Express Yourself - What author would you want to share lunch with?

Express Yourself  is a weekly meme that I co-host with Dani. We come up with a question/topic of some sort for other bloggers to answer. The goal is for all of us to get to know one another better by sharing different things about ourselves. Sound fun? Join us in the linky below.

Topic this week:  What author(s) would you love to have lunch with?



Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. I think they'd have tons of useful advice and ideas. And their quotes... love 'em:

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose. ~ Stephen King

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. ~ Stephen King

The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. ~ Neil Gaiman

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. ~ Neil Gaiman

What author(s) would you love to sit down and share a lunch with?

Celebrate the small things

Celebrate the Small Things is the fun weekly meme hosted by Viklit @ Scribblings of an Aspiring Author, where we share things we wish to celebrate, and then hop around to other bloggers to rejoice in their celebrations, too. :) Go HERE to sign up and join the celebration!





My celebs:

• Three of my four sons have sports this weekend--cross country and fall baseball! Woot!
• We're going to my hubby's cousins house for the annual "cousin party." It's so much fun! We catch up on all the going-ons, have dinner, and the little ones get to play together.
• I've been wanting to create other animals with flowers. So far, I've made a puppy, a piglet, a bunny, and now a lion's face. Yay! I thought he turned out sorta cute, but I was a little nervous since I'd never made one before.

 

How about you? What celebrations would you like to share? Have a great weekend! And remember...

Express Yourself - movie character match-up

Express Yourself  is a weekly meme that I co-host with Dani. We come up with a question/topic of some sort for other bloggers to answer. The goal is for all of us to get to know one another better by sharing different things about ourselves. Sound fun? Join us in the linky below.

Topic this week:  Name a movie characters personality that is you to a tee. 




I asked the person who knows me better than I know myself... my husband.
"Right away, Allie comes to mind," he said. 
I wasn't surprised when he chose that character because we have a connection with The Notebook. (Some of the things in Allie and Noah's journey, in their younger years, describes us.)
So, I asked him to think of someone else, since that answer was a given. After thinking on it for a while, he mentioned Abby from The Ugly Truth. And after I thought about it, he's right. She's awkward, neurotic, quirky, feisty, and sassy. Just a few of my favorite things! And apparently, they're a few of his favorite things, too. :)

Is there a movie character that you relate to personality-wise?

The 13th Floor Collection cover reveal

Here's Christine Rains 13th Floor Collection cover reveal!!! I wanted to post this on Sunday, but this weekend didn't go as planned. :(



Title: The 13th Floor Complete Collection
Author: Christine Rains
Genre: paranormal romance

Release date: October 13th, 2013

Blurb:
Six supernatural tenants
Living in a haunted apartment building
On a floor that doesn't exist.







Six novellas telling their tales.





A retired demon acquires a price on his head.
A werewolf is hunted by her pack.
A modern day dragonslayer misses his target.
A harpy challenges Zeus for the soul of the man she loves.
A vampire is obsessed with a young woman he can't find.
A banshee falls in love with someone who's death she has seen in a vision.
And a sweet ghost must battle a primal monster to save them all.

All the stories take place at the same time intertwining their lives together on the 13th Floor.


Christine Rains is a writer, blogger, and geek mom. She has four degrees which help nothing with motherhood, but make her a great Jeopardy player. When she's not writing or reading, she having adventures with her son or watching cheesy movies on Syfy Channel. She's a member of Untethered Realms and S.C.I.F.I. The 13th Floor series is her first self-published series. She has eight novellas and twenty-one short stories published.
Website: http://christinerains.net/
Blog: http://christinerains-writer.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorchristinerains
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@CRainsWriter
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4017568.Christine_Rains

Celebrate the small things and Spooktoberfest announcement

Celebrate the Small Things is the fun weekly meme hosted by Viklit @ Scribblings of an Aspiring Author, where we share things we wish to celebrate, and then hop around to other bloggers to rejoice in their celebrations, too. :) Go HERE to sign up and join the celebration!

My celebrations: 

• Christine Rains has a cover reveal to share. You can check it out at her site HERE or at Cover Girls HERE, and I'll be posting her reveal this weekend as well. Congrats, Christine!!! 
• Dani and I are announcing our blogfest today! You can learn more about Spooktoberfest below.
• I went to a flower show this week and learned some cool stuff to utilize in the shop. I'm so excited to make new things!
• Went to the movies and a walk n' talk with my BFF. <3

What things are you celebrating this week?

With the oncoming of the spookiest holiday of the year, Dani @ Entertaining Interests and myself are bringing sexy back – er –SPOOKTOBERFEST back this October. We had a great turnout last year, read some awesome entries, and gave away some amazing prizes!

We hope we'll have a great turnout this year, too!

Spooktoberfest Requirements:

1. Follow us - Dani and Jax, if you don’t already. We love meeting new bloggers, and we do follow back.

2. Your Flash Fiction piece should be between 300 - 500 words. It can be scary, funny, action-packed, romantic, or whatever you choose. Just let your creativity flow!

3. You must choose 3 of the 6 words listed below to include in your flash fiction piece…

WRETCH (ED)

IMPEDING

ALIEN (S)

SKELETON (S)

POTION (S)

MASK (S)

4.  Highlight those 3 words you in your story so we can find them.

5. Choose at least 1 of the 4 pictures below to be the setting for your flash fiction piece.
A forest, a cave/mine, a road, or a stairwell

photo credit of forest and cave: DANI
photo credit of road and stairs: ME 

6. Post your piece any day from Friday Oct 25th thru Monday, Oct. 28th.

7. It’s a blog hop, so… hop around to other participating blogs and leave them some awesome comments.

8. We'll announce the winners on Thurs Oct. 31, 2013 - Halloween! Dani and I will each choose a winner. You read that right – two winners! Woot!
9. Most important of all.... Have fun!!!

Side note - not required: If you have a twitter account and have the extra time - go ahead and send out a tweet letting us know you have posted your submission (this step is very helpful for us.) Below is our @ accounts and the hashtag.

@JackieFel

@danibertrand

#Spooktoberfest

PRIZES: A grab bag (more like a box of awesome Halloween stuff) and candy. The winners will get the biggest bags we can find of their favorite candy along with some spookified items.

Oh, and yes, this blogfest is international. So what are you ghouls waiting for? Sign up using the Linky Thing below and spread the word!

Express Yourself Meme

Dani and I host the weekly meme - Express Yourself.  Every week, we come up with a question/topic of some sort for other bloggers to answer. The goal is for all of us to get to know one another better by sharing different things about ourselves. Sound fun? Join us in the linky below.

Topic this week:  What are some crafty/handy things you do or wish you did?


One thing I wish I knew how to do is sew. I do like to scrapbook, when I have time, which is hardly ever. 
I work with flowers and love doing that so much... how much? I have to take allergy med in order to not be miserable while making pretty arrangements. But I don't mind because there's just something about making someone's day by way of flowers. It's good for them, and for me. 

Here's my first attempt at creating a pig with wings. (when pigs fly :D ) The angle of the picture isn't the best so I hope you can see it clearly. The design is 1800flowers, and they have other cool things, too. 

Dani gave me a beautiful shout-out on her blog that brought me to tears. I'm a sap, what can I say? Anyway, I thought I'd say some nice things about her, though, Dani rarely cries, which isn't a bad thing at all. We keep each other balanced that way. :) 
She has a creative eye to take awesome pictures and capture memories. She makes our badges for our meme and blogfests. Seriously. She can whip them up super fast and they look amazing. In fact, I've been thinking about a new header... *hint hint Dani* lol ...  She also does all of these races that I'm in complete awe of and know that she has an outer and inner strength that we can all learn from. And she's a great friend, who takes me at my best and at my worst.

Want to participate in our meme? We'd love to have you join!

Express Yourself - photo time

Dani and I host the weekly meme - Express Yourself.  Every week, we come up with a question/topic of some sort for other bloggers to answer. The goal is for all of us to get to know one another better by sharing different things about ourselves.

If you're not signed up, it'd be great if you joined in on the EYM! We're still in the process of going through the list... we've updated it little by little, and some people aren't active with it any longer, so we're weeding through the list, and we'll continue to update when we can. Thanks for your patience while we work through the kinks!

This week's post:  Share some photos of anything you want.

During a trip to Florida, I took this from our room. It's a peaceful scene, in the early morning.

This is a picture I took of the clouds. To me, it looks like a shark and a dragon about to go to battle. 

 Our four sons. Blessed to be their mom. Love 'em!

Me with the hubs. <3

Any photos you'd like to share? We'd love to have you join the EYM. 

IWSG - 2 yr anniversary!

It's Insecure Writer's Support Group time, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh and his co-hosts: Chemist Ken, SL Hennessey, Michelle Wallace, and Joylene Nowell Butler.
And happy TWO YEAR anniversary to the IWSG!  Woot! I'm so thankful for this amazing group and for a place to learn, grow, and chat with other writers!


I'm at 30K with my current manuscript. If I would quit going back through it to edit/revise, I'd probably be at 40-50K. I really wanted to write, to get it all out, then go back after the story is finished and start the revisions. The problem is I don't know how to turn off the "editor" part of it and save it for after. That internal/inner/whatever editor is ingrained in me to edit/revise as I go. Why can't I just overlook that extra space or squiggly red line under a misspelled word? Why can't I just add/delete that dialogue tag later or move this such and such part to that such and such part later? 
*sigh* Anyone else deal with that, too?

I found some amazing quotes to share:

"Every character should want something, even if it is only for a glass of water." Kurt Vonnegut

"Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts." Larry L. King

"If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." Elmore Leonard

"Remember, writing doesn't love you. It doesn't care. Nevertheless, it can behave with remarkable generosity. Speak well of it, encourage others, pass it on." Al Kennedy

Have a great week! 
Happy writing and happy reading!