Jennifer Shirk's Blog, page 41

How Many Readers are in Your Family?

MOOD STATUS: "Hungry". Been dieting lately. Ugh.
DAYS LEFT ON P90X: 78. Ugh.

For the longest time I was the only reader in the family.
My mom doesn't read.
My hubby won't read.
My kiddo couldn't read.

Depressing, isn't it?

But then my daughter got a fabulous teacher in 2nd grade and now she has become a voracious reader. (Go, kiddo!) In fact, they read different genres each month in her school and she has come to the realization that she loves comedies the best.
Huh. Just like her mama. :)

Kiddo loves Junie B. Jones and Judy Moody but her most recent favorite series that she cannot get enough of is the Dear Dumb Diary series.

Now my hubby was a harder nut to crack. He always felt "he didn't have time to read". **rolling eyes here**
I wanted to point out all the opportunities he did in fact have, but being the good wife that I am, I bit my tongue instead. Then, lo and behold, on Christmas he received not one, but TWO books. I thought to myself, "Oh, brother. This should be good." But he surprised me and actually started reading one of them when we came home from Vermont. He reads when I read now. (I know, isn't that cute?)

This is what he's so actively reading right now: The Wave by Susan Casey. Being a surfer and all, he's LOVING this book about rogue waves and whatnot.









So there you have it. We all are reading now. :)

Now if I could just work on my mom...

What about you? Do you come from a family of readers? Do you try to encourage it? How many readers are there in YOUR family?

Reading in the New Year

IN THE NEWS: Inmate sues the prison officials over rat bitten on his penis. (I'm NOT making this up) Read more HERE.
CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS STILL UP: Red Bells hanging on the lights over the garage. (Hopefully they'll come down today)

Well, since it's Martin Luther King Day--and the hubby and kiddo are home staring me down, I'll make this blog post brief. Briefer than usual...

I just wanted to let you all know that I broke a record (my own record, that is) for the amount of books read in a year. Last year, I read....57 books.

Cue the oooooh aaaaaahs...

Yes, I managed to read a lot. (For me.)
Yet, strangely enough, I have NOT picked up a fiction book yet and we're already half way through January. So what am I reading now? The very first book I decided to christen the new year with is: "We Are Not Alone: The Writer's Guide to Social Media" by Kristen Lamb.
I'm only about 2/3 through it but already I'm wondering where this book has been all my life and more importantly when I first entered onto the Internet. Interesting stuff!

I still hope to break my 57 book record this year despite my slow start. After all, you know what Stephen King says: "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time - or the tools - to write. Simple as that."

Simple as that.

Do you know how many books you read last year? Do you want to read a certain amount this year?

A Little Holiday Extra: I don't know why this video cracks me up, but I never get tired of watching it.

CATS PLAYING PATTY-CAKE

Have a good holiday. :)

Character Names with author Joselyn Vaughn

Hey, all!
Fellow Avalon Books author Joselyn Vaughn is on a blog tour for her new book COURTING SPARKS and my blog is one of her stops! So please give her a hardy commenting welcome and you'll be entered in to win one of her books!
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Naming your characters is like naming your children.

You want them to have just the right name. Sometimes it just comes to you and sometimes you read baby names books until your eyes cross.

With character names, often I will settle on one and it will stick. I can't change it even if I really don't like it. Unless I find the name that works much better. So I do the find and replace in MS Word and get burned because I didn't tell it to change whole words only. I've only done that a handful of times. Oy.

One of my favorite tools for researching names is the Baby Names Wizard. There is a
The book is also great, especially for writers. With each name, it provides a graph, a brief history of the name in pop culture, and sibling names. It mentioned that my daughter's name was referenced in a song about a girl getting whatever she wants and another one about a transvestite. (No wonder it took some convincing to get my husband to like it.)

The sibling names are boy and girl names that would fit in a family. So if you have a son named John, you might like Mark for a brother. In the back of the book, there are a bunch of lists, sorting the names by region, culture, heritage, sound, style, unpopularity, etc.

When trying to pick names for our youngest, we paged and paged through this book. We found a girl's name easily. (It was my second choice for our first daughter when I didn't think I could sell my first choice.) Boy's names on the other hand were awful. We couldn't find the one that was just right. Part of the problem was that I had pulled character names from my baby names list. For a while, we debated about changing Noah's name in Courting Sparks because we both liked it--rare occurrence for a boy's name. Our searching mostly consisted of me reading our names I liked and him repeating them in a way that made it obvious he didn't. Sigh. About a week before the baby was born, we found one that was acceptable to both of us. Then we had a girl. Figures. But now I have a great name for just the right character.

I've found it's much easier to come up character names. I don't have to run them by my husband first. :)
How do you come up with character names?




COURTING SPARKS
Dusting off the ashes of a failed relationship, Daphne Morrow decides she is ready to date again. But when her scorched prom photos are discovered to be the ignition point for a small forest blaze, marking her as the prime suspect for the arson, she finds they're not the only part of her past sparking interest. After a friend's wedding provides a romantic interlude with her longtime friend Noah Banks, Daphne tries to explain away her attraction to him: the atmosphere of the wedding, his resemblance to her ex, his heroic efforts as a volunteer firefighter. Still, their desire just won't sputter out.
When the arsonist strikes much closer to home, Daphne fears she must risk Noah's friendship to find the culprit and clear her name. She'll know their love is real if his interest isn't put out by her need to uncover the truth.

** Click Here to Read An Excerpt **


To Learn More About Joselyn Vaughn and her books:
- Blog -
- Facebook -

CONTEST:
Joselyn will be giving away copies of CEOs Don't Cry and Courting Sparks during her blog tour. The more you comment here and her other blog posts throughout the tour, the better the chance to win!!
For Joseyln's blog tour schedule, click HERE.

Good luck!!

You Look Marvelous?

Hey, all!

I'm over at The PC blog today talking about my mom's NOT so secret "secret".


Stop by if get a chance!

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**Also...this Friday I will be hosting fellow Avalon author, Joselyn Vaughn. She'll be doing a guest blog post for me and hosting a giveaway for her latest Avalon romance COURTING SPARKS.

NEW Year NEW Goals!

MOOD STATUS: "Upbeat". I love to make a list of goals!
FAVORITE CHRISTMAS GIFT: The Griddler by Cuisinart.

Hi, all! Yes, I'm still alive. I just took advantage of a nice loooooong holiday break complete with skiing, eating, sleeping, baking and FUN.

I'm spoiled like that. :)

Anyhew, I missed all of you! Truly! And I hope you all had the very best Christmas and New Years. And speaking of New Years *cough cough* ... it's that time again. (Beyond remembering to change the year on all the new checks you'll be writing)

It's that time of year of resolutions and/or GOALS.

I'm not one to really hop on the bandwagon of New Years resolutions but I do believe it is an inspiring time to take stock of the past year and decide if you want to stay the course or make a change--personally and professionally.

I've been doing some hard thinking (scary, I know) but I've decided to do make a few changes in my own life this year. Want to know what they are? Oh, good! Because I was going to tell you anyway! And here goes...

PERSONAL GOAL:

Last year I made the decision to start running, drink more water and eat more organically. I'm glad I did because I more or less was success the whole year with that.


This year I getting a little nutty--er, aggressive. The hubby and I are doing the P90X workout regime starting...today! I admit, I'm a little nervous about this thing, but the hubby said if I stuck to it and did the whole 90 days he would offer an incentive--meaning new curtains in my dining room and new counters in my kitchen.

That was all I needed to hear. Bring it on!



PROFESSIONAL GOAL:

Last year I had a vague goal of trying to become more disciplined in my writing. Um, yeah. Unfortunately, vague goals are just that. VAGUE. So there was little accomplished on that front. Although I give myself an A for effort. :)


This year I'm getting more aggressive. (For me, anyway)
Some of my critique partners and I will be doing a Book In 3 Months writing challenge in Feb. for a new story I'm plotting. My other goal is finish my manuscript Kissing Kendall. Both books I plan to have done and submitted by the end of the year.

See? A concrete goal. MUCH better.



Woo-hoo! I'm excited for this year already!
How about you?

Have you mapped out any goals for yourself--personally or professionally?
Do you like to make goals for the new year?

(PS, what was your favorite Christmas gift you received?)

The Greatest Gift

This message was in a publication of Focus on the Family from my church.

It's called "The Greatest Gift" by Rachael Carman, and I thought it was a lovely message for Christmas, so I'm posting it here:

"When I was a kid, Christmas was my favorite time of the year for all the wrong reasons. I loved making my wish list. My conversations with friends centered on the gifts we'd receive. And I had an arsenal of manipulative tactics ready to use on my parents. I do not remember a skimpy Christmas.

We had the stuff but not the Savior; we had the tree but not the manager; we had the lights but not the star. We had Christmas without Christ. And although we always had many presents and full stockings, the holiday was empty. His presence was missing.

I wish I could say it was easy for me to transition from a lifetime of wanting stuff to wanting Him. I grew accustomed to getting; I enjoyed being selfish. I did not realize how ugly it was--until my kids started getting old enough to respond to marketing.

This season isn't about extraordinary gifts but about celebrating Christ's birth. It's not about exhausted nights or expensive parties but about His extravagant love. It's not about rushing around but about resting in Him. With his focus, I can celebrate the greatest gift of all time, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God."

Merry Christmas.



See you after the New Year!

A Christmas Eve Party!

MOOD STATUS: "Happy". I have a sore throat that has been nagging me for a few days, but still excited for Christmas!

Guess what? Not only is it Christmas Eve, but there is a Holiday Party going on at The Romance Author Hotspot!

Tons of great authors to meet, prizes, and even a chance to win your very own Kindle!

I'm up for an interview as well and will be giving away an eBook copy of my romantic comedy THE ROLE OF A LIFETIME to some lucky commenter HERE.

You can stop by from today to the 26th.

Drawings for the prizes will be December 27th.

Good luck and Merry Christmas!

The 12 Days of Ebooks (last day!)

It's the LAST day of The 12 Days of Ebooks!

What better way to end these 12 days than with an announcement of a party where you can win free ebooks and even your very own Kindle!

Check it out!

The 12 Days of Ebooks (day 11)

Well, tomorrow is the last day of the 12 Days of Ebooks where we will let you in on a special Holiday Bash going on--lots of eBooks to win and even a Kindle! But today, we have author Katriena Knights who is blogging about her obsession with (and murdering) ereaders. Check it out!

The 12 Days of Ebooks with Diane Craver

Gifts left to buy: ZERO
Gifts left to wrap: ZERO.
(It was too easy and now I feel like I'm forgetting something)

Another day another eBook...

Today, we're spotlighting author Diane Craver. (PS. She's great!)

Check it out!