Authors, Kai Strand & LA Dragoni

Review – noun a critical article or report, as in a periodical, on a book, play, recital, or the like; critique; evaluation. Reviews don’t have to be wordy. Here’s a review I spotted on Goodreads recently for Holly Black’s new book The Wicked King: Holly Black creates a deliciously wicked world, twisty and dangerous and absolutely fascinating. I loved this. See! In only 16 words, you know how the reader feels about the book. Even if no one ever reads those 16 words, the review helps. The 5 stars the reader gave the book factor in with the 25k+ ratings the book already had to average 4.56 stars (wow, that amazing – perhaps I should add this series on my tbr!) giving a potential reader a strong and fast sense of how readers feel about the book overall. Even critical reviews can help. For example, I mined the reviews of A Cuckoo’s Calling, which I gave 5 stars because I love...

Distraction – Noun the act of distracting. the state of being distracted. mental distress or derangement: That child will drive me to distraction. that which distracts, divides the attention, or prevents concentration: The distractions of the city interfere with my studies. I had an unfortunate week. My step mom died. I got a head cold. I gave a presentation. And I had a new audiobook release. Needless to say I’ve had difficulty concentrating. I was so distracted, I completely forgot about this post. I’m sure readers would be clamoring for my wise words if I didn’t post anything (cough, cough) so I’m throwing this up on the blog as a place setter and to illustrate that even when you work to keep yourself focused on your goals, life – and death – happens. We’ll miss you GrandMad. But we’ve missed you for awhile. I’m so happy to know you are whole again. And on the opposite end of the spectrum (because, seriously, isn’t that typical of life?) here...

Celebrate -verb to observe (a day) or commemorate (an event) with ceremonies or festivities: There are plenty of things to celebrate this week, so I’m just going to take the time to do that! 1.      I Am Me is a finalist in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards. The organizer of this award sends the books out to an age appropriate audience to read and provide feedback. So that means teens somewhere in the UK read I Am Me and scored it high enough for it to place as a finalist. This makes me VERY happy and is most definitely something to celebrate. The award winners are announced on April 1 st (no joke). I can’t imagine I Am Me winning, because, you know - I wrote it. I’m honestly quite happy with the finalist designation. Woo hoo. 2.      A local professor contacted me about doing a presentation at the college. Plus, I’m presenting next week at the local Writers Guild meeting. Believe it or not, I love public speaking. Espec...