Tomorrow’s Guest

My guest tomorrow will be mystery author Laura DiSilverio, whose debut novel, Swift Justice, was released in October.

An Award from Carolyn Schriber and from N. R. Williams

Carolyn was kind enough to pass this award on to me in her December 9th post at Roundheads and Ramblings.

And I received this lovely award once again yesterday, from my blogger friend, N. R. Williams, Fantasy Author.

I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself and then pass the award on to seven other bloggers. However, I’ve received this honor at least two times before and feel I fulfilled my versatile blogger responsibilities at that time.

As a result, I’ll simply thank Carolyn a whole bunch for thinking of me. Check out her recently released historical fiction, Beyond All Price, at her website and online booksellers. And thanks to Nancy, whose new novel, The Treasures of Carmelidrium, is about to go live as an e-book for Kindle. See the cover now at Nancy’s blog.

The Giveaway

You can still enter the drawing for an online gift certificate from amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. You have until Friday night to enter, so boogie on down to the Sunday/Monday post and leave a comment according to the instructions.

What I’m Reading

I’ve totally given up on fiction for a while. Nothing was holding my attention. I decided to focus on nonfiction and that seems to be working. Since I didn’t have much in my shelves that I hadn’t already read, I took a trip to the library.

My first read was Sarah Palin’s new book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag. I liked it. I’m a poli sci junkie and especially enjoy books about American politics written with a historical slant. It does have a conservative bias, as you would expect, and includes a lot of Palin’s personal views on the other topics mentioned in the subtitle, but it all kept me interested.

As soon as I finished that, I went back to Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and settled in for a thoughtful reread. This book was first published in 1970, and already the world was changing so fast that Toffler felt people might not be able to adapt. And that was before personal computers, the Internet, and all those cells, berries, and pads. And yet we’ve survived so far…or have we?

I also checked out The Google Story and a book on using Flickr, so that ought to keep me busy through the holidays. After all that, I’m sure I’ll happily head back to my bookshelves (and Kindle) and begin gobbling up fiction like mad.

What Else?

FUN — I’m going to my second movie of the month (my month of self-indulgence) this afternoon. I’ve chosen Burlesque because I have a big weakness for musicals going back to my childhood when we often visited relatives in St. Louis and always got tickets for a performance at the outdoor Muni Opera. I was hooked at an early age because I got to see wonderful live shows like South Pacific, Call Me Madam, Kiss Me Kate, and many more. My grandmother and I began attending musical movies about that time, lots of them with Doris Day. Did you ever see Love Me or Leave Me with Doris Day and James Cagney? It’s not a comedy, and it’s often sad, but it’s a great musical.

WRITING — Instead of starting a new book as I had planned, I’ve returned to the suspense novel (tentatively called Dead Wrong) to begin revisions. The manuscript had to sit there on the floor until I (and it) was ready. Now it seems we are. I had a plot point that wasn’t working. I think I finally figured out what to do. I was trying not to think about it, so it’s rather wonderful that answers suddenly popped into my head. This is one of the things I love about the process of writing fiction. Ideas and solutions just happen (or at least it seems that way).

OFFICE CLEAN-UP — Yeah, right!

BLOG FOLLOWERS — Have you noticed I’m only 13 followers away from 200? Hint, hint!