Whoa.

I need to update the look of this thing!  Twilight is long gone, although it'll always be in my heart ;)

Changing directions

About a month ago, I became fascinated with the art of jewelry making.  I wanted to make a necklace, bracelet, and earrings for my daughter's wedding on Nov. 1.  I'd already spent most of the previous six months knitting a lacy lightweight beaded wrap in case it was chilly that night (she got married on a yacht on the lake at Walt Disney World); it's frequently in the 50s-60s at night in November.  But I wanted to make my jewelry.

I made an appointment for a class at the bead shop in Islamorada (Flash Beads, or Flash Island Beads, something like that--she doesn't keep up with her website at all).  One day I learned basic stringing and made part of the bracelet; the next day I worked on the earrings and necklace.  I was thrilled with what I made, and another expensive hobby was born.

Now I feel fairly confident that what I make won't fall apart, so I'm starting to sell my creations.  Right now I'm selling bracelet/earring combos for $12, including first class postage.  Shortly I'll increase my prices; I'm interested in having people wear the sets and see how they hold up.

Here are some of my creations.

Redline marble, SOLD.

Amethyst. Earrings have hypoallergenic Glinter earwires. Bracelet is 8", can make a smaller one if desired.

Earrings made for a friend.  Those sloppy wire spirals have really caught my eye.   Hypoallergenic Glinter earwires.

Snowflake obsidian.  7.5" - 7.75".  Hypoallergenic Glinter earwires.

Blue aventurine, 7.75"  Hypoallergenic Glinter earwires.

Mine.

Mine.

SOLD.

Two sets of these.  One 7.75", one 8".  Glass beads.  Hypoallergenic Glinter earwires.

Mine.

Freshwater pearls, dyed.  Will have hypoallergenic Glinter earwires.

Seed beads and slices of...something.  Tom says this looks like teeth and is ugly.

Any of these can be mailed to the UK for about $12, which makes them kinda steep.

Really? Almost a YEAR?

Is anyone still here?

Looking for a love unrehearsed tina reber free download pdf?

You won't find it here.  You are breaking the law when you download a free pdf of any author's work.  Don't care about that since you live in another country?  Then consider this:  You are STEALING from the author.  You are scum.

Knock it the fuck off.

Hot much?

I know a New York Times bestselling author :)

Congratulations, Tina Reber!!!  She has debuted at #9 on the NYT chart.  All I can say is it's about fucking time!

Love Unrehearsed
by
Tina Reber

Okay, listen up. NO FREE DOWNLOADS!

Knock it off!  When you download a book and don't pay for it, YOU ARE STEALING.  YOU ARE A THIEF. Pay for what you read.

OR DON'T FUCKING READ IT.

Love Unrehearsed by Tina Reber :)

Remember how excited I was about Tina's book, Love Unscripted?  The Kindle e-copy of the sequel, Love Unrehearsed, was released this morning at midnight.  I was too excited to sleep, so I stayed up all night reading it.  (I won't mention that Tina sent me an ARC PDF on Wednesday.)

It is wonderful.  As bad as my memory normally is, I felt as if I'd finished re-reading LU1 only yesterday (it's been over a year).  LU2 picks up where the first one left off, so there's no gap at all.  I felt like I'd gone home.

I need to modestly mention that I'm a character in the book, Ryan's Aunt Rita who gives him sage advice at his engagement party.  I was so excited as I read those pages that I cried.

These two books were picked up by Atria Books just a month ago and have been released with new covers (the e-books, that is).  The paperbacks will be released next year.  I'll have to buy them both and have Tina sign them.

Try these two books.  They're like jumping into a fantasy life as the fiancee of one of the hottest young actors around.  Read all of the inside secrets.  Tina has done meticulous research of the lifestyle of the hot and famous :)

Love Unrehearsed, currently #7 on Amazon's bestsellers list.  If you haven't read Love Unscripted, get that one and read it first.  LU2 can be read as a stand-alone, but to get the whole story, read them both.

What are you waiting for?  GO!!!  :)

Jackie's interview on Craig DiLouie's Apocalyptic Horror Fiction site

Interview with Jacqueline Druga

Nice to see the publicity for her :)  Craig has written two zombie apocalypse books that I love, The Infection and Tooth and Nail.  These are the first zombie books that I was actually able to read :)  If zombies aren't your cup of...whatever, Paranoia is an EXCELLENT book.  I'm not sure what genre that one is; it's not horror really, more a thriller, I guess.  Whatever it is, it really consumed me and haunted me (not *that* kind of haunting) for days afterward.

Just like The Flu and Dust have done :)

I get paid to read books!

At least, that's how my 11-year-old granddaughter expressed her excitement when I told her that I'm editing books for Jacqueline Druga.

I've loved post-apocalyptic books since I read Alas, Babylon then On the Beach and Level 7 when I was 14 or 15.  I read them over and over until the nuclear nightmares became so unbearable that I finally stopped reading p-a and sci-fi until I was in my 30s.

Growing up in the late 1950s and 60s did a number on my psyche.  One of the first big events that I remember, besides the space shots and Kennedy's election, is the Cuban Missile Crisis.  For some reason that really affected me deeply even though I didn't know much about what was going on.  We lived across the street to the entrance to what was then Byrd Airport (now Richmond International Airport) so planes went over at all hours.  Now that I frequently fly into that airport from Key West I realize that we lived right in the flight path.  About the only thing that I remember from the Cuban Missile Crisis is seeing odd-looking planes flying overhead and telling my sister that it was Cubans coming to bomb us.  Heh heh.  I was so scared that I reassured myself by scaring the crap out of her.  Nice of me.

(Mom has told us recently that Air Force One used to fly into and out of Byrd Airport to practice take-offs and landings.  I don't remember anything about that, either.)

Betty remembers the hide-under-your-desk drills at Sandston Elementary School.  I don't.  I guess I've blocked them out of my brain entirely; denial is a lovely state of mind.  She remembers bus drills, too, and I don't remember those.  The only thing that I remember Mom or Dad saying anything at all about the era is Dad saying something about sit on the floor, put your head on your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.  Maybe he didn't actually say "ass" back then, but I can hear him say it like it was yesterday.

Then there was the Cold War.  More talk about nuking Russia or them nuking us.  But eventually I found a few more good post-apocalyptic books and started reading them again.  I found my original paperback copy of Level 7 (not nearly as good as I'd remembered it) and bought new copies of Alas, Babylon and On the Beach.  When my nephew, a very smart young man who made straight As, was supposed to read On the Beach as part of his English class, I answered the worksheet questions on it for him.  Back then I could remember stuff like that.  You see, he prided himself on getting through high school without ever reading one of the assigned books.....  He did well on the test for that one, too :)

But it's hard to find paper copies of many post-apocalyptic books.  Once I'd read those I mentioned above and Lucifer's Hammer and The Stand, there really wasn't much left.  Occasionally I'd come across a new one (at least, new to me) and devour it.  But it was frustrating; I love the genre so much (I prefer nuclear holocausts to zombie ones) and there just weren't enough available.

Along came the internet.  I was able to read about more books and put them on my want list, but I couldn't find them in the bookstores I went to.  Once in a great while I'd come across one at a flea market or used book store, but that was rare.  Then--ta da!  Amazon.com arrived.  I could search for and keep a running wish list of the books I wanted online.  Once in a while I could afford to order a few.  It was so cool to be able to read more and more of these p-a books.

Then, the Gods of Amazon smiled down on me and gave us the Kindle.  And e-books.  Lots and lots and LOTS of e-books.  I started a collection of e-books on Kindle for PC long before I bought my Kindle after Christmas last year.  I was hesitant to get a Kindle; I've always loved reading and actually owning copies of the books I love.  But suddenly I wanted one; I don't know what "kindled" that desire, but I bought one.

And then I found the Amazon forums with discussions about all kinds of subjects--and there's a whole section devoted to post-apocalyptic fiction.  People recommended books and authors to each other.  I'd put 'em on my wish list and, when I could, buy them.  Two things that I like best about Kindle:  It's so easy to carry over 1500 books in my purse (my K3 will hold 3500!), and there are so many free and inexpensive books available.  And many of them are in the p-a genre.

I got to know a few ladies in the p-a forums.  One, Liz, seemed to like the same things I do, so when she recommended a book or author, I checked it out.  Once Kindle allowed loaning of e-books, she sent me some that she liked, and some she didn't (she wanted my opinion on them).  She's my age, is disabled and on a tight budget, but she bought e-books.

Long about May of this year Liz recommended Jackie Druga's Dust to me.  I had to wait a couple of weeks until I could buy it, but once I got it, I devoured it.  I was amazed at how well Jackie writes about such a dark subject as nuclear annihilation.  She researched it well (turns out she's very much a prepper in that department), but what really hit home with me is Jo, the protagonist.  She's a very strong woman who was determined that her circle of friends would live through a nuclear attack; she made lists of things they needed to be aware of, gave them prepper backpacks for Christmas, and they decided that they'd meet at her house if they could after the bombs went off, then eventually would leave for a cabin deep in the woods.  I won't give away any more of the story; just trust me that it's a lot more interesting than my description sounds.

I was so taken with the book that I reviewed it on Amazon, and Jackie contacted me.  She was blown away that Liz and I loved the book so much that we recommended it to others and went on to read her other books.  The one problem that Liz and I had with this and subsequent books of Jackie's is that they needed editing.  Jackie writes beautiful stories; they're about the human connections, not just the mechanics of an apocalyptic event, but she has problems with grammar, sentence structure, spelling of homonyms, etc.  She originally asked Liz to beta-read some of her books, but Liz is in poor health and decided that it wasn't fair to Jackie to promise to do so, so she suggested me.  I was absolutely thrilled!  This is the kind of dream job I've always wanted!

The first book that Jackie asked me to edit (I call it edit, but I don't think that's the proper word for what I do) was The Flu, which as you can guess, is about a pandemic that sweeps the world.  It was the second book of hers that I'd read and I'd loved it even more than Dust.  The characters in this one became friends that I loved (mostly), and when I got to the end of it, I cried for the last three chapters.  I did not see that end coming.  It was heartbreaking, and the novel and characters have stayed with me for over 5 months now.  I knew that I'd cry as I was editing it and really really dreaded getting to the end of it.  I warned Tom that I'd cry; I talked about it for days in advance.  And I cried; I must have gone through half a box of tissues, blowing my nose and wiping my eyes over and over.  When I finished the last page, I told Tom that I was so glad that it was over.  His comment?  "You didn't cry.  You thought you would."  I stared at him.  Turns out he thought my allergies were bad that night.......... ;)

After I started working on The Flu, Jackie was contacted by ***** Press (I won't link to them here because I'm miffed with them) (yes, I'm petty that way) and signed a contract for The Flu and for first shot at her next p-a book.  She insisted that I stay on as editor and they agreed.  ***** released The Flu on November 9 but has not done one thing to promote it.  Jackie thinks that maybe they're waiting for the paperback to be ready.  But they've announced several other books that they've released in the last month, on Facebook, yet they haven't made one mention of hers.  That irritates the shit out of me.  I've read books by one other of their authors, Craig DiLouie, who writes zombie apocalypse novels.  Normally I won't read z-a, but his are really good.  They promote the hell out of Craig, yet they haven't said a word about Jackie.

So I'm taking it upon myself to push Jackie's novels.  I'm in the middle of editing the 5th book for her since August; I'd already read Dust and The Flu; these others are new(er); the one I'm currently working on she just finished last month.  I've loved everything that I've read of hers, and fortunately for me she's a very prolific author.  I'm guessing that she's written and self-published about 50 books; I'm still working my way through them.

If you like this genre, give The Flu and Dust a try.  Dust just went up on Amazon a day or two ago and is already selling.  It had already been on Amazon for some time; this is the newly-edited version.  Another one, Beyond Fear (vampires!!!) will go up soon.  Again, she writes great characters and such good stories.  They aren't expensive e-books, $2.99-4.99; if you're familiar with e-books you know that best-sellers and top names go for $9.99 and up.  I think that Stephen King's new novel is $16 in the e-edition.  I won't pay that.  I've only paid $10 a few times.  Jackie's books are a bargain--and they're GOOD.

I'm making a small percentage of her sales, but I don't care about the money.  I'm getting to read really good books for free--and getting paid to do it :)

Googling Fantasy Fest photos over there in Iran? Well, here ya go.

Something like 1227 hits this month?  And all of them but ONE are for either nekkid photos of Fantasy Fest 2011 or photos of Rob Pattinson.  Sorry, ladies, no nekkid photos of Rob.

That one google was for The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, a book that I read as a child and was fortunate enough to buy a few years ago.  There were two or three books in that series and I loved them.  Oddly enough, Tom, when he was a child, lived near the woman (Eleanor Cameron) who wrote the books and spent time at her house with a friend of his.

Okay, okay, the pictures from Fantasy Fest 2011, Key West, Florida.

Remember this guy from last year?  He was that really horrific version of Sponge Bob.  Odd how some...*things* stick in our minds......

As the two photos above illustrate so incredibly well, some people just shouldn't do the nekkid thing in public.

I *really* wish I could have gotten a photo of this woman's face.  She has to be at least 80, and look at those perky boobs :)

^ *shudder* ^

Just before I took this ^ photo, the uh gentleman was pole-dancing.

^ There are no words..... ^

When I took this ^ photo, I honestly didn't know what would show up.  

Poor man, he was carrying *real* pistols and swords.  His buddy kind of melted into the crowd.

Please, just kill me if I EVER even *think* of doing something like this ^.

It's covered with rhinestones.....

^ Hands down, the most elegant entry ^

I sure wish I could find out just what the cop is searching for ^

Really, look at the above two photos.  Is that *EVER* a good idea?

Men in the crowd encouraged her to show more.  She did.

Well, friends, that's it for this year.  If you happen to find these photos, please leave a comment.  I feel so....used........