C.L. Bevill's Blog, page 11

There Ya Go OR There I Go OR There Goes Everyone

Typically I enjoy writing a blog.  In the beginning, as some books are apt to start, I did 3 or 4 a week, which then became twice a week, and then as I got busier with writing novels, once a week.  Occasionally I take a break to recharge, dig up some new funny stories, and believe me funny shizz happens all the time, all I have to do is read the newspaper.

But then other things happen.  We've had a family emergency and I won't be going near a computer for about two weeks, so I'm down for the count (the count of two weeks-ish).  Think of me fondly and remember how much I love to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Death by Papasan OR How All Inanimate Objects in my House are Trying to Kill Me

Recently I complained about a bra.  The bra had a vendetta against me.  I swear.  It broke its little underwire in half and tried to use it as a shiv.  I nearly died.  Well, I didn't really nearly die.  I got pinched, but it was vicious and it hurt.  (Can I just say that no one makes men wear underwires under their...well, you know...)  (If they did, they would have been outlawed.  I'm pretty sure.)  (I could go on a whole diatribe about if men had periods then there would be a five day a month national vacation, but I won't.)

I found a segment on death by bra.  See here.  Underwire bra causes lightning to strike them.  (I told ya so.)

Anyway, death by bra.  It isn't pretty, plus somewhere, some poor woman, or some poor transvestite, has probably died in this very manner.  The coroner was probably too nice to write it on the death certificate, or there wasn't a spot for that manner of death on the certificate because whoever wrote the certificate didn't have an imagination.  I could write a death certificate.  People would be dying to get my death certificates.  (I couldn't help myself.  It just popped out.)

To get back to the point of the blog, which I actually have one this time, I was recently given a papasan chair as a birthday gift.  I will not point out that it was my own idea because that might make me look stupid.  Oh, hell, it was my idea.  After thirty years of birthdays, Christmas's, anniversaries, and other sundry gift giving holiday minutia, HIM has run out of ideas.  Several years ago I started sending him links to things I wanted.  Hey, it makes it easy on HIM and he'll know that the chances are very good that I'll like it.  Then HIM started sending me links to things he wants, but his links are things like specialized rocket building equipment and contains words I cannot even spell, much less pronounce.  (Mine are more exciting.)
This is a perfectly innocent
appearing chair, isn't it?
Haha.  It's not.Last birthday... (we won't mention the age or I might start to cry) I got a papasan chair.  I liked it.  I put it in the corner of my bedroom where I can lounge and read whenever I actually get a free moment.  (Haha.  That happens so often I almost plotzed myself.)  For those of you out there who don't know what a papasan chair is, and who might have missed them at Pier I, and who might have not been alive during the 60s and 70s, see the picture above.  But here's what was really happening:

I will begin the story by saying there is no warning sticker on papasan chairs that says, "You should be careful when sitting on this.  You should not just sit down.  In fact, you might want to take it easy when sitting down."  (I have a vision in my head of backing up with the backup beeping going off while I'm manuevering.  Kind of like a big delivery truck, except fatter.)  I know this because after the fact, I went and looked.  (There was no stinking warning sticker anywhere.)

So completely unknowing and innocent (try not to laugh), one day after getting the papasan chair, I went to sit down in it.  I put my foot up to stick it under my body (which was likely a mistake) and plopped down.  The next thing I know I'm doing a somersault backwards.  The stand is flying in the air.  My feet are pointed toward the ceiling.  The floor lamp in the corner is screaming with agony because I landed on it..

I wish I could say my life flashed before my eyes, but really it was only my toes and the thought that I needed a pedicure.

So the moral of this story is that the saucer part of a papasan chair is NOT connected to the bottom part stand.  And the floor lamp had to be quietly buried in a closed casket ceremony.  It died in a freak trapeze accident while saving the President from Ninja Nazi Hell's Angels.

New Cat Clan Novella

Okay, here it is for those anxiously awaiting another segment of the Cat Clan:


Ula is a wolf shifter who was kidnapped from the northern woods of Manitoba.  Although she was freed from her captivity by the Cat Clan of Colorado, her sister is still missing.  In the frantic moments of the liberation of the weres, she encounters Killian, a cougar were and member of the Cat Clan of Colorado.

Killian has enjoyed his friends' recent entanglements and never thought he would meet his own mate in such desperate conditions.  He knows Ula is the one within minutes but she is urgently intent on finding out what happened to her beloved sister.

Their concurrent journeys lead them to Canada and Paris, where they will do battle to discover truths that might be too unspeakable to comprehend.

Crescent Moon is a novella of about 35,000 words.  It is intended as the third in the Cat Clan series.  The order is Harvest Moon, Blood Moon, and Crescent Moon.

Buy it at Amazon. Buy it at B&N. Buy it at Smashwords.



 
 

Newity Blog

I know.  I'm supposed to come back to blogging, but things happened.  Taxes.  Incorporation.  I'm pretty sure a meteor fell on my house.  I got to working on the novella that's about to come out.  (Next week-ish, provided the Amazon and B&N gods are smiling upon me.)
For all my paranormal fans, next week.
Really, next week.
Except for B&N, who seems
to drag behind.Stuff happened.  You know.  Stuff happens, except I don't usually say "stuff."

Other stuff that happened.

My bra tried to kill me.  I've blogged about underwire bras before.  I know.  But this bra really had it out for me.  It broke in half down at the bottom and tried to impale me.  (Somewhere my sister is saying, "What the f**k are you doing buying an underwire bra?  Didn't we have this f**king conversation before?  Are you f**king stupid?"  Well, yeah.  Has anyone ever tried to buy a larger cup size bra without a stupid underwire in it?  It's either underwire in it or pay for a $100 bra.  Of course, that compels me to illustrate what a $100 bra advertisement would look like.)  (Hold on, this could be ugly.  Or funny.  Or possibly silly.)
That's a bra.I went back to the original blog and winced at the drawings.  It was one of my first and was done before I got a little more accomplished at the whole drawing on the bamboo pad and all.  Looking at the blog makes my eyes hurt.  It also makes me want to go back and redo the whole thing.  Go ahead and look, but don't blame me if your eyes hurt, too.  Here.

Alert.  Abrupt change of subject.  I'm going from murderous bras to canny squirrels.  (Try to keep up.  Drink some more coffee.)

Recently, a very intrepid squirrel has discovered the bird feeder.  By doing an upside-down flip, she attains the feeder, sits in it, and chows to her little heart's content.  HIM took exception and broke out the bb gun.  (Which is probably illegal.  Don't tell my neighbors.  They already don't like us because we tried to build a tree house in the side yard.)
Do you think Elmer ever
really bagged anything, ever?Whenever I think of HIM with a weapon, even a bb gun, I think of HIM at my in law's remote camp property in Northern Louisiana, hunting rabbits in the dark with a pistol and a flashlight.  (Also illegal and probably immoral, but don't fret, HIM didn't get one.  HIM's brother and I were about ten to fifteen feet behind HIM, imitating Elmer Fudd and giggling.  "Be verrrry, verrrrry quiet.  We are hunting wabbits."  *followed by helpless giggles.*)  (Yes.  We followed HIM around in the dark while he was holding a loaded pistol and a flashlight, hunting wabbits.  We have never let HIM forget it.  This was almost thirty years ago.)  Anyway, the point to this story is not that HIM capped a squirrel in our backyard with a bb gun.  No.  That would be the easy end to the story.  In fact, what really happened is that the squirrel learned that when the window gets opened, one gets the hell out of Dodge.  Smart squirrel.  HIM = zip.  Squirrel = 1.
I know.  This isn't really what happened.
But it should have.When we lived in the Dallas area (whoops, another subject change) there were albino squirrels running around.  It was really weird to see a white furred squirrel prancing up and down a yard.  Why do I bring this up?  I do not know.  It just popped into my head and my fingers were on the keyboard, which is often how things happen when I write.  (For the critics, you can now mutter, "I knew it".)

And I didn't really want to go looking for a photo of an albino squirrel, so I used Super Squirrel instead.  (There's a good, i.e., bad, line in there about needing to save his nuts, but I won't use it.)

Subject change again!  Here.

Now I'm trying to get all my tax papers together.  This is not easy.  Apparently I have lots of receipts and I don't want the CPA to kick me to the curb for next year.  Also I had to learn all about writing up 1099-misc's.  Does anyone but a CPA and an employee of the IRS know what a 1099-misc is?
Okay, I stuck the picture of the albino squirrel
in there anyway.  I was told that
it wasn't really an albino squirrel if
it had black eyes.  This one has
red eyes or the camera was unkind
to it.  Personally I did not stop to look
at the eyes of the albino squirrels in the Dallas area,
so I don't really know if they were
"authentic" albino squirrels or not.
Maybe they had a really good dye job.Finally a personal note to the individual who complained in a review about Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note that I had the character feed Precious grapes.  Grapes are very not good for dogs.  I did not know this and will remove the grape line from the book, lest I encourage any Basset hound owning individuals to feed their dogs grapes.  (This means don't feed your dogs grapes.  Or raisins.  Very bad for them.)  Apologies.

In conclusion.  Stuff happens and don't feed your albino squirrels dogs grapes.  I'm back.  It's good to be the blogger. 

I Have a Breakout Book on Apple's iBookstore

Wonderful news for 2013!
Disembodied Bones has made Apple's iBookstore's Breakout Book list!  It's not a best seller but hey Apple likes me.  They really, really like me.  (Sally Field, eat your heart out.)

If you know someone with an iPhone or an iPad, then direct them here.  iTunes Books.

Learn more about Breakout Books at Smashwords' blog here.

Many thanks to Mark Coker of Smashwords for promoting indie authors.

Blogging Break OR I Won't Be Blogging For a Few Weeks

   Yes, fabulous readers, without whom I would be hopelessly lost, I'm taking a brief blogging break to rejuvenate.  Also I'm getting my tax information together so I can give Uncle Sam my 30 percent this year and further the cause for all Democrats and Republicans.  I may be hitting my head against the wall on the side of my house just to shake things up. Be back soon.  Feel free to read old blogs.  There are some very funny ones.

More Random Stuff

This is the squirrel who hates me.  He was waiting for me when I left the house this morning.  He sits on the broken branch and makes loud noises at me.  (I'm pretty sure it's something like, "Get away from my nuts, house bitch!" in squirreleze.  Or something like that.)
You can see it in his little beady eyes.  He waited for me to come out in the morning so he can chitter at me from this tree.

Wait.  Here's the more realistic shot:
Onto something else.

Whoops.  Random subject change.  I suppose I should warn people but hey then the blog would be predictable and that would be boring.

Pain in the Ass Man made a brief reappearance this week.  (Pain in the Ass Man is also known as HIM the man to whom I'm married.  I'm not supposed to mention his actual name in the blog in case Chinese communist spies are reading it or so he won't be overly embarrassed.  One or the other.)
I forgot the cape on this one.  Plus he's got hair, which well,
he doesn't.  He is bald Pain In the Ass Man.
(But it's cool.  Bald is good.  He's like a rocket scientist
Kojak without the lollipop.  "Who loves ya, baby?")I went into the bathroom (not my bathroom) and noticed it was stinky poo.  (Here's where I'm going to embarrass my 8-year-old daughter.)  Okay.  Someone had not flushed the toilet.  I said to HIM, "The upstairs bathroom is stinky."  Without hesitation, HIM said, "I don't use that bathroom."  One needs to consider the statement.  He snapped it out like Indiana Jones with a red-hot whip.  "I don't use that bathroom."
Here's a better image of PITAM.  (Pain In The Ass Man.)Here it is in bold and red and over sized:

"I don't use that bathroom."
But HIM does use that bathroom.  In fact, I had seen HIM using that bathroom the night before I had to scrub the toilet with extra-strength stink-be-gone.  (Twice.  The toilet cleaner smells like Pepto-Bismol.  I swear to God, the toilet cleaner smells like Pepto-Bismol.  I could do a whole shtick on what the business developers were thinking when they decided that people want toilets that smell like Pepto-Bismol.  I mean, it didn't say on the friggin' label that it smells like Pepto-Bismol.  I wouldn't have bought it if it had said that.  But I digress.  I done digressed.  I done be digressing all over the place.)  (At least I don't have to clean up after digressing.)

Back to the above statement.  "I don't use that bathroom."  This is not true.  HIM does use that bathroom.  Maybe not as much as the other bathrooms, but hey, HIM is an equal opportunity pooper.  What happened above was that HIM automatically threw his own daughter under the bus.  "I don't use that bathroom." means that only our daughter uses that bathroom.  If she is the only one to use that bathroom, ergo, she stunk it up.  Ergo, it's her fault.
There's something about a talking toilet that just
appeals to me.  You could program it to say
things like, "Hey, were you born in a barn?
Shut the lid?" and "That's gonna need
a double flush."I wasn't really mad at this.  I think I was more irritated that the toilet wasn't flushed.  But when HIM said those immortal words, I felt obliged to blog about it.  It wasn't something I had a choice in.  I had to do it.  Automatically.  HIM automatically blamed someone else.  (This is what the police called the Some Other Dude Did It defense.  The police is used to this.  Am I comparing myself to the police in my house?  I suppose I am.  My own husband is so afraid of me that he automatically tosses our daughter to the wolves.  "It was three other big people who peed in the toilet and left it unflushed, dearest sweetie honeypie.  I can describe them for the sketch artist.  They ran in, peed in the same toilet and then ran out.")  Who got to clean the toilet?  Well, it wasn't some other dude, that's for damn sure.

Enough of that rant.  What else is there?

I know!  I know!  I'm on Diet No. 1 of 2013.  Oh, that crazy first diet of the year.  You mean so well.  You have such good intentions.  Then you go by Buffalo Wild Wings and remember they have Garlic Parmesan Boneless Buffalo Wings on sale and it goes to hell in a hand basket.

Haha.  I haven't gone by Buffalo Wild Wings yet.  I'm on Day 2 of Diet No. 1.  You see I have to see the doctor at the end of the month and if I go in and I haven't lost weight I will have to explain to him why I haven't lost weight.  I will have to say things like, "Um, err, four fat people rushed up to me and force fed me Cheetos and Chunky Monkey ice cream." or "Aliens did it.  Instead of probing me they fed me biscuits and gravy.  Lots of gravy and it was good gravy.  I had an IV of gravy.  In fact, I just had an IV of pure lard."  (This is a lot like "I don't use that bathroom," except with weight.)  Do you think I want to say these things to a medical doctor?  No, I do not.  Also I want to live past 50.  And my last year of fortysomething is coming up.

Diets suck.  They (HIM and Cressy) wanted pizza tonight.  I had three pieces.  (Which isn't on the diet.  Or at least it isn't on any diet that I know of.)  Plus the kid wanted donut holes.  At least the moron cat doesn't eat stuff that tempts me.  And the squirrel is outside laughing at me.

Monday Morning Blog OR Randomtivity Happens

What can I say?

Recent happenings:

-  I have been sick.  Very sick.  Pneumonia type sick and stuff has not been done.  In fact, I feel like I have been put through a wringer and then kicked off a cliff and then told I'm fired.  Or something like that.  This is the third time in my life I've had it and I don't know if it's because I'm older or fatter or because Obama was reelected, it just seemed worse.  (Damn.  That was a good one.  Democrats everywhere are shuddering.)  (I'll try to equal out the balance by slamming a Republican later in the blog.)

- We recently went to a movie.  We saw Skyfall.  I could say something about the movie.  I didn't think it was as good as say, Casino Royale, although it was much better than Quantum of Solace, which had a weird name as well as minimal plot.  Several other things I could mention happened in the movie but I don't want to spoil it.  (Someone dies.  Someone important dies.  I mustn't say more.)  Bond gets shot in the beginning by a very cute girl who I recognized as being one of the survivors in 28 Days Later.  (Good role for her.  Zombies to Bond.  Nice.  And she's buff.  But then so is Bond.)  (And can I say that while I like Daniel Craig, he is the ugliest Bond ever.  He's like super craggy face.  I like his Bond.  He can act.  He can wear a tailored suit, but he's definitely the ugliest Bond.  Sorry.)  We were the only ones in the theater.  (Early matinee because Fat Woman needs an afternoon nap these days.)  So maybe I was a little vociferous.  Hey, I didn't even turn off my cell phone.  In fact, when we left there was a single employee there to clean up the theater and I told him, "Don't worry, we didn't mess it up."  He didn't believe me and went in to check.  And I was all like, "Is it me, or have plots got incredibly predictable?"  I could have written this James Bond movie.  I knew what they were going to say before they said it.  (Javior Bardem was a baddass Bond villain but I didn't get the need for him to be blond.  However, his opening lines were really good when he told the story about how his grandmother taught him how to kill rats.  You have to see it to appreciate it.  I didn't predict that part, so kudos to the writers for getting that part right.)  Anyway, my sister said to me, upon my complaint about the predictability of the movie, "You want another The Usual Suspects."  She's totally right.  I want to watch the damn movie.  Then go back to the beginning and say, "I have to watch that again to figure it out because Keyser Soze effed with my mind."

Anyway, I told that whole story because when we got out to the car HIM looked at the tickets and said, "The kid charged us a senior citizen rate."

That's how sick I've been I guess.  I look like a senior citizen and I'm not even 50.  Irony has been bitch-slapping me around.

- Our daughter's 3rd grade science project is now in the works.  (Either we will blow up the house or get it finished by the 23rd of January.  Either one.)  She shall determine whether or not frozen candles burn slower than unfrozen candles.  Here's a suggestion for everyone.  Have a fire extinguisher reader for this one.  No, she didn't light the house on fire.  But be ready.  No, she didn't light the cat's tail on fire.  Just be ready.  In my house, the person who isn't ready is the one who ends up with Sharpie comments written on the crotch of his jeans.  (It was a smiley face.  Totally innocuous.  I should have taken a picture but it wasn't like he was asleep or anything unconscious-like.)  (What does that have to do with a 3rd grade science project?  I don't know but I segwayed (segued) into it.  Now I have to go see how to spell segwayed properly.  (Segued.  A Segway is something completely different.)  I should have been prepared.  I should have had a fire extinguisher AND a dictionary.  What was I thinking?)

- My birthday is coming up.  I suspect I won't get anything exciting.  I think HIM and my daughter are afraid I'll have a heart attack or something if they get me something exciting.  I want a stripper.  I want a man dressed in a gorilla suit who strips off the clothing over the gorilla suit and then has neon-target lighted underwear.  Wait, I'll try to find a photograph.  No, wait.  I don't really want a stripper dressed as a gorilla, but that would have been funny.  Once HIM sent a clown to my work.  The clown kissed me on the lips with greasy paint makeup that would not come off no matter what.  (Where was my stripper then?  No friggin' clown strippers, either.)  (I've decided I want a Segway for my birthday.)

Okay.  I admit this blog is strange.  It's especially strange since I couldn't put any images in it.  Blame Blogger.  Their shizz was broke.  It wouldn't let me do anything including insert weird photos of bunnies and kittens riding on a scooter together.  (My right hand to God, there is such a picture.)  Wait, I'll post the link.  See here.  Kitties and bunnies.

I'll stop before it's too late.

Post Christmas Blues OR How the Cold of Doom Lingers On

So today I said to HIM, the man to whom I'm married, "When are we taking the Christmas decorations down?"  HIM responded with what can best be described as the grunt of extreme dismay.  "Urgglemapnerd," HIM said and fled for the sanctity of the bathroom.  Not that I blame HIM.  Who wants to take down all the pretty Christmas stuff?  It becomes non-Christmasy and yucky.  I mean the lights were pretty.  When they're gone, they're not pretty.  It's just blah.  Which means I want to leave the Christmas tree up year round.  (I knew someone who did this.  They decorated it seasonally.  But I am not Martha Stewart.  I don't think this is going to happen in this household no matter how pretty it is.  Also I will never learn how to fold the stupid fitted sheet, no matter how many times that DIY twat shows me how.)
And Martha Stewart appears to be the winning of
the who-will-fat-woman-eff-with-today
contest.
Congrats, Martha.But honestly I don't feel like doing anything because the head cold that started around the middle of the month turned into sinusitis with a prelude to pneumonia.  Haha.  A little special Christmas gift for everyone.  I've taken like five naps today because I've been so sick.  So sick I don't want to write and I don't want to blog, either, but i don't want the blog to go unblogged for too long.  (People might talk.)  (This is how urban legends start.  "Did you hear that Fat Woman was decapitated by Michelle Obama when the fiscal cliff happened?  The Secret Service said she was really shopping at Target and photo-shopped it.")  (Am I getting in trouble for that?)
I pity da fool who didn't watch the A-Team back in the 80s.Where am I going with this?  God alone knows.

Cressy believes that Santa is rocking.  The new Wii U is a blast.  She even bought herself a game with her allowance so she's totally into it.  HIM wants to race her in Mario Carts and Cressy just wants to play bumper cars with HIM so she can knock him off the racetrack.  Right now she's been on the Wii for about three hours straight.  I think her little butterbean butt is going to merge with the couch.  Outside is snow-sprinkles and HIM is teaching a group of high school kids how to make a rocket.  (Megaroy the moron cat fled for the security of the bed when the doorbell rang.)  I'm just hanging out coughing and hacking and generally trying to keep out of the way.

Hah, blumbug.

I'm making progress on the latest Cat Clan novella.  In fact, I should polish it off just as soon as I feel like writing the last two chapters.
What does this have to do with the blog?
Nothing, but I'm on a roll
and I feel like Michelle
needed to be kidded a little.
Plus I just took a big hit
of Nyquil.Can you believe people are writing me emails that complain about the lack of progress in the romance department between Bubba and Willodean?  ("Move it along.  Let Bubba live a regular life.  I'm very disappointed.")  Does any of you remember when Sam finally got with Diane on Cheers and then no one wanted to watch the show any more?  Ditto with Moonlighting?  I mean once Maddie and David hooked up it was totally the end of business.  Now I'm trying to think of a comparable book reference and all that pops into my head is Archie and Betty.  (Wasn't Archie diddling with Veronica, too?  Even though she was a total bitch?  Doesn't that make Archie a playah?  Why, yes it does.)

Okay.  I'll stop rambling.  I can't think of anything else funny at the moment, except the hairball the cat just threw up resembles the country of Bolivia.  It might be a sign.
And apparently I can't let anything go.Happy new year everyone.  May your sense of humor always be warped.

Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note

Okay Nook people who luv Bubba,

Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note is up on B&N.

Get it here on B&N.

P.S. I suppose I should amend the blog just below this but I will emphasize that B&N did not solve the problem for me, I ended up doing it myself via suggestion from someone on the community board.  So I'm not amending shizz.