What’s with this inner Hallmark Channel voice in my writing?!
I feel your pain, every day…
I’ve lost Faulkner and gained a Lifetime movie…
Ugh. I don’t know what has happened to me, but I’m not pleased.
Has my muse changed shape? If so, no offense, but I’d like to go back to the one I had before.
Lately (like for the past year) when I set down to write, one of two things happens:
1) I get so far in the story, and then I decide it isn’t worth pursuing – I lose interest in it.
OR
2) The inner voice in my head that narrates the stories (sounds crazy, I know. Don’t judge!) sounds like some sappy, weird combination of a Hallmark Channel special and a Lifetime movie. Now, to add to the weirdness – I don’t watch either one of those. I don’t read books that have a “lifetime/hallmark” feel to them. Nothing wrong with…
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L.B. Simmons to Release Second Novel
The author of Running on Empty
For those who loved L.B. Simmons’ Running on Empty, or merely want a small taste of her writing before diving into a full novel, comes the novella “Recovery.”
“It reads like a long epilogue to Running on Empty,” Simmons says about her latest book, “Let them know that they will need to read RoE to know what’s going on!”
The back jacket reads…
I have the perfect life.
I’ve finally found my happy ending.
I fought through the loss of one husband, lucky enough to be given a second chance at a lifetime of happiness. Settling into our new lives, however, may not be as easy as it seems.
What really happens after the fairytale ending? What happens after the prince rescues the princess? After he sweeps her off her feet and carries her off into the sunset? Do they truly live happily ever after?
Well…
This is our story.
Even though it
is only 30,000 some odd words in length, both the author and her readers are excited about this new installment and her upcoming book signing tour. Remember that you heard it here first… she will be in the Houston area signing copies of her books in early to mid August at two Half Price Books locations.
L.B. Simmons is a graduate of Texas A&M University and holds a degree in Biomedical Science. She has been a practicing Chemist for the last 11 years. She lives with her husband and three daughters in Texas and writes every chance she gets.
Contact her:
http://www.facebook.com/lbsimmonsauthor – Facebook
http://www.lbsimmons.wordpress.com – Blog
http://www.twitter.com/lbsimmons33 – Twitter
lbsimmons33@gmail.com – Email
Polar Bears Aren’t Really White…
…And other fun facts you learn with your two year old while reading Magic Tree House…
So onward with The Magic Tree House Adventures. We read Ghost Town at Sundown
Then, we moved onto Polar Bears Past Bedtime
Kiddo really loves looking at the pictures of all the animals. From identifying the baby bears to asking me what “those things are on him” hanging off the lion (his testicles), we’ve had a full two weeks learning about different kinds of predators and their environment. She finds Africa vs. the Arctic fascinating and is now able to identify the two places on the map.
Yay for little tiny humans being enormous sponges for knowledge!
You don’t have to be fast. But you’d better be fearless.
Title: Born to Run
Author: Christopher McDougall
Publisher: Vintage Books
Genre: Sports
Length: 282 pages
I love to run. I used to run 3-5 miles a day in college. I loved every minute of it, but I’ve never been very good at it. Fighting an arrhythmia, uncomfortable shoes, and a host of other things that make me tap out at 5 miles even in the best of shape – I’ve always longed to go much farther than my body allows.
Post baby… way post baby… like, she’s old enough that being a mom is no longer any kind of relevant excuse to carry around the extra ten pounds I’ve had on me – I discovered that barefoot running is a thing. How convenient. I grew up in a Kung Fu studio, doing everything barefoot, as a child when running races I was always faster without shoes. Now, finally, someone told me I was allowed to do that. It was ok. After all, Ancient Olympians ran this way.
So I started running again.
Then, someone passed me this book.
And I started LOVING running again.
When you read this book, you can’t help but have a passion for movement while you do. You can’t help but move around. Read it on the treadmill, read it on the Gazelle, read it in the plank position, read it while stretching. You CAN’T read this and just lie in bed or cozy up on the couch. You just can’t.
Instead, it inspires you. You want to go marathon in the woods. You want to register for every Color Run, Tough Mudder, and Spartan Races you can find. Arrhythmia and all, you actually debate sucking it up and running head first into an electric shock obstacle. This book makes you want to be the athlete goddess you used to aspire to… I mean, heck, I used to hold Kung Fu stances for three minutes a piece, run 5 miles, do 100 full body military style pushups, 300 crunches, 300 full sit ups, then go back for more. I have a black belt. A third degree black belt. I need to get back to that lifestyle.
I lost 5 lbs. reading this book. No kidding. And it didn’t even hurt.
“You don’t have to be fast. But you’d better be fearless.” – Born to Run, Christopher McDougall
Thanks for reminding me.
“The heroes of the past are untouchable, protected forever by the fortress door of time – unless some mysterious stranger magically turns up with a key.” – Born to Run, Christopher McDougall… I didn’t realize that one of my heroes of my past was just… me.
Author Spotlight no.244 – John Foxjohn
Oh local Texas authors… how I love them…
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and forty-fourth, is of historical novelist and crime author John Foxjohn. If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/author-spotlights.
John Foxjohn grew up in rural Nacogdoches County, deep in the heart of East Texas and the pine forests. In fact, John often says, he was raised so far out in the country they had to pump sunshine to them. As he grew up, he developed an intense love for reading—a love that would never leave.
Books opened a new world and adventures for John that he imagined being a part of. He wanted to see that world, be a soldier, a cop and a detective, a coach, and yes, he even wanted to write books. When he was twelve, John decided then that he would write a book about Crazy…
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Finder’s Keepers
THE WEEKLY LOW DOWN ON KIDS BOOKS
Title: A Rock is Lively
Author & Illustrator: Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long
Genre: Non-fiction Picture Books/ Children’s
As a child, I collected rocks. I think many children do this… bright, shiny objects with a splash of color are enticing. Small pebbles from river sides are exciting and make you feel like a million bucks when they are so tiny in your own tiny hands. I had a rock tumbler and every little piece of nothing could be made magical. On family vacations I used my pocket money to buy gems and stones native to the area we were visiting. With my sister and cousins, we would go on exploratory rock hunts together. I remember hearing shouts of: Finder’s Keepers!
I have also always adored books, and as an adult I try to find the most awesome of children’s books to share with my daughter. Last week at the library, while I browsed the children’s section of Baldwin Boettcher, I stumbled across A Rock is Lively
Except I will have to return this particular book and go buy a copy.
A Rock is Lively is an excellent introduction to geology – for all ages. My daughter will be three in October and she was riveted by all the colorful detail of gold, amethyst, peridot, and gypsum. The page about how rocks are mixed up and the description of how calcite, sodalite, pyrite, and lazurite becomes Lapis Lazuli excited her. She enjoyed telling me about all the colors she was seeing as I told her what the rocks were called.
Over and over again this week she has brought me the book, “What’s that?” she’ll say as she points to hematite… “What’s that?” she asks as she opens up the two page spread on obsidian. “What’s that?” she wants to know about the geodes…
A Rock is Lively is a must have. We will definitely be finding our own copy to own as well as the other books in the series: An Egg is Quiet, A Seed is Sleepy, and A Butterfly is Patient.
When I’m Not Reading… I still hang out in bookstores…
And I love hanging out in bookstores with Aoristos, Wine, Cheese, and more Aoristos!
Good Books in the Woods of The Woodlands was kind enough to host a wine and cheese tasting while allowing patrons to look over the shoulders of the artist of Aoristos while he drew FREE custom portraits. (There’s a map of the store at the entrance because it’s easy to get lost in the wonderful maze of books.)
At events, Aoristos sells prints: one print for $15, 2 for $25, 3 or more for $10 each.
Marilyn, Anakin, and Artisan… What a lovely combination…
Blue Cheese
HEB has a surprisingly awesome wine selection. Purple Cowboy was the universal favorite of the day by all Good Books in the Woods patrons.
FREE Super Hero Portraits!
Rules, Rules, Rules… are there for a reason.
Title: The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman
Length: 255 pages
People give me crap about it all the time, especially my fellow book clubbers: I won’t watch movies unless I’ve read the book first. There is a reason I keep this rule. A very BIG reason…
It has to do with my brain.
The Princess Bride reminded me why I try so hard to keep this rule, as I’ve seen the movie thousands of times, but find myself now slowly plodding through the book for what may be either the first or second time – I cannot remember.
And the characters on the pages of the book and the ones so steadfastly lodged in my brain from the movie are at constant war with each other. Robin Wright Penn viciously competing for equal stage time with The Bride of Goldman’s original imagination. Summoning up a girl who won’t bathe is extremely difficult when you have the movie raging in full sound, color, and all manners of vivid presentation in your brain. The Sicilian doesn’t quite look like the Sicilian, close but not quite… the Giant doesn’t quite look like the Andre the Giant. My image of Westley is slightly skewed. And Mandy Pantinkin and Inigo Montoya don’t quite jive the way they should, even though I wouldn’t cast Inigo Montoya by anyone but Mandy Pantinkin in a million years.
The movie is flawless and the book is good. But for whatever reason, my brain can make the transition from this is how I imagined it to this is what made it to screen much more smoothly than this is the screen presentation, yet you may imagine it differently.
I keep these rules of book first and movie later with good reason and I do not like my system to be tampered with! Sometimes, though, it cannot be helped. Things like The Princess Bride get introduced to me long before I know it is a book, sadly enough.
So, no, I am not enjoying The Princess Bride, even though it is a great book. I am not enjoying it because I cannot get into it. I cannot get into because the characters are at war with their movie selves… and I keep hearing the voices of Fred Savage and Peter Falk at inappropriate times. My brain likes order, and this has gone against the order of things.
Half Price Books Humble will be discussing this in the store Monday night (June 3rd, 2013) at 7:30 pm. Come join us and add your two cents.
Anakalian Whims 