Waving Goodbye to 2012

Okay, that auld lang syne bit over with, how are ya doing otherwise?

I'm still all over the place.  I would like to finish up the Drive The Cold Winter Away photo essay thing by tomorrow but it's turning out to be more complicated because I have to build each page in Photoshop.  Word isn't cooperating at all.  And PLUS you can't use interesting fonts  so if I make an image of the page, then I can use whatever font I like.

Here's what I worked on earlier today.  Now that I think about it there's another way I could have done it.  I should try that.  Or there's always just leave it because it will be so small in a kindle that it'll be hard to see anyway.

With the Buttercup book someone complained that she spent 99 whole cents and couldn't even extract the images from the book!  Oh bummer!  Can you extract parts of a novel from a Kindle or Nook?  No, you can't.  Yes I see why it would be good to download recipes from a cookbook on your Kindle but that's not how it works now.

I decided to put a note in the back of this book that if anyone would like an image to use as a desktop or whatever, they can email me and I'll send them a copy.  That's a pretty good deal.

I could make it a gif file!  Go from the icicles to an ad like "Eat at Joe's"!
See how I get distracted?

Happy New Year all you lovely people who are so patient with me and so supportive.  I promise Parked will be on your readers in 2013.

New/Old Cover for By Force of Will

My ADHD has been kicking me hard all month so I get nothing finished--or so it seems.

I was doing something and then it seemed imperative to fix the cover for By Force of Will.
Then I couldn't find the file--I'm not very organized!--so decided the original cover was gorgeous and I could just tweak that a bit so that's what I did.

Barnes & Noble readers (big hi to you!) have been lovely this holiday season.  Kobo readers seem to be finding my work.  The big Zon?  I am definitely not complaining.  About anything.

Does anyone want to vote about returning to the original title?  That was Blue Raja.  It wouldn't take much to get me to go back but someone convinced me that somewhere someplace in a graphic novel the two words Blue and Raja appeared together.

Angela?  Ceallaigh?

Update:

Decided to go back.

Black Cat Farm

I wanted to think of something else to write about besides books but since I'm a writer and this is my book blog, that's a bit difficult.  But I will give it a whirl and leave the book part until the end.

I'm not a cat person.  I know that's heresy in some quarters.  I am first a horse person and second a dog person but cats not so much although they generally like me too much for my comfort level.  Racing to me and jumping as high as possible to reach me is not a good way to say hi.

Mrs. Awiggins was the first cat who showed up here.  Obviously someone either left her by the side of the road or she walked here on her own.  She was black and white.  Charm Boy showed up sometime later.  He was black, very charming and a ladies man.  Last I heard he was up at the neighbor's house (another soft touch).  There have been a couple other strays/feral cats who showed up and then didn't show up anymore.  Many generations later because cats breed fast, there are 2 colors of cats here--black or black and white.

You can always tell a Mrs. Awiggins descendant because they have 6 toes like she did.
Charm Boy had 5.

At any time there are about a dozen cats hanging around not catching mice.  When the front door opens they run to me even though they are wild and don't give a hang about me personally (except for what must be Charm Boy's great great great great grandson) but I dole out the food with pleas to catch the freaking mice before they get in the house which they ignore.  They are slacker cats.

I decided to attempt to put together a photo essay of winter images and I enlisted a Mrs. Awiggins descendent to be on the potential cover.

Flash a Freebie

That sounds like putting on a raincoat and going to the nearest park.
Considering we're under a blizzard warning, I'll skip the raincoat and stick with survival clothing.

Flash is indeed free today and for the next 2 days after this so if you don't already have it now is a good time to introduce yourself to Kip Chanin and Alex Milne.

FLASH

The Miller Sisters Anthology

Yes, that's live at Amazon now.  The Miller Sisters.
No, it won't be available elsewhere.  Partially because Bel is on Select right now but just sheer obstinacy on my part.  I can't upload the new cover for In Under My Head to BN and writing to their support "team" hasn't helped.  I don't need the hassle with them.  I wind up spending all my time on computer issues instead of writing.

At some point soon most of us will be using tablets and able to access books from all sites.
Another one of my obvious predictions.

Presents

Presents are nice.  We all like them, probably too much, but still what can top a great surprise present?  I'm looking forward to the Bittersweet Farm Christmas where I will go full-bore festive.  What should Talia give Lockie?  Don't imagine there's going to be a sleigh ride! 

Amazon Montlake gave me the gift of moving Love In The Air up the schedule to next month if I would compromise with them on the changes I requested.  So I said yes.
Sometimes you make the best decision you can at the time, then later circumstances change and you do your best with what's become a bit of a mess.  That's what happened.
It's solved now.

We're having snow, not as much as some parts of the country, but we'll definitely have a white Christmas.  It's iconic.  That's what most people hope for, dream of.  So I rushed out with a candy cane and the Nikon followed by the feral cats who have a tendency to get in every shot where the ground is visible.  Ha!  Skunked you guys this time!

Bad Apple 4 Poll

We have winners!

I can tell you with all confidence that "Other" is indeed what happens to Neal and Tru in Parked.  However, I will confess at one point that I did consider having Jan admit he is in love with Neal and playing that.  I changed my mind although that is in fact true, Jankin does love Neal.

Favorite Christmas Movie

My not favorite list would be long if I watched Christmas movies like The Kranks and the one about the lights competition between neighbors, and Jingle All the Way is it?  Still the one I don't watch is probably most people's  favorite It's a Wonderful Life.  Definitely once was enough.  And anything based on Dickens with the durn ghosts.  I think Mr. Magoo's Christmas did that the best.

My favorite by a nose is probably White Christmas but the editing does have a couple bad cuts and the outdoor sets are so pathetically fake it's not understandable.  There's that one huge production number with Vera Allen called Mandy.  That was a really old song of Irving Berlin's from 1919.  I can't imagine most people even know what a minstrel show is anymore.  I find myself looking at her legs through the entire scene because she looks like a Barbie doll.  She's so thin, she makes Rosemary Clooney, who was normal size at the time, look enormous.  I often wonder where Vera Allen got the energy to dance like that eating what must have been 1 piece of lettuce a day.  I don't like the choreography number.  I don't like the liverwurst and buttermilk scene.  Yet it's one of my favorite movies.  Go figure.

I'm working on another boxed set.  This one Not Low Maintenance, Unspeakably Desirable and Fly Away With Me.  Happily I figured out how to get all the Table of Contentses to coexist peacefully.

Flash Anthology

Because boxed sets appear to readers like a good deal, I'm putting some of the books into sets, or anthologies.  The first to be finished are the Flashes and I added The Missed Wish which I think is a cute novella but everyone seems to miss.

I hope it won't confuse people but I suppose that can't be avoided.  Someone will always be confused and it will probably be me!

Flash Reviews

I'm putting Flash on freebie sometime soon.   If you've read it and haven't left a review,
I encourage you to do so.  More good reviews will make it look worthwhile.

The more people who download Flash, the more people will become aware of the other books and possibly purchase them.  So anything we can do to help Flash will theoretically help Bad Apple.

I put Flash and Flash of Light together in a boxed set/anthology and included The Missed Wish for added value.  It's said anthologies are attractive.  Okay.  It did take a massive amount of time.

The Flashes

Murder and Murderers

For those of your going on the journey of Bad Apple with me know how complicated life can be.  I became an archeologist into the lives of the murderer and the victim in the incident in my life.  I can tell you that even today I'm not sure which is which.

It's not so easily explainable. 

 

New Cover For Flash

I was good with the last one but every once in a while you need to change things up and I have plans for Flash and Flash of Light so a new cover was appropriate.

Like a Yoyo

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,081 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

This is Bad Apple 1 right now.  If you get a couple sales, and I mean a couple, close together then you zoom right up.  But it's a fake because it'll happen to someone else and you drop back down.  You need steady sales.

One of these days it will happen.  I believe it!

I finally have all the computer issues seemingly cured.  Took a new video card.  Now I'm trying to put links in the back of all the books to point to the others.

And Kelly, I think I'm going to use your name in Bittersweet 2.  I'll call the character Keli, though.  I think she'll be like a Victoria's Secret model.  This is true.  If you can think of a spelling--anyone--that makes the name Kelly look unpronounceable leave a message somewhere for me.  The more bizarre the better.

Has this been a weird week for you?  It's been weird for me.

Love In The Air

Once upon a time, I wrote a book about a flying circus and it was published by Avalon.
Then years later Amazon bought Avalon.
By that point I was indie publishing and going under my name, not Robin O'Neill.
So I asked if they would change that and that small change turned out to be a big one
and pushed my book into 2013 after Amazon/Montlake took care of all the easy books that didn't need special treatment.

That was fine.

Today I was notified that the book will be published on Dec. 18 2012.
So fingers crossed that it's under my name!

Update:  Yeah, no.  If I insist on the changes, it's still next year.  They were working from another list.  That's fine, too.

Brownie Camera

Christmasy

It's a wonderful time of year. I'll have to find my DVD of White Christmas and watch that at least once. I need to cut some pine boughs and make a wreath. 

My computer is experiencing some issues so I haven't been writing (collective groan). Parts are arriving tomorrow so hopefully that will solve the problem. Here's a quite nice cover from Puck Magazine 1914.

Happy Chanukah

These are days to celebrate the Miracle of the Lights, when 1 portion of oil for the lamp of the Maccabees lasted 8 days.

This is the prayer said during candlelighting

"We light these lights for the miracles and the wonders, for the redemption and the battles that you made for our forefathers, in those days at this season, through your holy priests. During all eight days of Hanukkah these lights are sacred, and we are not permitted to make ordinary use of them except for to look at them in order to express thanks and praise to Your great Name for Your miracles, Your wonders and Your salvations."

Among the traditions maintained and celebrated during this holiday, there is a dreidel, a top, the children spin.  It has four sides with four Hebrew letters which can be translated to/I understand it as "Great Miracles Happen Here".

No matter what travails we may be experiencing, it can all change unexpectedly for the good in an instant.