Sheila's Guests and Reviews

While I was away... Two houses changed color across the street (were my neighbors trying to confuse me?) Our baby dandelions grew up into teenagers (dandelion lawn... perhaps that's why the neighbors are trying to confuse me?) The freezer magically emptied (grown up son stayed home and didn't starve, much to our delight) Washing baskets overflowed (but grown up son did his own washing. The overflow is just our stuff brought back from vacation) Email accounts tried hard to overflow ("only" 900 facebook , 200 twitter, 400 linkedin and 300 regular emails so I guess I'll survive) and Haunting Obsession ( see my review ) completed it's blog tour; it's free today through Wednesday on Amazon Kindle to celebrate: http://www.amazon.com/Haunting -Obsession-ebook/dp/B008Y2SVS4 Seventh Star Press's Kickstarter campaign for The Writers Workshop of Science Fiction and Fantasy is going well. Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seventhstarpress/the...

While I was away in England... Divide by Zero came out on Kindle (US: http://www.amazon.com/Divide-by-Zero-ebook/dp/B0090NFH56/ , UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Divide-by-Zero-ebook/dp/B0090NFH56/ ) and in paperback!!! (US: http://www.amazon.com/Divide-Zero-Sheila-Deeth/dp/1600763405/ ). Stonegarden offered me a contract for Infinite Sum, the sequel to Divide by Zero. Husband told me to stop dancing around the room and smiling but I couldn't. I earned a whole $5 from my writing (royalties for the last quarter), which will buy me a couple of coffees if I'm careful. I fell way behind on book reviews but read some really interesting books (will post reviews soon). And Amazon deleted my reviews of Grabarchuk puzzles and games. When I returned... a wasp got stuck in my hair and stung me! I danced around the room again but didn't smile so much. Ouch!

I needed to get myself organized, too many books still waiting for review, too many deadlines almost missed, too many times I plan  one thing and find I'm doing another. Since my website and blogs are all on Google, I thought a Gmail account, plus calendar and task list and all the rest, might help... plus a smart-phone (isn't Christmas wonderful). So now I'm almost organized and mostly connected and... ... and then I logged out of emails and went to my website (built with Blogger, part of Google) to check how it looked. It looked blank, blocked, gone. I searched (with Google) for help, then felt foolishly inspired to check for an email explanation. But I couldn't log in; my emails were likewise blank, blocked, gone. So I checked my phone where a nice warning triangle told me all my accounts were unavailable. Organized. Connected. That's what I wanted wasn't it? But now I'm so connected a single problem might leave me disorganized and unable to connect. ...

I just said Goodbye to my Mum at the airport. She's heading back to England, flying high, while I got stuck in traffic jams coming home. The house feels empty, the bedroom still has her perfume, and her skin lotion's staring at me from the bathroom shelf. But Mum's not there. I guess I ought to get busy cleaning and washing or clearing those branches in the yard. But instead I think I'll retire into imagination and read a book. 'Bye Mum. I hope you're enjoying the book you packed to read on the plane. I hope you have nice neighbors in the seats next to you. And I hope the weather's fine. Just heard it might be snowing in England tomorrow. Hang on tight to my brother, Mum, and don't fall.

Does time speed up or expand in the waning days of a wonderful vacation? My Mum's been staying with us since early December but leaves next week. So now the days are flying by, but what days! It feels like we've hardly stood still (or sat still) this week (except in a car). Time speeds and we race across the miles, packing a years' worth of visits into two final weeks. Luckily, time seems to carry a suitably expandable suitcase. Anyway, here's a brief record of our travels, with apologies to all the friends we've not visited, emails we've not answered, invitations still languishing in inboxes, facebook comments unread, phone-calls unreturned, etc... Real visits:  to a wonderful friend with two wonderful cats. to Tillamook (with another wonderful friend) to enjoy the scenery and Mum's yearly taste of the world's best ice-cream with another friend (we are blessed with such good friends) to Annie Bloom's bookstore where we  admired anot...

Maybe it's sunspots. Maybe it's just me. Yesterday I watched a DVD with my Mum. We hoped to watch the whole series before she goes back to England, but the DVD player broke. I'm lucky though; at least I got the disc out first. Today a friend took me and my Mum for a drive. I brought my GPS along to help us not get lost. "Turn right," said the kind electronic voice, then fell silent while the screen went black. I'm lucky though; my wise friend found her way. This evening I plugged my kindle into the computer. "Drive E needs reformatting before use," said the nice little window that appeared. I'm lucky though; I pressed cancel instead of ok. Realizing that "things" tend to break in threes, does the fact that my kindle's still working mean something else is yet to break? Do I dare use my cell-phone, the washing machine, the car? Or maybe it's just sunspots, or the rain.

Me organized? It doesn't sound terribly likely I know. But our oldest son has finally dragged me into the 21st century with the aid of a smart-phone. I've linked it to a shiny new gmail account, resulting in emails, a totally chaotic address book full of random disconnected contacts, and a calendar, all easily (?) accessible from that sliver of plastic in my back pocket. I kept thinking I ought to get organized and answer some of the those facebook, linkedin, gather, squidoo and twitter emails piling up in my old (non-gmail) inbox. But instead I'm getting organized making facebook, linkedin, gather etc send their mails to a nice new address... Then I get distracted... Then I look for wallpaper and ringtones and try out the GPS... And then... Well, and then I make dinner. But in case you were wondering why I've not posted your book reviews or replied to your emails yet, please blame organization. Who knows, this time next week I might finally learn what year it is.

This is just a quick post to welcome my Mum. She arrived in the States yesterday and her arrival always heralds Christmas. So... Christmas is coming. And welcome back, Mum!

 I sold two calendars, one bookmark, and four greetings cards today. Wish me luck and maybe I'll sell some books tomorrow.

Stuff spreads. I've got boxes, books and papers all over the spare bed, bookmarks waiting to be sliced and diced on the desk, stray books and calendars waiting to be packed on the shelves... and my Mum's arriving next Tuesday! Luckily the bazaar's on Friday and Saturday, so that gives me plenty of time to tidy her bedroom doesn't it??? I'm glad I'm only doing one bazaar this year; Oak Hills usually run a good one. Oh, and there are tons of leaves outside waiting to be raked. Leaves spread too.

When you think of Alaska, what comes to mind? For me it was glaciers and snow, but when we went there, we found so much more. Fall colors, mountains, eagles, bears, reindeer, whales, strange towns standing on stilts over the water... yes, and glaciers and snow, though the snow was only in the distance. Up close it rained. We had a fantastic time on our trip, and the weather really wasn't too bad--sunshine exactly when we needed it, and appropriate dampness and mist to enjoy the rainforests. So now I'm catching up on a record 750 emails. If you've been trying to contact me, please accept my apologies; I'll answer soon--unless the reindeer and bear catch up with me first.

My husband's on his way back from a trip to England, so when Minnette Meador--an author who has three books coming out this summer(!)--presented me with my surprise "grand prize" for following her online during the release of A Ghost of a Chance (paranormal romantic comedy, set in Portland, and released in June 2011) the timing seemed just perfect. I could welcome him home with a glass of Oregon wine, served in beautiful Portland and Oregon glasses, by the light of flickering tea-lights. I could serve something small, hot from the oven, with my new Portland rose-garden oven-mitt--something with blueberry and lemon preserve perhaps, and Oregon chocolate afterwards. I could even take a nice relaxing bath to get me in the mood... Ah, but then I checked the flight status and found they'd cancelled his flight. So instead I stayed up half the night waiting for husband to wake up in England so I could give him the news. Since my husband had no access to the internet and ...

Books read for GBA: 31 I think I've finished reading for the Global eBook Awards. The ceremony's coming up soon, and I need to write comments on the book pages and start posting all my reviews. Two of the books I read most recently were parts 1 and 2 of a series; several others came from series too, so they got me wondering, what makes a series work? Have you read The Hunger Games? I read the second book first and was so hooked I had to go out and buy book one and pre-order book three. I guess that means the series worked for me. But there are other series where I feel like I've only read half a story and I'm not sure I'll bother with the rest. Then there are those semi-infinite series where I can pick and choose a book and wonder, have I read this one yet ?--Tony Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee books for example--I'd love to read them all one day. I think, for me, a series works best if I learn to trust the author. If a story feels complete while ...

GBA books read to date: 25 It's interesting how so many books from different genres include some romantic relationship. And now I'm trying to "judge" what I read, it's interesting to wonder what makes that romance work. We've all read about (or watched) movies where the lead actors had no "real chemistry" between them. But what makes that elusive chemistry real, and how do we write it on the page? The element of surprise: Whether it's love at first sight, or love slowly developing over time, it's going to seem more convincing if the characters don't immediately assume it's real. More than skin-deep: Honeyed skin and hair and eyes can only take you so far; if we're only told how beautiful the characters look, why should we believe any love between them is more than superficial? Not just physical: I guess love wasn't described in quite such physical terms in the past, but now it is. Still, I'll probably be more conv...

GBE books read to date: 21 I've been enjoying reading in the mystery section of the Dan Poynter Global eBooks Awards. You know how it goes... ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, dodging danger, solving clues and saving the world... Of course, not all mysteries involve saving the world. Sometimes it's saving a child, saving a name, saving a farm. But in other books the stakes are high and it's down to someone just like you or me to stop a terrorist attack. That's where melodrama creeps in. I read and reviewed a mystery a few months ago where protagonists  investigating possible murder stumbled on terrorism. The murder mystery was satisfyingly dramatic, but terrorism felt like melodrama piled on top of fun, tugging the story to a different level and leaving the reader stumbling on the step. Yesterday I read another mystery with drama and melodrama mixed. This time both were introduced near the start of the story. I was free to think "What...

The books I'm reading for the Dan Poynter Global eBook Awards today have got me thinking about dialog and it's effect on story--will this book score high or low in the "distracting dialog" column? And why? Attributions : He said / she said. We all know we mustn't overuse these, but how about when we under-use them, or use them unhelpfully? In a dialog scene with lots of characters, it might matter which person says what, but leaving the attribution till after he's spoken can leave the reader puzzled and needing to reread... "You silly child," said the little boy, and there was I thinking it had to be his mother speaking. Accent s : Sometimes it's hard to believe in a character who speaks perfect English (or perfect American) when we know they ought to have an accent (or they're too young to speak clearly). But sometimes it's hard to read what someone's saying if the author renders the accent too meticulously. " 'Wan...

GBA books read to date: 16 but some of those were children's books, so a little shorter than others :) Some of the books were non-fiction too, and got me wondering, how do I make sure the score I give a non-fiction book isn't biased by my feelings on the subject. Imagine two such books. I agree with both authors in some chapters, and disagree in others. And I'm keeping score... One score is given for whether the book keeps my interest. It's hard for an author to keep my interest when he tells me my opinion (still worse my education) is value-less. Another score comes from dialog (fiction) and distraction (non-fiction). If a non-fiction author moves into lengthy diatribes against something which is not part of his thesis, it might count as distraction. "Coherence" might lose points if opinion is argued as fact. And then there's the score for "Is this book applicable/useful to self/others." It's probably a bad sign if I couch my answer ...

GBA books read to date: 6 I'm really enjoying reading the entries for Dan Poynter's Global eBook Awards . Judging is a little harder--like I've said before, I really don't like ratings. Luckily the process is simplified with a table of factors to consider. Each item is scored on a scale of 1-10, with space for comments too. And everything starts at 10, so it's quite simple to knock points off whenever I feel a complaint coming on. The scores are summed and a nice little comment reminds us if we gave 10/10 for everything this must surely be the best book ever, so score carefully. The result is then multiplied by 7 (?) with the reminder to recheck if the result's over 1,000. So far I've scored two books at over 900. Now I just need to decide if I should submit them as finalists. But I haven't read everything in a category yet, so I'll see what else I find. Now back to the washing and cleaning, real life intervening on my reading life. Perhaps I s...

I went to Borders with a friend last week and drank a final coffee in their coffee store. We used to go there to shop, read, write and share ideas (and drink coffee of course). Alas, no more. I dropped in on Saturday to see the "closing down sales" and found the great deals (Buy one get one half off) all replaced with boring 10% discounts and shelving chaos. And no coffee! They've stacked the tables and chairs in a corner so there's no place to drink your own brew either. Very sad. Anyway, last time we went we got out paper and pencils and wrote our entries for the local writers' group's competition. The prompt was something to do with expectation and reality not being the same. My story was about a boy, and when I read it to my friend she asked, "What about his mother and his sister?" Good question I guess. Coming home I typed the story up ready to send while questions meandered in my head. Soon I was typing chapter two, chapter three, and even ...

I typed my name into Amazon to see what books would appear--just checking, I thought. But what I found wasn't quite what I expected... Genesis People at $137.63 Drabble-It $131.63 Storyteller Psalms $ 147.63 Exodus Tales $137.63 Thanksgiving! $143.63 Revelation! $143.63 Mongrel Christian Mathematician $131.63 What's with all the 63cents? And what's with those prices? Genesis People is the only one I expected to find from this list (it's also available for $9.99). The rest, I thought, were just on Lulu (at much smaller prices). I'm sure no-one's ever going to pay over $100 for one of my books, but who on earth is "Origin" and how can he/she/it even offer my books at those prices? And how do I get the original Genesis People to appear on my author page (with cover) instead of this vastly inflated cover-less one? Aghghgh!