Chrissy Munder's Blog, page 59

One of the boys of the summer

And what did you accomplish last night?

On one hand, that's two hours of my life I'll never get back. On the other, man, that oven shines!

Celebrating the Anthology - Spontaneous in the Curious Anthology

We've been running hither and yon these last couple of weeks at Chez Munder, but I wanted to stop long enough to share some anthology love. Some readers and authors love them and others can't give them a wide enough berth. I'm of the first camp, and even now it's hard for me to pass by an open anthology call. 


Spontaneous , in the Curious Anthology -Michael Vincent didn't know what to call it when his now ex-boyfriend, Derek, called him boring and predictable and took off leaving Michael with a week off work and his vacation plans in shambles. Rather than sitting around moping, he decides to prove Derek wrong and show him that Michael can do spontaneous as well as the next guy. Unfortunately, Michael's newly changed plans have definitely gone awry. At least until he spies construction worker Eben Bowman from the bed and breakfast's window. Suddenly, being spontaneous isn’t all that hard when Michael is given the right incentive.


Read an excerpt here.

Try the "Save a Life Simulator" - Would you know what to do?

From the website:

Every year thousands of people suffer from sudden cardia arrest. Would you know what to do? Try the Save a Life Simulator" from the HeartRescueNow.com website.

Clare and Chrissy - Real Life - What doesn't kill us....

... gives us something to write about!

A writer's life isn't all margarita's and two-hour foot massages. The seeds of inspiration are found all around us. Watch out! That person sitting beside you on the bus might use you in their next story.

Join us over at Clare London's Blog for the July Edition of The Clare and Chrissy Show.

Kinda funny in the early morning.

At least, six-am, pre-coffee funny.

I was happily downloading another batch of free books for my Kindle courtesy of www.ereaderiq.com, (love that site, really I do!) when I came across this offering: Mike McIntyre's The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America. Wherein the author left his unfufilled life and hitchicked across America without any money, depending solely on the kindess of those he met in his travels.

It sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember why. A Google search reminded me. It wasn't that the book was featured on Oprah, rather it was the news reports pre-July 4th power outage. In this case the fellow claimed to be randomly shot while traveling the country to put together a book on the kindness of strangers.

And people wonder where authors get their ideas. Real Life. You can't make this stuff up.

If we had wanted to go camping...

...We would have. Perhaps, after Wednesday's storm and the resulting 3-1/2 days with no water, power, air conditioning, and over 100 degrees (F) temperatures, we should have. Thank goodness for basements and flashlights.

Now for the clean up! Storm damage repair quotes, and a search for a grocery store outside the affected area. (I know what happened to everything in *my* fridge and freezer). Hmmm, since they took our power down again this morning to continue repairs around the neighborhood I think we'll wait a bit longer to restock.

Here's hoping everyone weathered the 4th with much less drama and far more ice and alcohol.

Be sure to hug the next linesman you see, we did. :)

How many of your Facebook Friends are you really reaching?

Not as many as you might have thought. At least not according to this wonderfully informative blog post by author Jody Hedlund, detailing how Facebook uses a calculation called "EdgeRank" to determine which of our Personal account and Page posts show up on our friends' news feeds.

Here's the kicker - you can PAY to promote the post and have it appear on more feeds.

Are you surprised?

At least I finally have an explaination on why some friends' posts don't show up on my feed, but are visible if I actively search out their account. Silly me, here I just assumed I had missed their post in the never-ending flow of info.

Really, check it out. Jody has written a great post, and has including several links for those who would like to learn more.

Find a penny, pick it up...

...all day long you'll have good luck. How many of us remember this old rhyme? It was a constant when I was growing up. Found money of any demonination was always considered a good thing.

Do you pick up pennies still today? I ask this because I was chatting with a friend and she complained about the pennies she received after buying a soda at a gas station, and told me how she just threw them in the trash as she left the store.

What?

To make sure I heard her correctly, I made her repeat herself. I mean, she didn't even throw the pennies on the ground where people like me might pick them up. She threw them straight into the trash.

Really?

I've heard rumblings of the get rid of the penny groups who all complain that the penny is outdated and a hassle to deal with, and I'm always surprised. Do people truly not like pennies or find pennies a burden? Really? Who has time to worry about these things?

Maybe this is a generational thing? Am I truly getting that old? I mean, I understand that there are entire groups of the population that don't use cash, period. I get that. But throwing your pennies in the trash with disgust?

I can remember learning to count and using pennies as my base. 5 pennies equaled a nickel, 10 pennies equaled a dime, 25 pennies equaled a quarter, 100 pennies equaled a dollar. The power of addition came to life in front of me. How cool was that?

Flush with that knowledge every time I spotted a lone penny in the dirt I picked it up, took it home, and carefully added it to the other pennies in my coin jar. Five of them became six, which became ten, which became twenty-five, which became... you get the idea.

The power of the penny still held me in its thrall when I was older, living on my own, and needed to count my pennies (no pun intended) to make my monthly rent. If I was short for a month, well, I would empty my coin jar and carefully roll my pennies up. Still not enough to cover rent? I would haul a couple of bags of books to the used book store and sell them off. Don't worry, I'd buy them back in better times. If I still hadn't met my number, I would go pick up cans alongside the road and take them to the Golden Goat. (Pre-recycling/can deposits this was a dumpter-type device that crushed cans and spit out cash by weight). Sometimes it was only a few pennies, but when you are .03 cents short on your monthly rent, those 3 pennies become very important.

Luckily, my finances now offer me a little more breathing room. But my love of the penny is still evidenced by each and every dulled bit of copper I pick up, dust off, and put in my pocket.

I didn't attempt to argue with my friend, there's no point. But after we spoke I gathered up my coin jar and headed off to the bank where I turned my latest collection of found pennies into five, twenty-dollar bills and took the family out to dinner.

The only real effort expended? Reaching down and picking the pennies up, one by one.

Clare and Chrissy - There's An App for That!

Chrissy: Hello, and welcome to the June edition of The Clare and Chrissy Show. A big thank you to everyone who came out to cheer us on during both our recent Pride Month Chat over at the Beth Wylde Yahoo Group, and during Clare's recent forays into the Dreamspinner Blog and Facebook chat.

Clare: No matter where we are on the 'net, we always appreciate your support!

Chrissy: Have you had a good time trying out the variety of promo platforms in your web travels?

Clare: It's been interesting. Just when I think I'm on top of things there's a whole new platform to try out or panic over how to use. Not that I panic, of course. *cough*

Chrissy: Of course. Now, if you're a discerning reader of our monthly blog, you might think we are going to smoothly segue into a discussion on online promotion...

Clare: ...which isn't a bad idea. But this month we decided to turn our gaze to an even more interesting aspect of our writing life.

Chrissy: The technology involved in the writing process itself.

Clare: Because just like everything else in life now,

Clare: and Chrissy: There's an App for that! Writing that is. Seems like everywhere we look someone wants to tell us there's a better, smarter way to write. Forget the mousetrap, today it's all about building the better novel.


Chrissy: Some of us may have started our careers with nothing more than good old pen and paper as our tool of choice. Remember the smudges? Especially if we were left-handers. There was no way to hide the tell-tale smears of graphite or ink smeared along our hand, and then everything else we touched by default.

Clare: As we progressed we discovered the joys of typewriters and white-out. Correction tape and carbon paper *surreptitiously wipes hand on jeans*.

Chrissy: You need strong fingers to build up any speed on a manual typewriter. It's a workout in itself. Hmmmm…. I wonder if there's one still in the basement?

Clare: You can have at it. I prefer to get my calorie burn in other ways. *lifts frosty margarita glass* Thankfully, manual gave way to electric, electric gave way to word processors, word processors gave way to computers and the joys of writing software began.

Chrissy: Some of us may prefer the simplicity of a basic word processing program. Cut and paste, drag and drop. With easier ways to create headers and footers, change fonts and margins, and our friend "find and replace", a good word processor is a wonderful tool and one it would be hard to do without.

Clare: *rubbing accountant's hands together in glee* Don't forget a spreadsheet program for plotting, scene outlines, and character detail. Instead of hunting through multiple notebooks studded with sticky notes and a never-ending supply of lists, worksheets are easily searchable, printable, and most importantly, changeable. So much less fumbling than plotting with index cards. And the joy of watching word count grow!! (hopefully)

Chrissy: Like all good technology, writing software has continued to evolve and become more specific. The choices available to an author are pretty impressive, everything from basic text editors to story development tools and combinations of the two.

Clare: Just do a basic Google search and prepare to be amazed. All kinds of options will come up including Scrivener for both Mac and Windows, Liquid Story Binder, WriteItNow, NewNovelist, and MyNovel to name just a few.

Chrissy: They all look so tempting. It's almost as bad as the latest office supply or gardening catalog. How are we supposed to choose?

Clare: Most programs offer a demo version to try out, and there are plenty of review sites out there with a wide range of opinions. But in the end, it seems to come back to personal preference.

Chrissy: *gasp* You mean ...

Clare: Yes, dear. You are going to have to make a decision.

Chrissy: The horror. But before we even get to that dreaded point there are other considerations to be made. Do we want software that's hard drive based or Web? Does everyone tease you your head is always in the clouds? Now your writing can be too, with Google Docs, LitLift, Yarny, and online storage/access programs such as Dropbox. Don't worry if you are away from your office when the muse attacks, just whip out your favorite device and keep typing with the iPad, iPhone, or Android versions of MyWritingSpot. The wealth of options is enough to make me dizzy.

Clare: *coughs*

Chrissy: I am so ignoring you right now. Many programs have free versions, such as ywriter5, Storybook, or Storybox which gives you the choice of using the program for a free, never-ending trial or paying for it if you love it. (pssst. Self-pubbers – check out their TrackerBox software to track sales and import reports from major resellers).

Clare: Now I'm getting dizzy.

Chrissy: Heh. Of course, we can also just keep using Word, but take advantage of add-ins such as Writing Outliner and their corkboard features, or sit back and wait to see what the next advance will be.

Clare: I'm waiting for the brain-to-hard-drive-interface. No more struggling to get the words out, I'm just going to think my next novel.

Chrissy: Suuuuure you are.

Clare: Well, a gal can dream, can't she? :)

Chrissy: After buying software licenses for an entire office, the prices on most of these seem quite reasonable. And I'm more than tempted by a couple of the free versions. The question is, which one?

Clare: Yet another author distracted by the shiny.

Chrissy: I can't help it. I like this bit of one, and that bit of another. I guess I'm waiting for the build-my-own option.

Clare: Just keep on waiting, sweetie.

Clare: and Chrissy: Of course, it doesn't matter how much a program may cost, or the number of bells and whistles it may offer, it won't do any good if we don't sit down and use it.

We want to know what you think (and help us make up our minds). Do you have a favorite writing software? Have you tried any of the software listed, but decided against using them? Is there one you love that isn't listed? Are you excited to do your writing in the cloud, prefer to keep your office supply store in business with your pen and paper purchases, or a combination of all options?

Everyone who comments to this month's post will be entered into our random drawing for free download from either of our backlists. Winner to be announced at our next monthly blog post.

SPECIAL NOTE: We're gearing up for a special "open forum" episode of The Clare and Chrissy Show later this year. Do you have a question about one of our posts? One of our stories? Love or Hate our characters? Interested in our favorite music? Reader's choice! All Clare, all Chrissy, all questions will be answered. But fear not shy soul, no names will be used, only questions.

You have between now and September 2012 to think of a question you'd like answered and email it to chrissymunder@yahoo.com. Be sure to mark which one of us the question is for, and then sit back and get ready to learn all.

Keep Calm picture credit to keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

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May Winner: samikitty - Congratulations! Please email your mailing address to Chrissy at chrissymunder@yahoo.com for your festive Clare and Chrissy Swag.

Missed a month? Follow the sticky post for these rambles of ours HERE

Be sure to catch the latest from Clare London. 3 Sexy Shorts featuring the men of True Colors.



And to learn more about us:


Here's Chrissy! website // blog .