Sheila's Guests and Reviews

 I won a book! If you play with Goodreads often enough, you'll find the place where authors offer books to readers. And if you look at the number of copies of each title offered, and the number of people "requesting" it, you'll know you're never likely to win. Hence the exclamation mark.  I won a book! Of course, I was out of the country visiting family in the UK when I got the email. So I knew I wouldn't be around to receive the book. But, thank to the US postal service and the fact that we'd placed a hold on our mail, the book was waiting in a (rather large) basket with lots of other things when we arrived home. So... Well, there was mail to sort (of course), washing (lots of it), dog-sitting (always a joy), catching up on emails (a nightmare), house-cleaning (ditto)... lots of things got in the way, but I did eventually find time to enjoy the fact that I'd won a book. The book in question is Second Shot by Cindy Dees . It's the first in a series...

I hope you're having a wonderful Sunday. I'm running around in real and cyber-space in many different directions with The Flower Child Blog Tour today. My Goodreads Q&A continues at http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/678175-q-and-a-with-author-sheila-deeth . Join the conversation and ask your questions there. Meanwhile Wordstock continues in downtown Portland--I'll be manning my own small table from 3 till 5 after spending yesterday afternoon enjoying the ambiance and listening to speakers. If you're near the Convention Center, drop in and say Hi. And... My cyber-self is visiting Glenda Bixler at http://gabixlerreviews-bookreadersheaven.blogspot.com/2011/10/welcome-to-flower-child-blog-tour.html , where I explain what I mean by calling myself a Mongrel Christian Mathematician. If that's not enough, you can get an advance look at tomorrow's blog-tour stop and the chance to read an excerpt from Flower Child on Minnette Meador's wonderful World-...

Today I'm on Goodreads, answering questions about my background, my writing and whatever else anyone chooses to ask. I'd love to meet you there. http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/678175 Meanwhile, in the real world, I'm heading off to Wordstock in Portland, looking forward to some great talks by great writers, and hoping to pick up some good books at the same time. Tomorrow I'll even be manning my own two feet of stall-space on the Willamette Writers' stall, so, if you live near Portland, why not come and see me and my books. Then you can ask those goodreads questions in person. See you in real or cyber-space... and have a great weekend!

I used to ask way too many questions as a child, though surely not as many as my own children. My Gran would silence me by saying "'Cause y's not z," and my Granddad would ask, "How long's a piece of string?" I'm hosting a Second Wind Publishing discussion on Facebook and Goodreads where I ask how long's a novel, novella, novelette, short story, etc... and invite you to to wonder where dribbles and drabbles and chapters and  blurbs fit in. I think my biggest conclusion so far is I'm still not sure if my e-book's a short story or a novella, but I'm convinced I'd find it harder to sell as a short story. Somehow short, and pay real money for it, don't quite fit together. But what do you think?

I was trying to catch up on posting all my reviews yesterday. All went well till LibraryThing suddenly stopped talking to me. It took a couple of failed attempts before I gave up and read the error message. But now I know I'm only allowed 200 book reviews there unless I pay for premium membership. Not that premium membership's expensive, but it's the thought that counts... How could I only read 200 books? So now I'm wondering if I should delete some old reviews to add new ones, or just stop bothering to post to LibraryThing. Any suggestions? Would anyone care? Of course, I could pay them, but who wants to do that? There's always Goodreads and Shelfari, Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc... They're all free and they haven't told me to go away yet. And Goodreads has some pretty fun book groups too.

My Mum didn't like the sound of her voice on recordings when we were kids. I didn't know why. It sounded the same as usual to me. And I loved to imagine hearing my own voice reading all the stories I wrote to make sure they came out right. My Mum didn't used to like the way she looked in photographs either. But I learned to understand that recently when I joined the " Meeting the God of America " project. On the web site my photograph is reflected, to make me look at the writing instead of away. It feels wrong and I cringe when I see it. But it must be the same as the image I look at in mirrors every day. I guess I just grew up more accustomed to photographs than Mum did. Still, going back to voices, I think I'm finally sharing my mother's dismay. I've started writing book reviews , and as soon as they're posted I always think there's something I want to change. There was I thinking writing could always be fixed by second thoughts. Then I becam...