Leafing into #ROW80

Autumn… Sigh… Summer has fallen along with the temperatures in New Hampshire. We said, “Ugh,” after lighting the woodstove last night. Many New Hampshire residents are feeling they will surely see snow once again before Halloween.

It is kind of funny how the seasons change so fast here. Just last week the trees had green leaves in them. As of today, most of them have turned and are now carpeting our lawns.

If you are a leaf peeper, now is a great time to take a trip to NH to see some really pretty colors. That is if it manages to stop raining long enough for anyone to enjoy the trip. The colors always look so much more beautiful when the sun shines on them.

Mike took the screen house down yesterday. He almost took the snow blower out but he decided to wait another week.

Last year at this time we had a surprise snow storm that dumped over two feet of snow on us a week or two before Halloween. So when Halloween came around it didn’t feel like Halloween, it felt more like Thanksgiving.

Survived the Book Signing:

 I survived the book signing last Saturday, in fact I had a grand old time. It was a small turn out but that was fine for me. It just made it easier to face the crowd. My friend Linda was a great help. She was able to keep me focused and I don’t remember her ever needing to tell me to breath. Just her being there helped me feel more confident in myself.

I am ready and willing to do an event again, with her help of course.

I was told at work that I should have put a posting about it up on our Cafeteria bulletin board. I really didn’t know I could have done that. It was the lady from human resources who had told me to do this next time. So I say – Hmm.

Have you done a Local Book Signing yet? I would love to hear about your first experience.

Mine was – I showed up early. I had read all over the internet about book signings and they all said show up early. (Don’t show up early – at least not an hour early.) Ten minutes early is alright but not an hour early like I did. One good thing though by doing the hour early thing… I was able to spend some time talking to the store owner and was able to learn a little bit more about the Kobo vs. Google eBooks for Independent Book Sellers. Our store is considering carrying and selling the Kobo eReaders.

Offer to bring copies of your books. I was glad I had brought some copies of Friends of Choice and my Short Story Collection. It gave the guest a good variety of books to choose from.

If you have a co-host for your event, interact with them while they do their thing. This seems to liven things up. I saw how my friend did this for me, I did not step up and do this for her, mostly over the fact that I was still in shock from speaking to the public. It was like I was in some far away land and when it was over I was like dah…why didn’t I help her the way she helped me. I was a bit beside myself for not doing this.

ROW80 Check in:

I missed Sunday’s check in. What’s new right?

Anyways – After the book signing I added a thousand more words on Saturday. Then I did open the file on Sunday but only added a hundred or so words and the same again on Tuesday. Today before writing this blog I added another thousand words to the manuscript. It is going slowly. I have to get my butt into gear – NaNo is right around the corner.

Mind you, I only do NaNo to help get myself motivated. I have never once finished a manuscript on time. That is not my real intentions for doing NaNo. I think I like the forums and finding the motivational blogs. It always help to find a way to get pumped to write, just like is done for ROW80 with the inspirational posts. I look forward to those posts every week from our ROW80 mentors.

Well, I hope you are all finding ways to ROW your manuscript along.

Keep on writing.

Stop by and check out how the other ROWers are doing on the Linkey List.

Friday List #Top10FavoriteArtist

Oh no! What ever happened to Friday?

I must have missed a day; I can’t believe it is already Saturday.

So that’s what happened to the update of my weekly list of top favorite books of this past year, must have gotten my days mixed up somewhere along the way.

But here it is, the Friday Night Favorite Artist and I am ready to let you all know which book is next on my List of my Favorite Top Ten Artists

  • “For the past year I have been reading a lot of new authors on my Kindle, so instead of picking my favorite of my favorite, I wanted to pick from the books I have read during this past year. This I had to give some thought to, since I have read a lot of really great books on my kindle. So here is my list of favorites.”

Here is the recap:

Six weeks ago at #10 was Winning Mr. Wrong by Marie Higgins

Five weeks ago at #9 slot was A Modern Witch by Debora Geary

Four weeks ago the #8 slot was Deadly Intentions by Candice Poarche

Three weeks ago at the #7 slot was The Book of Deacon by Joseph R. Lallo

Two weeks ago at the #6 slot was Sleep Tight by Anne Frasier.

Last week at the #5 slot was Hostile Witness by Rebecca Forster

So which book is up next?

…. (Linda opens up her word pad folder one more time and peeks inside)

#4

Bewitching 

                                                                        (Kendra Chronicles #2)

by Alex Flinn

Kendra Hilferty, the witch who curses Kyle Kingsbury in Beastly, tells about her immortal existence-how she discovered she was a witch and the various ways she has used her powers to help people throughout the centuries. (Unfortunately her attempts have often backfired.) As it turns out, Kendra has actually had a hand in “Hansel and Gretel,” “The Princess and the Pea,” and “The Little Mermaid”-but these are not the fairy tales you think you know! Kendra’s reminiscences are wrapped around a real-time version of “Cinderella,” except the “ugly” stepsister is the good guy. With dark twists, hilarious turns, and unexpected endings, Bewitching is a contemporary read for fairy-tale lovers, fantasy fans, and anyone looking for more Alex Flinn.

This was such a good read, an enjoyable tale. I had great difficulty putting this book down.

I highly recommend this book to all “Once Upon a Time” fans.

This book is very much on the same concept as the TV series mentioned above. It is where the author, Alex Flinn takes several different fairy tales and gives them a different perspective on what they were all about, from the view point of a witch, known as Kendra.

My favorite tale in the book was about Emma and Lissette.

Good book for all ages.

“I won this book as a Goodreads Giveaway.”

And if you haven’t read any of these books I have listed over the past few weeks, you really do need to check them out, they were all great books.