding artists).

Movie that came out of left field and smacked me thissummer: Thor. That movie was awesome.

Movie that was better than I expected: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Folks, it was a bloodbath! And about time that people started whopping up on one another! That was too long in coming. 

Movie that wasn’t what I hoped: The Green Lantern. I hoped for less personal angst and more intergalactic warfare from my favorite childhood superhero.

What was as good as I expected: The series finale of Smallville. 

In case you didn’t notice, I really like science fiction and fantasy. Suspense is also high on my list. Romance is near the bottom. I’ve given it a chance and frankly, it’s unrealistic. I’ve been married for 13 years, folks, and I know the reality of romantic relationships. 
 
I don’t watch much TV, but I will make time to watch one TV show, and that’s Supernatural. I sure hope Bobby, Sam and Dean find a way to reign Castielle in, or at least beat the crap out of him in Season 7. After that finale, Cas could use a good whopping.

I don’t like having my picture taken. That’s why I don’t have many pictures posted. I don’t think they look like me. And I don’t own a video camera either. 

Pink is my favorite color. My laptop, my iPod Touch cover, several of my purses, and most of my clothes are pink. Yellow is my second favorite color, with purple as close third. I don’t care for brown or orange.

I like purple nail polish, strappy sandals in the summer, and hiking boots in the winter. 

I think Walmart is the fifth level of Dante’s Inferno and that everybody needs to get off the cell phone while they’re in there. It doesn’t help and that line to the outside world is a false sense of security. If you’re in Walmart, you’re still in Hell. I feel like I pay for those low prices with a piece of my soul every time I go there. 

I don’t have kids, but my first job was working in a 2 year old room for a daycare. So whine at your own risk because I know how to deal with tantrums “professionally.” 

I don’t lead or follow. I just go along my own way. And that drives some people absolutely batty!

We built in the woods and truthfully, I feel safer there than I did in a neighborhood. If I hear a noise outside at night, it’s likely wildlife doing what wildlife does and that’s normal. If I heard a noise outside at night in a neighborhood, that was nothing but people creeping around – and why were they creeping around at a late hour when they thought nobody was aware of it?

Speaking of living in the woods, we’ve disproved a few old wives tales in the nearly 4 years since we moved out there. Snakes don’t writhe until sundown if you kill them, especially if they’re hacked into 4 pieces. An owl hooting doesn’t always mean death is coming, and they won’t stop hooting if you turn your pillow over (they don’t know or care that you did it). You can’t overwater anything in sandy soil. And a yard light out doesn’t scare much of anything.

Well, I think that’s enough for this time. I hope you’ve enjoyed this silly list of trivia and that you’ll visit this site often to keep up with my continuing adventures in publishing and in life. Enjoy the rest of your week.

Bye!

Happy Friday everybody! I'm proud to announce that my young adult fiction novel, Blurry, is now available for sale! See the Home page for links to where you can buy it.

Don't suffer through another vampire romance! You know you want something different and I have delivered. Go get it folks!

I'm so excited I could pop. I'm a published writer again!

I hope you have a happy weekend.

Bye!