Rose Anderson's Blog, page 56

Find a Selkie skin and hide it

NEW this week! Have you been searching for a story about Selkies, those beings who slip out of their water skins and transform into beautiful men and women? Did you know if you find a Selkie skin and hide it, you’ll have a most perfect mate?

Come read my newest release Enchanted Skye and discover a story inspired by the very real MacCodrum family of Scotland. The MacCodrums have always maintained they have true Selkie blood. Stop by Amazon and read the Look Inside to read another tidbit of true lore — the legend of the Seven Tears.

I love what research turns up, don’t you?

I’m working on the new book trailer this week. I’ve found that making the blurb into a trailer serves the story well. It sets it up just enough.

Here’s the blurb:

Alexander MacCodrum belongs to a race of shape-shifting sea creatures living on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. When Jenna MacLeod unknowingly adds seven tears to the salt of the sea, she accidentally unleashes an ancient charm that catches the transformed Selkie unawares. Under this binding spell, Alex must win Jenna’s heart, or the pain of unrequited love will drive him to take his own life. Unfortunately for Alex, Jenna hasn’t come to Skye looking for love and it will take the force of a hurricane to bring them together. But worse, Jenna’s violent ex-boyfriend has found her at last and Carl has made it perfectly clear – if he can’t have her, no one can.

Take a peek with Amazon’s Look Inside feature.

http://www.amazon.com/Enchanted-Skye-ebook/dp/B00F0XLF5Q

Did you get your FREE issue of Hidden Desires Magazine? The September issue is available now — 105 pages of romance and more. In it I’m talking love quotes. http://valterramagazines.com/

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100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 90 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

~ Lao Tzu

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Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

For author R. Ann Siracusa’s blog day. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com

And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com , find those falling leaves when you play our September contest. Win all sorts of prizes!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus

Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus

So today, after I shovel out my inbox and send out my new novel news, I’m taking a writer’s holiday.  I’m going to clean my house, cook a slow-cooked dinner, and take my old dog to her first physical therapy session. Tonight I may even watch a movie.

Even deep in my recent pneumonia, I generally put in a 10-hour day writing and promoting. Talking myself into taking a break always comes with an internal argument filled with reasons why I can’t. You cannot stop in this business. Momentum keeps the ball rolling. So I tell myself I’ve earned a non-author day after my book signing, but especially because I’ve just released a new novel. After 2 1/2 years, Enchanted Skye is out. Yay! This Friday there’ll be champagne and cheesecake with friends.

Between tomorrow and then I’ll be busy, on my three other blogs I’ll get ready for two blog hops, make ready the few mini hops I’ll do this week, and take part in another Trifecta too. I’ll create a new book trailer and promote Enchanted Skye wherever I can. I’ll write more of The Changeling 2/3 done now.  And chat with my author community here and there. Just an average week!

Take a peek at my NEW Enchanted Skye with Amazon’s Look Inside feature. http://www.amazon.com/Enchanted-Skye-ebook/dp/B00F0XLF5Q

Speaking of busy…Have you gotten your FREE Romance e-Zine yet? The latest issue of Hidden Desires Magazine is available now! With 105 pages of romance and more, it’s a fun read. My part in this issue is all about love quotes. http://valterramagazines.com/

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100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 91 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:

“Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice, but falling in love with you I had no control over.”

~ Maya Angelou

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Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

For author Nina Pierce’s blog day. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com

And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com , play our September contest and win all sorts of prizes if you find those falling leaves!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Sneak Peek Sunday! & More…

It’s Sneak Peek Sunday!
Today I’m offering another 6 paragraphs from my newest Enchanted Skye.

NEW on Amazon Today!

Fulfilling the dear old woman’s last wishes to return home to the Isle of Skye, Jenna comes to the lighthouse to scatter her grandmother’s ashes. The reverend suggests she put on something warm before they go outside. Her Uncle Angus shares an old family story.

The Peek:

Seeing no need to insist she’d be fine, she said, “Thank you, Uncle. Nana always talked about home as a warm summery place. That was the image I packed for, I’m afraid.”

Angus chuckled. “Aye, well my father used to say it was our Roan blood that makes us pay the cold little mind.”

Jenna shook her head. “Roan? I don’t know what that is.”

He pointed in the direction of the seals on the rocks. “Like those beasties out there. Roans of Ireland share the rocks with the Selkies and the seals. Roans are smaller they say, but just like Selkies, can doff their skins, ye see, and walk the land as men and women.”

Reverend Osmond laughed. “Angus MacLeod, you’ll give the lass nightmares!”

Angus gave her a wizened grin. “It’s said my great-grandmother seven times back was such a woman of the sea. This is why the family stayed on the coast like it has and why Mary Margaret wished to return to it.” He winked at her. “Jenna willna have bad dreams, Reverend. The sea’s in her blood.”

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I’m having my usual busy weekend. Come see!



Scroll down for yesterday’s meme



See today’s post for Weekend Writing Warriors plus yesterday’s Seductive Studs& Sirens

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

Sexy Snippets today plus My Sexy Saturday yesterday http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Normally available for 99¢ and FREE today!

See my part in the Darwin Murders ebook

http://www.amazon.com/The-Darwin-Murders-ebook/dp/B00ENQBI7Q/

And while you’re there, check out my NEW Enchanted Skye with Amazon’s Look Inside feature. http://www.amazon.com/Enchanted-Skye-ebook/dp/B00F0XLF5Q

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100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 92 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:

Scintillating:

1. animated

2. vivacious

3. effervescent

4. witty; brilliantly clever

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Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

For author Samantha Comb’s guest blog. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com

And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com , play our September contest and win all sorts of prizes if you find those falling leaves!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Revisiting the Meme

After yesterday’s post saluting National Be Kind to Writers and Editors Month, I thought I’d revisit a happier topic — memes. Since today is Saturday, and believe it or not, I do have a life outside this writer’s world, my post is a visual example of how memes begin and change as they roll through society. This one began with a favorite painting of mine, the 1942 Edward Hopper dreamscape called Nighthawks. The original sits in the Chicago Art Institute. Here’s the original. See what this iconic artwork inspired in the memes…

Then it gets fun

And my personal favorite

That last one tickles me. I hope they made you smile. 

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100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 93 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:

“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.”

~ James Earl Jones

It’s My Sexy Saturday on my satellite blog

http://Calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

And Seductive Studs & Sirens on my other satellite blog http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

If you enjoy quotes and kisses, read my Quotable Kisses article in the *FREE* issue of   Hidden Desires Magazine e-Zine. Subscribe here: http://www.valterramagazines.com/

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Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

For author Nancy Lee Badger’s guest blog. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com

And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com , a new September contest just started and there are all sorts of prizes Find those falling leaves!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

National Be Kind to Writers & Editors Month

I’ve just learned September is National Be Kind to Writers and Editors Month. Who knew? The observance was established in 1984 by Lone Star Publishing of San Antonio, Texas.  I certainly understand why. At times this publishing world is a rough one. A day doesn’t go by where someone isn’t taking potshots at someone else in this oft-times intolerant society of ours. The media and social media help that fire burn too. It’s no different for authors and their works of art. Create something and you suddenly find yourself in a mean-spirited version of Field of Dreams.

Many many blog posts ago, I wrote about some book reviews I’d seen that just blew me away. Brand new author at the time, I pressed to the wall with the rest of the wallflowers and observed the publishing world prom. I use the prom analogy here because authors get all decked out like a prom-goer does in the hours before the big dance: Books get shiny new covers.  Blurbs have been polished and are meant to entice. The author promotes in every way possible in the hopes they’ll be on the prom court. If they’re lucky, their book takes off and they make prom king or queen. If they’re unlucky, someone comes up and tells them the gown makes them look like the Goodyear blimp and their escort is only taking them to prom because he’s lost a bet.

I recall mean episodes in grade school and high school and some of those memories are sharp-barbed things that stuck to my hide as well as my psyche. Just about every adult remembers things like this. I remember no matter how one tried to fit into the unnatural social strata, there was always someone to tell you you were less somehow. I can look back at comments and actions directed at others or at me (the shy girl) with an adult’s eyes and see them for what they were. They were the manifestation of personal issues had by an antagonist who vented them upon the perceived weaker person. But even if I had known then what I know now, would it have made those comments any less sharp? Would they have stung any less? I don’t think so. 

Every author I know, knows their book will be liked by some and disliked by others. We understand that. We expect it. We all hope for more of the first. Check in on the top authors today,  even novels 100+ years old, and you’ll see critical assessments of the work. All art gets ridiculed because beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. But when did civility break down? When did simply saying “I found the book dragged after chapter three” cease to be enough? Now it would seem the author has to bleed.

When I got into this business nearly three years ago, I read reviews that threw me for a loop. The worst came from one of the review sites my publisher suggested I submit my book to. I was desperate to know what to do back then but also wary. I checked out all the review sites on my list before I submitted my work. This particular site wasn’t recommended any higher than the next, it was just one of several. Unlike the others on that list, it sure as heck was the most insulting. I never did submit there because I came across comments like “This person has no business writing” or “Complete garbage, total waste of time”. Ouch.

At the time I thought those reviews horrible. How wrong I was. Sure they were harsh, nasty even, but horrible better fits what’s out there today. In the short time I’ve been involved in the publishing prom, the attacks have gone from mean assessments of writing style to vicious personal attacks.

I read a post on a blog yesterday regarding bullying. I’d heard about this incident of course, the publishing world isn’t really all that big when you get right down to it. According to the scuttlebutt, a reader actually said the author should be gang-raped in prison for writing her novel. There was also something about her entire family should die.  What?? How could another person’s work of art evoke that kind of response? And here I thought “This person has no business writing” was extreme. I’ve heard some of these attacks are actually author to author and some even come with a posse to help magnify the insult. One author I know says her sales are non-existent because of trashing like this. I heard an author had  series of 1-star reviews on a book that hadn’t even been released yet. I don’t even know what to say about that. The other day an author told me she’s been bullied so much, she can’t even use the name her parents gave her. Her books are written under a pen name now and she fears the bullies will figure it out and attack her there as well. She fears.

So many authors have petitioned Amazon and Goodreads to take a stand against such things yet nothing changes. I don’t care for Goodreads, never have. To me it’s the school playground. The “popular kids” are picking teams and the kids at the bottom of the pecking order can’t play. While there are lesser venues with lesser sales traffic, Amazon is close to being the only game in town for authors to sell their books. Amazon is johnny on the spot to remove tags and likes. These were tools authors once used to be discovered by readers. They won’t even allow an author who reads to leave a review for a book they’ve read. How odd they turn a deaf ear to this stuff. For them to do nothing about inappropriate career-shredding reviews is unconscionable. And that is so wrong.

This all makes me so incredibly sad. I’d like to say this doesn’t matter. I’d like to say not everyone uses the internet so shrug it off and write the best story you can. But I can’t. Art is a personal thing. In every brainchild that becomes a book, authors open their souls for the world to see. Stuff like this hurts. Worse than that, it‘s meant to destroy the careers of strangers. It not only steals income, it shreds self-confidence and diminishes pride.  In other words, it hurts the soul.

Adult eyes can look at this the same way they look at the bullying they witnessed or experienced in their youth. Adults can say the antagonists obviously have personal issues. An adult might even desire to talk out whatever perceived differences there are that make a person react so negatively. But you can’t look your attacker in the eye and ask why they’re doing this to you when they don’t even know you. Most times all you have is their user name. Most attacks are completely anonymous.

How can a reader or a peer say things like she should be gang-raped or her family should die? Is this meant to be funny? I just don’t get how a romance novel could elicit such a terrible reader reaction that would inspire someone to utter such words.  Especially in the Romance Genre! It’s simply a romance novel, that, on some level, just didn’t do it for the reader. That’s all. A novel you didn’t care for is not like witnessing something horrific that turns your stomach. It’s not those incomprehensible images of the Vietnamese man getting his brains blown out or the monk setting himself on fire in protest.  It’s not the sad and volatile issues in Syria, nor the horrific Connecticut shootings or Boston marathon bombings. It’s not a terrible jolt to the senses like watching a tank poised to crush a student in Tiananmen Square.  It’s a romance novel someone didn’t like. Disproportionate reaction, no? 

So for National Be Kind to Writers and Editors Month, give the author in your life a hug. Chances are he or she needs it. It’s a jungle out there and assassins wait in the trees.

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100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 94 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:

Lissome ~

1. pliant.

2. limber.

3. supple.

If you enjoy quotes and kisses, read my Quotable Kisses article in the *FREE* issue of   Hidden Desires Magazine e-Zine. Subscribe here: http://www.valterramagazines.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞
Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

For author Tina Donahue’s blog day. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com

And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com , a new September contest just started and there are all sorts of prizes Find those falling leaves!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Memes Also Bring Smiles

More on memes. I stumbled into the world of memes by accident. I planned on making bookplates as Christmas gifts for my kids and so went looking for pictures that meshed well with their personalities. That’s when I encountered Philosoraptor. Philosoraptor is a velociraptor who ponders life’s tough questions. My mind is such, I find these things hysterical. Not the words themselves, though they bring a smile, rather the fact the dinosaur ponders them. lol Yes I have a wry sense of humor.

My husband and I are always on the lookout for interesting things the other person might enjoy. One Friday he came home from work and told me I should to go on youtube to find a certain video he’d heard about that day — a new meme — Goats Yelling Like Humans. (you might turn your volume down) My farm experience says, yep, they really do sound like this.

Aren’t memes fun? 

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New To Do: 100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 95 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:

Mesmerize ~

1. to hypnotize.

2. to spellbind; fascinate.

3. to compel by fascination.

If you enjoy quotes and kisses, read my Quotable Kisses article in the *FREE* issue of   Hidden Desires Magazine e-Zine. Subscribe here: http://www.valterramagazines.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞
Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

For author Paris Brandon’s blog day. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com

And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com , a new September contest just started and there are all sorts of prizes Find those falling leaves!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

More Musings on Memes

So yesterday I began a topic on memes. Scroll down for a mini definition. Ours is a faster world than when I was a child. No doubts there. I was born twelve years after the onset of the Cold War. If you wanted facts and news you read the newspaper and listened to trusted newsmen-journalists who brought their craft in front of the camera.

Today’s rapid delivery of all things newsie (and otherwise) is a double-edged sword. Sure, we get news fast but the sharp side to that is it’s often so fast, there’s no time to check facts. Odd that this doesn’t seem to matter to the people we used to count on for facts. They preface with “Our sources tell us…” If they have to come back later and retract they will. I won’t mention which media outlet does this consistently, but independent studies have shown they are the largest peddlers of falsehoods out there calling themselves news. They figure out how to make that retraction fit the original statement.

My local newspaper will bury that retraction somewhere where most people won’t see it. I once saw such a retraction at the end of a recipe for squash soup! Now as the first paragraph above will tell you, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know enough about how the world works to know once it’s said, it’s out there. People will believe what they heard first, even if the retraction disproves it. And it doesn’t have to be true.

Memes can be commentaries on the news of the day, small sound bites of news that spread from email to email like a forest fire. But memes can be anything that spreads and morphs in society. Like Darwin’s take on the evolution of species, and Dawkins’ take on the influence of society on topics of the day, environment has its influence. Memes do change in a gigantic version of a childrens’ game of telephone. You just can’t believe everything coming across the internet. No one really threw that baby out with the bathwater.

Check your facts before you forward that email

http://snopes.com/

Personally, I like when memes poke fun at life.  Some are just plain hysterical. I read one the other day that got me thinking of making a few blog posts on the topic. It was a meme called Actual Advice Mallard. There’s no sense to attributing usable advice to a duck but you have to admit it’s a cute idea. Here’s an example of Actual Advice Mallard. Sorry I can’t show you the one that had me laughing out loud. WordPress would shut me down if I posted that one here.

My research into memes uncovered many advice animals. One of my favorites is Lawyer Dog. More memes tomorrow.

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New To Do: 100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 96 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:

If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.

~ Winnie the Pooh

 

It’s my blog day on the RB4U, I’m revisiting an old favorite — juicy quotes. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com

Come see the Hump Day Hook on my satellite blog

http://Calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Come see the Horny Hump Day offering on my other satellite blog http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

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Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com , a new contest just started and there are all sorts of prizes Find those falling leaves!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Musing on Memes

I’ve recently given thought to memes. Meme comes from the Greek word mīmeîsthai which means to imitate or copy. The word was coined by author, ethologist, and evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. Referring to the way genes replicate themselves, he attempted to get people thinking how Darwinian principles extend beyond genes. Darwin saw adaptive changes to species based upon their environment. Dawkins’ meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from one person to the next within a culture. It is also about how ideas replicate and evolve. Interesting.

So I went looking for memes. They’re everywhere. Mostly they’re word of mouth happenings everyone can relate to. Take Grumpy Cat. Tabatha Bundesen of http://www.grumpycats.com/ says that her cat’s permanently grumpy-looking face has to do with feline dwarfism. Add a caption to that and you get this…

 

 

 

More on memes tomorrow.

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New To Do: 100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 97 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

 

 

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Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com a new contest just started and there are all sorts of prizes Find those falling leaves!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The Workingmen’s Holiday

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the late 1700’s when predominantly agrarian and rural culture in Europe and America became industrialized and urban. Before then, most manufacturing was done in the home using basic hand tools and machines such as spinning wheels and looms. With the development of the steam engine, special-purpose machinery was invented and factories and mills went into mass production. There is no doubt industrialization brought volume and variety of manufactured goods into our lives and with them an improved standard of living for many. But then as now in other parts of the world, poor and working-class people toiling behind the scenes faced grim working and living conditions.

At the height of the American Industrial Revolution in the late 1800’s, children as young as 5 toiled alongside adults in factories, mills, and mines across the country. Twelve-hour days and seven-day weeks were the norm. These jobs were mostly filled by the very poor and often their working conditions weren’t safe. Pay was often ridiculously low and children made fractions of pennies compared to their adult coworkers. Worse, basic needs such as access to fresh air, sanitary facilities and breaks rarely came with this employment, but who could complain? Complaints could lose you your much needed job.

Labor unions first made a showing in the late 1700’s. As manufacturing increasingly replaced agriculture and industrialization grew, these unions began organizing strikes and rallies to protest their poor working conditions to compel employers to negotiate reasonable hours and better wages. But there was a problem with the poor protesting for better hours and pay. The poor were disposable and plentiful. If one hundred poor were fired for stirring up trouble, two hundred waited for their jobs. Needless to say, very little improved. The poor continued to work long hours in dangerous conditions and the industrialists grew richer.

Across the United States, people who manufactured created their unions in an attempt to join voices to lobby for better conditions and wages. There were unions such as the Knights of Labor, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, the American Flint Glass Workers’ Union, the International Molders and Foundry Workers Union, even the Cigar Makers’ International Union. Despite the fact they had nothing to do with one another, these few and many more combined forces and became the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada. This organization would later become the American Federation of Labor or AFL. Years later it would merge with the Congress of Industrial Organization or CIO. We know it today as the AFL-CIO – the longest lasting and most influential labor federation in the United States.

So let me back up a bit…May 1, 1886 was declared the date to strike and rally throughout the United States. As the date approached, U.S. labor unions planned a general strike in support of the eight-hour day. Estimates place of the number of striking workers shouting “eight-hour day with no cut in pay!” across the country from 300,000 to half a million. Many of these events turned violent, including the infamous Chicago Haymarket Riot that occurred four days later. Policemen died, insurgents were hanged. Here’s a picture of the Haymarket Martyrs Statue.



My hometown of Chicago played another role. On May 11, 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago went on strike and because Chicago was the hub of rail lines across the country, this crippled railroad traffic nationwide. When you stop to think about the freight being transported along those lines, the impact was staggering. The federal government dispatched troops to Chicago to break the strike and once again riots broke out. It proved one thing however, while Cigar Makers’ International may not have much power to negotiate alone, there was strength in numbers. This is why you might see auto workers striking with schoolteachers. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Congress passed an act making Labor Day a legal holiday.

In my own family history, I had a great uncle Joe, my grandmother’s older brother, who worked in the Indiana coal mines. My great grandfather had passed away and the family desperately needed the income of the older boys. The coal mine was the only game in town. As a young man, a loaded coal car rolled over the top of Uncle Joe’s foot. Knowing such a crippling injury would get him fired, he laced his boot tighter and finished the day. At home that night, my grandmother remembered him sitting at the table in the light of the oil lamps. He removed his boot to see how badly he’d been injured, and all but one toe came off with the sock.  He went back to work the next day, and walked with a limp the rest of his life.

I hope you all enjoy your “workingmen’s holiday” today. And while you’re at it, you can thank the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America for your weekend. These days we have today and take for granted were earned.

Here’s a little more:

http://youtu.be/7Cvofeaj0y0

Become an informed consumer and end the needless misery.

Know who’s actually making the things you buy.

http://stopchildlabor.org/

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New To Do: 100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. There are 98 more entries to come! Here’s one for today:  

Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

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Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

for author Cynthia Arsuaga’s blog day. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com a new contest just started. Find those falling leaves!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Sneak Peek Sunday! & 100 Things Blogging Challenge

It’s Sneak Peek Sunday!
Today I’m offering another 6 paragraphs from my unusual, soon-to-be released The Changeling

Lenox, 10th Earl of Pendry, finds himself heir to a Scottish estate in the lowlands. He has no idea he’s been sent there to keep him safe. The rain necessitates a stop at a local inn where the innkeeper’s wife has just delivered a baby boy. The beautiful blond midwife has caught his eye.

The Peek:

To my surprise he poured me a jigger of whiskey and one for himself, and this he raised to me. “To auld Laird Charlie’s memory, and t’ you sir the new laird. I canna say it’ll be easy fer an outlander at Carterhaugh.”

I had no time to ask what the devil he meant by that, for his freckle-faced daughter came down the stairs, and said, “Papa, Mam’s askin’ fer ye. She says Gran’s worrid ye forgot to count wee Duncan’s fingers an’ toes. But I did t’ be sure Papa. They’re all there. All o’ them.”

I chuckled despite myself.

MacPhee laughed and tossed his glass back. He wheezed, “O’course they are my darlin’ girl! Tha’ just one o’ yer gran’s auld Highland faery stories. An’ this is no’ th’ Highlands. Come here lassie. Watch th’ door an’ call me doon if ye need me.”

A moment later, I had the opportunity to ask the girl an important question. “Penny, the pretty lady that helped bring your brother into the world, do you know her name?”

“Aye, I do sir. Her name is Janet Roxburgh.” Penny looked around, and then to me, whispered, “My gran says Janet’s a true witch.”

>>>oOo<<<

I have a busy weekend. Take a peek!

Sexy Snippets today& My Sexy Saturday yesterday!

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.com/

The Weekend Writer Warriors today &

Seductive Studs & Sirens yesterday!

http://theancillarymuse.com/

Available FREE today!

See my part in the Darwin Murders ebook

http://www.amazon.com/The-Darwin-Murders-ebook/dp/B00ENQBI7Q/

Exquisite Quills Readers & Authors Yahoo Group (NEW)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ExquisiteQuills/

New Today 100 Things Blogging Challenge

For 100 days, I’ll post a little something from my chosen topic of Words & Quotes of Love. As you’ve just seen, my blog page today is full so I’ll not do a huge article for the challenge. I’ll leave you with a promise for 99 more entries on Words & Quotes of Love, and this lovely quote:  

‘Twas not my lips you kissed. But my soul.

~Judy Garland

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Join us today at

Romance Books ’4′ Us

for author Nicole Morgan’s blog day. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com And over on the RB4U website http://romancebooks4us.com a new contest will be starting!

Coming Soon

Something new: Follow my blog with Bloglovin