I wanted to thank all of the fans of the Finding My Escape series for your patience while I work on the final book in the series. If you want to check the progress, you can take a look at the top right corner of this blog. I have a confession. I had initially told my readers the book would be finished by the summer of 2014. Unfortunately, I had to push that date back until fall because the story just wasn't gelling for me, and I didn't want to give you, my awesome readers, anything less than my best. The good news is, the story has finally begun to come together, but I have had one more roadblock thrown in my path. You see, my beloved mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 Adenocarcinoma Lung Cancer back in August, so between trips to the doctor, radiation sessions, and all the stress that goes with having a love one who is ill, the writing has been a little bit sporadic. I still hope to finish the book this year, but it may be 2015 before it is actually published. I hope you will bear with me as I work to get you an amazing finale to this series. I will never be able to thank you enough for your support for me and for this series. Keep watching the progress at the top of the page, and I promise to keep you updated!
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We all have three questions that we ask ourselves: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Whether you realize it or not, the answers to these questions determine not just the big decisions you make about what career you want to shoot for or whether to take the promotion – even when you know you’re already sick of the company you work for, but also all the little decisions you make in a day like:
Maybe you’re feeling a little stuck. You’ve been in the same job for years. It pays the bills, but it isn’t really all that fulfilling and you ask yourself if there’s more. Maybe you have a dream inside of you, but you’re afraid to reach for it. Or maybe you just lack the clarity to know what it is you want. What if I told you that the answers are out there? That you can find out who you are, why you are here, and where you are going? My coach, Kary Oberbrunner, has put together an amazing conference the weekend of November 14-15, and I, for one, can’t wait to go. Igniting the Souls promises to help you find the answers, and when you do, you’ll unlock the potential of the world around you. But don’t just listen to me. Click on the link here for the Igniting the Souls Conference and let Kary explain it to you himself. And if you go, look me up. We’ll have a cup of coffee and talk about reaching for the stars. What about you? Where do you struggle with the big questions of life? I really haven’t spent a lot of time blogging lately. The brutal truth is, I haven’t had a lot to say, and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted this blog to be about. You see, I realized the things I was blogging about weren’t really the things I’m passionate about. So I took a short break to figure out what I’m really passionate about. What is it, exactly, that makes me wake up in the morning and drives me through my day. The answer is right in front of my face, and it was there all the time. It’s the one thing that can make me crumble up my to-do list and bump down everything in my list of priorities. It’s the one thing, when I look at a typical day, I find myself doing over and over. It’s what energizes me and makes me go, “yeah, that feels good”. The thing that gets me most psyched, most pumped and leaves me with that “this is what I was made for” feeling is helping other people reach their full potential. Helping them find their WOW Factor. The WOW Factor can be summarized in three simple words: · WORTH – Everyone on this earth has a value, and it’s priceless. Most people just don’t realize it. So many people have been beaten down by life and experiences that they just don’t dare to dream any more. They base their worth on how they think other people perceive them instead of their potential to be everything they can be. They believe the lies that they are only as good as their job or their relationships or their accomplishments. They look at what others have achieved and think “that’s great, but I could never do anything like that”, but they’re wrong. Dead wrong. · OPPORTUNITY – Very few people have the hutzpah to make opportunity for themselves – most just wait for it to come to them. The exceptions are the ones that stand out. Case in point – Rudy Reuttiger, the guy who dared to walk onto the field of Notre Dame University and declare he wanted to play football there. The coaches thought he was a joke. He didn’t even have the academic requirements to get into the school much less make the football team. But Rudy persisted. He attended Holy Cross and kept submitting applications to Notre Dame until he finally got in. He marched onto the football field for tryouts even though everyone told him the most he would accomplish was to be on the practice team. He gave it his all, and he didn’t stop until he reached his goal – to play in an actual game. · WORK – This is where the rubber meets the road, what separates the men from the boys, and the winners from the losers. Achieving your dreams, your purpose, and your meaning takes hard work and lots of it, but how many of us give up when the going gets tough? One of my favorite television programs is Extreme Weight loss with Chris and Heidi Powell. I record the episodes to watch later, then delete them from my DVR. I recently watched one that I couldn’t delete. It was the story of Sara, a Little Person who had been told all her life that “she couldn’t” because of her small stature. I’ve watched EW faithfully, and I’ve seen all the excuses - I’ve made them myself in my own weight loss journey- but not once in that entire show did I see Sara ever make an excuse. She took the opportunity in front of her and embraced it, worked her hardest, and not only achieved everything Chris set out for her to do, but more. Chris challenged Sara to run a half-marathon, but that wasn’t enough for Sara. This plucky little woman insisted on running a full marathon and succeeded. I’m ready to help you find your WOW. It’s there, I promise you – it just may be buried deep inside. So what about you? Are you tired of settling for so-so and ready to go for broke? Do you want to roll up your sleeves and show the world you can? Then join me. Let me know what you think in the comments, and in the next few weeks, we’ll begin to build. Well, it's Virtual Ebook Fair time again, and I have my booth all set up here on Facebook. I don't think I've mentioned it, but I was fortunate enough to have a story selected for the next edition of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Now, the book doesn't officially come out until August, but I happen to have some advanced copies. I'm going to give away one copy to a lucky winner on Sunday, July 27. All you have to do is comment below and then click the Facebook link and comment there. Did I mention I'll autograph it? Watch here and on Facebook for the winning announcement. I'll need to be able to get in touch with you to send you your autographed copy. Happy weekend, and go by the Virtual Ebook Fair and check out some awesome books! I am the queen of excuses...I've got one for every selfish thing I do. Nope, this isn't a gender twist on the DC Talk song IN THE LIGHT, it's just plain ole me, explaining to my fans why I can't seem to get any writing done.
Okay, I could probably come up with a few more, but you get the gist. And now I owe all FINDING MY ESCAPE fans a huge apology. I'd hinted - okay, maybe come out and said outright - that FINDING MY WAY HOME would be available this summer. Unless I can sequester myself in a Tibetan monastery for the next month, I doubt that's happening. I would, however like to finish the book this year. Seriously. This year. So here's where you come in. If you would, look to the right at the little word count widget. As of this moment, it should read 3533 out of 55,000 words. If you don't see that number change every day, post a comment and whine to me. I need some people riding my back. I won't get mad, I promise. I'll pop a milestone blog in from time to time with the new number to watch. This new story promises to be better than the first two. I'll keep you posted. If you’ve been reading this blog very long, you know I’m a YA author with two books published and currently working on the third in the series. You’d think I’d be really excited about this, and the ideas would be rushing through my head so fast I wouldn’t be able to get them all down.
You’d think. Here’s a fact – something I’ve only shared with my nearest and dearest. Come closer so I can whisper it to you. I’m terrified to write this third book. Whew. There. I’ve said it. You don’t know what a relief it is to get that out in the open. I run into local fans all the time who ask me about that third book, and I muster a smile and say, “I’m working on it!” as I try to back away before they can ask me when it will be out. Because at this point, I really can’t say. If it were a simple case of writer’s block, I believe I would have been able to get past it by now. The truth is, I do have ideas. Lots of them. I’m just afraid they aren’t good enough for this third story, which I want to be spectacular, better than the first two, can’t put it down until the end. I can’t pinpoint when this dread began to rear its ugly head, but I believe I can tell you what caused it. You see, I’ve read several YA series in the past several years where the final book in the series just didn’t cut the muster. I’d name them, but I don’t want to disparage a fellow author, but if you’re a YA fan, you probably have an idea which ones I mean. In these series, there were two (or three or four) books in a series that were stellar, building up to a grand finale that just fell flat. Or in the case of one Series Which Shall Not Be Named, left the readers feeling they had completely wasted their time. In fact, I was cautioned about this by a dear beta reader who enjoyed Finding My Escape and found Finding My Way Back even harder to put down. “Fran,” she said, “whatever you do, don’t write the third book as if it’s just a bunch of tying up of loose ends.” I asked her what she meant because there are loose ends that need to be tied up in my third book. I mean the second one ends in a cliff hanger and people keep asking me if Hannah and Matt are going to end up together, and…I’m digressing. So I asked her what she meant, and she replied, “Well, you know…like some of those books where the authors seemed to run out of things to write about.” Yikes. I hadn’t run out of things to say. Had I? I had lots of ideas for book 3, but were they spectacular, better, and not-put-downable? And the fear set in and I did what any respectable writer would do. I made excuses not to write. I worked on my other business, marketed the heck out of the first two books, taught my daughter to drive, played Candy Crush – anything to keep from writing. I finally shared my fears with my dear friend, J. J. DiBenedetto (author of the Dream Series) who told me it didn’t matter if the first draft wasn’t perfect – I just needed to get back to writing. You know what? That was great advice because that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m back to carving out some time every day to work on the story. I even downloaded a mind mapping app to help me get my thoughts sorted out. And the story is shaping up nicely. I still don’t know when it will be ready to go to press, but the important thing is I’m writing again. And that feels good! This is the LAST WEEK to enter the Indie YA Books Selfie Pet contest!. If you haven't done so, yet, now would be a great time to enter your picture. We'll be voting on them beginning June 1, so get your entry in now. Here's the link: http://indieyabooks.com/competition/.
Be sure to enter, and don't forget to tell your friends! Hi, hello and howdy! I am Petunia Parks and I am a cybergirl blogger who loves chocolate, kittens, traveling and shopping! At my site we share pictures, recipes and stories. Here is my Space Needle adventure from last summer.
I was told the weather in July is ideal in Seattle. Upon arriving I found out the “ideal” in western Washington State was cool, overcast and misty rain. I mentally inventoried the contents of my suitcase I realized my first task would be shopping. My visit was starting on a high note. After a morning of looking, trying on and purchasing, I found myself exploring the waterfront in a new outfit and a pair of pumps to die for with a matching purse and belt. Shopping is hungry work, so next I enjoyed sampling the wares at Fisherman’s Warf. The fried calamari was wonderful and the clam chowder was nirvana. Filled to the brim, it was time to visit the location of the 1962 World’s Fair, the Seattle Center. Girls, negotiating the slick city streets in a new pair of pumps is more than a challenge. I have not encountered this steep of streets since San Francisco and every step I was in fear of landing on my ass. After two blocks of the bent knee shuffle, I flagged down a cab! The world famous site has changed in fifty years, but is still a joy to visit. As I wandered to the Space Needle I started to notice that something I ate was not quite agreeing with me. Creamy chowder, heavily buttered sour dough bread and greasy calamari might not have been the perfect choice of menu for touring the sights. At the Needle you have a choice of the restaurant, free, or the observation deck, not free. Feeling food was not the best choice, I decided on the observation platform and when the car arrived a group of us filed inside. In front of me is a large angry biker gently holding the hand of a young woman who babbled on about the history of the fair. Just as the door started to close I felt my stomach give a rumble and that all too familiar pressure start to build in my abdomen. The sweat beadied on my forehead as the car started to rise. The next ten seconds felt like minutes as the vapor demanded exit. Ladies, I used the raised left hip method successfully and the relief was complete as the gas escaped without a sound. For as quiet as it was, it was deadly. I swear you could see a purple haze as the worst stench that had ever left my body filled the car. I feared for my life as the already pissed off biker started to turn. To my great relief he stopped half way around and glared down at a tiny, trembling, blue haired lady. Why she was shaking I had no idea, I mean it was my crime after all. As he stared down, her trembling continued to increase until the concert began. At first it started low but as she tried to retain control the pitch rose. While the poor thing puckered, her backside reached notes a trumpet player would be proud of. Her inconsistent squeezes provided lively melody and I glanced around at the red faces. I know I was not the only one trying to hold back laughter and my breath at the same time. There was a blast at the crescendo and the last of the gas exited with the sound of an emptying balloon. Following the longest forty-three seconds of my life, the doors finally opened. The occupants of the car fell out into the Sky City Restaurant gasping for air. Remaining in the elevator, the little old lady stared at her shoes, no longer trembling. As I watched the doors close, I wondered if she was the only one of us actually going to the restaurant. If you would like to join the fun, please come for a visit at www.petuniaparks.com In honor of my good friend, J. J. DiBenedetto's 7th (you got that right 7th) release, I'm posting a blurb about one of my other fave's - Dream Doctor. I really love all of these books, and this one is no exception. Dream Doctor continues the story of Sara Barnes after she and Brian get married and she attends medical school. There are some awesome twists and turns, but I'll let the book speak for itself with this little taste. Excerpt: I open my eyes, and they’re full of tears. I was – I remember it all, I remember it exactly. I was talking to Janet’s mother. And then she died. Brian is just waking up, and I clutch myself to him. His eyes open slowly, they take a while to focus on me. He sees I’m crying, he sees I’m a mess. I can see in his eyes; he already knows I had a dream. “Margaret died. Just – just now. Just a few minutes ago.” “How do you know?” he asks, but he already knows. “I was with her. I was – I talked to her.” He knows it’s possible. In a way it’s how we met, after all. “She saw you?” I feel myself calming down a little. “Yes. I – I don’t know how to feel. She – she knew. She was – God, she was so brave. She knew, and she wasn’t crying or fighting or anything. And she’s not – not suffering anymore.” But then the real cruelty of what I saw hits me. “It’s - damnit! This is the worst – it’s all unfair, but this is the worst thing.” Brian has no idea what I’m talking about. “It should have been Janet!” He looks at me now as though I’ve completely lost my mind. “Just now! It shouldn’t have been me. If she knew she was going to die, if it was the last time she ever talked to anyone, it should have been Janet. Not me.” Realization dawns on his face – now he gets it. Even though it would make me feel a thousand times better right now, I’m glad Brian doesn’t lie to me and say something like “you might be wrong” or “maybe she’s still alive” or any of that. I know what happened, and he knows that there’s no chance I’m wrong about it. He just holds me, and very gently wipes the tears from my face. And then he asks me the question I’ve been dreading. “Do you think she knows yet?” He doesn’t ask the rest of it, though: if she hasn’t, if they haven’t called her yet, and she’s downstairs waiting for me to walk together to class, what will I do? “I don’t know,” and that’s my answer for both questions. If she doesn’t know, how can I tell her? What can I possibly say? --- Read about J.J.'s writing: www.writingdreams.net What if you could see everyone else's dreams? Find out with the Dream Series! Available at amazon.com orsmashwords Synopsis: During a time of celebration for The Chosen, a mysterious force appears on Phantasma, threatening to destroy Nature and all of her creatures. Will The Chosen find and defeat this force and save Nature before it’s too late? Excerpt: Suddenly, as if someone had cast a freeze spell, everything stopped. As everyone looked around, they saw the shamans and druids gather together nervously and look up at the sky. Everyone else’s eyes focused upwards to see what was going on; chatter and screams could be heard as the sky suddenly darkened out of nowhere. Day became night in an instant. Now in a near panic, everyone shouted out assumptions. “It’s Gastle! He’s back!” “That’s impossible! This must be a new monster.” “Perhaps it’s Gastle’s descendants seeking revenge for his death.” “Or an old enemy trying to replace him on the throne.” “Everyone, please, stay calm,” Striker spoke up. As the head of The Chosen, he normally took command, and it was accepted by those around him. “Let’s try to get some answers before we make assumptions.” He turned to the druids and shamans, who talked animatedly with each other while they pointed to the dark sky. “Red, any idea what this is?” “It’s definitely not Gastle, or any other creature in Phantasma. There’s something off with the elements. Whatever caused this is a natural entity, and comes directly from Nature herself. There is a definite shift, and it’s unbalanced. We can all sense it.” “Any idea what it could be?” “No, but the strongest feelings we received are coming from the North, in the Polard region. We need to go there and see the situation for ourselves.” Halli glanced at Queen Laurali who stood nearby and listened to the conversation between Striker and Red. The queen came toward the group, and Halli knew what she would say. “I know this is a day of great celebration,” the Queen said, “but under the circumstances, I think it would be best if The Chosen headed out at once to seek some answers.” She turned toward the bride and groom. “Halli and Silvor, I will send a replacement healer and mage, of course, so you two can start your honeymoon. Until we know more, there’s no reason for you to cancel your plans.” But Halli and Silvor wouldn’t hear of it. “We go with our family,” Silvor said. Halli nodded in agreement. “We can celebrate our honeymoon once we know what’s happened.” Queen Laurali bowed her respect to them. “Very well,” she said. “The Chosen, in its entirety, will head out right away toward Polard to see what you can find out. You may change in my tower while your horses are prepared.” Coming soon from Amazon Andrea Buginsky is a freelance writer and author. The Chosen, a middle-grade fantasy novelette was her first book, and was followed by My Open Heart, an autobiography about growing up with heart disease. Andrea released Destiny, the first book of her New Avalon series, in 2013. She is currently working on more books in both series. You can find Andrea on her website. Her books are available at Amazon. Remember to sign up for Andrea’s newsletter to stay up-to-date on all of her exciting events. |
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