Monthly Archives: January 2015

Jan 29 2015

Veronica Takes A Quiz and a Half

I found not one but TWO magazine quizzes I wanted to take, but some of the questions didn’t work for me (not being a superstar celebrity. Yet LOL), so it’s only going to be one and a half.

Entertainment Weekly interviewed actor Rainn Wilson of Office and Backstrom.

paul bettany angelStarts off grim: How would you like to die? Mr. W wants to be eaten by wild animals, possibly undomesticated hamsters (okayyyyy)…I vote for being very old, in my sleep, while dreaming a VERY good dream. And there should be angels. Ones that look like Paul Bettany maybe.

The next question is better: Which detective would you most like to partner with? Then a list of TV show mulder scullydetectives is given. He picked Scooby-Doo from their provided list. I was momentarily tempted by Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes or maybe even Magnum PI, but then I decided Mulder and Scully of the X Files. (I tend to be rebellious on these quizzes and color outside the lines.) If was talking about book detectives, give me Ellery Queen. Or maybe Nero Wolfe. Or wait,  Kinsey Milhone from the famous Sue Grafton series! Although for awhile I was addicted to Diane Mott Davidson’s Goldy Schulz.

Moving on, more questions await…..Your most disgusting food vice: I don’t think I have one? Sorry!Wreck-of-the-Nebula-DreamFinalMed

Voice you’d love on your GPS system: Michael Rifflock, the actor who does my science fiction romance audiobooks – he makes my heroes sound very badass and very sexy….

six days seven nightsChoose a (person or thing named) Wilson to be stranded on a desert island with: I was kind of at a loss for this one, didn’t resonate with their list in EW, so I googled “Wilson” and hey, I’ll go with Wilson Sporting Goods, which was the first result. Probably lots of useful survival gear in their stores (I’ve never been to one and this isn’t an endorement.) Best desert island movie, since we’re on the subject – “Six Days Seven Nights.” Harrison Ford was yummy in that one. My family likes to say this character is what Han Solo might have been like as an older guy, flying a charter plane in the Caribbean.

If I had to pick someone named Scott to be stranded on a desert island with…maybe Ridley Scott the director, or Scott Bakula the actor…I guess I figure they’re high profile enough that we’d be rescued soon!

Most Embarrassing TiVo Season Pass: Well you already know I love “Say Yes To The Dress”…but I also watch “Hoarders” sometimes, until I start eyeing my perfectly harmless clutter and getting nervous…

Skipping a few of the EW questions now and moving along to Marie Claire‘s September 2014 issue, where they interviewed Shonda Rimes.

ginger-rogers-fred-astaire-swing-timeFirst dollar I earned: Would have been for babysitting, which I actually hated doing and which gave me a migraine every time because I was so stressed but my mother insisted I needed to do it and eventually I relaxed. Oh, I was twelve. First dollar I earned as an employee was temping for the Arthur Murray Dance Studio as a phone solicitor, filling in for a friend of mine. That was a total disaster. Another migraine. They sent me home and said there was no need to return. My first regular job was at a dry cleaners, where I flourished but ruined my shoulder joints lifting heavy bundles of laundry…and that’s enough about that.

Best Career Advice: My late husband always said the best way to really do well was to work for yourself and I’m finally going to do that, starting March 1st, when I become a fulltime author. Yay!

Early in my career I wish someone had told me: That I wasn’t the “mother” of the organization. Or to put it another way, I didn’t have to joust with every windmill in the bureaucracy. Pick and choose your battles.

I still get nervous when: I have to make a speech, but I get over it as soon as I start talking.   (Ms. Rimes said it was when she pitches new TV shows!)

Under my desk, I store: Well Ms. Rimes doesn’t. She can’t even contemplate the idea. Eyeing my clutter, umm, I plead the 5th.

???????????????????????????????Career Highlight: Becoming a published author. In the day job it was definitely being awarded a NASA Exceptional Service Medal. Ms. Rimes of course has three series going on TV at the moment – now that’s a career highlight of the finest kind!

And now we’re out of questions….until I find the next quiz!

 

 

Jan 28 2015

Wednesday Whimsy – Snow Days

???????????????????????????????Sending lots of good thoughts to everyone currently snowed in or otherwise ???????????????????????????????challenged by the snowstorm on the East Coast (including my relatives in Maine!). I grew up in upstate New York, so I remember big storms and being snowed in. We’d lose our mailbox after the first big storm of the year because the snowplow would push it under a big drift. We wouldn’t see it again till Spring thaw. If we wanted mail, we had to stand in the road around 11AM and try to catch Fred the mailman as he drove by on his rounds. Because, as we all know, snow didn’t stop him. 

I like this Shakespeare quote (partly because he uses the word “kindle”, which of course nowadays brings something else to mind, thanks Amazon): “As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.”

This is a good one too: “The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?”  J. B. Priestley

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Interesting pair of sled dogs the child in the card above has!

I have a feeling this next quote represents more closely how many people in the East may be regarding the event: “A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.” Carl Reiner

“We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.” Walter Scott. Well, ok, I built snowmen and snowwomen but I don’t believe I ever cried when they melted, did you?

And we’ll finish with this: “Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Jan 26 2015

Teaser Tuesday All About Her Work

Tuesday TeaserThe members of the SciFi Romance Group are going to offer up Tuesday Teasers from our various novels…here’s the link for more:

Group link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/the.scifi.romance.group/
#sfrgtt

I’m going to give you a small excerpt from my first SFR, award-winning Wreck of the Nebula Dream (A Sectors SF Romance). Here’s the story:

Loosely inspired by the sinking of the Titanic, but set in the far future, on a spaceliner:

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

And the Teaser:

(Nick is studying his fellow passengers on the shuttle up to the Nebula Dream. This is very early in the novel.)

Wreck-of-the-Nebula-DreamFinalMedBothered by his own painful memories, Nick averted his gaze from the cozy family group, sampling the drink again, crunching an ice cube.

Diagonally across from Nick sat a woman in the sober business suit of a major cit execu­tive. No pain in looking at her, that’s for sure. The lines of her expensive, tailored clothing were softened by the muted shades of blue and cream in the finely woven fabric. Her gleaming golden-brown hair was pulled severely away from the perfect oval of her face, held in an old-fashioned chignon and pinned with tiny iridescent clips. I’d like a chance to take those clips out, let that hair down. Small, rebellious curls escaping from the discipline of the braided chignon and a pair of beautiful, intensely blue eyes under elegantly arching brows contrasted with the overall businesslike impression. Nick had received the full attention of her spectacular eyes only once, in the waiting room at the spaceport, as he stepped past her to stare at the shuttle. There’d been something electric, enig­matic in her glance. Those eyes definitely made a man want to know more. She could project the no-nonsense businesswoman façade extremely well, but those eyes drew a man in anyway. She wore the suit skirt short, accenting long, shapely legs.

Nick was a leg man.

Taking a bigger swallow of the brandy, Nick enjoyed the warmth spreading through his body. Kidding yourself, Jameson. Yeah, she stared at you when you practically fell over her feet, accepted your apology with a grace­ful nod, but there was certainly nothing more to it. Talk about intense! She’s all about her work, even here on the shuttle.

Ostentatiously multitasking on several screens of her miniAI, efficiently using the time, she was shutting out the rest of them, Nick realized. He envied her. Being between assign­ments was an uncomfortable thing. Man, I suck at doing downtime.

Amazon Barnes & Noble  All Romance eBooks iTunes  Google Play   Kobo

Audiobook, narrated by Actor Michael Riffle – Available Now at Amazon and iTunes

Jan 25 2015

We Must Make Haste Weekend Writing Warriors

WeWriWa buttonHere’s the link to the Weekend Writing Warriors central page, so you can visit all the participants sharing excerpts today…A fun way to sample new books and find new writers!

We’re onto a new story of mine, a WIP that still needs a lot of work. Mark, an ex-Special Forces soldier in the Sectors, has been hired by the Outlier Empress to rescue a kidnap victim who’s been taken to the border planet Freemarket, where anything goes and the authorities are usually hands off. Kind of like Las Vegas…he’s broken into the house of  Barent Kliin, the kidnapper, persuaded Alessandra to go with him and fled in a stolen car, pursued by the bad guys and the planetary police. They collided with a cargo hauler…Mark knocked the driver out and assisted Alessandra from their wrecked vehicle, after which the couple flee into the crowded marketplace but are now trapped…(Creative punctuation has occurred):

“The parking garage is probably locked down too.” He couldn’t believe he’d failed on this mission he cared more about than anything he’d ever done for the Sectors. Preoccupied, trying to think of other options for escape, he didn’t notice the small being approaching until it stopped in front of him.

Assessing the sentient’s pointed face and triangular, gray furred ears, the wide yellow flecked eyes, he wasn’t sure what he was dealing with. Nothing he’d encountered previously. Waving his blaster, Mark tried to shoo the being away for its own good.

 Not intimidated, the newcomer clutched his sleeve with four curved claws. “Come with me – I know what you need but you must make haste.”

bright color nebula

 

Jan 21 2015

Parrots for Wednesday Whimsy

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????I picked this subject for today’s whimsy for no other reason than I enjoyed the Victorian trade cards I found when I  went searching in my collection for Wednesday inspiration. The Victorians seemed to utilize the ???????????????????????????????colorful bird in their advertising for all sorts of products.

Here’s a great quote from American humorist Will Rogers:

“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”

I’ve never owned a parrot but I once knew a guy who had inherited a parrot from his greatgrandmother, as I recall. The parrot was really old at the time I “met” it at a party, and had lived through the San Francisco Quake of 1906. Whichever maternal relative my acquaintance had inherited the parrot from, had been engaged as a young woman to a seafaring man, who brought her the parrot and – you guessed it! – the parrot swore like a sailor. I heard that for myself. Apparently the lady was quite genteel and this fiancee thought it was hilarious to have the parrot uttering obscenities in her living room. (No idea if she actually married the guy but she sure kept the parrot LOL.)

???????????????????????????????My only other up close experience with parrots would be the animatronic ones in the ???????????????????????????????Disneyland Tiki Room.

Here’s what Mark Twain thought on the topic: “She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.”

Not specifically about parrots, but I like this quote:

“When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.” E. O. Wilson

Here’s author Eric Jerome Dickey: “It’s impossible to explain creativity. It’s like asking a bird, ‘How do you fly?’ You just do.”

I like this one too: “The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.” Victor Hugo

I think the trade card below was my favorite of all the ones I found…

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Jan 18 2015

We’ll Never Get Out of This Weekend Writing Warriors

WeWriWa buttonHere’s the link to the Weekend Writing Warriors central page, so you can visit all the participants sharing excerpts today…A fun way to sample new books and find new writers!

We’re onto a new story of mine, a WIP that still needs a lot of work. Mark, an ex-Special Forces soldier in the Sectors, has been hired by the Outlier Empress to rescue a kidnap victim who’s been taken to the border planet Freemarket, where anything goes and the authorities are usually hands off. Kind of like Las Vegas…he’s broken into the house of  Barent Kliin, the kidnapper, persuaded Alessandra to go with him and fled in a stolen car, pursued by the bad guys and the planetary police. They collided with a cargo hauler…Mark knocked the driver out and assisted Alessandra from their wrecked vehicle, after which the couple flee into the crowded marketplace…(Creative punctuation has occurred):

“The locals don’t know who the seven hells we are, but being on the run is enough to get us help, like I hoped.” Mark dodged a refreshment cart and cut through an open air dining area. He stopped for a moment next to the food services, so Sandy could catch her breath while they were surrounded by a milling crowd of customers.

She straightened, adjusting the bag’s strap on her shoulder. “There’s another cop.”

“And he’s got friends – Kliin’s mercenaries.”

 Mark drew her behind the line of cooks at the nearest open air grill, where they crouched among the  bins and barrels of foodstuffs as the Kliin guards ran past, accompanied by three policemen.

 “We’ll never get out of this,” she said, breath catching on a sob.

hubble-picture-6

Jan 11 2015

Searching For Us? Weekend Writing Warriors

WeWriWa buttonHere’s the link to the Weekend Writing Warriors central page, so you can visit all the participants sharing excerpts today…A fun way to sample new books and find new writers!

We’re onto a new story of mine, a WIP that still needs a lot of work. Mark, an ex-Special Forces soldier in the Sectors, has been hired by the Outlier Empress to rescue a kidnap victim who’s been taken to the border planet Freemarket, where anything goes and the authorities are usually hands off. Kind of like Las Vegas…he’s broken into the kidnapper’s house, persuaded Alessandra to go with him and fled in a stolen car, pursued by the bad guys and the planetary police. They collided with a cargo hauler…Mark knocked the driver out and assisted Alessandra from their wrecked vehicle, after which the couple flee into the crowded marketplace… I skipped a bit of description. (Creative punctuation has occurred):

As they ducked under a row of baskets to cut into the next aisle, Mark stopped Sandy before she could take another step, “Cop.”

The local policeman was busy talking into a com while he kept up an unblinking surveillance of the marketplace.

“Searching for us?”  she asked, bending over to rub her bruised ankle.

“Probably – and now he’s seen us.” Taking her elbow, Mark pulled her across the narrow space and into the next shop. 

They ran past the vendor and his wide-eyed customers, out the rear door, Their pursuer shouted at them to stop. People flowed into the aisle behind them, blocking the lawman’s progress.

I’ll keep going with this sequence for a few more weeks. You may be surprised how it ends…I know Mark and Sandy are!

heart of rose nebula

Jan 7 2015

One Hundred Years Hence 1880s Steam Style

???????????????????????????????I’ve been saving this little group of late Victorian era trade cards to share with you for the new year – they certainly had a lot of faith in steam power!

???????????????????????????????There was a whole group of these cards up on eBay last year (like the pair above) but I only captured two of them – spirited bidding went beyond my hard limit on the others. I’ll fill out today’s Wednesday Whimsy post with a couple of cards from the same general time, where baking soda was the propulsion! But first a French post card with a charming air taxi of the future (no idea what vintage the postcard may be)…???????????????????????????????

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Jan 4 2015

Maybe We Can Lose Them for Weekend Writing Warriors

WeWriWa buttonHere’s the link to the Weekend Writing Warriors central page, so you can visit all the participants sharing excerpts today…A fun way to sample new books and find new writers!

We’re onto a new story of mine, a WIP that still needs a lot of work. Mark, an ex-Special Forces soldier in the Sectors, has been hired by the Outlier Empress to rescue a kidnap victim who’s been taken to the border planet Freemarket, where anything goes and the authorities are usually hands off. Kind of like Las Vegas…he’s broken into the kidnapper’s house, persuaded Alessandra to go with him and now they’re fleeing in a stolen car, pursued by the bad guys (Kliin is the leader) and the planetary police. Last week they collided with a cargo hauler…Mark knocks the driver out and assists Alessandra from their wrecked vehicle…

            “Now what?” Leaning on the car as he salvaged his kitbag, she scanned their surroundings for an escape route.

            He took her by the elbow. “The independent vendors’ marketplace is this way –  we can try to lose Barent and the local boys he’s hired in there. It’s a maze. The vendors don’t like cops, which might work in our favor.”

They ran down the alley away from the wrecked car and the cargo hauler. 

He glanced back and then ducked under the nearest display, drawing Sandy after him, seeking a shortcut deeper into the convoluted arrangement of stalls.

I might try to get this finished in 2015. I’ll probably do a few weeks of excerpts from this scene, see what you all think…thanks for all the comments on last week’s snippet! and Happy New Year to all, hope 2015 is going well for you so far!

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