Flashes of both kinds

All of a sudden my body has decided to treat me to a new type of hot flashes. I'd kind of gotten used to (and found ways to work around) the random flashes that would start at my shoulders and speed up to my head. Now I'm getting core body hot flashes...totally different and they are making me keenly aware of how it might feel to spontaneously combust.

The first few days of this I thought I might just be coming down with some funky virus, but about the fifth day of these, one of my characters popped in and started laughing at me. Myrtle is a side character, she's Jess' mentor, and a woman of a "certain" age and is apparently very familiar with what I'm going through. (How should I know, it's not like I can sit and chat with her at length or anything!)

She told me I should look at how I can use my insight into an overheated body into helping Jess solve a death in her fourth book. So I started writing, and writing, and no I've done no editing. One thing my characters have taught me, it's to write what they tell me as soon as they tell me so I don't miss out on it and leave the editing until after I get it all down.  The fun part about that is I get to "hear" the story first and then fine tune it and really read the story during the editor.

In some ways I'm a "pantser" writer, but not today. Today is a hot flash day, the pants are off, and the shirt may be soon to follow if things don't cool down. Luckily, I'm home so I can actually strip down if need be, I can't do that at work-work.

Research - where to keep it all?

I'm looking for a means to put all my research in an easy place to find it. I could put it in a database I supposed, but I need something a bit more simple than that as much of what I need is written. Historical documents that I need an entire copy of, not bits and pieces.

My best bet at this point is to stuff it all here on Blogspot and tag everything, I just hope the blog doesn't get too busy.

Kindle vs. Nook or Amazon vs. B&N

Okay, so those that know me well, know I prefer B&N over Amazon any day. The few items I've purchased from Amazon have all been via gift certificates that I've won somehow. B&N however gets a lot more of my money because there is a brick-and-mortar store in my town that I prefer to support, along with the few local book sellers left.

I've been in a discussion with B&N for a few days now. I'd emailed them to let them know that they'd be losing an eReader sale based solely on their account setup practice. In return I've had multiple emails, all from various customer service folks with Anglicized (did I spell that right?) names, all of which have more horrid grammar than I do.  All sent back the same boilerplate response of "we're sorry for any inconvenience. We require a credit card for blah, blah, blah..." no actual response to the fact that they're losing a sale. I finally sent an email saying, you should forward my comments to upper management and have them get back to me. I no longer need your customer support folks.

Really folks, if you can't get a simple email comment right, how can I expect you to survive you own ignorant business practices? I understand the reasoning for requiring a credit card, I really do. After all you had a logical argument about protecting the rights of the authors and publishing companies to make sure they get paid. I'm all for that.

But really? A credit card is a "must-have" to setup an account? What about folks who no longer have credit cards, or parents setting up their kids an account that theydon't want running amok with a credit card? There's really no effective way of controlling that. I'm an IT geek, I can spot the holes a mile away, even through the poor English. Never mind that Amazon is a HUGE hacking target and that B&N has already had at least one incident of their accounts being hacked.

So, what all this ranting comes down this: I bought a Kindle over a Nook because Amazon will let me setup an account without a credit card. And no, the Kindle is not for me.

It's my Dad's birthday (okay, father-in-law, but he's the only Dad I have left) and my DH and I were trying to figure out what to get him. He's getting older and an eReader that he can change font sizes on would be fun for him. Major stumbling block: they live in an area of our state that only has dial-up available to them. (For you kids out there, dial-up means you have to have an old noisy modem that makes the sounds that are at the beginning of "You've Got Mail").

Why is dial-up a stumbling block? Well, Kindles require a wireless connection to get registered, which we have but they obviously don't. Yes, a wireless connection is required to activate your Kindle. Since we wanted this to be a surprise, we setup a gmail account for him and then setup an Amazon account, preloaded it with a gift card and he's good to go. 

That would not have been possible with a Nook as B&N requires a credit card just to setup an account, and I refuse to have my credit cards on B&N's site because of an old policy of theirs that kept your CC info in their database indefinitely.

I doubt I'll get an eReader for myself any time soon. Not that they aren't handy devices to have, but for me it seems rather redundant. (I was going to say for "folks in IT" but then I remembered my sister has a Nook, so it kind of depends on what part of IT you work in.) For me, it's definitely overkill considering the number of portable devices already on hand that have a Nook or Kindle app already available. I don't need yet another device to try to get through the overzealous TSA folks.

My recommendation; get a Kindle if you must have "just" an eReader. Otherwise, get your favorite device - smartphone, tablet, netbook, laptop, notebook, desktop - and download the free readers. Now, if Kindle was only available for Linux distributions, THEN I'd be totally pro-Amazon.

(Wonder if Amazon will ever read this post and think about making one for Linux distros?)

Contests and Feedback

I've been busy working on edits for my first book submission to my first contest. I'm so excited to have it in a contest where I will actually get some feedback. It really doesn't matter to me if it's positive or negative feedback, I'm just happy to get anything back on it.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong or right with my writing. My education trained me for writing computer code and business documents, not fictional mysteries, so I'm a total newbie at writing with a goal of being published.

The Christmas challenge piece that I posted here has also been submitted to a local magazine as well. Not sure if I will hear anything back from them, but it's in at least.

And finally, Chicken Soup for the Soul is taking stories for writers. I'm considering submitting something for this as well. I heard about this one from one of my writer's group friends and haven't read all of the rules yet, but apparently unpublished writers can get in on this one.

Now I hope to get blogging more often again, but I'm not making any promises beyond "I'll try".

The Liebster Blog Award

Had anyone bothered to ask me four or five years ago if I'd ever write a book, let alone a work of fiction, I would've told them they were nuts. It was never my dream to be a writer and it would never have dawned on me that I'd ever write a novel or even a blog. Then Jess popped up and I wrote my first draft of my first book in less than a month. 

After submitting the first book to a few agents, I realized I would need more help if I were to ever get this thing published so I checked out a few local groups. They didn't like Jess, because she swears, and the first book is a bit dark in spots. (How can you not get dark when writing about a dead child?)

I then found Grand Rapids Region Writers Group and emailed then-president Cheryl Sterling about whether or not I might fit in their group, given Jess' penchant for swearing like a drunken sailor and having a BFF that is a Drag Queen Diva. The very first meeting I knew I found a new home.

Fast forward a year, and here I find myself the recipient of the Liebster Blog award courtesy of Patricia Kiyono, a fellow author/crafter/seamstress/procrastinator (I especially love that last one). Patricia Kiyono has fun blog Creative Hodgepodge – complete with cute grandbaby pictures - and is the author of three current titles at Astrea Press: Aegean Intrigue, A Chrismas Phoenix, and The Legacy. You can check them out at her site or purchase them directly from Astrea Press.

The Liebster Blog award is supposed to be given to "up and coming bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers". Thank you Patricia for granting me this honor! And now it's my turn to pass it on.

All that's required to accept this award is:

1. Thank the person who gave it to them and link back to that person's blog.

2. Copy and paste the award to your blog. (It's up at the top!)

3. Choose 5 blogs to award in kind and break the news by commenting on those blogs.

4. Hope those people pay it forward in turn by accepting and awarding "The Liebster Blog Award" to blogs they'd like to honor.

I'm choosing these five bloggers:

Erica Clodig at The Pen is Mighter than the Darkness. Erica is the one who introduced me to NaNoWriMo, where Collie was “born” and has an amazing number of books in progress and who, like me, is not yet published. She inspired me to keep working on my writing and gave me my first introduction into the writing world.

Jennifer Armintrout at Sweaters For Days And Moves Like Jagger . Jennifer is the USA Today best-selling author of several paranormal romance novels and makes me laugh often. She's also the one to get me into my first real critique meeting which has been hugely beneficial and loaded with lots of much needed advice and suggestions for improvements.

Mia Watts at The Art of Seduction is Watts Beneath the Covers. Mia is one of the writer's I connected with at the first meeting and assured me that Jess' swearing really isn't an issue. She also is a prolific romance author who appears to have book releases every week!

Tanya Eby at www.tanyaeby.com. Tanya is my mentor and writes fun, quirky characters that I can totally relate to. She has an amazing sense of humor and continues to keep my faith up by allowing me to see her own struggles with getting books published.

Andrea Dickinson at Diary of a Romance Writer.  Andrea writes some amazingly hot, quick romance reads and has a similar appreciation of the LGBT community. She also makes me laugh often and I could easily spend a day having fun with her and feel like we'd barely gotten started.

So those are my 5 nominees, now to finish up the comment/contact instructions!

You know, for being currently unemployed I seem to have tons of work to do.

I got paid to write!

One of my favorite global software companies contacted me to see if I would like some contract work during my current unexpected unemployment. (No worries, I had an offer just 3 days after being released from the last job).

I just wonder if being contracted to work on some ROI and Cost Benefit Analysis documentation is truly considered writing in a freelance sense. The really cool part, is they like what I've done already and asked me to help with another piece of collateral material that is needed. It's certainly been a fun, geeky project for me to work on.

The bad part: Jess and company are still waiting in the wings - impatiently - for me to work on their stories. Hopefully I'll get some downtime this weekend...although I do have some studying to do for the new gig.

It's kind of nice to be busy, and wanted, again.

Ah, at last!

I have a break. An unplanned one that started out a little stressed, but is wrapping up fairly quickly. The nice thing is I will have time to sit and write for a long stretch at last.

Paul has been bugging me to hurry up and finish up the second book in the Jess Barker series, so I can get on to "his" book in the series. Jess, in the meantime, has been harrassing me to hurry up and finish edits on the first book and hit up more agents.

The Scot is patiently waiting in the wings, while I do more research. Merie has been unusually quiet, while Collie has been chattering like crazy of late. I think it has something to do with the weather as she's not happy about the weird weather pattern we've been having. I, however, have been loving it!

Jess and Paul will be appeased. There is a competition coming up that I think fits Jess pretty well. I'll be checking into that tomorrow and see if it's a good fit for Jess' book or not. I'm crossing my fingers that it is.