September 21st

Hi, it’s Christina – 

Well Saturday has arrived and so has my book signing. I have everything packed up and ready to get loaded into the car. I’m glad I didn’t start to load the rental car yesterday, because the car dealer called around 4:pm to tell me the van was done. You have 24 hours to return a rental car after they call you, so since I was going to be busy all day today, I had to drive back to the dealer last night, during rush hour traffic to return the rental. It wasn’t fun, and I was actually looking forward to driving the Prius around for a few days. My family teases me, but I love the Prius.

I will have two helpers with me today, my daughter and one of her friends. This way if I need to get away for a few minutes, I can, and they will be there to say I’ll be right back. It is going to be a long day. We are leaving here at 9:00 and probably won’t be home until around 6:00. The actual book signing is only two hours, but the rest of the time is a meet and greet. I’m sure if some folks who come early and can’t stay for the official “signing time”, I’ll be allowed to sign their books for them. I am not anticipating any big rush of people, so it shouldn’t be an issue. Now if were Nora Roberts or Stephen King having the signing, it would be a different story; but I’m not quite there…yet.

I would normally say, “From my post yesterday you could tell I was annoyed”, but I seriously doubt you even say yesterday’s Facebook post or my grumbling about no one seeing my Facebook post. The issue is Facebook has stopped circulating posts which contain links. Why is beyond my comprehension, unless of course, money is the culprit. If you post a link, it must be important, therefore they won’t circulate it like they do any other postings, but you can pay $30 to have it boosted. A link free posting is seen by around 125 people on an average day but the views have climbed to over 300. If I include a link the numbers drop to 25 – 30 views.

This being said, my daily blog and the copy of the blog I put on Facebook are going to start looking different. For FB, links will be written out in words with spaces between each word. For my FB readers you will have a few choices. You can either take the written out link, squish all the word together and type them in the bar yourself; or go to my blog and click on the link; or simply just start reading from my blog and ignore FB.

Yesterday’s link was to www (dot) The Fussy Librarian (dot) com. The site and the concept are really cool and I didn’t want you to miss out because Facebook has their panties in a twist. This is really going to stink though when I do my book reviews, because I like having the link to the book right there for you. Whatever, the actual link will be on my blog (now that I’ve figured out how to do it).

OK, I need to get a cup of coffee in me, load up the van, shower, dress, do hair and make-up, so it is time to get this dog and pony show moving. I hope you have a wonderful day and happy writing!

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.