Monthly Archives: December 2012

So, What goes through the mind of a headline author?

Yep, I am still hopping through the Bioshere. Whew!  What a crazy ride!

Hey!  Don’t forget to sign up on the Rafflecopter to win a copy of Make Believe of For the Love of Christmas (Your choice)

We’ve got another review today, so if you would be so kind as to Hop on over to Machenwood Chronicals and let me know what they said?

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In the meantime …  Welcome J.A.Belfield, author of Escort to Insanity from the Make Believe Anthology.

So, JA.  We all had to come up with a story about the picture of the Lady In Red.  I came up with Last Winter Red … and you came up with Escort to Insanity.  What the heck is up with that? 

I guess I’m a little backward to everyone else in the anthology because I was asked to write a short for a winter anthology before the picture prompt had even been chosen. Which meant my story was almost fully formulated before the image even went live. Fortunately, with a little playing about and tweaking, I was able to adapt the tale to reflect the beautiful imagery of the picture, the chill winteriness, the redness from the cloak.

Ohhhhh… well that makes a little more sence.  So how did this madness come about then?

Well, I think I read a story somewhere about a dating agency where the couple who went out turned out to be destined soul mates, yada, yada, yada, and I thought, but what if a couple went on a pre-arranged date and everything went wrong instead? What would happen then? And so the opening scene with Cole’s best friend popped into my head. I jotted it down as fast as possible, and everything spun out of control from there. Though, I will admit, I did reach about halfway through and decide to alter the path of the story slightly. After deleting a couple K words, Escort to Insanity is what I ended up with.

Deleting? [shiver] I Hate that word. Thanks so much for stopping by today, J.A.!

Everyone make sure to check out Escort to Insanity, snuggled up right behind Last Winter Red in the Make Believe ANthology (but you don’t have to read them in that order.  I won’t mind) 🙂

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Oh!  And don’t forget the review!  Hop on over to Machenwood Chronicals and let me know what they said!

Thanks so much, J.A. Belfield!

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Make BelieveFor The Love Of Christmas CoverWhy all the hullabaloo? Well, it’s to promote my two new releases “Make Believe” and “For the Love of Christmas”

That’s why!

And don’t forget to click on “Enter to Win” for a chance to win your choice of the two titles! Yay!

Oh, I almost forgot… A few random commentors along the tour path will win their choice of anthologies, too. So be sure to hop on over and say “Hi”

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Visit my Anthology buddies!  They are celebrating too!

Jenny Keller Ford

J.A. Belfield

Kelly Said

Lynda R. Young

Terri Rochenski

Janelle Lee

Dani-Lyn Alexander

 JenniFer_EatonF

Wanna see what my desk looks like? [If you dare]

Kelly Said  and I are swapping blogs today as part of the Make Believe blog tour.  She had the greatest idea for my post!!!!  She wanted to know what my desk looked like.

So…. out comes the camera, and **CLICK** there it is in all its disastrous glory!  Click on over to Kelly Said’s website for a gander into the insanity of my writing life.

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Now, for Kellie’s post here… I asked her what she thought when she saw the picture prompt for Make Believe.  Honestly, I was surprised.

Take it away, Kelly!

When I first saw the picture prompt for J.Taylor Publishing’s call for submissions for their MAKE BELIEVE anthology, I was curious why that girl was standing in the middle of a snowy field. See, when I looked closer, I noticed there were no snowflakes clinging to her red hooded cape. Her arms were bare, like, she wasn’t expecting the abrupt weather change, and she was carrying a basket – what’s in it? There were no footprints in the snow, so how did she get there? She seemed in tune with nature somehow by the way she was moving through the field, like, maybe there was something magical or mythical about her.

I started thinking about the reasons why she traveled, alone, towards what I imagined was a castle in the background surrounded by spindly, dead-looking trees. I concluded that someone in that castle on high needed help and had the ability to send a summons to call her forth. So how did he do that, call to someone who had no telephone or physical address? And what did he need help for?

When I finished studying the cover for MAKE BELIEVE, so many questions popped up, and the more of them I answered, the more the story began to unfold, until I found a King in distress, a healer with a broken heart, a Prince uncovering a mystery and a girl searching for her place in the world. I had a lot of fun writing this short story, I hope readers enjoy it. 🙂

Thanks so much, Kelly Said!

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Make BelieveFor The Love Of Christmas CoverWhy all the hullabaloo? Well, it’s to promote my two new releases “Make Believe” and “For the Love of Christmas”

That’s why!

And don’t forget to click on “Enter to Win” for a chance to win your choice of the two titles! Yay!

Oh, I almost forgot… A few random commentors along the tour path will win their choice of anthologies, too. So be sure to hop on over and say “Hi”

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Hop on over and send me some love!

Click on over to Kelly Said’s website

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Visit my Anthology buddies!  They are celebrating too!

Jenny Keller Ford

J.A. Belfield

Kelly Said

Lynda R. Young

Terri Rochenski

Janelle Lee

Dani-Lyn Alexander

How do you spell Dreidel? Shame on you Microsoft!

First of all, I would like to wish everyone celebrating today a blessed Chanukah or Hanukkah. (I’ve found it spelled both ways) I don’t celebrate Hanukkah, but I appreciate the holiday, and its significance.

While I was writing a guest post this morning, I found myself smacking myself upside the head over the word “dreidel.”  Why would I do such a thing?

Well, it seemed an easy enough word, but no matter how I tried to spell it, a wavy red line appeared beneath it (using the Microsoft Word program.)

So, I did a left-click on the word, all ready to choose the correct spelling.  What came up?

Deride, derided, derides, dreaded, derider.

I don’t know about you, but I figured that I must have been SO DERN FAR OFF in my spelling that it couldn’t figure out which word I wanted.  So I tried several different combinations.  No dice.

Not to be thwarted in my holiday spirit, I copied the original spelling and went to Dictionary.com.

I pasted dreidel into the website, and low and behold…

——————————

drei·del

/noun, plural drei·dels, drei·del.

a four-sided top bearing the hebrew letters nun, gimel, he,  and shin,  one on each side, used chiefly in a children’s game traditionally played on the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

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You guessed it, I’d spelled it right to begin with.

Now, I ask.  How the heck can a big company like Microsoft not have a simple word like dreidel in their spell-checker dictionary?  SHAME ON YOU MICROSOFT!

And, I must now say, shame on WordPress too, because when I pasted this post into WordPress, I find it is being underlined here, too.

Soooooooo… This made me wonder.  How many words have you come across that a spell-checker didn’t have on file?

Do you know the difference between fresh cream and ice cream?

Fresh cream or ice cream?  Seriously?

One thing I am learning on this blog tour is that I can never be sure what someone might want to know.  Seriously … I have been asked some very interesting and confusing questions.

Hop on over to Julie Belfield’s blog to see what Jolly old England has in store for me today.

See Ya there!

http://jabelfield.wordpress.com/

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Make BelieveFor The Love Of Christmas CoverWhy all the hullabaloo? Well, it’s to promote my two new releases “Make Believe” and “For the Love of Christmas”

That’s why!

And don’t forget to click on “Enter to Win” for a chance to win your choice of the two titles! Yay!

Oh, I almost forgot… A few random commentors along the tour path will win their choice of anthologies, too. So be sure to hop on over and say “Hi”

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Hop on over and send me some love!

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Visit my Anthology buddies!  They are celebrating too!

Jenny Keller Ford

J.A. Belfield

Kelly Said

Lynda R. Young

Terri Rochenski

What gives you the greatest pleasure in writing?

Today I took on a lot of great questions, but I think my favorite is “What gives you the greatest pleasure in writing?” I had to give a concise answer, but I think I’m going to come back to this in greater detail someday.

To see my answer, hop on over to Jenny Keller Ford‘s site.

How about you? What gives you the greatest pleasure in writing?

Thanks so much, Jenny Keller Ford for hosting me today!

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Make BelieveFor The Love Of Christmas CoverWhy all the hullabaloo? Well, it’s to promote my two new releases “Make Believe” and “For the Love of Christmas”

That’s why!

And don’t forget to click on “Enter to Win” for a chance to win your choice of the two titles! Yay!

Oh, I almost forgot… A few random commentors along the tour path will win their choice of anthologies, too. So be sure to hop on over and say “Hi”

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Hop on over and send me some love!

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Visit my Anthology buddies!  They are celebrating too!

Jenny Keller Ford

J.A. Belfield

Kelly Said

Lynda R. Young

Terri Rochenski

JenniFer_EatonF

Okay, I know it’s gross, but it’s just what we do at Christmas! And we’ve got givaways today!

Guess What?  Tonight at 6:30 PM Eastern Time I’ll be signing copies of “Tall Tales and Short Stories From South Jersey” at Audubon Library, 239 Oakland Avenue, Audubon, NJ. Stop on by if you are in the area!

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Wow!  Today I’m just full of surprises! I’m actually posting here today, with some great memories of my own family Christmases growing up…. as well as other wonderful places you can visit! — And a book signing!

Yes, I’ve taken up my marketing manager’s offer to clone me! (Mgr for Tall Tales and Short Stories from South Jersey)   The process was a little scary, but yes! For the next twenty-four hours there are two of me!

(Yes, some of you can run.  I’d be scared, too.)

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First of all,  Kaiden’s Seduction is reviewing “Make Believe” today.  I hope they liked it!  (Let me know in the comments below.  I’m still afraid to read reviews without someone filtering them for me)

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Also… you can find me at two great places on-line today!  If you want to learn about training your dog to do amazing feats of bravery, check out my guest post about me and my pepped up poodle, Chloe on Brinda Berry’s blog.

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And… Tis the season for holiday fun!  This is part of the Still Moments Publishing Christmas Blog hop!

https://i0.wp.com/3.bp.blogspot.com/-yPIjlUkkOBQ/ULendHhtymI/AAAAAAAAEqk/W6SX-ChNsy8/s320/ChristmasBlogHop.jpgWe’ve got great giveaways!  By commenting below, you are automatically entered to win some great jewelry pieces. (Hello… awesome present ideas!)

Hop on over to the Still Moments Publishing website for a list of contributing blogs for more chances to win!

Oh!  Don’t forget to click on “Enter to Win” for a chance to win my Christmas Anthology “For the Love of Christmas”

Whew!  That’s a lot of promo-stuff… And I gotta post too!  Oh!  The pressure!

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Sooooo… Christmas. I have so many Christmas Memories, and I treasure all of them fondly. One of my favorites is making a gingerbread house.

This was a Dad activity.  I’m not sure why Mom didn’t get involved, but my dad was TOTALLY into it.

One year, we decided to make REAL gingerbread.  It didn’t work out too well.  We baked it in the oven and everything… but the walls cracked.  Our house was not buildable… so Dad glued it together with epoxy.  (So funny)

This tradition actually carried on. (I’m not sure which came first) But Dad would always “build” the house for us out of graham crackers.  Yep… just pop them out of a box.  And yes, he glued it together with epoxy (which is like crazy glue).  We all KNEW not to eat the house part.

Then, of course, came the frosting glue, and more candy than any house could possibly hold.  Our tradition was to try and make the house more hideous than it was the year before… but it still had to look like a house.

Yeah… that’s where I got my strange sense of humor from.  People would look at our “masterpiece” and pretend it was beautiful.  It wasn’t.  That’s the point.

Today, when I build our gingerbread house with my kids, I don’t mind when the snowman falls over, or when Kid #2 leaves a trail of candy “poop” behind the reindeer.  It’s all good fun.

Oh, yeah, and that big gob of brown icing?  It’s a dirt pile.  Me and my boys will swear to it.  (With incredibly large smiles on our faces) — Don’t tell their daddy what it really is.

What odd but incredibly fun Christmas memory do you have?

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Make BelieveFor The Love Of Christmas CoverWhy all the hullabaloo?  Well, it’s to promote my two new releases “Make Believe” and “For the Love of Christmas”

That’s why!

And don’t forget to click on “Enter to Win” for a chance to win your choice of the two titles!  Yay!

Oh, I almost forgot… A few random commentors along the tour path will win their choice of anthologies, too.  So be sure to hop on over and say “Hi”

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Hop on over and send me some love!

Brinda Berry’s blog – Writing a novel is like training your dog.

 Still Moments Publishing – Christmas Blog Hop

 Kaiden’s Seduction  Review of Make Believe!

JenniFer_EatonF

How’d I get in trouble when I was a kid? Do ya like bugs?

We’re just burning up the pavement… err… internet on this blog tour!  Today I’m hanging with Terri Rochenski at Scribbler’s Sojourn with a big interview about bugs, exercise, auto-biographies, and bad habits.

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For The Love Of Christmas CoverMake BelieveWhy?  Well, it’s to promote my two new releases “Make Believe” and “For the Love of Christmas”

That’s why!

And don’t forget to click on “Enter to Win” for a chance to win your choice of the two titles!  Yay!

Oh, I almost forgot… A few random commentors along the tour path will win their choice of anthologies, too.  So be sure to hop on over and say “Hi”

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Click on over to find out more than anyone should know about me

***smacks herself in the head***

Why did I answer that one about my nails?

Teleport me to Scribbler’s Sojourn

JenniFer_EatonF

What’s in your earphones? It’s Release Day! “For the Love of Christmas”

“Write a Story with me” will be back December 25th  Cause now….

Let me tell you… when I made a bold statement last New Years that I would be published this year.. I NEVER IMAGINED I would have back-to-back release dates in December!

Total Awesomeness!

So, What’s in your earphones? What inspires you, and where do your musical tastes come from?

Stop on over to Nicky Well’s website and let’s chat about it. I’m guest blogging over there and ready to have a little fun!

This is stop #1 of the “For the Love of Christmas” blog tour.

Come on!  Let’s go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Click me to space warp to the musical side!

Nicky’s Website

Why might you find me running around wearing sunglasses and a black suit?

Wouldn’t I look great in a sexy tailored black suit? Why would I need one?

It’s all part of the Official Release of “Make Believe”!

That’s right, baby.

You heard it.

I am officially a PUBLISHED AUTHOR.

So, do you want to hear more about that suit? Hop on over to Julie Reece’s blog to find out about my need for a fancy get-up as she hosts day-one of the Make Believe Blog tour.

Julie Reece’s blog

Don’t leave me hanging! Be sure to stop by.

First book signing !

I just came back from my first book signing for “Tall Tales and Short Stories”. Wow!

Thanks to everyone who came out. Overwhelming!

I had to pull my kids in– one made the sale and another piled up speed-signed copies and handed them out when it got too busy to handle one at a time.

I also got to read from “Connect the Dots”. I’ll report more another time and post pictures but I want to thank everyone again for making this such a huge success.

Next one this Thursday at 6:30 pm Audubon Library in Audubon NJ

Coolness abounds! 🙂

–posted from my iPhone–