Category Archives: General

A Pitfall of Going Green

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taxesFor a change of pace, I thought I’d share one of those “life’s embar­rass­ing moments” today.

I know I’ve men­tioned that I print out hard copies of scenes as I fin­ish them, because read­ing a printed page is dif­fer­ent from read­ing on a com­puter screen. New and dif­fer­ent things pop out. It’s also a way for me to get a jump start on the next day’s work as I make the changes I’ve noted on the hard copy read.

Nor­mally, once I’ve marked up the pages and made my changes, I put them into my husband’s printer because it’s got 2 trays, and unless some­thing is impor­tant, we’ll print the day to day stuff from the ‘recy­cle’ tray. Doing our part to keep green.

So, a few weeks ago, I was talk­ing to our accoun­tant. He men­tioned enjoy­ing one of the ‘scraps of paper’ I’d included in the paper­work I’d given him. I couldn’t remem­ber giv­ing him any scraps of paper, so I asked him what he meant. He clar­i­fied by say­ing I’d printed out a copy of one of the forms—I can’t remem­ber the form num­ber, but it was one of those forms where some­one you’ve paid over $600 has to fill out, a form they emailed to me, and I printed out a copy for my records.

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North vs South…the best food-fight of all

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Today I wel­come Duffy Brown to Terry’s Place. Duffy is the author of the Con­sign­ment: Mur­der series. She’s giv­ing away two “Killer in Crino­lines” totes***, so be sure to leave a com­ment. You have until Fri­day: win­ners announced over the weekend.

Killer in Crinolines Tote(***Cat not included***)

I’m a foodie. Guess that’s why I’m on a for­ever diet. Didn’t say I kept it, just that I was on it.
I live in Cincin­nati, where North meets South…or North is sep­a­rated from  South, depend­ing on your point of view. If it’s fire­works over the Ohio River or root­ing for the Cincin­nati Reds, we meet. If it’s food…not so much.  For exam­ple, in Cincy we get iced tea. If we cross the Ohio River, a whop­ping one-minute drive away, we get sweet tea. You can’t get sweet tea in Cincy. Ask for it at a restau­rant and they hand you a packet of sugar.
In Cincy we grill. Over there, they have a cook­out. Cincy does steaks and brats and this stuff called goetta (we’re just a lit­tle bit Ger­man, you see.) On the other side it’s bar­be­cued pork that’s shred­ded, diced, sliced or pulled.
My mother used Crisco back-in-the-day; my husband’s mother had pan drip­pings on her stove. I ate pasta and Dave had grits. My veg­eta­bles were green beans and zuc­chini, Dave had fried green toma­toes, corn pud­ding and mint Julep (hey, that’s green, right).

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Critique Partners

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Beta TestingI’m over at The Blood-Red Pen­cil again, this time talk­ing about cri­tique part­ners and beta read­ers. Hope you’ll pop over and say hello. I was going to write a sep­a­rate post for Terry’s Place, but I’ll be hon­est with you. I’ve been busy with the release of Rooted in Dan­ger, and doing dou­ble blog posts didn’t fit my sched­ule. I’ll be back with another ‘writ­ing’ post on Monday.

But as long as you’re read­ing this, I’ll remind my newslet­ter sub­scribers that if they haven’t entered the con­test yet (link is found only in the newslet­ter), it’s going to be end­ing on the 30th.

If you’re not check­ing the Booklover’s Bench site, you’re also miss­ing out on chances to win books. (link in tab in the nav bar)

And, lastly, Rooted in Dan­ger will be a Nook First selec­tion start­ing on Sat­ur­day. But since the pro­gram isn’t exclu­sive any more, you can get the e-book at Barnes & Noble, Ama­zon, Kobo, and Smash­words. Buy links here.

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Writers as Artists, and More

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What I’m read­ing: Con­test entry #4/5.

 

Colorado Romance Writer Award of Excellence Finalist, Terry OdellShar­ing my happy news. Rooted in Dan­ger, Book 3 in my Black­thorne, Inc. roman­tic sus­pense series is a final­ist in the Col­orado Romance Writ­ers Award of Excel­lence con­test. Per­fect tim­ing, as I’m get­ting ready to start the upload process as the dig­i­tal rights are now under my control.

Today is one of my days at The Blood-Red Pen­cil. I’m talk­ing about dif­fer­ences and sim­i­lar­i­ties between writ­ers and sculp­tors. Hope you’ll stop by.

It’s also the last day to enter the April Give­away at Booklover’s Bench.

And I’m still look­ing for more “Likes” for my Face­book Page so I can give away a bunch of books.

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Are You Disciplined?

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Stephen L. BraytonToday, I wel­come Stephen L. Bray­ton to Terry’s Place. Stephen hails from Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he owns and oper­ates Brayton’s Black Belt Acad­emy, a school under the parent­age of the Amer­i­can Taek­wondo Asso­ci­a­tion. Stephen is a 5th Degree Black Belt. Today, he dis­cusses the sim­i­lar­ity between dis­ci­pline in exer­cis­ing and writing.

Never one for foot­ball or bas­ket­ball in high school, I did go out for one year of track as a fresh­man. I usu­ally came in last, so I didn’t bother the next year. Years later, I took advan­tage of two weeks’ free class at the local taek­wondo club. After the two weeks, I stayed with it and have enjoyed the sport for over twenty years. I’ve achieved many goals in those years but one goal I really wanted was to be phys­i­cally fit.
My stature was small in school and I filled out after col­lege. I’ve tried sev­eral times to get into shape. A New Year’s res­o­lu­tion many years ago had me run­ning in the mid­dle of win­ter and exhausted after only two hun­dred yards. Since, I’ve gone many rounds of this and that rou­tine. Last April, I asked my taek­wondo instruc­tor what exer­cise pro­gram he thought best. I had seen a vari­ety of exer­cise info-mericals on tele­vi­sion and though at least of the pro­grams looked a lit­tle extreme, I really wanted to get seri­ous about reestab­lish­ing a work­out rou­tine to stay healthy.
He sug­gested a free pro­gram devel­oped by one of my organization’s high ranks. It can be found at www.warriorxfit.com. Using the belt col­ors in my style of taek­wondo for goals, you spend only twenty min­utes on six exer­cises. You log the results and progress up in ‘rank’. The only equip­ment needed is a resis­tance tube. I’ve found it enjoy­able and although I may not be the next Mr. Uni­verse, I’ve lost weight and built mus­cle and stamina.

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Dated or Lexicon?

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What I’m read­ing: Pets in a Pickle, by Mal­colm D. Welsh­man (Nook); Sui­cide Sea­son, by Rex Burns

Disney ETicketLast week, I sub­mit­ted a chap­ter of my cur­rent man­u­script to my crit part­ners, and one of them responded that she had trou­ble with a ref­er­ence, even though I thought it was in context.

Here’s the setup. Jinx, who’s an intel gath­erer for Black­thorne, Inc. and has no expe­ri­ence in the field, finds him­self in the jun­gles of Mex­ico, escap­ing from the car­tels. Since it’s roman­tic sus­pense, of course there’s a woman involved. They’ve met. They’ve hooked up with the Black­thorne team but due to cir­cum­stances of the plot, are going to have to do some inves­ti­gat­ing on their own. At this point in the book, there’s an attrac­tion between Jinx and Elle, the woman, but other than a kiss, it’s all sex­ual ten­sion. There’s no place for the heli­copter to land, so they’re going to have to be low­ered to the ground, strapped together in a harness.

The descent was in Elle’s POV, but now that they’re on the ground, Jinx is deal­ing with the rig­ors of being in the field, and is try­ing to con­cen­trate on the pos­i­tive, which in a roman­tic sus­pense, means he’s going to think about the heroine.

Here’s the para­graph that gave my crit part­ner (among oth­ers) trouble.

To keep his mind off his exhaus­tion, he allowed his thoughts to stray to Elle, whose foot­falls behind him were sur­pris­ingly com­fort­ing. How she’d felt. pressed against him on the E-ticket ride from helo to jun­gle floor.

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A True Prince…

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Today’s the last day to enter to win a Nook Sim­ple Touch and 5 books to fill it with. Click the Booklover’s Bench tab in the nav bar.

I’m repeat­ing a blog I ran last year on Valentine’s Day. It still brings tears to my eyes.

white purseToday is Valentine’s Day, and while the media bom­bards us with ways to spend money to prove our love, I think most of us would rather have it spread out over time, and not be a bud­get breaker. I’ve spo­ken many times about why a Swiss Army Knife was one of the most roman­tic gifts I’ve ever received. And why I wasn’t “offended” at the elec­tronic tire pres­sure gauge I got one year. The first showed that Hub­ster had actu­ally lis­tened to me, and I wasn’t even talk­ing to him at the time. The sec­ond showed that he’s con­cerned for my safety. (And as proof, I think he used it a LOT more than I did to make sure my tires were okay.)

When I was at the Emer­ald City con­fer­ence, Sarah Wen­dell (more widely known for her “Smart Bitches” blog) gave every­one a copy of her book, “Every­thing I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Nov­els.” One sec­tion struck a deep chord, and I’m reprint­ing it with her permission.

“As an arti­cle in the Boston Globe in Octo­ber 2009 by oncol­o­gist Robin Schoen­thaler stated, the ideal man is not the one with the biggest bank account or the extreme sports habit, but is the man who will hold your purse in the can­cer clinic:”

Dr. Schoen­thaler wrote:

I became acquainted with what I’ve come to call great ‘purse part­ners’ at a can­cer clinic in Waltham. Every­day these hus­bands drove their wives in for their radi­a­tion treat­ments, and every day these cou­ples sat side by side in the wait­ing room, with­out much fuss and with­out much chitchat. Each wife, when her name was called, would stand, take a breath, and hand her purse over to her hus­band. Then she’d dis­ap­pear into the recesses of the radi­a­tion room, leav­ing behind a stony-faced man hold­ing what was typ­i­cally a white vinyl pock­et­book. On his lap. The guy—usually retired from the trades, a grand­fa­ther a dozen times over, a Sox fan since date of conception—sat there silently with that purse. He didn’t read, he didn’t talk, he just sat there with the knowl­edge that twenty feet away tech­nol­o­gists were prepar­ing to pro­gram an unimag­in­ably com­pli­cated X-ray machine and aim it at the mother of his kids. I’d walk by and catch him star­ing into space, hold­ing hard onto the pock­et­book, his big gnarled knuck­les clamped around the clasp, and think, “What a prince.”

Have a happy Valentine’s Day, every­one. May you find your own prince.

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Monday Update

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What I’m read­ing: Con­test entry #5/5; Mad River, by John Sand­ford (library)

Gone Fishing SignSince I posted yes­ter­day, I’m tak­ing the day off (more or less). Okay, I’m not really fishing–all our “lakes” are frozen, and I’m not into ice fish­ing. And I’m not even laz­ing around. I’m still dis­cussing Indie Pub­lish­ing at Cof­fee­time Romance.  I’m work­ing on my work­shop for The 12 Steps to Inti­macy at Savvy Authors. And if you haven’t read yesterday’s post, scroll down. There’s a lot there, with lots of chances to win prizes). And the Blog Hop is still going on (link in the sidebar).

Tomor­row, my guest is Bev Irwin, who’s shar­ing a very spe­cial day. There’s a give­away, so be sure to check back.

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You Said WHAT?

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Today I wel­come Mona Karel to Terry’s Place. Mona’s going to take us on a stroll down mem­ory lane, in more ways than one.

Hi Terry, thanks so much for the invite. I worked for a dog trainer in Geor­gia who liked to sing along to the radio, even if he didn’t quite under­stand the lyrics.  He won­dered why a song with the refrain “They eat hogs in Alabama” was so pop­u­lar. Maybe because it was “Sweet Home Alabama?” There’s actu­ally a name for this sort of con­fu­sion: ‘mon­de­gren.’ Seems like a  fancy word for mis­un­der­stood song lyrics.
My late hus­band was a wild fan of easy lis­ten­ing. His tape col­lec­tion (8-track and cas­sette, hey, not all of us are spring chick­ies) was huge. The day he gave me a hand made friend­ship ring in lieu of an engage­ment ring, this great song by Eng­land Dan and John Fogelby played in the back­ground.  The refrain went:
I’m not talk­ing ’bout mil­len­nium,
And I don’t want to change your mind.
But there’s a warm wind blow­ing the stars around,
And I’d really love to see you tonight.
This became “our” song and I’d belt it out on a reg­u­lar basis. Won­der­ful emo­tions in these lyrics “…not talk­ing about forever…not sure why I called, I guess I really just wanted to talk to you…I really do miss your smile.” I won’t point out we don’t hear many songs like this any more.
Except…

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Inner Child, Report To Duty

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Today I wel­come Michelle Monkou to Terry’s Place. Michelle Monkou writes con­tem­po­rary romances with a sexy, sen­sual edge. With over 16 books to her credit, she con­tin­ues to write for Har­le­quin Kimani Romance and self-publishes on Kin­dle and Nook. (There’s a give­away, so keep reading!)

BarbadosEach day, espe­cially birth­days, high­light the real­ity that I am get­ting older. Hear­ing my joints pop and crack are also those pesky reminders that time marches on. And yet, the child inside is still there ready to be amazed and ready to enjoy life in full abandon.
Remem­ber these admo­ni­tions: “Act your age!” “Be mature!” “Grow up!”
I’ve done all those things and there’s still a part of me that says, “Noooo, I don’t wanna.”
As a child, I loved to read. One of my favorite child authors, Enid Bly­ton, cap­tured my imag­i­na­tion, molded it, so that when I finally escaped (well, not com­pletely), she had cre­ated a mon­ster booka­holic and the stir­rings to cre­ate my own stories.
Bly­ton sto­ries were con­tro­ver­sial because she used sex­ist and racist char­ac­ters and ref­er­ences in her sto­ries. But, I can’t dimin­ish what she’s brought to my life with sto­ries of adven­ture, mys­tery, and youth­ful friend­ship with series like the Famous Five; The Secret Seven or the fun life at board­ing school with The Mal­ory Tower series.  She wrote about 800 books over 40 years and the works have been trans­lated in over 90 lan­guages. When I think about my inner child, I think about Enid’s influence.

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