Did you miss the announcement that all e-books from my publisher, Whimsical Publications are on sale for 50% off? There’s only three days left, folks! Don’t miss out!
Here are three books I have on sale! 
Chat with me on Yahoo! 8/24/11
All Day Author and Reader Chat!
August 24, 2011 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM EST
The kids are headed back to school. Celebrate with me, my fellow authors from Whimsical Publications and the authors from World Castle Publications in some adult conversation at Joyfully Reviewed’s yahoo group! Chat about books, writers, publishing tips, or whatever comes to mind. I will be there from 9 AM to 1 PM! Hope to see you there!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chatting_with_Joyfully_Reviewed/
I brought some of the beach back for you! :)
My vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC was so much fun! It went by way too fast! Here’s a little bit of what we did.
Most mornings, we went to the beach.
Many evenings, we went back for a walk. I caught a picture of the sunset. It was gorgeous.
Ripley’s Aquarium was a blast! Did you know I’m a shark fanatic? Oh yeah! Shark Week on the Discovery Channel is scheduled and highlighted on my calendar every year.
The alligator place was also super cool. We got to see the employees of the park feed the gators. Because we went at night, I didn’t get very many good pics of the alligators, but there was a snake house. Check out the size of this big guy.
We also went to the water park, but I didn’t dare take out my camera there. I’m entirely too clumsy to use electronic devices near water. lol
Other than that, we had dinner out a couple of times and enjoyed some amazing seafood. It was a really fun week!
Anyone else get to the beach this summer?
I’m off to the beach! :)
I’m headed to the beach for a family vacation, friends! I’m not taking a laptop with me so I’ll be noticeably absent, even by email. But be sure to watch for my return, because I promise to take plenty of pictures to share with everyone.
Buy Any E-book at Whimsical Publications at 1/2 Off!
My publisher, Whimsical Publications has a huge book sale going on for the month of August! You can buy one of my e-books for 1/2 off! Wow, right?
Here’s the official announcement from Whimsical:
“With all the talk of budgets in the news, Whimsical Publications feels it’s time to do our part.
For the entire month of August, WP will have a Stimulus Relief sale. What does that mean to you, the reader? It means that all the ebooks on this site will be 1/2 price.
Combine a romance with a suspense, a historical with a young adult. Get all the ebooks in a series and add a few others for good measure. With the half price deal, you can increase your reading pleasure without taking a chunk out of your budget .
So, take this opportunity to discover a new author or reestablish with an old friend. Pass this information along so your friends and family can take advantage of this cut in price as well. With the price of everything going up, this is a way for Whimsical Publications to give back to the reading population. Check out http://www.whimsicalpublications.com for information on our books.”
Winners, winners, winners!
Are you participating in my Fun Summer Giveaway to win one of my books? Look at all the winners so far!
1. Robyn McClinchey
2. Elizabeth Jo Cottingham
3. Betty Kay Jones
4. Gabrielle Jones
5. Krista Steichen
6. Kari Harris-Elg
7. Ellen O’Neill Wolfe
8. Angela Sparrow
9. Linda Dowhaniuk
Congratulations, ladies! This is so much fun! Giveaways are every Friday! For a chance to win, all you have to do is “like” my Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Destiny-Booze/152893818389
Before the contest ends, I am going to throw in advanced review copies of my upcoming November release, Accelerating Circumstances!
Here’s the blurb:
Jenny is different. She can read people’s minds.
At age seventeen, Jenny Reid was arrested for killing her own mother. There was no evidence that an intruder entered the house. No one believed her as a teenager when she tried to tell them how she felt the killer’s rage saturated within the walls, that she knew the presence of evil had been there. The police thought she was crazy, not psychic.
A conviction was never made in the case due to lack of evidence. Jenny is still the sole suspect, but now, she is doing something about it. She’s on the right side of the law, an FBI agent determined to finally find justice for her mom.
Two men stay by her side—William, her partner, a darkly intense agent with a scary past and Nate, a bad boy with too much charisma to be a good thing. But, no man will keep her from finding out the truth about her mom. The time has come to set things right.
Nothing will stand in her way. She’ll come up close with evil again and face the ultimate choice—kill or be killed in these ACCELERATING CIRCUMSTANCES.
5-Year-Old’s First Job
Author Unknown -
Here’s a truly heartwarming story about the bond formed between a little 5-year-old girl and some construction workers that will make you believe that we all can make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time.
A young family moved into a house, next to a vacant lot. One day, a Construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot.
The young family’s 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and spent much of each day observing the workers.
Eventually the construction crew, all of them “gems-in-the-rough,” more or less, adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.
At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars. The little girl took this home to her mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars “pay” she’d received to the bank the next day to start a savings account.
When the girl and her mom got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own pay check at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied, “I worked last week with a real construction crew building the new house next door to us.”
“Oh my goodness gracious,” said the teller, “and will you be working on the house again this week, too?”
The little girl replied, “I will, if those assholes at Lowe’s ever deliver the damn sheet rock.”
Kind of brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it?
Self-Publishing…Yes or No?
My first thoughts on self-publishing used to be no, no, NO! After all, it was one of the first pieces of advice I was given as a budding writer. If I wanted to be taken seriously, I needed a publisher behind me, a real publisher. One fellow writer said, “Some authors are opening small companies to publish under, but readers are seeing right through it. It’s still self-publishing and that translates to unprofessional work.”
Pretty strong words, right? Yes, they were. I decided to heed them.
But, the publishing industry has shifted in the last couple of years. Have things changed enough? Is self-publishing more accepted now?
I’m considering self publishing my next book, but it makes me nervous. Those words from the beginning have stuck with me. If I self-publish, will I be taken seriously?
And honestly, speaking as an avid reader, there are valid concerns about the quality of work from indie authors. I’ve read some books that were poorly written. Most of these authors have never been published. The reasons were clear to me, and sadly, the authors didn’t understand the poor quality of their work.
I don’t mean to sound harsh. I understand the hard work that goes into writing. I really do. My first works didn’t get published and they shouldn’t have. They weren’t good enough.
The skills of writing need to be developed for many years. Publishers filter the good from the bad. With the option of self-publishing, we no longer have that filter.
Of course, the reverse has also been the case. I’ve read indie authors that were phenomenal! But most of those seemed to be previously published writers.
Just yesterday, I saw where Harlequin Intrigue Author Dana Marton just released a self-published book! That took me by surprise. I’m a fan of hers and she definitely caught my attention with this career choice.
So, I’m honestly on the fence about this as a whole and when considering my own writing. I’ve worked too hard at developing my writing career to do anything to hurt it now.
What do you think? Do you have any thoughts on this subject?
Like this:
Which of my characters is my favorite?
I’m a featured author at Whispered Writings, a blog written by Rachel Kovacs. She’s written such a remarkable feature about me that I have to share with everyone! She’s truly a talented writer.
One of the questions I answer for Rachel is: which of my characters is my favorite? Interested to know? Here’s the feature: http://whisperedwritings.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/author-spotlight-destiny-booze/
I sure hope everyone will take a moment to stop by!
Take a chance on someone you don’t know.
Author Unknown -
This is a beautiful and touching story of love and perseverance. Well worth the read. At the prodding of my friends I am writing this story.
My name is Mildred Honor and I am a former elementary school music teacher from Des Moines, Iowa. I have always supplemented my income by teaching piano lessons – something I have done for over 30 years.
During those years I found that children have many levels of musical ability, and even though I have never had the pleasure of having a prodigy, I have taught some very talented students. However, I have also had my share of what I call ‘musically challenged’ pupils – one such pupil being Robby…
Robby was 11 years old when his mother (a single mom) dropped him off of his first piano lesson. I prefer that students (especially boys) begin at an earlier age, which I explained to Robby. But Robby said that it had always been his mother’s dream to hear him play the piano, so I took him as a student.
Well, Robby began his piano lessons and from the beginning I thought it was a hopeless endeavor. As much as Robby tried, he lacked the sense of tone and basic rhythm needed to excel. But he dutifully reviewed his scales and some elementary piano pieces that I require all my students to learn. Over the months he tried and tried while I listened and cringed and tried to encourage him.
At the end of each weekly lesson he would always say ‘My mom’s going to hear me play someday’. But to me, it seemed hopeless, he just did not have any inborn ability.
I only knew his mother from a distance as she dropped Robby off or waited in her aged car to pick him up. She always waved and smiled, but never dropped in.
Then one day Robby stopped coming for his lessons. I thought about calling him, but assumed that because of his lack of ability he had decided to pursue something else. I was also glad that he had stopped coming – he was a bad advertisement for my teaching!
Several weeks later I mailed a flyer recital to the students’ homes. To my surprise, Robby (who had received a flyer) asked me if he could be in the recital. I told him that the recital was for current pupils and that because he had dropped out, he really did not qualify. He told me that his mother had been sick and unable to take him to his piano lessons, but that he had been practicing. ‘Please Miss Honor, I’ve just got to play’ he insisted. I don’t know what led me to allow him to play in the recital – perhaps it was his insistence or maybe something inside of me saying that it would be all right.
The night of the recital came and the high school gymnasium was packed with parents, relatives and friends. I put Robby last in the program, just before I was to come up and thank all the students and play a finishing piece. I thought that any damage he might do would come at the end of the program and I could always salvage his poor performance through my ‘curtain closer’.
Well, the recital went off without a hitch, the students had been practicing and it showed. Then Robby came up on the stage. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair looked as though he had run an egg beater through it. ‘Why wasn’t he dressed up like the other students?’ I thought, ‘Why didn’t his mother at least make him comb his hair for this special night?’
Robby pulled out the piano bench, and I was surprised when he announced that he had chosen to play Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 in C Major. I was not prepared for what I heard next. His fingers were light on the keys, they even danced nimbly on the ivories. He went from pianissimo to fortissimo, from allegro to virtuoso; his suspended chords that Mozart demands were magnificent! Never had I heard Mozart played so well by anyone his age.
After six and a half minutes he ended in a grand crescendo, and everyone was on their feet in wild applause! Overcome and in tears, I ran up on stage and put my arms around Robby in joy. ’I have never heard you play like that Robby, how did you do it?
‘Through the microphone Robby explained: ‘Well, Miss Honor…remember I told you that my mom was sick? Well, she actually had cancer and passed away this morning. And well…she was born deaf, so tonight was the first time she had ever heard me play, and I wanted to make it special.’
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house that evening. As the people from Social Services led Robby from the stage to be placed in to foster care, I noticed that even their eyes were red and puffy. I thought to myself then how much richer my life had been for taking Robby as my pupil.
No, I have never had a prodigy, but that night I became a prodigy…of Robby. He was the teacher and I was the pupil, for he had taught me the meaning of perseverance and love and believing in yourself, and may be even taking a chance on someone and you didn’t know why.
