Edie Ramer's Blog, page 13

Golden!!!!

Giant congratulations to Gabby Douglas! I cheated yesterday and googled her, so already knew she’d won the gold medal for women’s Olympic gymnastics all-around. But it was still a thrill to stay up last night and watch her performance.

I’m so proud of her. She was so perfect. And she was smiling. Often I see the athletes so tense, who don’t seem to be enjoying themselves. It felt as if she enjoyed every second. Here’s a video of her, flying on the uneven bars:

Go Gabby! You made a whole country proud. I hope this is just the beginning of a beautiful life.

I haz icon!

It’s only Wednesday, and I’ve had a busy week. On Monday I had lunch with authors Mary Hughes, Leigh Morgan, Elle J Rossi and Beth Watson. Leigh, Mary and I have been getting together for a few months now. Last month Mary had brought her print copy of BLACK DIAMOND JINN. Leigh and I were impressed, and we decided we wanted to go into print with our books. I’m starting with just one for STARDUST MIRACLE from my new Miracle Interrupted series. Leigh is jumping in with all three of her contemporary romances. While I just recently started my process, Leigh brought all three books to lunch on Monday.

Here’s a peek at Mary’s book and one of Leigh’s:

Don’t they look wonderful? I was also impressed with the icon for Leigh’s company, Pen & Sword Publishing, LLC. After lunch, I contacted my cover artist instead and asked her to add one for my print cover. I love what she came up with. It’s so…cute. It fits my books, and the first time I saw it, I said “Awww.” I always go with the “Awww.” So here it is:

In a week or two, STARDUST MIRACLE should be available in print. I’m eager to post about that!

That’s my news. Last night I watched the US women’s gymnastic Olympic team win the gold. I was thrilled! The women’s gymnasts events are my favorite, and I’m glad I caught it.

So far it’s been a great week. How has your week been going?

Magical Lies

I’m blogging at Magical Musings today about lies we tell ourselves and lies that authors tell to readers. I hope you’ll stop off and read it. (My post on lies was not influenced by the political ads that have been bombarding us. Honest!)

In place of a real blog here, I’m posting a cute cat picture. Totally worth it.

Enjoy your week!

Eating my cake…

lemon curd cake by M.A. Golla

I just read a passionate article that mentioned “having your cake and eating it too.” Immediately, a picture of a cake popped into my mind, my mouth watered and I wondered if I had cake anywhere in the house. (No. Sob.)

The subject the writer was so passionate about whisked right out of my mind. Just cake remained.

Since I have no cake in the house, I had to eat chocolate instead. Afterward, I no longer wanted to read that article, but I remembered it was my blogging day (I typed ‘cake day’ by mistake and had to delete it). My last blog was about the brain. My response to the cake image was proof of how powerful visualization is, even in a book or a movie or an article that has nothing to do with cakes.

On Facebook, a lot of people put up images of sayings. Others put up images of partially naked men. Others their kids. Others cats or dogs.

I pretty much always ‘like’ the cat and dog pictures. I often ‘like’ the children pictures. I sometimes ‘like’ the sayings. Once in a great while, I’ll ‘like’ the pictures of the nearly naked men.

And if there are pictures of cakes…? Actually, not as much as a cat or a dog. I guess it depends on how hungry I am.

What about you? What makes you ‘like’ something?

Brain Principle Six

My sister is visiting, and I asked her to bring a book she was reading: Making Your Mind Magnificent by Steven Campbell. It’s not a big book, but it’s very good. I’m on Brain Principle Six, which says:

“Your own self-talk has as much an affect on your self-image as what others say to you.”

He goes on to say that when we do something stupid, it often brings back all the times we did something else stupid, and we relive these in our minds. Some people continue thinking of all the stupid things they’ve done for years. Sometimes for their entire lives. When we do that, this is what happens:

“The brain records these memories and beliefs as if they were brand new, as if they had just happened!”

But then he says:

“You can override those self-images with new ones.”

That’s as far as I’ve gotten. My self-talk for the day is “I can do it!” And “It’s going to keep on getting better.”

What’s yours?

From novella to book

I finished my Miracle Interrupted novella, Miracle Lane, about a month ago and sent it to my editor. As I was writing it, I thought I had enough plot to make it a book. But I intended it to be a novella from the start, plus I had a date to send it to the editor. And I was already late. So I pulled back on the plot.

I finally heard back from the editor, who said she loves it and it’s amazing … and she thinks it should be a book.

I’m going back to it soon and will probably add on. I have some ideas, but I have to read it again to make a final decision. Right now we have visitors, so I won’t get to it until Friday.

Otherwise, I’ve been taking a few days off. We went to a festival on Saturday evening and had a great time. Yesterday (Sunday), we had a family get-together at our place, and had another great time. (Though no one wanted to compete in the dance contest. Cowards.)

How was your weekend? I hope it was great, too!

Bunheads vs The Closer

I’m cheating on my new favorite TV show, Bunheads. It’s by the creator of Gilmore Girls, an old favorite. But now The Closer is back for the last 5 episodes. I’ve been watching it since it began, and that was one of my must-watch shows for all these years. Since I can watch Bunheads on my computer and my husband watches The Closer and not Bunheads, I’ve opted to watch The Closer with him and then watch Bunheads on my computer. Except it’s been 2 weeks, and so far I’ve skipped the Bunheads episodes. I spend too much time working on my computer to watch an episode on it.

But that will change. I really want to watch the shows I missed. And I will.

What about you? Any shows you missed and want to go back and watch? And in case you don’t know what Bunheads is, here’s a peek:

Positivity

I’m reading Bombshell by Suzanne Somers, and it’s giving me a lot to think of it. She interviews doctors in this book. I’m almost at the end and just read one piece of advice that doesn’t cost a penny: Get rid of the negative people in your life.

I can absolutely say that my writer friends are all positive. Every. Single. One. I’m not talking about sharing occasional doubts or concerns. Because who doesn’t have them? To smile and pretend that the sun is out when hail is pounding on your roof isn’t going to fool you or anyone else. Bad things happen, and when it does, we bitch – like an email I sent to a friend yesterday about a technical problem I was having with an etailer. My subject line read: I hate [etailer name].

But after that initial whine, we sent back and forth a flurry of emails about a non-writing subject we’re both passionate about. I ended up feeling great. And because of our emails, I made positive decisions.

What brought this post on is that another writer friend – a cancer warrior – needed a hip replacement due to radiation from an earlier treatment. She’s young for a hip replacement, but instead of whining, she was looking forward to getting it done so she wouldn’t be in pain anymore. The operation was just yesterday afternoon. Last night, I saw she’d commented on a mutual friend’s Facebook post. I heard from her sister this morning, who said that last night my friend was playing Words with Friends.

Just love it! It’s true that we can’t choose our family but we can choose our friends. And you know what? My friends are absolutely fabulous!

What about you? Do your friends tend to be positive or negative?

Busy Monday

Mercury is in retrograde, and I think the retrograde struck me already last week. It struck Janie Emaus as a great idea for a book, MERCURY IN RETRO LOVE, and she talks about it on Magical Musings. One commenter on that blog (not this one) will have a chance to win a mini-astrology reading by a well-known author. You also have a chance to win Janie’s fun book.

I also have a post on the How To Write Shop with advice from Kallypso Masters on getting your books noticed. She has some great ideas. I hope you check out both posts.

My sister and bil will be visiting later this week, so I’ll be doing more cleaning than I like. Otherwise, I’ll be plotting my new book. What are your plans?

Reruns and heroes

I discovered NCIS on reruns. We have a small TV on our kitchen counter, and I have it on while I prepare meals and clean up. The idea of NCIS never appealed to me, but once I watched a few shows, the characters hooked me.

Lately I’ve been watching reruns of The Mentalist. While I’m not giving it the same love as NCIS (the Red John plot line irritates me), I like the characters. Especially Simon Baker’s character. So when I picked out the hero of my next book, it was a no-brainer that I chose him. I was looking for a blond hero, too. Usually my heroes have dark hair, and I thought blond would be a nice change.

My hero is a little younger than the real Simon Baker (the hero in my next book will be a baby boomer). This is how I picture my hero:

What about you? If you were to choose a hero, what would yours look like?