Blog posts I’ve liked reading this week.
10 Life List Club Lessons I learned from my dog
Maximizing Our Social Media Impact–Having the “Right” Friends
posted by Diana Lesire Brandmeyer
Blog posts I’ve liked reading this week.
10 Life List Club Lessons I learned from my dog
Maximizing Our Social Media Impact–Having the “Right” Friends
posted by Diana Lesire Brandmeyer
Thanks so much, Diana, for letting me appear on your blog. You have a lovely place here, and I always enjoy your posts.
Liv! I’m glad you’re here. We’re taking a class together with Kristen Lamb and it was suggested we try having guest posters. Liv is my first guest. Liv, tell me about this speculative fiction you write.
I call myself a writer of speculative fiction, because it sounds kind of cool and classy. And also maybe a little pretentious, depending on your point of view. It’s more tasteful sounding, anyway, than saying I write paranormal romance. Which I do, but I also write paranormal family drama and paranormal mystery, and, well, I’ll bet you can pick up the consistent theme. Most of my work has a supernatural angle that allows me to deal with harsher truths than I otherwise could. The fantasy aspect makes it clear that all the crap I throw at my characters couldn’t be happening in real life. Another theme that runs through my work is faith. I deal with faith in God, in all its variations, and the belief that good will have out over evil. None of my stories could be labeled Christian Fiction, but many of my characters are religious. Their faith is worked into their character sketches and woven through the plot. It’s just that it’s not central to the plot or to the climax of the work.
My paranormal family drama, Only The Lonely, tells the story of Molly, a single mom who’s battling with her ex-husband and with the demon who gave her the mother-of-all hickeys. She has an unexpected ally in Cass, a pixie who gets assigned to help her through her trials. Molly is a good Catholic girl. Her kids go to a Catholic high school, she fights with them about going to church, and she agonizes over getting divorced because of what it means from a religious perspective. Her faith is as integral a part of her character as her love for her children, but it doesn’t drive the plot.
I have written stories where religion doesn’t play a part, except as it colors my own understanding of good and evil. It’s more satisfying, though, when it’s there. I feel a little subversive, like, “ha-ha, I’m making you think about God in this story about _____” (and you can fill in the blank with your favorite paranormal creature). There are some great writers, like Ann Rice and Neil Gaimon, who address issues of faith in their speculative fiction. They’re my inspiration, and my role models.
Peace, Liv
Thanks again Liv for telling us how you add faith to your writing. Here’s a little more about Liv. Bio: Liv Rancourt is a writer of speculative fiction and romance. She lives in Seattle with her husband, two teenagers, two cats and one wayward puppy. Writing stories that have happy endings is a nice balance for her work in the neonatal intensive care unit, and Liv can be found on-line at her website , her blog , on Facebook , or on Twitter .
D is for DANGER!
I am an HGTV junkie. I admit it. Those those decorating and remodeling shows give me an adrenalin rush. But more importantly I love doing the things most people hire out or just think about doing.
When House Hunters comes on I find it hard not to yell, “Come on! Painting is easy! So what if the walls are black and purple? They make paint with primer for that!
Sarah’s House and Dear Genvieve captivate me.
So when I managed to save up enough cash I convinced Mr. Do Everything to go with me to the flooring store. (side note: did you know if they take cash you can get a discount!) The 24 boxes of red oak sat in our house acclimating itself to our living conditions for three days. It seems the flooring acclimated just fine to being being covered in dust and books so this week we started the project.
My job was to take up the staples left behind from carpeting and rip out the small entry way wood floor. See those nails? I did not want a tetanus shot so my goal was to keep from stepping on one or falling and puncturing my hand.
Now this is not an unwarranted concern. The last house we remodeled I stepped off a floor joist and my leg went through the ceiling of the dining room below me. No, I did not let Mr. Do Everything take a photo of my leg dangling. My sons were very disappointed.
The final report? I did step on a nail or rather stumbled into one but it only went into the side of my sketcher. It now has a flat. Thankfully, it didn’t break the skin. No shot for me!
The crowbar is another story. That is one strong piece of steel that has no give when it comes to smacking yourself in the chest.
Splashtop APP for iPad |
Do you have an iPad?
A friend of mine told me about Splashtop. He is a pilot and often wants to access a program from his home computer.
Splashtop Remote Access isn’t a free app, right now it’s $4.99. I downloaded it. Now where ever I go I can pull up my desktop from home–AS LONG AS MY HOME COMPUTER IS ON! I found it works well, there is a small lag time but it’s not noticeable when typing. I’ve been able to edit my photos, write blog posts and get to that important bookmark on firefox with ease.
It works with PCs and Macs. Be warned though if your going to use it on a Mac you must have Snow Leopard installed.
Blogs I want to share with you.
Me and Milli Vanilli. See, we really couldn’t sing….
Huh? What did you Say?
Find out what Victorians really hid under their hats.
A Real Page turner—video you don’t want to miss
Kristen Lamb writes about free ebooks may not be a good thing. What’s the problem with free?
C is for Carriage.
This summer we stopped at an antique store and this was out in the yard. It intriques me, where did come from? Who owned it? Where did they take it too church? Parties? I like the fringe top and I wonder if the owner had to pay extra for it?
How did women keep their skirts from brushing the dirty wheel when they disembarked?
So many questions….
So many stories shushed…
So many ideas racing through my mind today…
UPDATE! I have learned that this is a Jenny Lind used from 1850 to the 1900s and only one horse was needed to pull it. How did I learn this? I found out by purchasing a dvd called 19th Century Carriages & Wagons A Resource for Writers by Lynn Coleman. You can get it here.
My hand is fluttering in the air. I am an email hoarder. In the past I have found blogs or shopping sites that interest me and I subscribed.
This last month I’ve been unsubscribing. I realized I was spending not just minutes deleting email. Some times it was five minutes or more.
I still have many lists to to release from my inbox. It’s hard. Sometimes I want to know what I can cook gluten free for dinner or what exciting crafting offer Michaels is offering. And what if I want to live social in another city?
I should delete them right away. But I can’t. I put a star and color code it as to do or important and then I forget about them. It feels better to me to have them in my inbox just in case I get a chance to fly to Florida tomorrow and shop at Kohls with my secret % off code.
So I ask, are you an email hoarder too? Should we start a club or a twelve-step program?
B is for Bunless Burger!
Eating in burger in a gluten-filled world is often risky. You can’t see what is happening in the restaurant kitchen and you have to put your trust in a waitress. You pray she’ll convey the need for changing gloves, cleaning the grill and keeping all bread items away from your meal.
A few years ago 5 Guys Burgers and Fries opened close to my home. I am in burger heaven.
The kitchen is visible, the cashier yells, “Change gloves! Gluten allergy!”
It’s true, I have to eat my burger with a fork an knife, but I don’t mind. That means I have extra weight watcher points for those fries!