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Friday, September 20, 2013

September 20th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 
 

Happy Friday Y’all! I’m getting an early start today because I need to leave soon to take my van into the shop. The second sliding door failed and they need to replace it. I knew it would. After what happened the last time, I begged them to fix both doors at the same time, but they wouldn’t. I even wrote a letter to the CEO of Toyota, but they wouldn’t listen, and sure enough, the door crapped out while I had a van load of kids in it. Thankfully, with a really hard thump from my oversized rump, I was able to get the door closed to get back safely from the shore.

 
Let me tell you, if I couldn’t have gotten it closed, I would have been on the phone with the dealer demanding they come down to Sandy Hook and pick us up. And knowing the dealer, they would have. They are such nice folks at Crystal, and I know they would have fixed the door the last time I was there, but corporate wouldn’t allow them to do it. Big corporations can be so shortsighted sometimes. What if that door failed while I was driving and something happened to one of those kids, especially after I warned them, in writing, that was what I was afraid would happen?

 
I’m not going to get riled up. The kids were fine and the door is being fixed. That’s all that really matters.
 

Technology is confusing me again, but in a good way this time. Every day I open my email and see I have several more followers on Twitter. I’m averaging five new follows every day. This is wonderful, and I am not complaining in the least, but I would love to know what has caused this spike in interest so I can keep doing whatever it is I’m doing. I have asked the question before when I jumped from thirty followers to a hundred followers in two weeks, but no one answered me. However, my Facebook author’s page has been hovering around three-fifty “likes” for months now and I can’t seem to manage to get to the five-hundred level. The tweets are directly linked to my Facebook feed. I have made less than ten direct tweets. Very few of my Twitter followers are also followers on Facebook and visa-versa. Can you see why I’m confused? How can I be doing the EXACT same thing in two different places and be getting dramatically different results?
 

Speaking of Twitter, I came across a site through a Twitter connection, and although I cannot participate as a sponsored author because I do not have enough reviews yet, I thought it was interesting and you might want to check it out and participate as a reader. The concept is really cool. You tell them exactly what kind of books you enjoy, ie: Romance, Thriller, Mystery and they notify you when a good book (3.5 star review rating or better) comes out. BUT WAIT, it gets better. You only like Historical and Paranormal Romances with a little sex, but nothing too graphic; the Thrillers you like have to be FBI ones and the Mysteries need to be the old fashioned London ones, neither of which can have excessive violence, then that is what they are going to tell you about. They tailor your requests into that level of specificity. See, I said it was really a cool idea. Check out the site if you get a chance.

 http://www.thefussylibrarian.com/

 
After I pick up my car, I need to pick up a few last things for my book signing this weekend – like candy for the jar. Remember, both Saturday and Sunday I will be at Canterbury Tales Forever in Peddler’s Village. If you’re in the area, please stop by to say “hi”. I’d love to see/meet you!

 
Tomorrow and Sunday may be a little hectic, so I probably won’t be able to get any challenges out there for you; which means, you very well may have until Monday to think about today’s challenge. I will try to get photos and updates of the event posted. I’ll just have to get up earlier. It’s ok, you’re worth it! I hope you have a wonderful day and happy writing!

 

Your Last Challenge was:

Write a story containing the following three words: Queen, Computer & Assignment

 

I joined a writing group which meets every other week and the person who is running it is a middle school English teacher, and I guess you can’t take the teacher out of the classroom. He actually gives us homework assignments! Thankfully, for the first time ever, I don’t mind doing homework.

 
Over the weeks the assignments have been quite creative. One week we needed to rewrite or summarize a story (book, movie, heck someone even did a song) without using the character’s names or mentioning the name of the story. It was fun reading what the others in the group wrote and trying to guess what story they were retelling.

 
Anyway, this week’s assignment was to choose a historical figure, and tell a story completely different and unexpected than how the history books have portrayed this figure. As an example we were given General George Patton, renowned military genius, known for his quick thinking in difficult situation, actually needed to consult with is astrologer before making a single move.

 
For the assignment, I chose the Queen of England, the epitome of grace and good manners. I had many ideas swirling in my head, like she was the reigning beer pong champion in disguise and paid off the producers of “Girls Gone Wild” not to air a certain video, but when I got to my computer, opened up the page and had my fingers hovering over the keys, I drew a complete blank. The previous brilliant and hysterical ideas I had tickled the far reaches of my brain and would not come to the forefront. For an hour I sat there and stared at a white screen.

 
Your Next Challenge is:

 



 

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

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