September 20th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! Sorry I have been MIA for the past two days; I’ve been busy with marketing, writing and reunion stuff. Yesterday I hunted for classmates until my eyes crossed. I got through the M’s. Let me tell you, we’ve gotten creative in searching.

While we were at the meeting and talking about who we were still missing, when one of the classmate’s names came up a reunion committee member mentioned that the classmate’s dad passed away recently. We searched online to see if there was an obituary, and when we found it, we went to the “He was survived by…”, found our classmates name and the town he lived in, then went on White Pages and got his phone number and called him.

The whole process took about half an hour, which isn’t too terrible, but times that by the hundred classmates we are still missing… In some cases, where there is simply no bread crumb trail to the classmate, we are hunting for their parents, siblings, spouses, other family members, whatever we can. We only have two months left to find these folks, and very soon there needs to come an “I give up” point, but I’m not there yet.

Okay, I only have a few more minutes. I have to go get ready for the book signing at Canterbury TalesForever in Peddler’s Village. I need to be up and running by ten, it’s a fifty minute drive, I have to stop at the store to get candy for my basket (and lunch for my belly), and I still have to shower, do my hair and put on make-up. I won’t be getting dressed up today like I usually do, but I’m excited about what I’ll be wearing.

My “Christina Paul Books” T-shirts came in, and I will be wearing mine for the signing today. My banner came in as well, so wish me luck for figuring out how to hand the dang thing from my table. I brought fishing line, and I think I should be able to rig it with the fishing line under the table cloth.

Don’t forget, this weekend is the Scarecrow Festival at Peddler’s Village, so it is going to be a lot of fun. Please, if you have time (and don’t live halfway around the world), come check it out. It’s fixing to be a picture perfect day. The laundry and yard work can wait another day. Come out, have fun, and stop by to say “Hi”.

Gotta boogie. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge:

There’s a chill in the air…

You have ten 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.

September 17th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! It’s a chilly gorgeous day. Although, as you well know, I’m no fan of the cold, but days like today, early mornings in the low fifties, daytime highs in the mid-seventies, are my Camelot. Perfection, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m so excited. I just found out who will be joining me at my book signing this weekend. It’s Author, Medium, and all round wonderful person, Karen Hluchan. She will be joining me on Saturday (and possibly Sunday, I'm not sure), and she will have her amazing book, How Have You Loved? with her to sign. Karen and I were together at the last signing I did, and we had a ball.

So stop by and come say "Hi!" to Karen and me. The weather's supposed to be wonderful - high of 78. The Scarecrow Festival is kicking off which is lots of fun. If it's like last year, there will be pony rides, face painting, balloon animals and much more for the kids, so bring them along. It's bound to be a fabulous day. Hope to see you there!

Dani survived her abbreviated school day yesterday, although, she did come home and immediately took a nap. Her first challenge for today is going to be the bus ride in. Hopefully the noise on the bus won’t have her feeling too lousy by the time she gets to school.

I did receive some clarification about the teacher’s comment about it being the worst day for Dani to come back. With all the rain we were having yesterday, the roof at the high school was leaking (something they have been trying to fix for years but can’t quite seem to get right), and you guessed it, there was a puddle right on Dani’s seat. So at least my fear of her having a jerk for a teacher has been put to rest. Good to know. Sophomore year is probably the hardest year in high school, and the last thing she needed was a bad teacher.

There was some troubling news yesterday, but I was able to give Dani a heads up, so she wasn’t blindsided by the announcement like the other students were. When we were at the school yesterday morning, I observed a strange series of events. So, while I was walking Dani to class, I told her not to be surprised if they announced someone had died. I told her, I didn’t know who or how, or if even my suspicions were true, but I wanted her to be prepared, just in case.

Unfortunately, my intuition was spot on. The principal announced during third period that a student had passed away yesterday morning. This is the second senior they’ve lost in the past few weeks. It’s heartbreaking. No details were released out of respect for the family, but that doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t know the details already. We may very well be a large town, but we have never lost that small town connection.

I will not disclose any details, however I will ask for you to pray for the family. No parent should ever have to bury a child, but lately, far too many have; and yet again, the entire community is grieving for one of their own.

Refusing to leave you on such a sad note, I will add this. Today I am picking up RV early to take her shopping at Kohl’s. She’s such a riot, and I just love her to pieces. She hates having to get up early, but if getting up early means she gets to go shopping, she’s as happy as a honey bee trapped in a botanical garden. She’ll be up, ready, and waiting not so patiently by the door with a big smile on her face when I get there.

Then the next two hours will be spent with her looking at a few things, and talking to just about everyone in the store, and if the store manager, Rory, is there, then oh Lord. She just adores the man, but I have to admit, he’s just as gregarious as she is, and seems equally as happy to see her as she him. In fact, the last time I was there with Dani, Rory asked me where my partner in crime was, meaning RV. I just had to laugh.

Okay, it’s time for me to wrap up so I can go make Paulie’s lunch. I hope you have a glorious day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge:

If I had a dime for every time I…

You have ten 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.

September 16th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! It’s a chilly, rainy, yucky day here in central New Jersey, but I’m not going to complain. It has been forever since we have had rain, so it is desperately needed.

Sorry I didn’t do a blog post yesterday. I knew, the way my day had started, I was not going to do much other than complain. Yesterday started with me waking up early, because Dani was supposed to go back to school, and I come out into the living room to find it completely littered with trash. My hubby forgot to take the garbage out on Sunday night, and Colby helped himself. Not the sight I wanted to see at 5:00 a.m.

I said Dani was “supposed to” go back to school yesterday. It didn’t quite work. She got up, showered, dressed, put her make-up on, and she was done. She came out of her room, shaky and white as a sheet; and I said, “Uht, ah. No way. Back to bed.” I knew she wasn’t up to it because she didn’t fight me on it, not one complaint. She just turned around and went back to bed.

So, at nine, I called the doctor and told him what happened. He advised she slowly work her way back into school, so that’s what we are doing. Today she will be at school through third period, tomorrow through sixth, Thursday through eighth, and then the full day on Friday. It’s a good plan. Now I’m just keeping my fingers crossed it will work out that way.

I brought her to school this morning, and we went directly to the nurse’s office. We got her a pass to get out of gym, a blanket hall pass to the nurse’s office whenever she needs it, a pass to use the elevator because she’s still having issues navigating stairs, and a pass to get to class, because by the time we got all the paperwork filled out, she was late for first period.

Since first period had already started, the nurse asked me if I would walk Dani to class. I get her to the classroom, I signal the teacher I would like to talk to him for a second, Dani walks in, and the first words out of the teacher’s mouth are, “You picked a bad day to come back.” What the heck? Is he out of his mind? Why would he say that??

Then, I’m still standing outside the classroom, and he completely ignores me. You would think, he would excuse himself for the fifteen seconds it would have taken for me to bring him up to speed, but no. After five minutes I gave up and left. Man I really hope this was an isolated situation and this guy isn’t such a jerk all the time, or we are going to have an issue.

I refrained from posting yesterday because I didn’t want to complain, and here I am today, complaining; so enough with that.

I had the radio interview on ArtistFirst Radio Network last night. It was a ton of fun. Ron and I spent most of the hour laughing. I did get to talk a bit about me, my books, and the stories behind them. I also managed to work in shout-outs for three of my author friends, Keith, Linda and Dorothy May. All three of them will be appearing on The Ron Shaw Show sometime in the near future. We also talked about the covers for my books, so I was able to give Linda’s son Matt – the creator of my Corporate Blues cover, and her daughter Krista – the model for my Corporate Blues cover, some airtime as well.

It was so surprising how quickly the hour sped by. Ron warned me it would, but honestly, I didn’t believe him. Let me tell you, I enjoyed the radio interview far more than the TV interview last week. I got to do my radio interview in a sweatshirt, old pair of shorts, no make-up, and my hair was probably a mess, and it didn’t matter. You can’t get away with that on TV, that’s for sure.

We had such fun last night, Ron asked me to come back on his show the second Monday in December, and I accepted. Not exactly sure what we will talk about then, but what the heck, right?

Hey, if you get a minute, go check out ArtistFirst’s website. I glanced at it before, checked to make sure there were no errors in what they put up about me and my books, but I didn’t really look at the whole page. I did last night, and I got a big surprise.

My book’s cover and my bio are right next to a picture of Johnny Depp! Other folks they have interviewed are Dr. Oz, Priscilla Presley, Joan Collins, Jaclyn Smith, Ben Vereen, and MANY more names you’d know – HOLY CROW! Here they are, interviewing all these mega stars, and then little old me. I feel unworthy. I’m so glad I didn’t notice that until AFTER my interview, or I really would have been ill.

In case you were wondering, the last challenge was a quote taken from The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch. If you haven’t had a chance to read this book yet, I highly recommend it. As a rule, I pretty much do not read non-fiction. The spare time I have to read, I want to escape, to be taken away to another time, another place, and most of all to a happily ever after; and let’s face it, non-fiction usually cannot deliver my requirements.

This book however, was an assigned reading for Dani last year, and I read all of the books my kids have had assigned to them. I finished the book in a little over two hours, and then I went and watched the video of the actual lecture. The book was amazing, and it is the first book EVER that I did not find a single editing error. That alone impressed me. My only complaint was the insane cover price for the tiny book. $22 for a 4X5, 205 page book, even the Kindle edition was $11. I’m sorry, I don’t care who you are or what you’ve got to say or how amazing what you have to say is, it’s not worth that kind of money. I managed to get a used copy for $5, and I strongly suggest, if you plan on reading it, you should too.

Okay, I’ve rambled on long enough. I have to get this puppy posted everywhere and then go get Dani from school.

I hope you have an amazing day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge:

I think I can, I think I can…

You have ten 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.

September 14th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good evening – first time I’ve said that to y’all. Sorry the blog is so late, I was playing today. A friend of mine has written a book, and since I absolutely hated the cover his publisher made for his last book (a cartoonish depiction for a serious story – think, Car 54, Where are You?), I made a mock-up cover for his newest book. I know, it was brassy of me, but I know what it’s like to be stuck with a cover your publisher forces on you.

Since he’s publishing this one himself, and only in Kindle format at first, he does not have to get publisher approval. And, since the cover has already received his wife’s approval, and he has already posted it on his page, I doubt he’ll mind if I give you a sneak peek.

So, what do you think? This is only the Kindle cover. I sent him the full paperback cover, with the blurb and author bio too. 

As if getting distracted by the cover wasn’t enough, I spent the last eight hours editing his book. I just sent it over to him, complete, but since we have not had time to discuss the edits yet, I will refrain from commenting.

Well, maybe just a little…

A number of years ago, Ron and his wife Donna purchased an old Victorian trunk at a yard sale. The trunk came with a tale and a resident, a ghost named Mary. The book he wrote is a short, less than 20K words, journal of his experiences living with a hundred plus year old ghost; a ghost who has now become part of the family, a friend, a confidant. Some accounts are hair raising, some are laugh out loud funny.

The book is short because it is only a snippet of time, from June through August, but there will be more installments in the future. Hopefully, like the cover received Donna’s approval, the book itself will receive Mary’s approval.

I’ll let you know as soon as it becomes available.

I wonder if Ron would consider bequeathing me Mary. I miss Larry, our resident ghost who has left us for greener pastures, so it would be nice having Mary around to fill his place. Wouldn’t Paulie just love that? LOL.

Okay, since it is getting late, I really should get going on making dinner. I hope you have a wonderful remainder of the day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge is -  a random quote, from a random page, of a random book I pulled off my shelf. Bonus points for using it as your first or last sentence:

“You can never know how much that glimpse of you made my day, reminding me of what life is all about.”

You have ten 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.