Angela Benson's Blog, page 3

Telling Your Tale Boxed Set for Writers (2 Books in 1)

Telling Your Tale: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing Fiction for Print and eBook

Telling Your Tale Workbook: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing Fiction for Print and eBook

Telling Your Tale: The Beginner’s Guide to Writing Fiction for Print and eBook is a 10-week writing class in ONE eBook! The Workbook provides all the worksheets and exercises from Telling Your Tale in a single source, ready for downloading and easy data entry

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New Genesis House Covers

What do you think of my new Genesis House covers?  Should I go with the new look? Should the couple go on the top or bottom?  How do you like the girls on The Amen Sisters?  What about the colors?  Are they bold enough?

 

Cautious Women, Tempting Men

Cautious Women, Tempting Men is the name for the contemporary romance series featuring e-book versions my older Arabesque titles.  Each of the stories in Cautious Women, Tempting Men feature an accomplished woman who is ready and able to handle any challenge that life sends her way until she meets an equally accomplished man who engages her in a battle for her heart.  The first three books in the series are the novella, Friend and Lover, and the full-length novels, and The Way Home.  Bands of Gold, For All Time, and Between the Lines, coming this summer, will complete the series.

In Friend and Lover, Reed Lewis thinks his best friend, Paige Thomas, is engaged to the wrong man, so he (with a little help from his grandmother) devises a holiday ruse to make her see things his way.

In , reporter Kimberla Washington must find the winner of her magazine's Nicest Guy in America contest.  Computer specialist Reggie Williams fits the bill but he's more interested in Kimberla than any contest.

In The Way Home, attorney Marlena Rhodes returns to the hometown where she was never considered good enough for the only boy she ever loved, Winston Taylor. Will the class bigotry and family secrets that kept them apart as teenagers destroy their second chance for a future together?

Courageous Women, Tempting Men is on sale now at most online bookstores. Select here to shop.

N@50: Out of Gas!

As you all know, I was single a lot more years than I've been married.  And as a single woman, there were certain things that I did for safety reasons.  One of those was keeping a tank full of gas.  When I left home for my first job, my mom made me promise two things: 1) keep a tank full of gas, and 2) keep a blanket in the car in case you break down.  I'm sure she gave me other guidelines but I remember those two, probably because they fit with the situation I'm about to share.

My husband doesn't have this obsession with the full tank of gas.  In fact, he will sometimes wait until the gas light comes on before filling up.  This I don't understand.

Our philosophies came to a head yesterday when we had to pick up a colleague from the airport.  Hubby had taken me to the doctor earlier in the day and had commented that he needed to get gas before we left for the airport.  Well, somehow he never got around to doing it.  You can guess the rest of the story.

I was fiddling around on the computer grading papers and the time to leave for the airport sneaked up on me.  In a rush, I got myself together and headed out.  Hubby and I realized as soon as we got in the car that we had not gotten gas.  I suggested stopping at a local gas station before we left town.  Hubby declared that we could make it to the airport.

Though I was anxious about it, he turned out to be right.  We made it to the airport with a little time and very little gas to spare.  So we pulled into a gas station near the airport.  As hubby shut off the ignition, he made that sound he makes when things aren't going right.  Guess what?  He had forgotten his wallet.  Guess what else? I hadn't brought my purse.

So here we are at the gas station with no credit cards and no cash.  Well, I didn't have any cash.  Turns out hubby had $4.50.  So we get $4.50 worth of gas and head to the airport to pick up my colleague.

Our car has a gauge that gives an estimate of how many miles we can get on the remaining gas.  It was close, but the numbers seemed to suggest that we could make it home.   Though my colleague offered to pay for gas for us, we decided to make it home on our fumes.

As we ride down the interstate, I'm watching the miles go down, down, down.  I breathed a sigh of relief when we made it to our exit, knowing my husband would pull into the first gas station and take my colleague up on his offer to pay for gas.

But no.  Hubby decides we can make it to his favorite gas station.  Unfortunately, about this time the mileage gauge reads "****", not a good sign.  So we end up pulling into the next station (not my hubby's favorite) and allowing our colleague to buy $10 worth of gas.

At this point, we are less than two miles from home, so we go by the house, pick up some cash and repay my colleague.  So all is well.

This is not the first time hubby and I have found ourselves with no money, no credit cards and no gas.  It happened once after church.  Fortunately, that time we were in town and stopped at hubby's favorite station.  They know him there so they allowed us to pump and pay later.

So what did we learn from this?  Two things: 1) Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus when he comes to filling up the gas tank, and 2) Keep a $20 bill in the car at all times.

What's embarrassing about this?  Just this week, hubby and I had been stressing to his daughter the importance of keeping gas in the car.

Another embarrassing thing? That colleague that we picked up at the airport was a job candidate.  Talk about making an impression.

 

 

Final Covers

 

 

Pick Your Favorite Covers and Tell Me Why

N@50: Home for the Holidays 2

This post continues my earlier post on how we spent the holidays in 2011.

Our second stop was to rescue my husband's daughter's car from its resting spot on I-94.  Yes, we had to get the car towed.  Nobody knew we were in town until we showed up, along with the tow truck and the car.   We were greeted with happy smiles.

We still had Christmas gifts for his grandchildren to buy so the next couple of days were spent shopping.  My husband found the toys and I found the educational gifts.  I ended up getting the LeapFrog "My Own Laptop" in violet for his granddaughter and in white for his grandson.

One of my husband's sisters invited us to her Christmas dinner, which she held on Christmas Eve so her children and grandchildren could spend Christmas Day at their respective homes.  Hubby went over early in the day to help cook.  When he came to pick me up for dinner, he sorta fell asleep.  For a long time.  By the time he woke up and got back over there with his daughters, all the food was gone and so were the people.  He couldn't believe it and neither could I.  The look on his face when he realized there really was no more food was too funny. I wish I could have captured that look with a camera.  Being the good husband and father he is, he bought his daughters Chinese and gave me the last serving of mac 'n cheese and dressing.  It was delicious!

After dropping off the gifts for the grandchildren the next day, we had Christmas dinner with my husband's older brother.  He cooked, we ate, and then we watched football on TV.  And my husband talked to various relatives who called during the day.  There were a lot of calls!

Since my brother-in-law also has grandchildren, he had a beautifully decorated tree and a family room full of toys.  When we got there one grandchild was banging on a drum set and the other was riding on some kind of cart.  I told my B-i-l he'd regret buying that drum set when his ear drums started hurting.  My husband and his brothers are all very good cooks so we ended up with plenty of leftovers to take back to the hotel.

The next day we spent with my husband's mother.  We don't get to see her as much as we see my mother so I was happy to spend some time with her.  She's a sweet woman who has welcomed me with open arms into her family.

She lives in an assisted living building that I think is perfect for seniors.  Her apartment has a small kitchen area, but the facility also has a dining room where they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Residents can cook for themselves, eat in the dining room or have their meals brought to their rooms.  The good thing is that my mother-in-law has made good friends in the building.  While we were there, one friend brought her over some cake the woman had baked.

The next few days were spent with my husband touching base with various family members and spending some time with his kids.  I went along on some of these visits, but not all of them.

On the day we left for home, we went to visit with his son and his family in Detroit.  This gave us a last visit with them and the grandkids.  Guess whose LeapFrog laptop was out of commission?  The grandson's.

After that stop, we were headed back home.  We drove about five hours to our normal stop at the Holiday Inn Express in Carolton, KY.  Again, we paid with hotel points.

The next morning we began the last eight-hour leg back to Tuscaloosa.  We'd had a great trip but it was good to get back home.

My mom has already planned for us to spend Thanksgiving with her in Atlanta next year so I guess that's what we'll do unless we get an invitation from Michigan.  In that case, we'll have to have a family holiday negotiation session.  Isn't married life wonderful?

50,000 Blessings

The free offer has ended and I'm blessed to announce that there were over 50,000 free downloads of Awakening Mercy.  That's a lot of books and means a lot to me for several reasons.  Following David Letterman's model, I've listed the Top 10 Reasons I'm Blessed by 50,000 Free Downloads of Awakening Mercy.

10.  No trees had to die.

9. I didn't have to store the books in my house.

8.  No postage was required.

7. 50,000 people can no longer say that I've never given them anything.

6. Awakening Mercy has over 90 reviews on Barnes and Noble, the most reviews any of my books have garnered.

5. Awakening Mercy and Abiding Hope now sit prominently on the Multicultural and Christian Romance Bestsellers Lists on Barnes and Noble.  Both books also go on and off the Multicultural Romance Bestseller List on Amazon regularly.

4. Sales for both books have increased.

3. People who have never read an Angela Benson book had a no-cost chance to sample one.

2. I was able to show appreciation to my longtime friends and readers by giving them a free book to read or to share with a friend or loved one.

1.  People have been blessed by reading the books.  Many people have told me via twitter, Facebook, e-mail and reviews how Awakening Mercy and Abiding Hope have blessed them and made a difference in their lives.  There's no higher compliment I could get on my work. This is the best blessing from those free downloads and why it's #1 on my list.

I'd like to share a few of the blessings I've gotten:

E-mail:  I truly just want to say thank you 10 times over for such great,wonderful and inspirational works. It was such a blessing for me to stumble across these books at a time in my life where life and its circumstances can make you question what and who God is.

E-mail: I just wanted to email you and let you know how amazing and life changing your books are. I have read two of them at this point and plan on reading everything you write. The first book I read was awakening mercy, it touched so many places close to my heart. I am a single mother who has been searching for love in all the wrong places. This book gave me hope that there [are] still guys out there that follow in gods direction.

E-mail: I think God guided me into reading your book, so that I too can let go of past hurt and pain. It is not easy forgiving the person you love who have wrongfully hurt you. My prayer is that God gives me the strength to move forward in this new year with the forgiveness in my heart for the person who have hurt, humiliated and used me.

BN Review:  Its more than just a book…I am a 15 year old girl dealing with somewhat stereotypical issues in a not so stereotypical way. My boyfriend and i recently had a rough spell and in the past 3 or 4 years ive grown away from essentially all of my good friends, and in the process, my faith. But after reading this book i have been able to change my outlook on life. This book changed me for the better, i believe it could do so to anyone who read it. It simply an amazing book.

BN Review: This story seemed to come at just the right time for me in my life. There were so many things that the main character CeCe was going through that I was also so our thoughts were the same. This book opened my heart and mind more to God and gives me the faith that I need to continue to work through my problems.

BN Review: This book gives insight on the importance of being led by God's spirit and truly forgiving people when they hurt you. Often times the enemy has us trapped in our own circumstances we are blinded in the fact the others around us are hurting as well, possibly concerning the same situation just a different point of view. This was truly a grreat read!

These readers tell me they were blessed, but I was blessed most of all.  Thanks to each and everyone who downloaded a free copy of Awakening Mercy.  May reading it encourage your heart and empower you to continue your faith journey just as your kind words have done for me.

 

N@50: Home for the Holidays

I could have titled this post, "How I spent my Christmas vacation."

As newlyweds, we're still figuring out how to handle holidays.  In the first two years of our marriage, we spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family.  This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his.

That means Thanksgiving was spent in Atlanta with my mother.  We had a good time.  My mom and my cousin and her husband did most of the cooking, with my husband adding the ham.  I'm not usually called on to bring a dish because I'm not much of  a cook.   Things have only gotten worse since our marriage, since George is a much better cook than I am.

My mom is big on family meals so for Thanksgiving we ate in the dining room and we used the good dishes, or should I say, china. I was given the task of saying the Thanksgiving blessing.  Everybody laughed at me when I was done because I went on so long.  I laughed with them, but I stand by my prayer.  We had a lot to be thankful for and I didn't leave anything out.  My cousin and I both survived breast cancer surgeries, my cousin's husband had been hospitalized for something, my husband's daughter had survived a second brain surgery, the rest of the family was thriving, and everybody was now in good health.  I think all that demanded a long Thanksgiving prayer.

The cousins spent the night at mom's house along with us and we were treated by a visit from my brother from Kansas.  He was without his wife and three daughters this time, since he was on quick trip to take care of his aging father.  My mom was especially grateful to have both her kids under her room for a couple of days.  I should say all three of her kids, since my cousin is like a daughter to her.  We had a lot of fun, laughing and remembering old times, and being grateful for the lives we had.

My husband and I were teased a lot about not getting to places on time.  We have a bad reputation for not arriving at our scheduled time.  When we say we're going to be somewhere on a certain day, our hosts joke that they'll see us the following day.  It's so bad that my mother and cousin debated telling us Thanksgiving dinner was going to be held the day before Thanksgiving.  It didn't come to that though as we arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday just as we said we would.

We spent Christmas with my husband's family.  To be honest, this trip came in the midst of some unwelcome long-distance family drama that I can't rehash on this blog, but that I will certainly explore in a future book.  The good news is that God fixed our hearts so we could overcome the drama.

For our Christmas trip to Michigan, we didn't tell anyone we were coming.  We just got in the car and headed out.  It's about a 13-hour drive so we made our usual overnight stop at the Hampton Inn in Franklin, KY, about five hours from our home.  This spot is a regular for us when we're traveling because we always use Hilton points since it's only 7500 points a night.

After a restful night, we headed out for the remaining eight hours of our trip.  It went blessedly fast, with hubby doing most of the driving.  We arrived in Ann Arbor around 7:30pm.  Our first task was to check-in at the Sheraton Ann Arbor.  Again, we stayed there because we had hotel points.  Our 8-day stay cost us about $25/night.  We were able to get an upgraded room so we had plenty of space, along with a microwave, refrigerator and 42-inch flat panel television.  We were set for the week.

Our second task was to take care of a disabled car stranded on I-94.  No, it wasn't our car.

Since this is getting to be a long post, I'll tell the story of the car and the rest of our trip in a post later this week.

N@50: I’m a Grandma!

Actually, I’m not.  The truth is that my husband is a grandfather, which makes me the wife of a grandfather, not a grandmother.

I’ll bet some of you are wondering why I make the distinction.  Well, it’s because I’m too young to be a grandmother.  Not really.  I make the distinction because as someone married to a man with two adult children, a teenager, two grandchildren and an ex-wife, I’m careful to “stay in my lane.”

My husband’s grandchildren have a grandmother already and I have no desire to usurp that role, or dilute it by staking ownership to the title.  I’m not sure how I’d feel if the roles were reversed.  Would I want my grandchildren calling my ex-husband’s wife, “Grandma?”

At some point, we’re going to have to decide what name the grandchildren use for me, but we have a while for that since they’re still very young.  Maybe they could call me “Angel,” short for Angela.  I sorta like that.  I’m from the South so children addressing adults by their first name is a definite no-no.

What do you think?  How should my husband’s grandchildren address me?  Are any of you in a similar situation?  How have you handled it?