Teaser Tuesday...

Teaser Tuesday again! It's hosted by Miz Biz over at Should Be Reading. If you are looking for some

great books make sure to check out her sight and the other people participating. 

In the meantime, if you want to play along, it's easy. 
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week is from Altered by Jennifer Rush. 

Dad made his way across the field with a limp. Inwardly I flinched, remembering that day in the lab, the horror of watching Sam shoot him. 

Back From Vacation

My week on a cruise ship was fun, relaxing, and frustrating. Fortunately, the frustrating part was minor, but enough that I’ll not cruise out of Baltimore again—only because it is a small port and therefore the ships are smaller. I’ve been on a big ship and once you have, you can’t go back. Lol.

The first frustration was they split our party of 5 into two tables at dinner. All 5 passengers were booked together, yet they assigned 2 people to one table and 3 to another. Now, I’m not the complaining type, but I complained about this. We finally got the dinner seating squared away after speaking with 3 different people. Still, the food was pretty good, but not as good as it was on my last cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frustration #2. Anyone who has ever been on a cruise knows that you check your luggage and it’s then left outside of your room later. Well, when I got to my cabin that first evening I went to pick up my suitcase and the handle was completely broken.

 

 

This frustration was one that was addressed and handled very quickly and to my satisfaction. They couldn’t fix it so they gave me a new suitcase! Way to go, Royal Caribbean!

 

Now for the relaxing part. Coco Kay was absolutely beautiful! It was the most relaxing port on this trip. The only downside…the sunburn on my shoulders. Now they’re peeling. Don’t you just love when that happens?

 

 

 

The last thing I want to talk about is all the creepy art on the ship. I mean, it was just weird. I took pictures of all the macabre art, hoping it wouldn’t haunt my phone. Truthfully, the art was beautiful, but I'd think twice before I hung any of it in my house. Lol.
 

 

Now I’m back home, trying to get into the swing of things. I hope to have better posts soon. 

Have any of you gone on vacation yet this season? If so, where’d you go and how was it?

Bouncing back and Inspiration

So, it is taking me awhile to bounce back from the rather excessive blogging in April. haha. And my website partner is off on vacation. But, I'm excited to be getting back to a normal blogging schedule (even if I am two weeks later than everyone else. I am being "fashionably" late) So, with that being said, I'm hopping back into one of my favorite blog-hops  "Thursdays Children" hosted by Rhiann Wynn-Nolet at A Nest of Words.  

I've always enjoyed this hop because it gives me a chance to talk about the things that inspire me as a writer, one of my fave topics. If you haven't participated be sure to check it out and join in the fun! The linky-list link is at the bottom of my post. (Linky-list link. Try saying that ten times fast.)

The topic I'm choosing this week is waiting. As writers we do a lot of it. First waiting to get an idea. Then waiting to finish the story. To get critiques. To do edits. To find an agent. To find a publisher...etc...etc...When you are a writer, the waiting literally never stops. 

And, sometimes I find it frustrating but, for the most part I find it inspiring. I love getting up and

checking my email every day. I love knowing that today might be the day I hear back on something, whether it's a full I have out or a short story I submitted or a critique I'm getting. I figure the more writing I have floating around, the more chance there is that I will strike gold with something. 

If I never had anything out on submission, I don't think I'd be as driven to keep writing. While it does make me nervous, I also like the thrill of anticipating good responses. And while I'm waiting, I'm inevitably inspired to fill up my time with writing more, so I have more things to submit, and more responses to wait on. 

And it's not just about submissions. One of my favorite things to wait on is critiques. I know a lot of people are super nervous about receiving them. I've even met other writers who dread the critique and the inevitable rewrites/doubts it brings. But, to me, each critique is a new and exciting opportunity to see my work through someone else's eyes. I love finding out what works and what doesn't. What could possibly be more exciting than someone pointing out how I can make my work better? 

What about you guys? Do you like getting critiques? Does all the waiting bother you or inspire you?  Would you rather be waiting to hear back on something or have the calmness of knowing there are no rejections coming? ;)

If you are interested in signing up for Thursdays Children just click HERE. 

Teaser Tuesday

So, it's time for Teaser Tuesday again, hosted by Miz Biz at Should be Reading.
If you want to play along just:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser for this week is from a book with a neat background. Struck by Lighting by Chris Colfer. For any "gleeks" out there you'll know Chris as Kurt from Glee. Interestingly enough, he wrote the book as a screenplay, had the movie made (which he also starred in) and then wrote the novel after the movie. I didn't know any of this when I picked the book up. I just knew it sounded like a fun concept. So far, (and I'm only a couple chapters in) the  MC has an amazing, extremely funny, teen voice. I'm really enjoying it. And, with that being said, here is my tease:

"Until I was ten and saw a parents friend's interact, I never realized that people got married because they wanted to, because they loved each other. I always thought it was more like jury duty: You got an envelope in the mail telling you when, where, and who you were required to reproduce with."

My Vacation Reads

As I’m gearing up to hit the high seas on Friday, I've compiled a small list of books I’m going to read, or plan to read while on vacation. I get that beach books, or vacation reads are supposed to be books that aren't too complicated, light, flirty stories. But does that have to be what you take on vacation with you? I don’t think so. So here is what is on my Kindle queued up and ready:

Death Sentence (Book 3 in the Escape from Furnace Series) by Alexander Gordon Smith

Unwholly (Book 2 in the Unwind series) by Neil Shusterman

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

And my guilty pleasure—historical romance. Anything from the list of Mary Balogh that I haven’t read before.

Will I finish all of these books in 7 days? Probably not. But I got through 2 ½ books last year while on vacation so I know I can probably finish two of these. And while only the romance could maybe be classified as a “light” read, the rest are relatively short books, but have solid stories. There is something about sitting in a deck chair, listening to the ocean, and reading a good book. I can’t wait!

Take care and many happy vacations to you all!

Karen

Teaser Tuesday...

Aaaah...April was fun, but I'm looking forward to falling back into the blogging schedule I used to follow. And, as such, I'm posting for Teaser Tuesday, a meme I followed on my old blog and always loved because it is a great way to find out about new books to read!

It's hosted by Miz Biz at Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along. All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser for this week is from Clockwork Princess. It's the last book in Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices series. If you haven't read these, please give them a chance!! I read these books out loud to my family, one chapter a night. All of us, from my husband to my fourteen year old daughter to my seventeen year old son, all LOVED these books. And, with that being said, here is the teaser:
      Jem smiled at him, that smile that had always, even on Will's blackest days, eased his mind. "I think there is hope for you yet, Will Herondale." 
     "I will try to learn how to have it, without you to show me."

Monday Mind Game

Hi all. Glad to see you’ve survived the A-Z Challenge. Welcome and thanks to all of our new followers! Tamara and I really appreciate your support. So on our first official non-challenge post, I’d like to start off with something simple.

I’ve played this game with friends and have always found it interesting to see the unexpected answers. So here is my mind game question:

If You Could Only Bring 3 People to a Deserted Island, Who Would You Bring?

The rules:

We know you’d bring your kids, your spouse or Jesus, so I’m looking for Literary, Celebrity, Cartoon or Fictional. Someone who fits in the following three categories—remember, real or fiction:

1. Guilty Pleasure Person
2. Intellectual Person
3. A Just Because Person

Here are my answers:

My Guilty Pleasure: Iron Man/Tony Stark. Maybe this is because I just saw the third movie and I LOVE Robert Downey Jr, but I think I’d have a great time with Tony Stark on a deserted island. Not to mention--even if the suit didn't make it--when we got tired of being there he could totally build us a jetpack from coconuts and blast us back to civilization.

My Intellectual Person: Sherlock Holmes. It's no coincidence this character was recently portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., but that's not the main reason I chose him. I think I’m a fairly observant person, but I’d really like to be much more so and I think I could learn a lot from him. I want to deduce!

My Just Because Person: J.K. Rowling. I’d make her write more installments in the Harry Potter series to fill in those years where Harry and Ginny, and Ron and Hermione really became couples and grew into the parents we saw in the epilogue…or else I'd tell Tony Stark not to build her a coconut jetpack and we'd leave her on that island!

So tell me, If You Could Only Bring 3 People to a Deserted Island, Who Would You Bring?