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Huge electrical storm last night! I mean HUGE! The kind of thunder that detonates your heart and freaks out all your pets….panting, whining, pasting themselves to you. And lightning! It was like God went absolutely berserk with a new camera!

Ty and her friend decided crying was the best response…well, certainly after they’d spent the last few hours talking about people and houses being struck by lightning and sizzled to death! Eventually, I got them downstairs, into the room without windows and they settled into Bratz Fairy Tales.

My mum, on the other hand went out on her deck and watched it all like a spectator at a parade. As if this natural phenomenum of power, known to sink ships and destroy lands was on par with the Bag Pipe Band. She said it was better than any fireworks and seemed seconds away from popcorn and a helium balloon. That’s when I left…

…and returned to my panting pooches, who immediately plastered against me again. Sleeping was futile…So, I happily finished off my Maureen Johnson book. By that time the storm had moved on somewhat. There was still a party to be sure, but at least it had moved out of my neighbourhood.

You must check out these two new wonderful reviews!

Mama Bear Reads - “a smashing, break-through hit!”

and

BCF Book Reviews - “colorfully and deeply written”

As a writer, when I read reviews like this, I am so touched and overjoyed. There is nothing greater! And this tour has really been a gift that way. But it has also been a wonderful opportunity to meet great people. Michelle is one of them. She’s “The Boss” over at BCF and we got to know each other after she did the review, which is so cool ’cause she’s in the UK! How awesome is technology, eh? To make friends across the globe with a few pecks on a keyboard!

Anyhow, if you get a chance, head on over to both these sites. BCF’s got tons ‘o book info and a lively forum. And Mama Bear’s got oodles of reviews and she’s ‘chuck full of sassitude!’

K-aloo!

I am taking a little hiatus from the writing life these days to beef up my photography biz, and believe me, it is as much creative work as writing ever dared to be. I think this time of year is fabulous for getting quite a bit of stock work done, cuz i can get outdoors and shoot and stay in the air conditioner to edit.

Summer has been sizzling too, and being outside is quickly being edged out. I hope the fall is dry but cool.

What are you doing this summer?

Episode 7 of the television series ARMY WIVES had nothing outstanding about the episode. Yet it again reminded me of what I perceive as the strengths and weaknesses of the show:

As always, for me, the parts about the men ring true – Pamela’s husband Chase worried that in combat a team member won’t have his back, Roxy’s husband Trevor insisting it is his duty to return to his unit in Iraq.

And it’s always the parts about the women that don’t ring true for me. I continue to find it hard to believe that the wife of the commanding general of the post is such good friends with an enlisted man’s wife.

If you want to get a different perspective on today’s military forces than that of Lifetime’s ARMY WIVES, you can read blogs by active duty personnel and blogs by their spouses. Go to www.milblogging.com to find these blogs. You can search by top 100, recently updated, by gender, etc.

At random I clicked on the category recently added, and this blog title caught my eye – “PTSD, A Soldier’s Perspective” (http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com). The author of the blog is Scott Lee, who is attending the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville. (How ironic, I thought, as MRS. LIEUTENANT takes place at Ft. Knox, which is south of Louisville.)

Here’s Lee’s description of his blog: We tell a soldier or veteran of war “welcome home” because the battle never leaves us, as we return from conflict everyday of our lives. This is my story and struggle with PTSD, it affects every aspect of my life. I want people to know what a combat veteran goes through after the media and people forget.

And later in his mission statement he says: It is my hope that by reading my story the general public will begin to understand the situation that our Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans will face in the coming years.

PTSD, of course, is post-traumatic stress disorder, and it can happen not only to combat veterans but to survivors of natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and other traumas. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs has a website on this disorder at http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/index.jsp

The site includes a guide for military families for when a family member returns from a war zone. Here’s part of the description of this guide:

Reintegration is an adjustment for all involved. This information aims to make this process as smooth as possible and covers:

· A description of the common reactions that occur following deployment to a war zone
· How expectations about homecoming may not be the same for service members and family members
· Ways to talk and listen to one another in order to re-establish trust, closeness and openness
· Information about possible problems to watch out for
· How to offer and find assistance for your loved ones
· What help is available and what it involves

Perhaps the writers of ARMY WIVES could read this guide. Then they might write Roxy’s reaction to Trevor more realistically than they are now doing.

Syndicated from www.mrslieutenant.blogspot.com

Technorati Tags:
Lifetime Television, ARMY WIVES, Mrs. Lieutenant, post-traumatic stress disorder, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, www.milblogging.com, Scott Lee, http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com

Amazon “Top 500 Reviewer” Dr. Cathy Goodwin said in part in her review of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL:

As I read, I was reminded of Rona Jaffe’s classic, The Best of Everything, made into a movie that captured the 50s era career woman.

What Jaffe did for the college graduate in publishing, Miller does for the Vietnam era junior officer’s wife.

I have to admit that I had never heard of the book (which was first published when I was 10) or the 1959 movie based on the book. Of course I clicked on Amazon and bought the book.

The novel starts in 1952, the year I was four, my brother two, and my parents got their first car and their first television. The book’s depiction of all career women as just waiting till they could hook some man and give up their job depressed me. I’m not saying this wasn’t true then, just that it depressed me.

Years ago in Philadelphia at the Norman Rockwell Museum I saw the cover of a Saturday Evening Post illustrated by his artwork. The date of the issue was some time after 1945. And the title of one of the issue’s featured articles announced on the cover went something like this: Now that the men have returned can the girls keep their jobs?

Those words “can the girls keep their jobs” have always haunted me. I had read somewhere that, in the second half of the 1940s, there was a concerted propaganda campaign to get women who’d worked during WWII to return to their places at home.

And this propaganda campaign meant that those of us who were early feminists had to spend the 1970s fighting for our place in the workforce. I won’t repeat here the things I was told as a Mrs. Lieutenant as to why I couldn’t have a job. Or what was said to me in job interviews when I returned to civilian life.

I do know that, when I taught newswriting courses at Temple University Center City in the mid-1970s, I had to first overcome the prejudices of both male and female students towards women. Only then could I get these students to report about women in the same neutral tones that they reported about men.

(I’ll never forget when a front-page Wall Street Journal article, talking about a woman, said “the blond” did such and such. In those days I had quite a collection of newspaper clippings featuring derogatory portrayals of women.)

So while I very much appreciate the good review that Goodwin gave to MRS. LIEUTENANT, I do hope that my portrayal of the wives of four junior army officers in 1970 was not as one-sided as Rona Jaffe’s portrayal of young “career” women in the early 1950s.

Syndicated from www.dogooderscrooge.blogspot.com

Technorati Tags:
Mrs. Lieutenant, Rona Jaffe, The Best of Everything, Norman Rockwell, Cathy Goodwin, Amazon review

I’ve talked about Facebook in several posts – mostly what NOT to do to protect your professional image. Yet there are many things you CAN do on Facebook to help your networking efforts.

I have to admit that at first I didn’t really understand how to effectively use Facebook. But as I l earn more, I understand that the opportunities for networking on Facebook can be quite numerous. (Yet as with most things in life, you have to be willing to give in order to get.)

Examples of two Facebook groups to which I belong
This month I’ve been part of a four-session teleseminar called “The Law of Action 2.0” put on by the BlogSquad (Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff) and Kathleen Gage with an accompanying secret Facebook group that does not show up in profiles.

On this secret Facebook group page are discussion topics connected to the teleseminar course. Here we can ask questions and get answers from each other. And in this spirit of helping, we get and give friend requests from and to others in the group.

I also now belong to the Facebook group Virtual Coffee Dates – which is an open group that anyone can join – started by MaryPat Kavanagh (www.queenofmarketing.com).

This group had a virtual coffee date on Friday — and it was my first time on a Skype IM chat. For me this was an amazing opportunity to “chat” with some very successful women in the internet world. One woman even recognized my name as being in “The Law of Action” Facebook group with her. And another woman on the chat was Mari Smith, whose area of expertise is using Facebook “for fun and profits” (http://whyfacebook.com).

Find groups on Facebook that are of interest to you
If you click on GROUPS under “Applications” on your Facebook account home page, a search engine for groups will pop up. Put in a description of your interest (I just tried bird watching to see how many groups would come up – lots) and you’ll get a list of groups connected to that subject.

Click on each group’s pages to read about the group and then choose a couple of groups to join. Be an active participant in discussion topics (that’s the giving part) and begin to get and make friend invites in the group (the getting part). And you can always drop out of a group if you later decide it’s not right for you.

This is an organic way to start making friends with people of similar interests – and a first step towards utilizing Facebook connections “for fun and profits” as Mari Smith would say.
Syndicated from www.flippingburgersandbeyond.blogspot.com

Technorati Tags:
Flipping Burgers and Beyond, Facebook groups, BlogSquad, Kathleen Gage, www.queenofmarketing.com, http://whyfacebook.com, internships, jobs, careers

Soldiers’ Angels is an organization benefiting U.S. troops that I have previously blogged about. And on my book’s website at www.mrslieutenant.com – in the section on military organizations that support military families – there’s a listing for Solders’ Angels.

So when my husband read in one of the milblogs he follows – www.blackfive.net – the blog post with the title “Soldiers’ Angels Could Use Some Help,” I offered to post again about the organization. You can read the actual post at www.blackfive.net/main/2008/07/soldiers-angels.html. And at www.soldiersangels.org you can read about what Soldiers’ Angels does to support the troops.

To me, the most moving tribute to the work of Soldiers’ Angels is the organization’s motto May No Soldier Go Unloved. There are men and women deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan who get NO mail, NO packages, nothing. Put yourself in their shoes and then you’ll know why this is an important organization to support.

Of course there are many other organization supporting military troops and their families that are very worthwhile. One I recently learned about (and have not yet blogged about) is eMail Our Military. The motto of this organization is Supporting Our Military, One eMail At A Time. Military personnel register and are matched with civilians who have registered to send and show their support.

Besides supporting Soldiers’ Angels NOW, go check out www.mailourmilitary.com.

And remember not to throw away your old cell phones. Donate them to www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com, a project started by two teens.

And as I always say, supporting the troops is not about whether you are for or against the war in Iraq and the fighting in Afghanistan. This is about showing support for the men and women who have voluntarily joined our military forces to defend us.

Syndicated from www.mrslieutenant.blogspot.com

Technorati Tags:
www.SoldiersAngels.org, www.MailOurMilitary.com, www.CellPhonesforSoldiers.com, Mrs. Lieutenant, www.BlackFive.net, Iraq War, Afghanistan

My virtual book tour continues and today Discovery in Passion is featured on The Plot. And tomorrow, The Plot will post an interview I did with the heroine from Discovery in Passion, Cassie Evans. So stop on by and see what she has to say about life in Passion.
http://theplotline.wordpress.com/

Also, I’ve just noticed that my latests release, Seducing the Darkness is now in the 11th place for bestselling dark fantasy on Fictionwise. WOOOO HOOOO!!! It just blows my mind that it’s in 11th place and… in 1st place for Linden Bay’s Bestselling romance on Fictionwise! I couldn’t be happier, well, I could be but let’s not jinx it. LOL http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/lindenbayromancellceBooks.htm?cache
http://www.fictionwise.com/servlet/mw?action=view&template=browsebook.htm&index=0&catid=5&sortby=b.NumberSold&sortorder=ASC&formattype=

Oh, and I’ve just been approved for a sixth book in my Darkness series. Six! Can you believe that?? LOL If you’ve read Seducing you’ll know who I’m talking about. The sixth book is Cooper’s Story. Cooper is Basil’s Butler. I was urged to write a story about him and since the idea was planted in my head I just couldn’t let it go. So I sent the proposal to my editor and she said yes! I just can’t believe how far this series has come. From a stand alone book to six in the series.

Also, I was informed by my publisher that a video is being made for all of my Darkness books and should be released by the time the second book, Desiring the Darkness, is released. I feel like it’s Christmas. I keep getting all these goodies for my Darkness series! LOL And…I’ve been asked to do a radio spot for All Romance Ebooks in August. YIKES!!! Just thinking about it makes my stomach bunch.
I’ll let you all know when I find out more info on the video and the radio spot.

In the mean time, check out The Plot today and tomorrow for my Paranormal romance, Discovery in Passion.

Today is a day of reviews. Two as a matter of fact.

The first one is at Book Bitch. Thank you to Becky who says “The Questory will appeal to Harry Potter and fantasy fans everywhere!”. That’s pretty cool.

The second one is at Fyrefly Books where The Questory is quoted as an “exciting adventure, viscerally entertaining!” Thank you, Nicki!

But it is also a day of cleaning the poop off my deck. For some reason Stogie and Hana think that when it rains they shouldn’t have to go ALL THAT WAY down the stairs to Doggie Doo Graveyard for their business. They seem to hold firmly to my deck as the ‘weather permitting’ alternative. And truly there is nothing I can do. They simply won’t go down the stairs unless I yank them. And that is not fun. So I call and yell and entice them to get down the stairs and Hana, who’s always been more polite, will at least walk to the top of the stairs before she stops with some sort of passive aggressive rigor mortis. Stogie, however, just stares at me like I’m out of my mind and then lays down…still staring at me.

To a certain degree I don’t blame them. Doggie Doo Graveyard is not a very pleasant place. It…well, it stinks for one thing. But don’t dogs like that smell? Is it any different than each others’ butts? Apparently so.

It has also garnered a veritable smorgaspord of weeds, some of which are prickly and can take an unsuspecting anus off guard. And so, yes, I can empathize and even add the clearing of these offensive Doggy Doo graveyard weeds to my list of Things To Do.

Great. Another Thing To Do. I guess I’ll get to it…after I clean the poo off the deck!

Have a grandalicious day!

K

Monday July 21 –

Author, Jim Musgrave, visits with Nikki Leigh on her radio show, Book Promo 101-Write, Publish and Promote. The call in number is Call-in Number: (347) 215-8201. You will have the opportunity to call in and ask questions or use the chat room to submit questions. We will be on air from 4-5 pm. For more information, www.blogtalkradio.com/nikkileigh

Carolyn Howard Johnson shares a review for Jill Lublin’s Get Noticed with us on her review blog - http://thenewbookreview.blogspot.com/2008/07/jill-lublins-wisdom-to-rescue-of-goal.html

Tuesday July 22 –

Author and speaker L Diane Wolfe shares her interview with Jill Lublin on two of her blogs - http://circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com and http://thewritersmeow.deviantart.com

For more information about Jill – visit www.jilllublin.com. For full tour details, visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/06/jill-lublin-author-of-get-noticed-get.html

Nikki Leigh – Author, Publicist and Tour Coordinator

www.nikkileigh.com – Book Promo 101: Learn the Basics of Book Promotion

www.virtualblogtour.blogspot.com – Get more information about virtual blog tours

An Ambiguous Mass
by Cliff Pyke

…An ambiguous mass squawking
no sure idea where they’re walking
no sure idea where they’ve been
in the deafness of their masks
sinking…

…down many hidden destinations linking
impressions in their sand dunes thinking
of disappearing invisible winds inklings’
spoken in cafeterias’ babbling
brand…

…burnt on blank white hot papers’ land
traced by abstractions’ mysterious hand
onto slates of concrete wings heavy girth flying
within your grays’ cloudy ambiguous births’
dyings…

©2007
Written by Cliff Pyke
Thursday, May 17th, 2007