One Reason Amazon Rules the Book Publishing World and an Opportunity for Great Free Reads!

Foul Wind by Kathy McIntosh is a humorous mystery set in wacky North Idaho. Want an opportunity to read it for free? Then read on!

The publishing world keeps changing and Amazon keeps coming up with excellent ideas that are part of that change. One of Amazon's newest publishing ventures is KindleScout, in which the readers act as acquiring editors and pick the titles to be published! I think this is a brilliant idea. Who better to pick books they want to read than the readers? And Amazon came up with a great idea to "pay" those readers, if a title you nominate is bought and published by Amazon, you get that title for FREE when it's published! Woot! 

Plus, it's easy to do. Just head over to KindleScout and sign in with your Amazon account. The site is easy to navigate and each book has a cover, a blurb and the first three chapters for you to peruse. You can only nominate three books at a time and they are only up on KindleScout for 30 days so I usually go to "Ending Soon" first and take a look.

Except when I know the book is something I want to read! Foul Wind by Kathy McIntosh is such a book! Here's the blurb: 

Noses wrinkle in Hancock, Idaho, when a foul wind blows from the new wind turbine at a nearby hog farm. When a blackmailer threatens to reveal secrets about the development and its investors, suspicion falls on Feather Sullivan and her sister, compelling their mother to meddle. Interfering moms on a hog farm get messy—and deadly—fast! When the blackmailer ends up murdered, Feather and a mouth-watering PI seek answers while she tries to keep her snooping mother from becoming another victim.

Just my type of humorous mystery, perfect for an cup of tea and cozy chair afternoon. If it's your cup of tea too, head over to Foul Wind soon as there is only 8 days left to nominate this title!

Dear readers, what do you think of KindleScout? Love it? Hate it? Or?

Happy Halloween--NaNo coming up! EEEK!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This post is going to be quick--I'm alive, I'm alive. And I'm doing NaNoWriMo! Why? Because this year has been crazy and my new book is aching to burst forth ala Alien.

On one of the NaNo threads, someone asked me about healthy edibles during long hours of engorging pages with words. My favorites: plain yogurt with cinnamon, yum, and peanut butter (only a tablespoon or two, max!) with cinnamon--the cinnamon lowers blood pressure (easier to think) and the peanut butter and yogurt are packed with healthy stuff to keep you healthy--add half an apple and you've got great fiber as well to keep you going. Add a couple of cups of green tea with a bit of lemon and you'll live forever--or at least be undead enough to finish NaNo!

Flowing into glorious lives

My Friend Kathy of Well Placed Words dog Mattie, the catahoula hound and my rat terrier puppy Puck, BFF!

The illustration illustrates what I believe we, as writers, should do. Embrace the joy of being what we are. Or, as Kathy said with her own well placed words, "It's supposed to be fun."

Yeah, it is. For most people, writing is not an 8 to 5 job. Not a requirement. So if it's not fun, why do it? I think we all get caught up in writing for the markets, rewriting, editing, selling, re-editing, promoting, blah, blah, blah. Of course, that's part of the creative process too--BUT it's so easy to forget the simple joy of simply creating. And, of course, when I fell so far behind in my entire life, the guilt was great and a glorious excuse and energy suck to not do any thing--even write on my blog! Am I the only one who struggles with these problems?

I suspect not, as was also brought home to me at the Pixie Chicks meeting on Saturday. It's a group of writers of all ages and stages of writing headed by Jane Freund of Freundship Press. All ages and stages, and yet we all struggle with the same blocks to our creativity. (Note: you can join the Pixie Chicks Writers Group on Facebook and participate, even if you don't live in Idaho--although it might be hard to get to the meetings.)

The best is to get into the joyful flow of creating--so how do we do that more often? Readers?

Telling truths, telling lies

Helen of Straight from Hel awarded me the Creative Writer Award a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I've read and enjoyed several other award winners. But it got me to thinking about truth, lies and fiction and where the lines between them all are. Or are there lines? Any boundaries at all? Doesn't a story change as the storyteller changes? Don't we all "tell to our audience"? Even when writing the truth in the form a memoir such as Elizabeth of Sixth in Line, I believe writing or simply telling changes the tale.

Part of that is because truth is so odd, so fantastic, that it must be explained or simplified or something to be enjoyable to read. As proof here are a few truths that read like lies:
1. I graduated from college 3 months after I turned 19, the same year I was supposed to graduate from high school. This created many problems with employment as nobody believed me.
2. I can chew my own toenails (but don't).
3. The photo above is of the first blooming flowers on the original Oregon Trail. The trail is a few feet from my home in a suburb and my great-great grandfather traveled this same trail 150 years ago. This flower is considered a weed by many people because it grows wild.

So, dear readers, what do you think? Am I right about my ideas? Wrong? And what are some of your fantastic truths? Please share.

One Lovely Blog Award

Sandra of My Little Corner presented me with this award a few days ago in her post One Lovely Blog Award. Sandra's site is great for new short story markets and other of interest to writers sites.

The rules are simple:

1) Accept the award and don't forget to post a link back to the awarding person.

2) Pass the award on.

3) Notify the award winners.

And my first rule is say thanks, thank you Sandra! (Anyone who is looking for short story markets NEEDS to visit My Little Corner.)

Passing the award on is difficult only because there are so many great blogs that I follow. Many of them are on my "Blogs I read all the time" list, so check it out, but that needs to be updated (soon, I promise). Please check it out and go to those blogs.

So, in the interests of brevity and because I'm partial I'm awarding this to one blog, to my dear friend Kathy's fun, wonderful and full of great writerly wisdom, blog: Well Placed Words.

Next, what basil has to do with creating.

Awards and Tagged!

Dave of Pics and Poems has kindly given me the four awards you see to the left (after my favorite blogs and the little google ad). Thank you, Dave!

Part of receiving awards is of course passing on the honor. So here are a few of the blogs that I truly enjoy reading and often receive a lot of thought-provoking knowledge from:

http://www.wellplacedwords.blogspot.com/

http://www.swubird.blogspot.com/

http://rebecca-taunton.blogspot.com/

http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/

http://inspireddaybyday.blogspot.com/

There are more, of course, but I tried to pick the blogs that I check, often daily (if I have the time and am not doing NaNoWriMo) because I want to catch every entry. And blogs that are very, very different one from the other, as well. The other blogs listed on the left are also excellent!

So check 'em out for some great reading...

Next post, I got tagged, too!