Did you ever have a day where you don't want to read, watch TV, or let alone try and do anything productive?  Instead, all you want to do is curl up with some crusty French bread and butter at the table?  Two pieces I swear that's all I need.....

And then the to do list starts talking to you. Staring at you as you munched on that last piece of buttery heaven.  And what did you do?  Brushed off the crumbs on your shirt and made a cup of tea.

Yeah, that to do list is for another time. 

To everyone who can enjoy a somewhat non-productive day.

What??!! My book hasn't sold a million copies yet?

Life today is in the fast lane. 

Like you didn't know that already.

But, even though it's fast, it's also disappointing.  Our level of expectation is so high now.  We want instant success, with a couple of clicks of our mouse.  We want viral success with a few reviews that spin our name out of control until it's flying away into the Internet universe.  We want our name widely known, our book covers seen on train rides home, and huge next book deals discussed over turkey and mashed pototoes at Thanksgiving. 

All of this is not happening for me.  Not yet.

Let's face it. I'm a realist.  I'm a worker bee. I keep my nose to the grind stone and wondering when I can come up for air.  My expectations are low.  Just like Confuscious said" High expectations means planned disappointment."  I'm going with Confuscious on this one.

So I keep writing cause it's in my damn head.  And I'll keep searching out for reviews and reading up on my new hobby, emarketing books.  I'm becoming a person I'd never thought I'd be. 

And that's ok.  The real work will be  resisting to check my sales page on Amazon.com three times a day.

NY Times Bestsellers List

Quite wonderful that four on the NYT best sellers list are indie authors and self published.  So glad that we as authors have the tools now to go beyond the traditional agent route.  Now to get this author working.......

Yep, that's me on FaceBook

Here's my link to FB!

http://www.facebook.com/notifications?clk_loc=1#!/

Paranormal Activity

The other night my husband and I were up late watching a movie.  It had been one of those nights when you announce that everyone needs to head upstairs for bed time and all of a sudden my kids go from tired little beings to explosive volcanoes of energy. 

After much repeating of the nightly mantra (take vitamins, brush your teeth, get in your pajamas), everyone finally settled down and went to bed.  Finally.  Or so we thought.

So we are watching this movie when all of a sudden my husband and I hear this scurrying upstairs.  It was the sound of little being running through the hallway.  A little being that was not suppose to be up late at night.  My husband and I look at each other and he declares "Seriously?  It's 11pm and Carter (our youngest) is still up?" 

"Do you think it's a racoon?" I ask.  As I said it, I realized it couldn't had been raccoons on the roof since the sound literally came right through the ceiling above us.

With a huff, hubby goes upstairs ready to do some serious parental yelling.  I hear nothing though. Hubby comes back down.  "So Carter was running around?  Is he in bed now?" I asked as he sat down in his chair.

"Nope. Carter was asleep," Matt declares.

"What was the running noise? That couldn't have been a raccoon.  The noise was upstairs, not on the roof,"  I said.

"No it wasn't an animal," said hubby.  "I don't know what it was." 

And then we sat and stared at each other.  And then we turn to look at the TV.  And hubby precisely pressed PLAY as we sat in utter silence but both of us completely understanding what it could had been.  That it wasn't our five year old running, or an animal scurrying across our roof.  It was something else.

It's LIVE!

Ok, all you paranormal fans - Kloster's Dream is live and for sale on amazon.com for $2.99.  Here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009GLXXWG

I'm kicking my butt because getting it to the correct format etc was killing me!  Finally overcame some technical obstacles (myself!) and here it is.  After reading this, you may never want to go near a cornfield again.

Kloster's Dream

Kloster's Dream is a shorter novel that I finished a couple years back.  It will be available in the next couple of weeks on Amazon, and elsewhere as soon as I can find the time to figure out the other e-book formats.
In a nutshell, it's about a young husband and father who can't seem to find his way home after another late night at the office . . . or is it?  It's kind of a supernatural novel, but in the end, it's more of a reflection on family and aging.  Looking back on it after a couple years in the drawer, it seems to have a real Twilight Zone vibe to it, but what appears to be a paranormal-kind of twist to it really is more of a matter of our own perception of reality.
Anyway, you can check out a more detailed description over at Amazon, and I hope you like it.
I'm going to try and fill you in a little more on my next project in the next post.  It's a book called Gravitas, and there's no mistaking this one - its all paranormal (hopefully with a little romance along the way).  See you then.

Kids off to school!

Wow, for the first time I am coming home from dropping off my kids at school to a quiet house.

Like weird quiet. 

I'm looking around the disarray in the house from the first day - lunch stuff still on counter, pajamas on the floor, breakfast dishes still on table.  My brain is buzzing from the excitement of the quiet hours ahead of me, yet I'm a little dazed by the whole experience.  I cried today as my youngest, a kindergartener, walked off into the building all by himself.  He was so confident trudging off with his Spider man backpack on that is almost the size of his entire body.  And there I stood whipping on my sunglasses as fast as I could as I felt the tears coming down my cheeks.  I didn't want the other moms to see my embarrassment that I just lost it and was weeping from the sight of my little guy marching off to elementary school.  Now, kindergarten tomorrow college.  Yeah, I know it's jumping a few years, but to a mom who's trying to cover up her streaming tears, our thoughts run fast. 

And now, that I've had a cup of coffee (hot, yes HOT! So excited to actually have a fresh, hot cup with no interruptions) and I've wiped my mascara laden cheeks off, I'm good.  Really good.  It's on to the next chapter in my life.  Me. 

Explaining time travel to kids...

I let my kids watch Back to the Future for the first time today.  Has anyone explained time travel to a five year old successfully?  I think I may have damaged the poor child's mind permanently!  Now he is constantly asking these future vs. happening now events questions.  Such as:

"If I eat this pizza now, and then time travel back to yesterday right away will I be hungry mom?" 

Me:  "Did you do your homework?" 
Him:  "Mom, I time traveled to the future ahead three days, got my homework from my teacher, went back and did it. Now I'm farther ahead than anyone!"
Me: "Oh, good.  Did you get all the answers since you went into the future?"
Him:  "Mom, that's cheating!" 

Reminds of the wonderful book The Fermata.  Oh the possibilities!