Friday, June 28, 2013

Friday Faves & Funnies...

It's Friday! Woohoo!

I know lots of you get the weekends off. If you don't, you have my sympathies. I hate working weekends, but hey, gotta do what you gotta do.

Sadly, I'm still looking for work. Meh. Wouldn't be so bad if I had some editing jobs. Ahem.

Yeah, that was my lame attempt at soliciting work. It's Friday, what do you expect, enthusiasm?

Anyway, found a couple of new favorite authors these past couple of weeks. One of them being Diane Darcy. I did a review of her story, 'The Princess Problem'. Very good story! I hate calling any story cute, but this certainly fit the description. And you all know I don't read romance much, unless it's got a good story.

My other new fave is Tamara Hart Heiner. I wrote a review for 'Inevitable'. Now, this is a YA book I would recommend to my nieces.

I'm working my way through a couple more books. 'Gravity's Revenge' by A. E. Marling is so far, splendid! Enchantress Hiresha is like a close personal friend. I expect to devour this book rapidly. I am also loving the illustrations within. I can't wait to share my review with all of you.

All right, on to the funnies! I know this is what you truly come to see on Friday. Can't fool me!

First some cats:






And 'cause I know you ALL don't like cats, here's some dogs:

 



And this isn't funny, it's just cool. I mean, come on, it's a SHIP!!!




And there you go. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! What are your plans?

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Book Review: The Princess Problem by Diane Darcy

Title: The Princess Problem

Author: Diane Darcy

Pages: 121 File Size: 249 kb

ASIN: B00CU7FV6O

Purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble



Summary from Amazon:

In real life, she's given up on the fairy tale ending...

After having her heart broken twice, Alicia Dayne has sworn off men, decided to concentrate on her career, and is delighted to win a lucrative contract to make a commercial for Highborn Mattresses.

She could make the most awesome fairy tale commercial ever--except for Jonas Highborn, who isn't exactly thrilled with her Princess and the Pea ideas, and really doesn't want a prince in tights representing his company.

Though he's trying to keep his grieving mother happy by letting her have charge of the commercial shoot, and though Alicia's trying to keep in mind that this annoying guy is her boss for the moment, they can't seem to keep from clashing.

Throw in an overly-handsome prince, a matchmaking mama, and a stunning rose garden, and maybe, just maybe, Alicia can be convinced they have a chance at something real.

Because while she might not be a real princess, sometimes an ordinary girl's got to take a chance, even when it seems too good to be true.

When did Happily Ever After become so complicated?

My thoughts:

This was one of the cutest reads I've read in a long time. I know lots of books and stories don't want to be described as 'cute', but there's no other way for me to put it. The book had me smiling while I read it, for pity's sake. Alicia and Jonas were such a great couple.

Jonas' mother, Willa, decides she wants to do a commercial for her mattress company, but only agrees to Alicia's Princess and the Pea idea because she's wanting to play match-maker for her son, Jonas.

Alicia is a sweet person, until she starts hanging around Jonas, and then the fur begins to fly as something sparks between the two of them. Jonas enjoys it and knows it right away for what it is, due to the loving relationship his parents had.

Short read, but great story. No boring bits, no overly 'gushy' romance and certainly not too graphic. My kind of romance story, fun to read and a plot to boot!

Absolutely have to give it 5 out of 5 skull and crossbones.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Ahhh, Editing...

Revisions are well under way for book two, 'Veritas'. I'm less than 20,000 words from my goal.

There is a serious flaw in all of this, however.

I may bypass that 70,000 words and head right on to like, 90,000. Possibly.

I am nowhere near where I planned to be in the story by now. I have a specific plan on how I want to end this one and begin book three. I'm going to have to finagle things so that happens without me ending up with over 100,000 words.

Wish me luck in that endeavor! Otherwise, I'll have to look back over my writing and choppity-chop. Woohoo! I mean... ahem.

I also finally gave in and downloaded the free trial of Scrivener. OMGah! I've had a couple of you tell me to get it before, but just kept putting it off. I'm so very sorry I just brushed it off like that.

I LOVE this PROGRAM!!

And I took the advice of another friend of mine and read the very long tutorial before even attempting to work this thing. Glad I did, or I would have been seriously frustrated.

I love how I can write out each scene and then just click and drag them around to place them how I want. Forget Cut and Past, this is epic!

And the notes! Don't get me started on that feature. Love it. LOVE! So, a belated thanks to all of you who told me to get it. You know me, gotta hit me over the head with a sledge hammer in order to get anything through my thick skull.

All right, so that's what is new with me these days. Just keep watching that little blue bar under Veritas Revisions. It jumps by at least 2 to 3,000 words just about every day these days. Gotta get it done, then on to book three. And then, I have plans for something else. Muahahaha!

Have a great rest of the week, everyone.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Book Review: 'Lost in the Seven Worlds' by Petronela Ungureanu

Title: Lost in the Seven Worlds

Author: Petronela Ungureanu

Publisher: Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing

Pages: 26 File Size: 205 kb

ASIN: B00BU68R3A

Purchase: Amazon



Summary from Amazon:

Lost in the Seven Worlds is the debut work of Petronela Ungureanu, an avante-garde Romanian writer.

When a young woman finds herself captive in another world, she makes the mistake of falling for one of the disgraced beings. In the name of love, she is confronted with a most disturbing demand and faces a crucial decision. Will she remain lost in the Seven Worlds, or will she accept the challenge of a love beyond mortality?

My thoughts:

First off, this is a short story. But I honestly have to say I found a lot lacking. It wasn't a well rounded story and left me with more questions than answers. To say it is 'avante-garde', well, I don't view it as such. To me, avante-garde means it is going to be different from anything else out there, colorful, full of strange new things that might take a bit of getting used to. I didn't get any of that from this story.

The overall idea was good. The setting was well written and descriptive, but the story itself fell a little flat to me. Maybe it was just me, but I felt a couple of things were repeated, and I got a bit confused and lost in the story. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't give this author another shot. This is a debut story, after all.

With it being a short story, it is worth a try. Don't just take my word for it.

Sadly, I am going to only give it two out of five skull and crossbones.

Book Review: 'Inevitable' by Tamara Hart Heiner

Title: Inevitable

Author: Tamara Hart Heiner

Publisher: Tamark Books

Pages: 238 File Size: 563 kb

ASIN: B00B8TMI5C ISBN: 0989088804

Purchase: Amazon

Summary from Amazon:

Young adult romantic suspense novel.

Visions of death plague Jayne, who thinks watching her boyfriend die is the worst that could happen to her. But when she witnesses a murder, Jayne finds herself caught up in a dangerous world of intrigue and suspense.

As it turns out, she is not the only one doing the stalking. The killer is on to her, and all of her visions of the dying don't reveal how her life will end. Somehow, she must stop the murderer before he arranges Jayne's own inevitable death.

My thoughts:

Where do I begin? I really, really enjoyed this book. Jayne was a very well rounded character. She had cool parents, but not so cool she never got punished. She skipped a lot of work due to her visions, and lost her job. There were consequences for her actions, which I found very refreshing in a YA novel.

Now, with that out of the way, if I were Jayne and had her visions, which were introduced by the smell of lemons, I'd quickly remove anything linked to lemons from my life. Even the color yellow.

Jayne can see the deaths, or fates, of certain people. Not everyone pops up on her lemon scented radar. She can tell who they are by the aroma surrounding them. All she has to do is make eye contact. Sometimes she can avoid it for awhile, but that is just putting off the, well, inevitable. But when it catches her off guard, if she looks someone in the eye a split second before the scent reaches her, she's caught up in the terrifying vision of that person's demise. So when she sees a young woman murdered, and sees the face of her killer, she doesn't know what to do. If she goes to the police to tell them of these visions, Jayne's afraid she'll end up locked away for being crazy.

Jayne's best friend doesn't learn about Jayne's secret until after Jayne sees a vision of a boy associated to her. But once she knows, she's as supportive as ever, and only miffed for a little bit.

Great cast of characters in this book, great story telling at a perfect pace. Also, very, very clean! Which is a huge plus for a YA book! Kudos to Tamara for her excellent writing skills. I'd recommend this book to parents of teens who don't want their kids reading a lot of cussing or sexual content.

I give this book 5 out of 5 skull and crossbones.

Book Review: 'Gaspar and the Fantastical Hats' by David A. Lindsey

Title: Gaspar and the Fantastical Hats

Author: David A. Lindsey

Publisher: Balmerino Publishing

Pages: 90 File Size: 265 kb

ASIN: B00BKY96KA

Purchase: Amazon



Summary from Amazon:

Life isn't easy in a cut-throat city ruled by guilds, especially for a freelance thief who refuses to swear fealty to the local thieves' guild.

Beset by thieves and threatened by assassins, Gaspar is forced into a madcap hunt for a magical artefact. Confronted by danger at every turn, he and his friend, Hubris the Spellbroker, become entangled in a bizarre web of intrigue, politics and outlandish fashion. They soon realise that they are just pawns in a greater game, but who is their real adversary and how can they disentangle themselves without ending up seriously dead?

This humorous fantasy novella (28,500 words) is a prequel to the novel, Gaspar The Thief (126,000 words), also by David A. Lindsay.

My thoughts:

 This was quite a fun read. Lots of twists and turns in such a short tale. All in the name of fashion! Gaspar seems like a fun character and I can't wait to read 'Gaspar the Thief', eventually. He seems to have lots of courage where his friend, Hubris, doesn't.
This story was a fun, fast read. Very well paced, not too slow, not too fast. You weren't overwhelmed with too  much information at once. I honestly didn't know what to expect, as I have never read anything from this author before. But I have seen Mr. Lindsey's 'tweets' on Twitter and 'Gaspar the Thief' has me captivated. So when this book came up free for a short time, I snatched it up, quick as a nimble fingered thief.
Gaspar is a pretty low key character. He isn't overly hyper, or overly confident like so many thieves can be. He's confident enough. Whenever he's faced with a situation that's not his area of expertise, he has his friend, Hubris, to rely on. The two make a great team and work well off of each other.
I found it very difficult to find a good spot to put this story down. Very well written, I liked it a lot. If you enjoy fantasy as much as I do, this author will soon become a favorite.

I give it 4 and a half out of 5 skull and crossbones.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Just Another Monday...

I avoided the word 'Manic' because it isn't a hectic day for me today. Matter of fact, this forgetting to post thing is becoming a bad habit. Again.

I've been wrapped up in revisions. I'm also becoming a bit of a computer potato because of it. I'll sit here, write/revise on the upwards of 1,000-4,000 words. In between, I'm surfing the web, taking a moment to let everything sink in while contemplating the next scene. I've also been reading some stuff for people. Bits to critique and what not. So my day is pretty much spent right. Here.

I need to get out and go for a walk! Which, I am planning on doing today, until I forgot I hadn't posted anything for the blog.

Whoops!

I'm also trying not to be a pushy nuisance on Twitter. I've seen so many blog posts about what NOT to do on Twitter. One of the things is, don't constantly push your books. Okay, so I send out a link to my book every so often now. Mostly I try to be myself. (I know, uh oh!) I post links for others more than my own stuff. But I'm also trying to send out shout out's to new followers and make them more personal than generic.

Not that time consuming, really. I only gain maybe two new followers every other day. But, I do need to get off the computer a little bit more than just to do dishes, laundry or make dinner. My eyes will go square shaped if I'm not careful.

Oh! I have a new review up of 'Adversarius'! Almost spaced that! You can go read it here.

And I was interviewed on Friday over here. Sheesh, I gotta keep up with this stuff!

On that note, have a great week and I'll be posting up a couple reviews of my own.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Fave Friday & Funnies...

Hooray for Friday! Woot! Woot!

Gaming night! Er... um, Friday faves and funnies, uh day. Yeah, that's it. And NO, I won't be gaming, I'll be um, revising. Yes, absolutely.

Before I forget, there is also this going on, Sunday:



Ahem.

Hope you all had a good week. Mine was part taking it easy and part running around trying to get paper work done.

And downloading Scrivener. Yes, I gave in and stopped trying to become part of the soil with the other dinosaurs.


So Scrivener is becoming a fave of mine rather quickly. I have to use it sparingly until I can afford to pay for the full program.

I also have been doing some reading. I read this:





I have to say I loved it. I'll do a review of it later. I got it while it was free, but you can get it for your Kindle for $1.49. That's like, what, a cup of coffee? Make your coffee at home, buy the short story.

I'm also loving GIMP these days and learning how to do stuff with it. I'm looking at making some animation so, yeah, watch out. I might get all 'hi-tech' on ya. Uh huh. Pfft.

Sorry, I'm also a little loopy. I get goofy (er) when I get sleepy. And sleep and I have not been on speaking terms the past couple of days. Tell the Sandman he's fat, just once, I dare you. Won't sleep for days...

All right! On to the funnies you so patiently wait for. Either that or you just bypass my gibbering mess and go right for 'em. Who can blame you? It's Friday, you wanna have a laugh.






Ninja kittehs! Attack! Have a great weekend everyone! What are your plans?

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Drawbacks Of Unemployment...

I tell you what. Being home again is messing with my ability to keep track of days. It just dawned on me that this is Wednesday and I should have a post up!!

Egads.

I should work on my Friday post after this. Possibly.

Procrastination has been my buddy this week. I've got all sorts of writing ideas and I have spent a good part of the week jotting these ideas down. However, when it comes to writing a blog post or even revising book two, I'm at a loss. I sit and stare at the computer screen blankly.

Usually, I have LOTS to say on my blog posts. So much so, that I have to make sure to keep an eye on my word count so as not to bore you all to death.

I don't bore you, do I? *Listens to loud snoring* Yeah, all right.

In light of the story ideas I've had, I have been doing some research. I'm asking on Facebook, so I will ask here as well.

What issues do teens face most these days? At home? At school? I remember what it was like being a teenager and I know what my kids went through in school. I just want to keep up to date with it a bit.

I'll take the perspective of the parents as well. What issues do you face with your teens?

Thank you all in advance for your comments. Have  a great rest of the week!

Monday, June 17, 2013

Monday Again?...

Is it just me, or did the weekend go by at light-speed? I didn't even have a chance to get a post scheduled, I was THAT busy.

I didn't get to write this weekend, though. I had other things to do and no time to set aside. But that's okay. Since my son has been home after surgery, we're trying to keep him as entertained as possible. So we're playing games after dinner every night.

I have been revising book two, however. I've sort of given myself a schedule during the week to write. Weekends are for family and laundry.

Laundry. Is. Endless.

I swear.

But my revisions! I actually revised like 400 words in a half hour. That was kind of epic for me. Once I get on a roll, I'm a pretty speedy typist. I timed it to at least 60 words a minute, when I have to look at something, and read as I type. If it's coming out of my brain, these fingers move as fast as this weekend did.

I hope you all had a good weekend. There isn't much to post today, but hopefully I will have something more meaningful on Wednesday. I didn't even get a chance to go look for any freebies happening this week for book news.

Oh well. If I give you chocolate, you'll forgive me right? Okay.

Have a great week, everyone!

Friday, June 14, 2013

Friday Faves & Funnies...

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a good week. I've got a couple things to share with you before I jump right into my usual Friday post.

First, the Word Weavers group I belong to still has it's own blog. Yeah, been kinda quiet over there, I know. So I started something over there called 'Flash Friday'. No, you won't get flashed in THAT way, but you will get an opportunity to read some Flash Fiction. If you'd like to contribute, you know where to find me. (Points to email address at the left, bottom of the profile.)

For Faves this week, I have to say that I've gotten a couple of ARC's from some of my favorite indie authors. Yes, be jealous. I can't wait to review them!

I have this:

Which is totally next up on my TBR list. Awwww yeah! It's got some pretty cool illustrations inside, I'm so very excited.




I have this: Which will be right after 'Gravity's Revenge'. Yeah, baby!







And then I have a couple more books waiting for reviews. I love it. My reading pile never seems to end, but that's a good thing!

Now on to the funnies. Some weeks, I feel like I don't hit the funny bone very well, and others, I feel like I hit a home run.

This is a week I think I hit a home run. Enjoy!





Have a good weekend! What are your plans?

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Updates & Success...

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share that my son is now home and recovering nicely. A story started brewing in my brain about a couple of his experiences, so might write up a short soon.

Now that he's home I can relax a lot more and not worry so much. Thanks to all of you for your healing thoughts, prayers, support. I appreciate it.

My blog hop did well! I had lots of fun, met some new people. Some new people met me. Hi there! *waves* I promise I won't scare you off in the first week.

Here's a couple of links for you all.

David Farland's "The Golden Queen" is .99 cents on Amazon right now.

 "Stained" by Ella James is free on Amazon.

As is "Inevitable" by Tamara Hart Heiner.











Now back to writing and getting things situated. I'm currently looking for work and we all know how much that cuts into writing time. But, it has to be done. I'm also willing to do some critiquing, proofreading, etc. Editing I can do as well, but right now only shorts. That will be a little better than taking on two jobs if I can supplement my income with writing stuff. Keep my creativity going at the very least.

Hope you are all having a good week and I'll see you on Friday with Funnies.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Follow-Stock...

Yeah, I totally went with the play on Woodstock. Couldn't help myself.

So here we are! The day of follow-frenziness. Nope, that's not a real word. Spell check says so. I'm planning my post a little early and hope to be around to follow all who have signed up a little later. I may be driving to Anchorage to pick up my son, we'll see.

At any rate, here is what today is all about. We'd all like some new followers in our social media. There are those who are on FaceBook, Goodreads and Twitter, but not everyone utilizes ALL of these at the same time. Personally, I'm still trying to figure out Goodreads. But I'm there. So let me show you all the places I'm looking for followers:


Twitter: You can find me at @MLChesley

On Facebook, I have two 'Like' pages. One is for M.L. Chesley Author and the other is for my book, 'Adversarius'. For that, all you have to do is click 'Like' if you want.

 Goodreads is at this link. Send me a friend request and I'll be looking for your pages as well.





 I'm super new to Google +, so I'm hoping this link works. Otherwise, well, I don't know what to tell ya, lol!







And last, but certainly not least, is my Smashwords page for my book. Currently, I'm holding a bit of a contest. If I get 200 likes for this page, I'll give away my ebook for 2 days. It's a win/win!

Now, to see the rest of the lovely people who are a part of this blog hop, check out the Linky list below. They're looking for followers as well and since this is FollowStock, that's exactly what we'll do! Follow.

Thanks to everyone who participated and now I am off to make the rounds. Have a great day!


Saturday, June 8, 2013

Saturday Silliness...

Okay, so my internet was down for a day due to some messed up wires needing to be replaced. I about panicked, hoping I could be back online in time for Monday's Blog Hop! So glad they were able to get to it MUCH sooner than I expected. Sometimes, things move slower in summer in Alaska, than they do in winter. Hey, we've been cooped up, we want to play!

However, I was unable to get my Friday Funnies up for you all, so I am posting Saturday Silliness. The giggles will commence shortly. First, I need to say thank you all for your supportive comments. I didn't mean to worry anyone, but I wasn't the one with the medical issues. It was my 19 year old son. A few weeks ago he had some chest pain when breathing and ended up going to the Dr. only to find out he had a partially collapsed lung. We STILL don't know what caused this, but he's a tall (six foot four, I swear), skinny kid. He's healthy and had just started his first job right out of high school. They were taking x-rays every day for a week. Things began to look good and then he went back and found out that his lung was having issues re-attaching itself to the cavity wall. They admitted him to the hospital, did a CT scan and found a cyst on his lung. So they medic-vacced him to the Anchorage hospital and he had surgery Thursday. They discovered some cuts and small bumps on his lung, so they stapled them shut then forced the lung to re-attach (with staples or stitches, still not clear on this) and are keeping tabs on him.

Hence, my stress. We should be able to pick him up in a day or two, hopefully. But now we're faced with post-poning our move to Washington until he's on his feet, both physically and financially, and it has taken it's financial toll on us as well. So, send more good energy this way. Maybe I'll find $10,000 on the side of the road. But if I drop off the face of the earth after Monday, sadly it means internet's been shut down and I'll get back on as soon as possible.

But, now I need a good laugh, so here are your funnies:








Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Insecure Writers Support Group...

Insecure Writers Support Group or IWSG is brought to you by the Ninja Captain himself, Alex J. Cavanaugh. You can find the list of other participants here.

Don't forget to sign up for my Followers Blog-stock. You can also get the details there as well.

I tell you what. I've had some good luck for the past few weeks and then of course had to get my mother lode of badness to go with it. Medical. Details need to be withheld for a bit. Bills are stacking up, but this isn't what I want to post about. It does bring up a valid insecurity, though.

Writing while stressed. Sounds like something the police could pull you over for, right?

I've had several cool opening sentences pop into my brain. I'm dying to write. However, I'm so focused on the current issues of my life, I can't focus very well on writing.

Am I the only one who has this issue?

Then my train of thought starts to skip down the razor blade path of: "How many other authors just go ahead and write their way through their stress?" "Does this make me a bad writer?" "Am I dedicated enough?"

I know I'm not alone in this. I know I can write through this if I really put my mind to it. I'm not a bad writer and I AM dedicated. But this is my insecurity for the month. It's the one at the forefront of my mind, currently, at least.

How do you work through stress? Do you wait until the crisis passes? Do you just write anyway?

Monday, June 3, 2013

Details For Followers Blog Hop...

Hey everyone! Hope you're all refreshed and rested from the weekend.

As promised, this post today is about the Followers Blog Hop I'm hosting. Pardon my lack of creativity, I haven't named it yet. But for some reason, the song, "Ballroom Blitz" keeps playing in my head and I've changed the words to "Follow Blitz", but that sounds kinda stupid. So the name of this hop may just remain Follow-Fest or maybe Blog-Stock.

Okay, on to the details!

Below, on the Linky list, you'll need to add your information. You can grab the code and add the Linky list to your blog post on the 10th to make it a bit easier for people to hop around to all those who've signed up. That's the easy part.

Now, for the blog post itself on Monday, June 10th! Here are the guidelines for those of you looking for followers (Now referred to as LFFs) and since some of you are new to blogging, I'm giving you instructions. Those of you who know this can just skip over some of this:

LFFs:

~ If you're just looking for followers for your blog, then just make sure you post that day. However, two VERY IMPORTANT things need to be done on your BLOG. ONE is to make sure you have a VISIBLE "Follow" button. When you first log into blogger, you have a little list off to the left. Look for the one titled "Layouts". Once there, click on "Add a Gadget" and find the one for the "Follow Button". Mine is titled "Cool People", because, well, you're all cool in my book! You can move that around once you have it set up, so place it near the top so people don't have to scroll down. You'll also find a "Google+ Followers" button. If you are on Google+, by all means, add that. Same if you use a blog reader such as "Blog Lovin'". (Note: If you use Blog Lovin' you'll have to log in to your account to get the code for the button. Then in Blogger, add it as an HTML gadget and paste the code in there.) Whatever you choose, make it visible. Even if you just want people to subscribe by e-mail.

The SECOND thing you need to do is turn OFF the comment captcha. Seriously. I know you don't want spammers and such. That's awesome, neither do I! However, if you go back to that list on the left, click on "Settings" and then on "Posts and Comments". You'll now see where you have the captcha set up for comments. I want you to click on "Registered User". Now only people who have a registered account will be allowed to leave a comment. They can use Google+, OpenID, things like that. If they are ANONYMOUS they CANNOT leave a comment and therefore, you, my friend, are not plagued with SPAM!!  Woot! And if it makes you feel a little more secure, click on "Always" under comment moderation.  But when doing a blog hop, the last thing you want to do is fight with a captcha. That's the best way to LOSE followers. If you're truly interested in what people have to say about your posts, be nice to them!

Onward!

~ If you are looking for followers for your blog AND other social media: make sure you provide links! I'll be looking for people to follow me on Twitter, so I'm going to include my Twitter handle in a link like this: Follow me on Twitter. I also want followers for my FaceBook Author Page and Book Page, so I'll leave links for those, as well as a couple other places.

For Followers:

Okay, for those of you who are participating, you'll all be hopping around the blogosphere to reciprocate those who have graciously dropped by your blog to follow you. We want to make this easy peasy, right? Absolutely. So, if you're participating in this hop and you click the Linky List to go check people out, PLEASE leave a COMMENT stating that you are now following them and they can follow you back. But here's the kicker. You need to leave a link in the comments. (Well, you don't NEED to if your name is on the list, but it'd be nice.)

How do you do such a thing?

Easiest way is this (I'm going to build you a template): Copy and past the first part with the red and blue lettering into a new document or on your notepad. Remove red lettering and parenthesis. Change the word dot to a . and change the blue lettering to your information. Then follow the instructions below that.

Mel at bracket(<) a href equals(=) quote(") http colon(:) back slash(/) back slash(/) caledonialass dot blogspot dot com close quotes(") close bracket(>) Writings Musings and Other Such Nonsense bracket(<) back slash(/) a close bracket(>)

There should be NO SPACES between the first bracket and the "a" (no space
between href and the = sign (href=) and no space between the equals and the quotes (="). No space between the quotes and the http ("http) or the http, colon and two back slashes (just like the beginning of a web address) and the beginning of your web address for your blog (://caledonialass). No space in the web address, either, of course. No space between the dot com, close quote and close bracket (dot com">) or between the very last bracket (<), back slash (/), 'a' and close bracket (>).
Hope that helped.

So again, make sure you make it easy for people to follow your blog. Any other social media, it's just a button click. And during this hop, you want to use your social graces and follow those who have followed you. Give them a chance! Not everyone clicks, in real life or on the internet, and maybe you're not really interested in everyone on the Linky list. That's quite all right. But use your Netiquette. People taking the time to follow you like to be followed in return. I'll be posting more this week and will make sure to keep the Linky List at the bottom of each post. Thanks everyone for your patience and participation!


Saturday, June 1, 2013

From Across The Sea...

Hey everyone! I'm going to be incorporating some new stuff into my blog. As always, feedback is appreciated. I'll be doing some more posts to help out anyone who has news. Giveaways, free books/ebooks, guest posts, blog hops, all of it. Just drop me a message.

So let's begin! No time like the present.

A friend of mine, Steve Bargdill, is looking for some reviews. He has a 'Wasteland' series out. You can find the ebooks here.

B. C. Brown has a blog that could use a little lovin'. And there are giveaways by authors who guest post. That's over here.

Joseph Lallo, author of 'The Book of Deacon' (one of my faves!) has revealed a new cover to his latest, 'The Rise of the Red Shadow'. You can go check it out over here.

Allyson Lindt is looking for reviewers for her book, 'Holding Her Close'. Those details can be found on her blog.

So that's it for now. I'll be posting as regularly as I can with this. Again, send me your news and I'll do my best to post it up for you. Have an awesome rest of the weekend!