The Friday Five

The Friday Five this week is:

Five things I should be doing instead of blogging:

1. Cleaning my bathroom. YUCK!

2. Looking for extra layers to put on while I do inventory at the shop this afternoon.

3. Shoveling snow. YUCK!

4. Giving a geometry test.

5. Doing triage on my novel.

How about you? What do you blog/surf/IM to avoid doing?

This Week From CFBA

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
AURALIA'S COLORS
(WaterBrook Press September 4, 2007)
by Jeffrey Overstreet


ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeffrey Overstreet lives in two worlds. By day, he writes about movies at LookingCloser.org and in notable publications like Christianity Today, Paste, and Image. His adventures in cinema are chronicled in his book Through a Screen Darkly. By night, he composes new stories found in fictional worlds of his own. Living in Shoreline, Washington, with his wife, Anne, a poet, he is a senior staff writer for Response Magazine at Seattle Pacific University. Auralia’s Colors is his first novel. He is now hard at work on many new stories, including three more strands of The Auralia Thread.

ABOUT THE BOOK: As a baby, she was found in a footprint. As a girl, she was raised by thieves in a wilderness where savages lurk. As a young woman, she will risk her life to save the world with the only secret she knows.

When thieves find an abandoned child lying in a monster’s footprint, they have no idea that their wilderness discovery will change the course of history. Cloaked in mystery, Auralia grows up among criminals outside the walls of House Abascar, where vicious beastmen lurk in shadow. There, she discovers an unsettling–and forbidden–talent for crafting colors that enchant all who behold them, including Abascar’s hard-hearted king, an exiled wizard, and a prince who keeps dangerous secrets. Auralia’s gift opens doors from the palace to the dungeons, setting the stage for violent and miraculous change in the great houses of the Expanse.

Auralia’s Colors weaves literary fantasy together with poetic prose, a suspenseful plot, adrenaline-rush action, and unpredictable characters sure to enthrall ambitious imaginations. Visit the Website especially created for the book, Auralia's Colors. On the site, you can read the first chapter and listen to Jeffrey's introduction of the book, plus a lot more!

PRAISE

"Film critic and author Overstreet (Through a Screen Darkly) offers a powerful myth for his first foray into fiction. Overstreet’s writing is precise and beautiful, and the story is masterfully told. Readers will be hungry for the next installment."--Publishers Weekly


“Through word, image, and color Jeffrey Overstreet has crafted a work of art. From first to final page this original fantasy is sure to draw readers in. Auralia's Colors sparkles.”-–Janet Lee Carey, award-winning author of The Beast of Noor and Dragon's Keep


“Jeffrey Overstreet’s first fantasy, Auralia’s Colors, and its heroine’s cloak of wonders take their power from a vision of art that is auroral, looking to the return of beauty, and that intends to restore spirit and and mystery to the world. The book achieves its ends by the creation of a rich, complex universe and a series of dramatic, explosive events.”-–Marly Youmans, author of Ingledove and The Curse of the Raven Mocker

Derailed

Nano....a beautiful dream.

I had planned to finish it. But God had other plans. This weekend I was knocked for a loop with illness. I've been in a medicated fog all weekend. :( That coupled with a day at the clinic with my MIL and inventory coming this weekend, means NaNo is not going to happen this year.

But I did get 32K words cranked out. I'm pretty happy about that.

The Friday Five

The Friday Five:

Today is Black Friday (Which always has bad overtones, but is good for business, I guess.) Thanksgiving is past, Christmas looms. It's time to make that list and check it twice. So in honor of the shopping spectacular, this week's Five is:

Five things I want for Christmas (In no particular order).

1. A National Championship for the Kansas Jayhawks Football Team and the Round Mound of Mangino. I love that man. He's built like a Spalding Basketball.

2. A National Championship for the Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Team. (Though I am willing to wait until my birthday for this one.)

3. My Mother-in-law to have a good Christmas and to be able to hold off chemotherapy for as long as possible.

4. One of my books to find a home at some spectacular publishing house. Trust me, if one of my books finds a home, I'll consider that publishing house to be spectacular.

5. A happy, healthy family, with stronger bonds of love and faith than ever.

How about you? Do you have a wish-list for Christmas?

This Week From CFBA

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
THE YADA YADA PRAYER GROUP GETS DECKED OUT
Thomas Nelson (October 2, 2007)
by
Neta Jackson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Neta Jackson's award-winning Yada books have sold more than 350,000 copies and are spawning prayer groups across the country. She and her husband, Dave, are also an award-winning husband/wife writing team, best known for the Trailblazer Books--a 40-volume series of historical fiction about great Christian heroes with 1.8 million in sales--and Hero Tales: A Family Treasury of True Stories from the Lives of Christian Heroes (vols 1-4). Dave and Neta live in Evanston, Illinois, where for twenty-seven years they were part of Reba Place Church, a Christian church community. They are now members of the Chicago Tabernacle, a multi-racial congregation that is a daughter church of the well-known Brooklyn Tabernacle.

ABOUT THE BOOK: Turkey dinners, tree trimming, and decking the halls--it's that time of year again! And I Jodi Baxter, can't wait to celebrate. My kids are coming home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then all of us Yadas are getting decked out for a big New Year's party. But God's idea of "decked out" might just change the nature of our party plans. A perplexing encounter with a former student, a crime that literally knocks me off my feet, a hurry-up wedding, and a child who will forever change our family...it's times like these that I really need my prayer sisters. This holiday season, we Yada Yadas are learning that no one can out-celebrate God. So let's get this party started!

THE YADA YADA PRAYER GROUP GETS DECKED OUT is a festive novella featuring America's favorite prayer group, the Yada Yadas!Sometimes dubbed "chick-lit" for their bright covers and catchy titles, this series provides far more depth than witty banter and wacky situations. Inspired by a prayer group of real women, each book will have you laughing, crying, and perhaps praying anew. In this highly anticipated installment, the Yada Yada sisters-a group of multi-cultural friends-and their families prepare for the event of the season. But yes, eager readers, this novella—which picks up a year and a half after the end of book #6 The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Rolling concludes the series with some twists and turns that will amaze and encourage you. Plus, it sets the stage for Neta’s new series with new characters and new situations but also occasional roles for the beloved Yada Yada sisters in familiar Chicago neighborhoods with all their cultural richness.

Erica here: My kids have all the Trailblazer books by Dave and Neta Jackson. I highly recommend them! And try out the Yada Yada books. I'm sure you'll enjoy!

NaNo 19

NaNo Day 19 update:

In spite of a lot of distractions, (some external, some self-inflicted) I managed to get two thousand words written today. I'm still behind where I should be for the month but not as far as I was. I still think I can make it, but it's going to take a lot of work.
The wordcount stands at just over 27K. I'm getting there. Tomorrow the goal is to hit 30K.

The gist of the story is: When disaster strikes, a frontier artist must choose between hardship with a husband who cares more for his farm than for her, and prosperity with a handsome painter ready to whisk her away to Europe to study the masters.

NaNo Day 18

Today is NaNo day 18. By my calculations, in order to reach the goal of 50K words in one months, my novel should be at 30,006 words.

Mine. Is. Not. Today I cracked the 25K mark. Halfway to the goal. I am about three days behind.

Fortunately for me, we have no school this week. So the plan is to reach at LEAST 35K by next Saturday. Doable. Very doable.

I'm liking the story, though it is rough enough to use in a belt sander. And I'm wondering if I need to add a couple more POV's, because I may be short on words for a final draft. Time will tell. And crit partners. :)

Love you girls!

The Friday Five

As the holiday season approaches, our thoughts turn to purchasing gifts. What to give the novelist? Here are five novelist novelties you might consider.

Novelist Novelties:
1. Candy hearts stamped "Wanna NaNo?"
2. A T-shirt printed "Be nice to me or I will kill you in my next novel."
3. A coffee mug that says "Will plot for coffee."
4. A ballcap emblazoned "No, I'm not talking to myself."
5. A suntea jar filled with chocolates labeled "Writer's Survival Kit."
What other gifts might you think of for a novelist?

This Week From CFBA

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
TRY DYING
(Center Street October 24, 2007)
by
James Scott Bell

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: James Scott Bell is a former trial lawyer who now writes full time. He is also the fiction columnist for Writers Digest magazine and adjunct professor of writing at Pepperdine University. His book on writing, Plot and Structure is one of the most popular writing books available today. The national bestselling author of several novels of suspense, he grew up and still lives in Los Angeles, where he is at work on his next Buchanan thriller.

ABOUT THE BOOK: On a wet Tuesday morning in December, Ernesto Bonilla, twenty-eight, shot his twenty-three-year-old wife, Alejandra, in the backyard of their West 45th Street home in South Los Angeles. As Alejandra lay bleeding to death, Ernesto drove their Ford Explorer to the westbound Century Freeway connector where it crossed over the Harbor Freeway and pulled to a stop on the shoulder. Bonilla stepped around the back of the SUV, ignoring the rain and the afternoon drivers on their way to LAX and the west side, placed the barrel of his .38 caliber pistol into his mouth, and fired. His body fell over the shoulder and plunged one hundred feet, hitting the roof of a Toyota Camry heading northbound on the harbor Freeway. The impact crushed the roof of the Camry. The driver, Jacqueline Dwyer, twenty-seven, an elementary schoolteacher from Reseda, died at the scene. This would have been simply another dark and strange coincidence, the sort of thing that shows up for a two-minute report on the local news--with live remote from the scene--and maybe gets a follow-up the next day. Eventually the story would go away, fading from the city's collective memory. But this story did not go away. Not for me. Because Jacqueline Dwyer was the woman I was going to marry.

In Try Dying, this fast-paced thriller, lawyer Ty Buchanan must enter a world of evil to uncover the cause of his fiancee's death--even if hie has to kill for the truth.

"Bell is one of the best writers out there...he creates characters readers care about...a story worth telling."~Library Review~

MY REVIEW: The book was riveting from first to last. It had the pace and action of a John Grisham novel, but crafted so cleanly, so brilliantly, the story never bogged down or rambled. The characterizations were so strong, I was drawn in before I realized it.

One fun little sidebar: The book is loaded with movie references. I loved making the connections between the story and the movies.

Try Dying is an exciting, thrill-ride you won't want to put down. I can't wait to read the sequel.

Bravo, Mr. Bell.

An Update

As per Georgiana's request, I'm updating you on my NaNo progress.

Um...

None!

Two days of family issues, errands, recovering from the bookkeeping fiasco, and a trip to the doctor's office for me have precluded any NaNo work. So I am behind!

The good news is: My bloodwork looked great today! My overall cholesterol is down by SIXTY points! Woohoo! My blood sugar levels were good, and my good cholesterol was up while the bad was down. I'd even lost a little weight. I don't have to go back to be checked for four months. :)

By then, NaNo will be over...and hopefully the entire first draft of this novel.

NaNo Day Eleven

I took a trip to the library yesterday and worked for about four hours. I got just over 4K words written, three hundred shy of where I should've been for yesterday. I decided to quit though, because I knew what the next scene was, and I found something new to put my characters through that I wanted to think about for a couple days. The novel stands at just over 20K words, almost 1/4th of the way to 90K.

Heather has written a little bit on her story, plotted more than I have on mine, and is making slow progress. Surprise, surprise, my methodical, careful, planning child is a PLOTTER! I keep telling her to jump, the parachute will slow the decent, but she prefers to build the bridge of her plot brick by brick before venturing too far over the precipice.

Hard to believe NaNo is one-third over already.

Interview with Kathleen Y'Barbo

Hey, folks, here's your chance to learn a little bit more about Kathleen Y'Barbo, author of Beloved Castaway, reviewed earlier this week here at OTWP.

-Kathleen, thank you for joining us here at On The Write Path.
I’m so glad to be here!

-Can you tell us a little about yourself and your path to publication?
My start in Christian fiction actually began when I turned down a book sale. It was 1999, and I had been writing for a little over three years. Just about the time my agent found a home for a general market three-book historical series, the Lord decided I needed to write only for Him. I left the agent and the general market behind, along with the book deal and struck out a new path in the CBA. Less than a year later, God provided for my first CBA sale, which turned out to be a bestseller. Thirty books later, I am still writing for him and still humbled every time another sale comes my way.

-I just finished reading Beloved Castaway. What research went into this book?
Much of the research for Castaway came from the three-book series I just mentioned. Making the decision not to sell those books was tough, but using the research I’d done for them turned out to make the process of writing Castaway much easier. Almost all of the facts about New Orleans came from that research. To get a feel for the Florida Keys, I made two trips, the first on my 20th wedding anniversary in 1999 and the second in September 2001. An interesting aside to this is the fact that my return ticket was for September 12, 2001, which meant my writing buddy and I were stuck in Key West for days past our original departure date. The trip back from this eventful research junket is a story in itself!

-I appreciate how you handled the storyline with Isabelle. And I loved the twist at the end. Did you plot that ending or was it a surprise to you too?
That ending was plotted almost from the beginning, although during the process of writing the book I did concern myself some with whether the twist would work. I’m so glad to hear that you liked it.

-You are multi-published with Heartsong. Did you find it difficult to write longer fiction?
Actually, it’s been harder to keep to the shorter format because I end up with more plot that word count.

-Are you part of a critique group? And if so, how did you get together? Do you submit weekly?
Critique groups are essential! I’ve been with my current group, all published authors, since 1999. The format has always been the same: four authors, one chapter per week critiqued by email followed by a weekly in-person meeting to plot and pray. Two of us are original to the group while the third joined in 1999. Our fourth just got her first contract for a three-book series!

-What are your favorite parts of being a writer? Least favorite?
My favorite part of being a writer are those moments, generally after the fact, when I realize that God wove a message through my manuscript that I didn’t expect, that He typed using my fingers. Sometimes I see this coming, but mostly He surprises me. My least favorite part is stepping away from the computer to stand in the spotlight. I don’t mind speaking or signing books, but I don’t like even unintentionally shifting the credit away from where it belongs: with God.

-What sort of marketing are you doing for Beloved Castaway?
Danielle, my publicist at Glass Road PR, is doing an amazing job of getting the word about about Castaway. In addition, I am doing speaking engagements and book signings. I’m very excited about the signing I’m doing next week with Mitch Albom, author of Five People You Meet in Heaven.

-Do you have any advice for unpublished authors?
Never stop learning. If you think you know everything about writing and publishing, I guarantee your career is about to end.

-What’s next for you?
I am starting on the sequel to Castaway, Emilie Gayarre’s story. The title, Beloved Captive, should give the hint that Isabelle’s sister is about to have an interesting twist of events in her own life. Did I mention there are pirates and a handsome Naval lieutenant involved?

-Thank you for stopping by On The Write Path. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Thank you! It’s been a pleasure!

The Friday Five

This week's Friday Five is:

Five Ways I Know I Am Getting Old.




1. A friend of mine recently remarked that her son disliked his keyboarding class, and my first thought was, "I didn't know they'd bought a piano keyboard." Duh! Keyboarding is the new version of typing class.

2. I opened a new account on line for a site that requested your date of birth. For birth year, they had a drop down menu. I had to scroll to find mine. A Loooooooooong Way.

3. My daughter's comment at dinner the other night. She said casually, "When I get married and have kids, you will be Gramma Vetsch." I was gobsmacked. Gramma Vetsch is what my husband called HIS gramma! I was ready for my tennis-ball footed, bike-basket adorned aluminum walker right there.

4. At the auction I went to last Saturday, the auctioneer was selling as 'Vintage Items' things I remembered when they came out new. Rubik's Cube...Vintage? Hello!?

5. Last night, my son and I started reading aloud Zilpha Keatley Snyder's THE VELVET ROOM. When I told my son that my fourth grade teacher had read this book to my class in 1979, he was impressed. When I told him my copy of the book had been printed in 1965, he looked at the book like it was an original copy of a Gutenberg Bible. "Wow, that's old!"

Sigh. Not that old. Not anymore.

Two Tag

Found this on CJ's Blog The Compost Heap. Figured I'd give it a whirl.

Two names you go by: Erica and Ducky. (Only my parents call me ducky...mostly my dad.)

Two things you are wearing right now: A blue button-down shirt and jeans.

Two of your favorite things to do: Read and talk to CJ on the IM.

Two things you want very badly at the moment: For my in-laws to become believers. To have a book published.

Two favorite pets you have/had: #1 is my lovely cat Pookie (aka Mittens, but Pookie just fits better) and #2 was Duff, a black lab/Irish setter cross with the best disposition of any dog I have ever come across.

Two people who will fill this out: GeorgianaD and perhaps I should tag Donna so she will blog... Hee hee.

Two people you last talked to: Thing One and Thing Two, my offspring.

Two longest trips you've been on: To Florida and to Texas by air. A couple of long, looping vacations from West Virginia in the East to Colorado/Wyoming in the West.

Two favorite holidays: Christmas and Easter.

Two favorite beverages: Caffeine Free Diet Coke and Ice Water.


Please play along, just let me know here so I can go read your answers. :)

Nano Day Seven

Today saw an upsurge in the wordcount. The ms stands at just under 16K.

The kidlets and I went to the library so I could get away from the phone, email, distractions, and laundry.

The kids took schoolwork, I took the laptop, and it worked out great!

I have great kids...really, the best! I know I'm probably a little bit biased, but still...they're the best!

This Week From CFBA

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
DEADFALL
(Thomas Nelson November 6, 2007)
by
Robert Liparulo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert is an award-winning author of over a thousand published articles and short stories. He is currently a contributing editor for New Man magazine. His work has appeared in Reader's Digest, Travel & Leisure, Modern Bride, Consumers Digest, Chief Executive, and The Arizona Daily Star, among other publications. In addition, he previously worked as a celebrity journalist, interviewing Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Charlton Heston, and others for magazines such as Rocky Road, Preview, and L.A. Weekly. Robert is an avid scuba diver, swimmer, reader, traveler, and a law enforcement and military enthusiast. He lives in Colorado with his wife and four children.Robert's first novel painted a scenario so frighteningly real that six Hollywood producers were bidding on movie rights before the novel was completed. His acclaimed debut novel, Comes A Horseman, is being made into a major motion picture by producer Mace Neufeld and his short story "Kill Zone" was featured in the anthology Thriller, edited by James Patterson. Bob has sold the film rights to his second book, GERM. And he is writing the screenplay for a yet-to-be-written political thriller, which sold to Phoenix Pictures, for Andrew Davis (The Fugitive, The Guardian) to direct! He is currently working on his fourth novel.

ABOUT THE BOOK: Deep in the isolated Northwest Territories, four friends are on the trip of a lifetime. Dropped by helicopter into the Canadian wilderness, Hutch, Terry, Phil, and David are looking to escape the events of a tumultuous year for two weeks of hunting, fishing, and camping. Armed with only a bow and arrow and the basics for survival, they've chosen a place far from civilization, a retreat from their turbulent lives. But they quickly discover that another group has targeted the remote region and the secluded hamlet of Fiddler Falls for a more menacing purpose: to field test the ultimate weapon. With more than a week before the helicopter rendezvous and no satellite phone, Hutch, a skilled bow-hunter and outdoor-survivalist must help his friends elude their seemingly inescapable foes, as well as decide whether to run for their lives...or risk everything to help the townspeople who are being held hostage and terrorized. An intense novel of character forged in the midst of struggle, survival, and sacrifice. Deadfall is highly-aclaimed author Robert Liparulo's latest rivetingly smart thriller. Get Downloads and EXCERPTS at http://www.liparulo.com/

"DEADFALL is drop-dead great!"-In The Library Reviews

"What if Mad Max, Rambo, and the Wild Bunch showed up-all packing Star Wars type weapons? You'd have Robert Liparulo's thrilling new adventure Deadfall."-Katherine Neville, best selling author of The Eight

"A brilliantly crafted thriller with flawless execution. I loved it!"-Michael Palmer, best selling author of The Fifth Vial

"In Deadfall, Robert Liparulo gives us a fresh, fast paced novel that instills a well-founded fear of the villians and an admiration for the people who refuse to be victims. It truly deserves the name thriller.-Thomas Perry, best selling author of The Butcher's Boy and Silence

"Another brilliantly conceived premise from Robert Liparulo. Deadfall will leave you looking over your shoulder and begging for more."-Dave Dun, best selling author of The Black Silent

A NOTE from Bob: I’d like to give away five signed copies of Deadfall to readers of CFBA blogs during my tour. All they have to do is sign up for my e-mailing list (they won’t be inundated!) by going to my website (www.robertliparulo.com) and going to the “Mailing List” page. Or email me with “CFBA giveaway” in the subject line.

And a second NOTE from Bob: I wanted to let you know that I’m holding a contest on my site:

*one winner a week till the end of the year for a signed Deadfall

**one winner a week till the end of the year for an unabridged audio MP3-CD of Deadfall

***and on Dec. 31, I’m giving away an iPod Nano, pre-loaded with an unabridged audio recording of Deadfall

Winners are selected from my e-mailing list—sign up at my site. If a winner has already purchased what he/she wins, I will reimburse them for the purchase price (or give them another—whichever they choose), so they don’t need to wait to see if they win before buying Deadfall.

Beloved Castaway

Introducing Beloved Castaway by Kathleen Y'Barbo

RACE AND CLASS BATTLE WITH LOVE
IN NINETEENTH CENTURY NEW ORLEANS

Inaugural Release in the Fairweather Keys Series Has Romance, Weighty Issues

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., — Isabelle Gayarre was born of dubious parentage. The illegitimate daughter of a rich white gentleman and his quadroon mistress, she was born into a gilded cage – loved and adored but a slave nonetheless. Her only hope was to secure passage to England aboard The Jude to escape to an English country cottage given to her by her half-sister, Emilie. The cottage—an ocean away from the racist constrains of New Orleans—would give Isabelle a life of freedom.

Yet Isabelle’s flight to freedom is almost over before it begins when fire breaks out on the docks of New Orleans. Narrowly avoiding destruction, Josiah Carter captains The Jude through the flames. The fire, though, has taken its toll and Captain Carter must find medical care for his men. On the way, he finds himself drawn both to Isabelle and her faith as those aboard his ship suffer with their fire-induced injuries. When still another catastrophe strikes the ship in the Florida Keys, Josiah is forced to come to terms with his faith—and his love of a slave woman whose gilded cage bars her forever from the bonds of matrimony.

Does love truly conquer all? Even the racist society of nineteenth century
New Orleans?

About Kathleen Y’Barbo
A mother of three sons and one daughter, lives in the Houston area.
An award-winning, bestselling novelist of Christian fiction, Kathleen
is a member of various writing groups, speaker on the craft of
writing, and teacher of an online creative writing course. For more
information, visit www.kathleenybarbo.com

My Review: Beloved Castaway is an enjoyable book. It certainly starts with a bang! Both Isabelle and Josiah are likeable characters, and their conflict is real. If you enjoy action-packed historical fiction, grab a copy of Beloved Castaway. The setting, the characters, the conflict, the action will all propel you through this book at lightning speed. Be ready for a twist you never saw coming! I love a book that surprises me, and this one sure did. Congratulations to Kathleen Y'Barbo on this adventuresome tale.

NaNo Day Five

NaNo Day Five! Today I got about two thousand words, bringing my NaNo total to over six thousand. While this is a great start, at this rate, I will not make 50K by the end of the month. I'll have to factor in some Saturday writing marathons this month.
This past Saturday I was in Caledonia, Minnesota for an auction. I came home with a beautiful c. 1900 oak sideboard that had belonged to my husband's great grandmother. It is so pretty. I'll try to post a picture of it on the blog soon.
In case you didn't know, auctions are a terrific place to people watch. You can tell pretty quick who is a regular attender and known to the auctioneer. You can tell who is after what too as they examine the offerings.
Auctioneers are fun to watch too. This particular auction had three auctioneers that all took turns with the microphone.
I've been to auctions before, and I know the secret to a good auction for me is to have a dollar amount in my mind before I start bidding for something. That way I don't get 'buck fever' when the bidding starts and give too much for an item.
I figured to be bidding on some of the furniture that was offered, but I asked my husband what he thought I should bid. Uncharacteristically, he said, "Use your judgement."
When I bought the most expensive item at the auction (and also the best), I had a sinking feeling that when I got home, he would say, "I meant use your GOOD judgement!"
Fortunately, he's pleased with the piece and the price I got it for. Whew!

A new winner!

Due to the fact that "JIM" never contacted me to redeem his copy of MOSAIC by Amy Grant, a new winner was chosen.
Congratulations, Jo Ann! Your book is in the mail!
I gave my copy of MOSAIC to Linda, so everyone else who replied to the review of MOSAIC has received a copy.

The Friday Five

I know there are folks out there who dislike, perhaps even despise, CBS's Survivor. But as a family, we love it! Why on earth? you might ask.

This week's Friday Five is:

Five reasons I like watching Survivor.

1. Unpredictability. No one is safe from being voted off, no one knows everything that is going on, and no one can trust anyone completely.

2. The Challenges. I guess I just like to see people do silly things for a million dollars. They've eaten gross stuff, climbed through mud, rolled giant balls around an arena, climbed through mazes, carried sandbags, and figured out puzzles.

3. Jeff Probst. He makes me laugh.

4. The people. What an interesting mix. It's like a mini "Lord of the Flies". The crucible of enforced camp life really brings out people's character. Add to that the mistrust of each other and the quest of a cool million and people will say and do just about anything. As a people-watcher, this fascinates me.

5. My family. We are all into watching Survivor. There's no cajoling to get us all to join in. And there's the prognosticating. My husband likes to figure out the scenarios that will benefit whoever he's rooting for, talking (sometimes at length) about what a player should or should not do, or about what they did that was good or bad. My son loves to keep count of the votes at the end of every episode. My daughter picks out a favorite and rarely wavers from that decision. When Survivor goes off the air (a long time from now, I hope) we'll be able to look back and remember what a good time we had watching that show together.

How about you? Survivor: thumbs up or thumbs down? Do you have a show like Survivor that you watch all together, or one you wouldn't miss yourself?

NaNo Day One

Today was Day One of the madness that is called NaNoWriMo. I'm happy to say I wrote two thousand words today. This brings the ms total to just over six thousand words.

I had originally thought to scrap the first four thousand words of the story and start in a differnt place. I decided not to after re-reading it. I can always scrap the beginning later, but for now, I like this start to the book.

Heather spent the afternoon working on her outline and character sketches. Hopefully she will be tapping away at the keys tomorrow afternoon.

Two Thousand down, 48K to go.