There Ya Go OR There I Go OR There Goes Everyone

Typically I enjoy writing a blog.  In the beginning, as some books are apt to start, I did 3 or 4 a week, which then became twice a week, and then as I got busier with writing novels, once a week.  Occasionally I take a break to recharge, dig up some new funny stories, and believe me funny shizz happens all the time, all I have to do is read the newspaper.

But then other things happen.  We've had a family emergency and I won't be going near a computer for about two weeks, so I'm down for the count (the count of two weeks-ish).  Think of me fondly and remember how much I love to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Death by Papasan OR How All Inanimate Objects in my House are Trying to Kill Me

Recently I complained about a bra.  The bra had a vendetta against me.  I swear.  It broke its little underwire in half and tried to use it as a shiv.  I nearly died.  Well, I didn't really nearly die.  I got pinched, but it was vicious and it hurt.  (Can I just say that no one makes men wear underwires under their...well, you know...)  (If they did, they would have been outlawed.  I'm pretty sure.)  (I could go on a whole diatribe about if men had periods then there would be a five day a month national vacation, but I won't.)

I found a segment on death by bra.  See here.  Underwire bra causes lightning to strike them.  (I told ya so.)

Anyway, death by bra.  It isn't pretty, plus somewhere, some poor woman, or some poor transvestite, has probably died in this very manner.  The coroner was probably too nice to write it on the death certificate, or there wasn't a spot for that manner of death on the certificate because whoever wrote the certificate didn't have an imagination.  I could write a death certificate.  People would be dying to get my death certificates.  (I couldn't help myself.  It just popped out.)

To get back to the point of the blog, which I actually have one this time, I was recently given a papasan chair as a birthday gift.  I will not point out that it was my own idea because that might make me look stupid.  Oh, hell, it was my idea.  After thirty years of birthdays, Christmas's, anniversaries, and other sundry gift giving holiday minutia, HIM has run out of ideas.  Several years ago I started sending him links to things I wanted.  Hey, it makes it easy on HIM and he'll know that the chances are very good that I'll like it.  Then HIM started sending me links to things he wants, but his links are things like specialized rocket building equipment and contains words I cannot even spell, much less pronounce.  (Mine are more exciting.)

This is a perfectly innocent
appearing chair, isn't it?
Haha.  It's not.

Last birthday... (we won't mention the age or I might start to cry) I got a papasan chair.  I liked it.  I put it in the corner of my bedroom where I can lounge and read whenever I actually get a free moment.  (Haha.  That happens so often I almost plotzed myself.)  For those of you out there who don't know what a papasan chair is, and who might have missed them at Pier I, and who might have not been alive during the 60s and 70s, see the picture above.  But here's what was really happening:

I will begin the story by saying there is no warning sticker on papasan chairs that says, "You should be careful when sitting on this.  You should not just sit down.  In fact, you might want to take it easy when sitting down."  (I have a vision in my head of backing up with the backup beeping going off while I'm manuevering.  Kind of like a big delivery truck, except fatter.)  I know this because after the fact, I went and looked.  (There was no stinking warning sticker anywhere.)

So completely unknowing and innocent (try not to laugh), one day after getting the papasan chair, I went to sit down in it.  I put my foot up to stick it under my body (which was likely a mistake) and plopped down.  The next thing I know I'm doing a somersault backwards.  The stand is flying in the air.  My feet are pointed toward the ceiling.  The floor lamp in the corner is screaming with agony because I landed on it..

I wish I could say my life flashed before my eyes, but really it was only my toes and the thought that I needed a pedicure.

So the moral of this story is that the saucer part of a papasan chair is NOT connected to the bottom part stand.  And the floor lamp had to be quietly buried in a closed casket ceremony.  It died in a freak trapeze accident while saving the President from Ninja Nazi Hell's Angels.

New Cat Clan Novella

Okay, here it is for those anxiously awaiting another segment of the Cat Clan:

Ula is a wolf shifter who was kidnapped from the northern woods of Manitoba.  Although she was freed from her captivity by the Cat Clan of Colorado, her sister is still missing.  In the frantic moments of the liberation of the weres, she encounters Killian, a cougar were and member of the Cat Clan of Colorado.

Killian has enjoyed his friends' recent entanglements and never thought he would meet his own mate in such desperate conditions.  He knows Ula is the one within minutes but she is urgently intent on finding out what happened to her beloved sister.

Their concurrent journeys lead them to Canada and Paris, where they will do battle to discover truths that might be too unspeakable to comprehend.

Crescent Moon is a novella of about 35,000 words.  It is intended as the third in the Cat Clan series.  The order is Harvest Moon, Blood Moon, and Crescent Moon.

Buy it at Amazon.

 

Buy it at B&N.

 

Buy it at Smashwords.

 

 

Newity Blog

I know.  I'm supposed to come back to blogging, but things happened.  Taxes.  Incorporation.  I'm pretty sure a meteor fell on my house.  I got to working on the novella that's about to come out.  (Next week-ish, provided the Amazon and B&N gods are smiling upon me.)

For all my paranormal fans, next week.
Really, next week.
Except for B&N, who seems
to drag behind.

Stuff happened.  You know.  Stuff happens, except I don't usually say "stuff."

Other stuff that happened.

My bra tried to kill me.  I've blogged about underwire bras before.  I know.  But this bra really had it out for me.  It broke in half down at the bottom and tried to impale me.  (Somewhere my sister is saying, "What the f**k are you doing buying an underwire bra?  Didn't we have this f**king conversation before?  Are you f**king stupid?"  Well, yeah.  Has anyone ever tried to buy a larger cup size bra without a stupid underwire in it?  It's either underwire in it or pay for a $100 bra.  Of course, that compels me to illustrate what a $100 bra advertisement would look like.)  (Hold on, this could be ugly.  Or funny.  Or possibly silly.)

That's a bra.

I went back to the original blog and winced at the drawings.  It was one of my first and was done before I got a little more accomplished at the whole drawing on the bamboo pad and all.  Looking at the blog makes my eyes hurt.  It also makes me want to go back and redo the whole thing.  Go ahead and look, but don't blame me if your eyes hurt, too.  Here.

Alert.  Abrupt change of subject.  I'm going from murderous bras to canny squirrels.  (Try to keep up.  Drink some more coffee.)

Recently, a very intrepid squirrel has discovered the bird feeder.  By doing an upside-down flip, she attains the feeder, sits in it, and chows to her little heart's content.  HIM took exception and broke out the bb gun.  (Which is probably illegal.  Don't tell my neighbors.  They already don't like us because we tried to build a tree house in the side yard.)

Do you think Elmer ever
really bagged anything, ever?

Whenever I think of HIM with a weapon, even a bb gun, I think of HIM at my in law's remote camp property in Northern Louisiana, hunting rabbits in the dark with a pistol and a flashlight.  (Also illegal and probably immoral, but don't fret, HIM didn't get one.  HIM's brother and I were about ten to fifteen feet behind HIM, imitating Elmer Fudd and giggling.  "Be verrrry, verrrrry quiet.  We are hunting wabbits."  *followed by helpless giggles.*)  (Yes.  We followed HIM around in the dark while he was holding a loaded pistol and a flashlight, hunting wabbits.  We have never let HIM forget it.  This was almost thirty years ago.)  Anyway, the point to this story is not that HIM capped a squirrel in our backyard with a bb gun.  No.  That would be the easy end to the story.  In fact, what really happened is that the squirrel learned that when the window gets opened, one gets the hell out of Dodge.  Smart squirrel.  HIM = zip.  Squirrel = 1.

I know.  This isn't really what happened.
But it should have.

When we lived in the Dallas area (whoops, another subject change) there were albino squirrels running around.  It was really weird to see a white furred squirrel prancing up and down a yard.  Why do I bring this up?  I do not know.  It just popped into my head and my fingers were on the keyboard, which is often how things happen when I write.  (For the critics, you can now mutter, "I knew it".)

And I didn't really want to go looking for a photo of an albino squirrel, so I used Super Squirrel instead.  (There's a good, i.e., bad, line in there about needing to save his nuts, but I won't use it.)

Subject change again!  Here.

Now I'm trying to get all my tax papers together.  This is not easy.  Apparently I have lots of receipts and I don't want the CPA to kick me to the curb for next year.  Also I had to learn all about writing up 1099-misc's.  Does anyone but a CPA and an employee of the IRS know what a 1099-misc is?

Okay, I stuck the picture of the albino squirrel
in there anyway.  I was told that
it wasn't really an albino squirrel if
it had black eyes.  This one has
red eyes or the camera was unkind
to it.  Personally I did not stop to look
at the eyes of the albino squirrels in the Dallas area,
so I don't really know if they were
"authentic" albino squirrels or not.
Maybe they had a really good dye job.

Finally a personal note to the individual who complained in a review about Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note that I had the character feed Precious grapes.  Grapes are very not good for dogs.  I did not know this and will remove the grape line from the book, lest I encourage any Basset hound owning individuals to feed their dogs grapes.  (This means don't feed your dogs grapes.  Or raisins.  Very bad for them.)  Apologies.

In conclusion.  Stuff happens and don't feed your albino squirrels dogs grapes.  I'm back.  It's good to be the blogger. 

I Have a Breakout Book on Apple's iBookstore

Wonderful news for 2013!

Disembodied Bones has made Apple's iBookstore's Breakout Book list!  It's not a best seller but hey Apple likes me.  They really, really like me.  (Sally Field, eat your heart out.)

If you know someone with an iPhone or an iPad, then direct them here.  iTunes Books.

Learn more about Breakout Books at Smashwords' blog here.

Many thanks to Mark Coker of Smashwords for promoting indie authors.