Please check out

A.J. Spindle. She's a super cool girl who will one day make a fabulous author. In the meantime, she's gathering quite a fan base on her quirky, fun youtube videos at sibi098

www.ajspindle.com

And also see Maggie Stiefvater. She is the author of LAMENT, the sequel BALLAD and her new release, SHIVER (to be followed by LINGER).

http://www.maggiestiefvater.com/

Johnny Gruesome

Johnny Gruesome
Gregory Lamberson
ISBN# 1934755451
ISBN# 9781934755457
Trade Paperback
US $15.95 / CDN $17.95
Horror

http://www.medallionpress.com/blurbs/gruesome.html

I just finished reading this book and, while it is not my usual choice of genre, I really enjoyed it. It's only Lamberson's second published novel and it is very well written, entertaining and to some degree frightening.

Seventeen year old Johnny Grissom isn't exactly a model citizen in the village of Red Hill but he never expected he'd be murded by his closest friends and his girl.

Johnny finds his way back to his body and digs himself out of his grave and takes revenge on everyone who has ever done him wrong.

I won't say too much about it because I don't want to give away any plot points, but I will say if you're in the mood for a good horror novel with vengeful zombie/spirits this is it.

True Blood Season Two

Season two of the hit HBO series True Blood aired Sunday night at 9pm EST. I watched (and re watched and re watched) season one last summer and I fell in love with it. Without the show I might not have found CHarlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, the inspiration for the show.

The books follow Sookie Stackhouse, a vibrant young southern woman. She works as a barmaid at a local joint called Merlotte's, owned by Sam Merlotte, who has been pining after Sookie since the day they met.

Vampires have "come out of the coffin" thanks to the invention of synthetic blood and they are living among us and fighting for their rights as citizens.

The show isn't told by Sookie and so we get to look into the lives of the other characters. The first season was close to the book but season two has gone pretty far off course. None the less, it is a GREAT show.

Eric Northman does not mess around! He takes care of business even while touching up his roots. Now THAT is what a Vampire should be!

Fav Writing Quotes

A couple of my favorites:

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. ~Charles Peguy

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~Elmore Leonard

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov

Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne


Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies. ~Emme Woodhull-Bäche


Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. ~Orson Scott Card


A metaphor is like a simile. ~Author Unknown


The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. ~Mark Twain

Find more great quotes from http://www.quotegarden.com/writing.html

Rules to Live/Write By

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

~William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

I just finished the best book I have read this year; Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. I couldn't put it down from the moment I opened the beautifully illustrated front cover.  

Grace, a pragmatic, strong willed and independent teenager, has watched the wolves from a distance for six years following their attack on her one cold winter's day when she was a girl.  There is one wolf, with sad yellow eyes, that she feels particularly drawn to. 

Sam doesn't just become a boy trapped in wolf skin at the first sign of winters icy chill.  He becomes a wolf, a tortured shell of his human self with wild and unpredictable instincts.  When he finally meets Grace, the girl he's been watching from the woods, he fights to stay human to be with her but winter tugs at his human skin and threatens to take him away from her forever.

The book is told from both Sam and Grace.  The transition is easy to follow and both characters are so unique and strong in their realism that there is no confusion as to who is speaking.

I highly recommend this book, not only to those with a love of the supernatural, but to anyone looking for a good fantasy with a soft romantic element.  (She's working on the sequel now!)

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Press (August 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0545123267
• ISBN-13: 978-0545123266

Stiefvater- Author

Maggie Stiefvater signing ARC's of her new release, Ballad, the sequal to the enchanting novel, Lament.

Check out these books as well as Shiver, a book about a boy who spends winters as a wolf, coming out in August 2009 

Cradle Fables!

Noticing the lack of entertaining books for your toddler?  Want more imaginative stimulation then the red apple?  Come check out Cradle Fables! A New Independant Publisher of quality books for toddlers and preschoolers!

(I know, I should totally work in advertising, right? But seriously, the site is very cute and I love the idea behind it.)

Who They Are: Taken from http://www.cradlefables.com/

Cradle Fables Publishing is a new, independent publisher of children’s picture books.

We are different to other publishing companies, in that our focus is specifically on picture books that are designed to encourage the creative development of under 5’s.

We don’t publish educational books, as the market is already flooded with great books that help toddlers learn numbers, colours and all sorts of interesting things about the world around them.

Our focus is strictly on the under-5 market, because we believe there is already a wide variety of fantastic picture books available for older children. However, we find there to be a definite shortage in the market for simple storytelling that introduces toddlers to the wonderful world of books and sets their imaginations alight.

Freedom Run 2009!

Husband and I went on the Freedom Run 2009(he rode....I drove to the spot where the ride ended with our daughters).  The ride was semi-police escorted, they left the last 400 or so bikers with no escorts, from NJ down West Side highway past ground zero in Manhattan and up to Liberty State Park in Jersey City where the ride ended.

The ride raised donations for the Wounded Warrior Project and was to commemorate those who died in 9-11-2001 and serving our country.  

And teh girls got their faces painted. Two dollars from each went to the WWP.