I'm being interviewed today!!!

One of my first stops on a mini blog tour is Believing is Seeing!! Sandra Sookoo is a fellow Lyrical Press author, and a very talented one at that!! Please stop by and read my interview!!

Also, I was interviewed by Aubrie Dionne over at Flutey Words! Please check her out too! She's another fab Lyrical press author!! I interviewed her a little while back about her newest release, Nebula's Music.

I've decided Friday is gonna be Release party day on my blog! I will be popping in all day! Plan on stopping by for contests and prizes!!!! I'm gonna try for one every hour!

And don't forget....enter my contest to win a digital copy of A Bitch Named Karma!! Leave a comment on yesterday's post!!

RELEASE DAY IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! After years of trying to find a home for a story that I loved....after years of agonizing and wondering why no one else found it special....after making so many changes and edits and wracking my brain trying to find out what was missing....this day has come. My novel is out there...for sale! People will buy it (hopefully) and love it (again, hopefully!) and I am officially an AUTHOR!!!!

When I graduated from college, just over 13 years ago, I was on a much different career path. I thought it was what I wanted...I thought that was what I was meant to do with my life. And for a while I was happy. But it never fulfilled me...not completely, and that was something I never knew until I found something else.

I knew I had lost my fire...my drive....the all encompassing joy that I'd once felt. Maybe it was working for myself..the stress of being a business owner was much different than working for someone else. But I liked working for myself.

And then one day I picked up a pen and actually wrote down a story idea that floated into my brain. This had happened many many times...these random thoughts where I said to myself "Hey, that would make a great book or movie!" but then let the thoughts fly away. Until that one day. And that was it.

In case you want to check out my book trailer again, here it is!

Many of you have been here through this entire journey and I am completely thankful! Some of you are newer followers and I offer you a huge "Welcome to my world!" As a thank you, I am giving away a digital copy of A Bitch Named Karma!! You have `til the end of the week to enter, just by leaving a comment here! (Must also be a follower) Please promote and for every place you post this blog post (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, your own blog) you'll get an additional entry! Let me know in the comments section where you've posted it!! If my follower list reaches 150, I'll give away an additional copy!

But if you can't wait to see if you win, here is the link to buy it now!!!

Check back every day this week...I have all kinds of fun things going on!!!!

This is a MUST READ!!

Is print dead???

I know there are tons of people saying "Hell no!!!" right this very second....but did we ever think there would be homes without phones in them? I don't have a phone in my home...well, that's a lie...I do..I have an alarm clock telephone. But it's not connected to a phone jack. We only have cell phones.

I came across this post on Amanda Young's Blog: Romance Without Inhibition and I just had to share. It's a article she posted by J.A. Konrath and it is absolutely brilliant!!!

Missing something so much it hurts.

When I was a kid, our family went camping. At first it was just tent camping at various family-type campgrounds. There was water and electric, a store and organized activities, usually mini golf or a basketball court. It was not roughing it by any means. We went with another family and had so much fun. Then one weekend we camped at a new place called Arrowhead, about an hour outside the city where I grew up, and my parents fell in love with it. Before we knew what was happening, my parents had bought a camper and we were official seasonal campers who paid a yearly fee to leave our camper parked on a small plot of land in the campground and we could come and go as we pleased between May and October.

Soon afterward, our fellow camping family joined us and every single weekend was spent there- roasting marshmallows, swimming in the lake, doing whatever we wanted. Us kids were allowed to roam freely and it was so so awesome. This all started the summer before high school.

In time, we met the other "seasonal" kids and spent every minute of every weekend with them. They came from all over the area- I never had friends who lived outside of the city before then. And they came to be some of my closest friends. Every weekend was a never-ending party: music, dancing, shenanigans of all sorts!!! Even made some trouble :)

Many of my camping friends were boys and these were the summers while I was I high school....15 16, 17 years old. Need I say more? ;) I can still remember all the kisses in the dark, holding hands while walking around the lake. These are the years of my life that are so amazingly vivid in my mind and so much of the emotion I write about now is pulled from that time in my life when everything was new and fun and felt so damn good!

I met my husband at this campground and he asked me to marry him around the campfire.

And here I sit, nearly 20 years after that first time we camped there. After college, I moved away for a little while then moved back and had a job and a home and my husband had a job that rarely allowed weekends off. Both of our families gave up their seasonal sites, each for different reasons. We visited a few times after that, but each time it started to feel less like "home" and more like a memory.

I still keep in touch with a few of my friends from Arrowhead...thanks to Facebook. One of them posted pictures today from this past weekend...the holiday weekends there were always the best. I flipped though her pictures and my heart ached. This place used to mean so so much to me. But now.....it's been so long that I don't feel like I belong there anymore. So much has changed. I'm an outsider now. We used to call the outsiders "weekenders"...they were nothing to us.

After the first 5 months of this year....

Where are you in your book reading goal for this year????

So many people strive for 100. I know that would be an insane goal for me to make. I have kids and a husband, I write my own stories, I edit those stories, I network and promote myself, I have friends and a social life. There is no way I could read 2 books a week, unless kids' books count. (which in my opinion, for this they don't!)

I gave myself a 30 book goal. That seemed much more doable for me. And so far I'm doing okay, but not as great as I'd hoped by now. The other night I finished book #10. That's two books a month. I'm definitely behind, but considering I only read 16 books all of last year (which I can't believe I am admitting that to all of you!!), that's not too bad.

Here is what I read so far:

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell
Triad (Courtland Chronicles, #5) by Cat Grant
The Arrangement (Courtland Chronicles, #4) by Cat Grant
Complications (Courtland Chronicles, #3) by Cat Grant
Strictly Business (Courtland Chronicles, #2) by Cat Grant
By Chance (Courtland Chronicles, #1) by Cat Grant
Once a Cowboy (Harlequin American Romance) by Linda Warren
All Fore Revenge (Paperback) by Piper Denna
Pretties (Uglies, #2) by Scott Westerfeld
Uglies (Uglies, #1) by Scott Westerfeld

Now I am reading Specials by Scott Westerfeld, the last in the Uglies series.

Only ONE week to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Memorial Day everyone!!!!!!! My plans for today include a trip to a nearby amusement park that we have season passes for! Hope you all are having a fun time as well!!

But the most exciting news- today marks ONE WEEK `til release day for A Bitch Named Karma!!! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm still not sure how I want to celebrate that day. I will be chaperoning my daughter's zoo field trip, which I am very excited about. They only allow 4 parent volunteers and I was lucky enough to get one of the golden tickets! (It's a lottery if more than 4 parents volunteer, and in this suburbia, there are always tons of parent volunteers!)

My release party is planned for June 12th and I've invited my closest friends, family and writers group members. So far, it's looking like I'll have about 50 or so guests, with a bunch still MIA. (Why can't people rsvp???) Hopefully Mother Nature will give me a warm sunny afternoon and evening. My house cannot hold that many people! :) I wondered if I should even be having a party...the book is being released digitally at first...no books to sign or anything. Print release is still TBA. But I've worked hard for this and I wanted to celebrate. I'm officially starting my writing career...after this when people ask what I do, I can say "I'm an author!"

Got something releasing soon??? Let's cross promote!!!

My debut, A Bitch Named Karma, is releasing in less than two weeks (YIPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!) And I'd love to do a blog tour sort of thing the few weeks after the release!! Is there anyone who would like to interview me for their blog??? I will, of course, reciprocate!! Do you have something coming out soon and want to promote it on my blog??? Let's help each other out!!!