Let the fun begin!

Love at the Speed of Email is the story of old-fashioned courtship made possible by modern technology – the tale of two people separated by the Pacific Ocean who build a long-distance relationship entirely via email.  Along the way, the narrator – a global nomad who has spent her life as the transient resident of eight different countries – must confront troubling questions about where home really is and what it means to commit to a person, a place, or a career.

Lisa looks as if she has it made.  She has turned her nomadic childhood and forensic psychology training into a successful career as a stress management trainer for humanitarian aid workers.  She lives in Los Angeles, travels the world, and her first novel has just been published to some acclaim.  But as she turns 31, Lisa realizes that she is still single, constantly on airplanes, and increasingly wondering where home is and what it really means to commit to a person, place, or career.  When an intriguing stranger living on the other side of the world emails her out of the blue, she must decide whether she will risk trying to answer those questions.  Her decision will change her life.

Lisa McKay is a psychologist who specializes in stress, trauma, and resilience.  She currently lives in Laos.  Love at the Speed of Email is her second book.  To learn more, visit www.lisamckaywriting.com.

For more fun with this fantastic author, stop back tomorrow for Day Two of this special four-day event!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Zombified

Between preparing for Cricket’s birthday party and participating in the follow party hosted by Charlotte Castle on Facebook yesterday, I’m feeling a bit zombified today.  The follow party was great fun – I’ve made some new friends, gained some new followers, and had some great conversations.  But this zombie feeling isn’t likely to let up soon – Cricket’s party is tomorrow and I still have lots to do yet.  I’m taking a break for now, though.  I need a good nap.

I’m still struggling to believe that come Monday, Cricket will be two years old.  It seems like just yesterday we brought him home from the hospital, all excited and filled with joy at the prospect of the new life that was ours to mold.  I must admit, my favorite part of having kids with Seymour (namely, Cricket and Thumper) is that we don’t have to share them with anyone else (Tadpole and Tomcat each come from previous marriages and, while we normally get along pretty well with our exes, there are always times when things don’t go the way we would like them to go or when we don’t get to have the kids when we would like to have them because they’re with their other parents – it’s just part of being divorced).  For instance, Tomcat and Tadpole are with their other parents this weekend and as far as I know will not be able to come to Cricket’s party tomorrow.  It’s a disappointment, but it comes with the territory when you’re a divorced parent.  That’s just the way life goes.

Anyway, my boys are getting so big that it’s hard to believe.  In just over a month I’ll be doing all this again in preparation for Thumper’s first birthday!  To be honest, I’m just glad he’s made it to his birthday because when he was born, we weren’t sure he would.  His birth was vastly different from his brother’s – instead of a joyful event full of smiles and visitors, it was an anxiety-ridden event full of worry and panic.  It all seems like such a long time ago, but at the same time, it feels like only yesterday.  It’s funny how time pulls that off.

And now, to nap.  Don’t forget to stop back Monday, when I’ll be kicking off four days of posts featuring Lisa McKay and her latest book, Love at the Speed of Email!  You won’t want to miss it!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Tinker, tenor, author, spy

Okay, so that was a rather poor Star Trek reference, but it made me smile. (I can’t help it; I love the Doctor. :))  Anyway, my good friend Lindsey Parsons has published her first novel, Vortex, and you can find it on both Amazon and Amazon UK.

On a night when prophecies stir, an outraged dragon vents his anger, Damian is ripped from everything he knows and Sam’s nightmares become real…

Sam isn’t enjoying university life, she’s disillusioned with her course and having second thoughts about her future.  It doesn’t help that she keeps having a scary recurring nightmare and when she thinks things couldn’t get worse, a creepy man follows her back to her room.

Damian is unique, he has silver eyes, horns, and wings, he is also being visited by a ghost girl.  She looks so sad and frightened he feels compelled to help her, but the night he reaches out to save her from a dragon’s fiery breath he gets ripped from his life, his world, from everything he knows.

Now it’s Damian who’s lost in an unfamiliar world that’s devoid of magic and full of strange monsters.  His only connection with home is Sam, who he recognizes as the ghost girl.  Sam has to put aside her fear and disbelief in Damian’s explanations about himself to try and help him find his way home.  But in a world without magic is this possible?

To learn more about Lindsey, click here to read her recent interview with Tricia Drammeh and here to read her interview with Kate Jack.  Help support this great author!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

It’s five o’clock somewhere…

It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?  Why the heck can’t it be five o’clock here?  I just want to go home and sit in my lovely air-conditioned living room and relax with my guys. *sigh*

Also, check out The Page Turner!  It’s a super cool blog run by a great gal and one of yesterday’s posts featured The Lokana Chronicles!  Needless to say, I was pretty stoked.  Be sure to check out the pages 105 Tips for Writers and A Page Turner for a look at the awesome Page Turner software.  The software isn’t live yet, but it sounds like they hope to start beta testing pretty soon.  I personally can’t wait to start playing around with it.

And now, I think I’ll try to rest my poor sun-fried brain.  It’s another scorcher out there today and another one of my kids has another ballgame tonight.  Tadpole played a doubleheader last night (won one, lost one) and Tomcat has a game tonight (not a doubleheader, thank goodness).  I missed out last night because it was too hot for Cricket and Thumper to be outside and I think I’m going to miss out tonight, too, because it’s actually hotter today than yesterday (mid-nineties for temps, heat indices in the lower triple digits, humidity levels approaching 100% – yesterday was pretty similar, but with 30-40 mph winds all day long on top of all that).  Blargh.

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Of editors and rejections and hope, oh my!

This morning I was perusing Chuck Wendig’s awesome blog, the way I do every weekday morning.  As usual, it was freaking awesome.  In today’s post, he compared editors to MacGyver and the A-Team:

Then she gathers up the crumbled story-boulders and pages caught on cactus spines and she again mounts her steed and rides to the next ridge.  There she sits, alone.  For hours.  Maybe days.  Pulling pages apart.  Seeing what she has.  Shining a light into dark corners.  Finding sense.  Fixing errors.  Bringing sanity back to madness, chaos back to order, context back to content.  Her red pen dances bloodily upon the page.

And when the time is right, she rides again.

Anyway, I know that little tidbit references neither MacGyver nor the A-Team, but to find those two particular bits, go here.  Read the whole thing – it’s totally worth it, I promise you.  Guy knows his stuff.  Also?  He usually makes me laugh because he’s funny in a way I can’t quite describe.  Maybe that’s because I have a weird sense of humor, but maybe not.

And now for the rejection part. Luckily, it’s not rejection Simon Cowell-style. That means there’s still reason to hope! And since I’m an optimist, you know I will.

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Watch this space!  Something special this way comes.  The week of June 25, I’ll be featuring posts related to the release of a new book, Love at the Speed of Email by the very talented Lisa McKay.  I’ve read the first chapter, “Spinsters Abroad,” which is available here, and was thoroughly entertained.  But don’t take my word for it; check out what others had to say:

“Love at the Speed of Email is part grand romance, part travel memoir, and part essay on life’s most precious gifts.  Lisa McKay is a phenomenal writer; clever and comedic, poignant and pitch-perfect.  You will love this love story.”  -Susan Meissner, award-winning author of The Shape of Mercy and A Sound Among the Trees

“Love at the Speed of Email, Lisa McKay’s engrossing memoir about life and love and home, is a wild ride that spans the globe.  At turns funny, contemplative, and romantic, Lisa’s story resonated on many different levels and kept me eagerly turning pages, hoping for a happily-ever-after ending to this modern day fairy tale.  I can’t recommend this extraordinary book highly enough!”  -Nicole Baart, bestselling author of Far From Here and After the Leaves Fall

“A travel memoir with a deep soul, Love at the Speed of Email takes us takes us around the world but always brings us back to the heart of the matter: humanity’s longing for place, purpose, faith.  Lisa McKay’s seamless storytelling helps us find ourselves in every corner of her globetrotting and even learn a little about love along the way.  A true pleasure for the journeyer in all of us!”  -Leeana Tankersley, author of Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places

So don’t forget to stop back the week of June 25 to find out more about this exciting new book and this fantastic author!  I guarantee you won’t want to miss this great event!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

All you need is love

Today, I’m feeling the love.  And for some reason, as I was thinking the words, “Feel the love,” I heard them in Peter Griffin’s voice.  You know, from the episode where he spends time with Meg?  No?  Okay, fine:

I haven’t watched Family Guy in years, so I have no idea why that particular scene popped into my head this morning, but you can’t unsee it! Muahahaaaa! 🙂

Anyway, I wanted to share a bit of blog love today. And, you know, make up for the clip I just shared. 🙂

Metaphor

Apparently I made a metaphor Friday and didn’t even know it.  In case you missed it, here it is:

Every time he dropped his line in the water – and I do mean every time – he pulled it out with a fish attached to the end.  At one point, a fish jumped out of the water to get the worm hovering just above the surface.  The fish were all too small to keep, so we practiced the catch-and-release method, although I ended the excursion with a serious craving for some good ol’ fried fish like my dad used to make.  I tried to fry fish once.  It didn’t go well.  I don’t think I’ll try it again.

Anyway, he had so much fun fishing that a couple of weeks later, I bought him a life jacket and took him out to Union Grove Lake to try his luck again.  We were there for ten minutes before he proclaimed to anyone who would listen (namely, me, as I was the only person within earshot) that he was bored and he wanted to go home and fishing at Aunt Sandy’s was way more fun.  See, fishing at Aunt Sandy’s had spoiled him.  Fishing at Aunt Sandy’s showed him what it’s supposed to be like, minus the ideal of actually getting to keep them.  Fishing at Union Grove demonstrated the reality of fishing – endless hours spent staring at each other while fighting the temptation to reel your line in and cast it out again somewhere else because maybe the fish are biting “over there.”

Until the lovely Miss T. pointed it out in her comment, I didn’t even realize what I’d written.  I had to go back and reread the whole post to find out what the heck she was talking about and as I did so, a wonderful thing happened: I discovered that in writing one thing, I’d actually written another.  I thought I’d simply been recounting a fishing story, but it was much more than a simple fish tale.

Go on, read it again. I’ll wait.

Interviewed once more!

The questions have been flying once again.  Yep, folks, that’s right – I’ve been interviewed!  All thanks go to Tricia Drammeh this time (again, actually).  Head on over to her Authors to Watch site and join the conversation!

Big things are going on in my neck of the woods, but that’s another post for another time.  In the meantime, I’ll be starting a Photo Friday feature this coming week.  I meant to start it yesterday, but housework beckoned and I’m pretty sure Seymour was ecstatic that I heeded the call to clean instead of the call to blog. 🙂

And now, back to Mt. Laundry.  I’ve nearly reached the summit – I can’t stop now!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.