How I Got Him To Marry Me: 50 True Stories

My friend Cherise wrote a book that I want to tell you about. It's called How I Got Him To Marry Me: 50 True Stories and it’s now available in eBook form at Barnes and Noble for Nook, Amazon for Kindle, and Kobo for the Kobo Reader. The paperback will be available April 1 through Amazon. The eBook should be on iTunes soon. 

Short Book Description:

He likes it. Now get him to put a ring on it! Learn from these 50 stories of women who have been there! You don't have to interview 50 married women to find out how they managed to get that ring on their finger. The author has done that for you. All 50 were married after 1990, so this is modern information for our changing times. Read and find out how you can get him to marry you and not just live together!

LIMITED TIME OFFER:
Please see the end of the eBook to learn how to claim a free paperback copy after you post an honest review! Limited to the first 25 reviewers at Amazon.com, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes. (226 pages in paperback.)

Excerpt unique to my blog:

When I worked in the office back in Philly, my plebeian office job took about 8.5 hours a day. When I did my work online, it took four hours a day, at the most. Now, I've never been the type to know what to do with my free time, but I had so much of it now that I joined an anime fan group at a bar in Beijing. (I never go to bars, either.)
I befriended guys there who had similar interests. Now, keep in mind:
1) My American office salary of 42k equaled about 252k in China.
2) I'm not bad looking.
3) I was an intriguing ethnic anomaly there.
4) My employers said my productivity had increased, so they weren't nagging me to come back to the office. 

With those four points there, you have another recipe for my leaving Cordell. But again, I did not.

Many anime types, there as well as here, have unconventional interests. One of the girls made Chinese wedding dresses. They're nothing like the white mainstay frocks you see in the States. Chinese wedding dresses are short, sexy, and inspired by cartoons. All are white or in pastel colors. Plus, they're silk. It's cheaper to get silk there, so Mao-ling had a ton of silk garments.

"How come your stuff is so cute here?" I asked Mao-ling 

She looked at me like I was crazy.

I said, "Cute isn't big where I live. I think it's the strong, independent woman thing."

"It's always been," she said, "and people buy it. People buy it where you are, too."

"Really." I challenged.

Mao-ling is an artist and doesn't have much of a head for business. I'm very organized, but I'm really not all that creative. She and I split her design business 50/50. I set up store accounts on eBay and Etsy, and I got a few brick and mortar stores in Philadelphia to carry her dresses through a friend of mine in PhillyU's fashion program. After about six months, they were selling beautifully. I think the reason these clothes sell so well in the States is the same reason men like Asian girls: they're "cuter" and a bit more delicate, in appearance at least.

If you count the money I get from private clients, Chinese stores, and the accessories I sell online, I make about 20k more per year than I did with my regular job. I also saved about 15k from that my first few weeks. 

I am so much happier as a business owner than I was as a corporate desk jockey that I became a whole lot easier to get along with, and Cordell magically found a whole lot more time for me in his schedule.
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Want to read more?
Amazon.com <<< paperback, too after April 1, 2013

Barnes and Noble <<< paperback, too, but later than Amazon 
Kobo

iTunes Coming Soon!

Descriptive Writing

A good friend and talented writer called me last night to offer feedback on my recently published short story, The Buckner Brothers. In summary, she said she liked the story and its unpredictability. She said the pace was good, as was the rhythm. She particularly appreciated the physical descriptions of the main characters and the way in which their psychoses evolved.
  

Then she lowered the boom; she said she had a hard time visualizing where the action was taking place. The writing lacked a vivid setting. She wanted more ambience, more environment. 

So what did I do? Like any self-respecting writer, I drank wine through a straw went back and reread the story she was referring to. Then I studied my WIP. Yep. She’s dead nuts right.

As I looked at my writing through this new lense, it was clear - I do spill more ink on people than I do on places. Interesting. I went looking for advice from my guru, Stephen King. In his book about writing, aptly titled On Writing, King differentiates between two kinds of descriptive writing: the physical description of characters and the description of “locale and texture” (his words).

I’m feeling halfway okay until I read further. King says descriptions of “locale and texture” are more important to good writing than are descriptions of people and characters. 

Wouldn't you know it.

Digging for details, I landed on this nugget:

Thin description leaves the reader feeling bewildered and nearsighted. Over-description buries him or her in details and images. The trick is to find a happy medium.  

Easy for you to do, Mr. King. But what about fledgling indi authors?

Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing. 

Alrighty then, back to the doing. I just hope I don't over-describe the little girl's bedroom in the story I'm writing now. If I do, I trust that my excellent and talented friends will shove me in the right direction. Thanks, Cyndi.
 

Superbowl Sunday: an Acrostic Poem

Superbowl Sunday countdown, friends

Utter mania in the house

People coming over here,

Even San Francisco fans

Ravens are the team we want

Brother versus brother but

Only one team will take the prize.

Which team do you want to win the coveted

Lombardi trophy?

Sitting here placing bets

Until kickoff time

Niners versus Ravens

Defense versus offense

As for me...

Yes, the commercials are my favorite part.

Super Bowl XLVI / Credits: Getty Images 

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This post is in response to my friend  Linda Ann Nickerson's Superbowl blogging challenge over at Simply Snickers. Pop on over if you want to participate.

Surviving the Storm: a Poem

The morning broke

I was alone

No friends around

My heart a stone

A storm approached

There was no breeze

The day was still

There were no trees

Dark clouds rolled in

A mist did fall

I closed the doors

No one to call

My little house

All safe and dry

Is strong like me

We do not cry

We’ve weathered storms

This house and I

We’ve seen worse gales

Pass us right by

We will survive

We always do

This house and I

We will get through

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This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week we used a picture prompt. If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

Short Story Anthology: Crime Gone Wrong

As many of you know, I participated in the National Novel Writing (NaNo) challenge in November. Even though my novel is pure garbage (but I plan, eventually, to do the proper rewrites and see if I can salvage any of it), it whet my appetite to write more fiction. And to get serious about it.

So what does any self-respecting fiction-writing wannabee do in that situation? She goes and finds herself a group of seasoned fiction writers to hitch her shiny new wagon to. I found a good one.

Enter DIVA, our little group of four fiction writers from different parts of the world who came together to write short story anthologies; three established hot-shots and me. Yep, they let me in the group and you better bet I'm soaking it all in. I've written fiction since childhood but I've mostly kept it to myself. These gals are showing me the ropes and helping me polish my craft. 

This is how we do it: as a group we decide on the title of the story collection. Then we go off and write our individual stories based on the title/theme. It's interesting to see how my fellow writers interpret the title and write their stories based on the chosen theme.

Soooo, we just published our first anthology, Crime Gone Wrong. My story is dark. In fact, they're all a bit twisted, in a good way. If you like stories where vengeance doesn't always go as planned, vampires and witches don't see eye to eye, and where peeping in windows might scare you to death, check it out:

Buy our book on Amazon

If you read the stories, please let me know what you think. Honestly. I want to get better and the only way I can do that is through real and constructive feedback.

We are in the midst of writing our second book, a young adult anthology about Summer Love. After that, we're doing flash fiction stories with a Killer Heat theme. It's all very exciting, so stay tuned... 

By the way, DIVA stands for Diverse, Independent, Verruckt Authors. 
According to our German member, verruckt means crazy. :-)
 

Plain Vs Plane: Fun with Words

I have to start this post with the same disclaimer I’ve used before: I am not a grammarian. I make mistakes in my writing. I am always learning, growing and (hopefully) honing my craft.

That being said, I do take the time to look up a word if I’m not sure how to use it. When reading a popular fiction blog yesterday, I came across this sentence: 

(MC) felt as if she had been transported to the highest level of the physical plain. Eyes closed, she took a deep breath and considered the possibility that she may have crossed over into the spiritual plain. Intuitively, she knew she must understand how vibration is defined differently on the spiritual plain…

I said to myself – Oh no, not again. 

Homonyms are problematic for many writers. I wrote about some of the usual suspects in these posts: 

Common Words Writers and Bloggers Misuse 

Did that Pique, Peek or Peak Your Interest? 

Regarding plain or plane, here’s a refresher:

Plain: 

Simple, normal, basic 

I’m looking for a plain white t-shirt

Obvious, clear

It was in plain view

Flat, level

He lives near the salt plains of Utah

Plane:

An airplane

A flat or level surface

A carpenter’s tool

Level of existence, consciousness (see above)

It’s confusing because the words plain and plane sound alike. In fact, they both come from the Latin word planus which means flat or clear.

I always have to pause and think when I'm using affect or effect. What about you, are there certain words that trip you up? ____________________________________________________

This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s prompt is Oh no, not again. If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

Movie Review: Lincoln

We went to see the movie Lincoln, a Steven Spielberg film, over the holidays. The movie stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln, Sally Fields as Mary Todd Lincoln, Hal Holbrook as Lincoln adviser Preston Blair, James Spader as political operative W.N. Bilbo and Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens.

Of course I have to give props to the writers. Tony Kushner's screenplay was tremendous, and was partly based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

Most of the movie takes place in January 1865, just after Abraham Lincoln was elected to his second term as president. It was during this time that Lincoln focused on pushing the 13^th Amendment through congress, thereby ending the Civil War and slavery, and uniting the nation.

My favorite thing about this movie: Lincoln’s love of words and storytelling, and how it all sounded coming out of Daniel Day-Lewis’ mouth. Brilliant. Abraham Lincoln often told awkward jokes, went on random tangents, quoted Euclid and the Bible and any other source that gave evidence to the lesson he was offering. 


Daniel Day-Lewis, who normally communicates in a deep baritone, used a high-pitched, reedy tenor voice in the film. Historical sources indicate that this timbre is close to the way Lincoln actually spoke. There were plenty of rambling monologues in the script and Day-Lewis kept my husband and I captivated with this soft, homey cadence.

The language and the delivery were magnificent.

Steven Spielberg did a remarkable job with his depiction of our 16^th president. This is one of the most authentic biographical movies I’ve ever seen.

If you love lyrical words masterfully woven together by some of the finest actors and actresses working, then I recommend this movie. If you love action-packed thrillers with car chases and exploding airplanes, then I do not recommend this movie.

Let me know what you thought of the movie.