I Need a Bigger Plate

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It has been way too long since I've posted a blog, so I'm writing this one on the fly. I never, ever do this. Three in the morning, I should be sleeping, but instead I'm posting something that I'll not edit, not re-read. Something I never do. I must always read it again and again, searching for imperfections, stumbling or clumsy language. Not tonight. I just don't have the time.

But alas! I'm losing followers. Come back! I'm creating content, I swear it. I have so much on my plate as far as writing goes right now. I've written my ThrillerFest blog, but I need to read it again and again. I need to insert some links, pictures, and all that jazz. I'll post it once I've actually written my coinciding post about the vacation side of my trip to NYC. For some reason, I've had it in mind that I'd post them on the same day.

I've also been super busy using some of the knowledge I gained at ThrillerFest. I've been editing book two like mad so I can get it to my publisher. But, oh...there's so many rewrites now. And then there's my pirate story.

Everyone wants to hear about the Pirates of Madison Island Mental Hospital. Yes, yes, my dearies, hear of them you shall. Soon, soon. One must be patient before getting to read about the patients.

I'm going to do my best to make it free as a downloadable ebook for anyone who signs up for my mailing list. The mailing list, I've also been working on figuring out. If, for some reason, I'm unable to make that work, then I intend on making the Pirates ebook free for everyone via Kindle. But as far as a time frame, I'm looking at at least two months, and that's if I'm lucky at figuring out Scrivener, which I've yet to dive in to. Apparently, I'm just an idiot when it comes to computers and such since everything that's supposed to be soooo easy takes me weeks or even months of screwing with it to figure out how to make it do certain things I want it to do. Rawr. 

Ok. Goodnight, folks. I've got to go sleep for a few hours before I have to go work twelve hours at my paycheck and insurance job. ^-^

 

On This Day in History

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Sixty-eight years ago today, my grandparents met on a double date. He was only twenty, and she was two months shy of nineteen. Now, they weren’t on a date with each other, but that didn’t stop them from chatting all evening. Grandpa told me that he knew that night that she was the girl for him. It didn’t take him long to propose, but Grandma had been raised to not rush into something as serious as marriage. She told him that they had to wait for at least two years. He agreed, albeit begrudgingly.

Sixty-six years ago today, my grandparents were joined as man and wife.

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Book Review: The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

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 I loved this book so much right up until almost the very end. There will be some serious spoilers later, but for now, I’ll merely give an overview. A group of men crash their balloon near a deserted island in the South Pacific during the Civil War. They manage to make their way through the rough surf to a small islet off the coast of a larger island that has been formed by a volcano. At low tide, they cross the strip of sea between the two and begin to explore the larger island. They eventually find their engineer, who was lost in the ocean during their crash. It would seem that he’s been saved by some mysterious benefactor who put him in a cave to recover.

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Thriller Roundtable

This month I'm participating in some discussions on The Big Thrill's website. Check it out here. For the first week of April, we've been talking about music and whether it helps or hinders during the writing process. It's all been very interesting so far. Stop by, check it out, and join the conversations.

Week three's roundtable will be about writer's block and how we deal with it as authors. Anyone can comment and reply to other's comments.

The Pot-smoking Angel

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I’ve already been asked several times—and I expect I’ll get asked many more times—about why I chose to depict Hope as a stoner. I wouldn’t actually consider her a stoner. Yes, she smokes pot. Yes, it alters her mind. But, she doesn’t do it so that she can lay around and be lazy. Hope smokes cannabis as a way to meditate. She smokes with the intention of slowing down her brain so that she doesn’t overthink things—so that she can find what might be the most obvious solution to the problem on which she is focusing. She doesn’t use it to escape her problems. Hope smokes weed to investigate her problems.

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Taking a Break

Before the holidays, I'd been trying to post one blog a week. Preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas caused me to take a break from blogging. Now, I'm preparing to release my first novel and I'm editing like mad to make sure it is as perfect as I can make it. Hopefully, some time in early February, I'll be back to posting weekly. 

I've got a lot of exciting stuff I've been working on, including an interview with Hope, the main character in my upcoming release. I've also got some more funny, strange, and curious blogs about my observations of the world around us. 

Check back regularly, and don't forget to follow me on Facebook. 

The Bitter Taste of Racism

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I've spent most of my life working in customer service. In one way or another, every job I've ever had required me to interact with paying customers. Those jobs taught me a lot about people. They also gave me reason to watch others when they interact with people who are just trying to do their jobs.

When I order takeout, there are only a handful of places that I go. I tend to be a regular customer at restaurants where they know me. I like to order there so that I can look around and see that it's clean. If someone else is making my food, I prefer knowing that they're going to do it right and that they regularly follow food safety standards. There are three places that I frequent where friends of mine work. I was at one of them earlier this week when I witnessed a bizarre and racist encounter.

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Jesus Bacon

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I realized a while back how inundated we are with advertising for bacon. It seems like every fast food commercial is advertising something new with bacon. Even numerous sit-down-and-order-from-a-waitress restaurants have TV ads for their bacon slathered dishes. This got me thinking about how much pork is marketed in this country.

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It's an "S" not a "Z"

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I glared up at the replacement minister—the stranger—who was conducting the funeral service for my grandma. She’d mispronounced her name. Again. She didn’t notice my look. I don’t think anyone did. Only a few people could’ve seen my face, anyway, from where I was sitting. I was in the front right corner of the chapel—exactly where I’d sat just three weeks earlier for my grandfather’s funeral.

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