Robyn Jones's Blog, page 29

Think Out Loud [2] Book Suicide and Reality TV

[image error] Oh my goodness, today's Think Out Loud topic (though you can rant, chat, fangirl about anything) is right on track with what I wanted to talk about. Reality TV. My books are happy about my love for reality TV. They are. A chosen book sits down next to me with the remotes (yes, plural), with my laptop on the floor. No one gets left out. I can't handle competition shows where the judges are mean and I can't handle people getting drunk and wrecking their future with absolute stupidity. That narrows my window of shows dramatically. For daytime, I'm a huge Judge Judy fan. My boys scold her every time she says stupid and shut up. That's it for daytime. I have one guilty pleasure, Big Brother during the summer. I love it so much! When crazy Rachel was on, my youngest boy was hooked because the girl was just so animated...like a cartoon. The Amazing Race is the best reality show on TV. I missed one season and that was during my divorce (couldn't handle watching duos working together or fighting). And Monday The Voice returns! Yay! Seriously, I'm a huge fan. I email my mom and write, "Happy The Voice Day!" So nerdy, I know. But you know what happens after the show is over? I give my book attention. So no one is suicidal.

Think Out Loud is a cool meme brought to you by Think. This is your chance to veer off topic, to write about stuff you don't normally post on your blog, or stuff eating away at you, or something you just have to share. Go on, have some fun, then be sure to add your link HERE.

Finding Your Way With Music: robgirlbooks' Review of Guitar Notes by Mary Amato

Guitar Notes
by Mary Amato
314 pages
Publisher: EgmontUSA (7/24/12)
downloaded from the local library
5 STARS

Tripp Broody is not a bad kid. He's not even apathetic. He has simply allowed himself one love, his guitar. As a result, his mother decides he needs more in life and takes his love away. Lyla Marks lies nonstop, but not the way you're thinking. Lyla doesn't want to disappoint the people she cares about, so she pretends. She plasters on smiles and offers the right words. She plays her cello perfectly. Tripp always speaks the truth. Lyla can barely think it. The two have one thing in common, their lives are run by their parents, run right into alternating days in a music practice room. Through a series of notes these two struggling souls find their way in the midst of teenage drama.

I love this book! I loved it from page one when Tripp called his mother Termite! Tripp made me howl. The honest, sometimes retaliatory kid made me love him. Lyla's dark thoughts in all her perfectness drew me to her. I can't get over how well done Mary Amato portrayed teens, the topsy-turvy thoughts that go from morbid to guilt in a heartbeat. I loved the sarcasm, the hopeful innocence, the dreamer mentality. I loved the pain and the friendship. I loved the journey the parents travel. They aren't the villains; they are just adults with plans and ideas of their own. Somewhere in the span of raising their kids, they stopped listening to them. So easy to do, so hard to correct. This book is for anyone, preteen, teen, adult, even paranormal romance loving me. Goodness, I cannot forget the music! The music is so awesome, poetry woven into a wonderful story. I'll tell you how much I loved this book, I emailed author Mary Amato as soon as I finished the read and asked her if she'd like to answer a few question for this post. hehe! She said yes.
Mary Amato, author, song writer, singer, dancer, sky's the limitGuitar Notes appears to be your first venture into YA. Is this the beginning of a trend? (please say yes!)My next YA will be out in 2014 and the story will feature music, but in a different way. Where did you find the confidence to start writing? You know, that final shove that hushed the whispering doubts that plague us all.I believe strongly that intrinsic motivation is the real motivation that sustains and propels us through life, but I have to admit that two extrinsic motivators really helped. When I was in 8th grade, my poem was chosen to be on the cover of our little literary journal (mimeographed and stapled, which shows you how old I am); and when I was in college my poem was chosen to win the undergraduate award for poetry. Those two successes buoyed my spirits when the work was hard and the rejections came. What advice do you have for budding writers?Writing is so hard, and it takes an odd mix of being able to put everything you've got into a draft and then turning around the next day and literally throwing that draft away. Have patience and very thick skin. Do you have any odd habits when it comes to your writing routine? Yes. Many. Right now, I've set the wallpaper of my computer to be a photo of my main character (I found a photo of someone I think looks like her on the web). In the morning when I turn my computer on and she appears on my screen, I look into her eyes and say good morning, and I really mean it every morning. When I shut down for the next, I say goodbye to her. She feels so real to me, and yet I know she lives in that file on my computer and in my head. You have a wide range of interests and talents. Where do these time consumers rank in your life?Dark Chocolate (chocolate can be time consuming, I promise you)FamilyWritingBloggingSingingDancingSong writingDoing nothing at allI am very bad at doing nothing. I do yoga when I watch TV. I dance when I'm writing (yes, I have sessions where I write standing up with music on and I dance while I'm actually typing). If I'm alone when I'm cooking, you will hear me singing my heart out.And then family and chocolate are constants. Somehow everything melts together. Yesterday, on my way to watch my son's volleyball game, I had an epiphany about a missing scene in my new novel, and now I can't wait to write it. Be sure to check out thrumsociety.com to listen to the music created in Guitar Notes. 
 

Sidekick Saturday [9] Irish

Sidekick Saturday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jaclyn at JC's Book Haven. There are many secondary characters that are as great as the primaries. In some cases, the sidekicks actually steal the show and you like them better than the heroine or hero. Maybe they didn't have enough page time for how great they were. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:• Choose a sidekick *or someone other than the hero or heroine* that you would like to put in the spotlight that fits in this week's type
• Share a picture and information about the character
• Give the title and author of a book the character can be found in
• Please don't include too many spoilers when describing why the character is such a great sidekick
• Put your link in the Linky thing and comment
This week is the St. Patty's Day EditionJaclyn at JC's Book Haven chose the leprechaun from The Hollows. I was all ready to hit this weekend's Sidekick Saturday with gusto. Being locked up with a really sick kid motivates a girl. Then Jaclyn throws this at me! So I went to MSN and typed in Irish books. I hit up Amazon and Goodreads. You know what I found, a whole lot of mature reading with an Irish theme. Hmm. So I've decided I need to cheat. I only resort to cheating in extreme situations like my sister beating me in the pool (she's so fast I had to sabotage her).
I'm going to the movies. Deal with it.Since I'm cheating, I'll offer two movie picks. My number one "Irish-ish" choice is D-Bob played by Jon Favreau from Rudy. I'm a sports movie junkie. I really am and Favreau played the perfect sidekick to Sean Astin's intense "I have to play football for The Fighting Irish" personality. He was cocky and clumsy at the same time, super rich but lacking in the suave with the ladies department.                                                 [image error]
(By Edgar Meritano [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
My next sidekick is Marty O'Reilly played by the late Caroll O'Conner from Return to Me. This movie is the perfect combination of tearjerker and feel good. O'Conner plays the funny dad. And he's spot on. An Irish man running an Italian restaurant. What's not to love? [image error]  Note: I could have picked actual leprechaun movies,
but those freak me out so much!
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Sidekick Saturday [9]

Sidekick Saturday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jaclyn at JC's Book Haven. There are many secondary characters that are as great as the primaries. In some cases, the sidekicks actually steal the show and you like them better than the heroine or hero. Maybe they didn't have enough page time for how great they were. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:• Choose a sidekick *or someone other than the hero or heroine* that you would like to put in the spotlight that fits in this week's type
• Share a picture and information about the character
• Give the title and author of a book the character can be found in
• Please don't include too many spoilers when describing why the character is such a great sidekick
• Put your link in the Linky thing and comment
This week is the St. Patty's Day EditionJaclyn at JC's Book Haven chose the leprechaun from The Hollows. I was all ready to hit this weekend's Sidekick Saturday with gusto. Being locked up with a really sick kid motivates a girl. Then Jaclyn throws this at me! So I went to MSN and typed in Irish books. I hit up Amazon and Goodreads. You know what I found, a whole lot of mature reading with an Irish theme. Hmm. So I've decided I need to cheat. I only resort to cheating in extreme situations like my sister beating me in the pool (she's so fast I had to sabotage her).
I'm going to the movies. Deal with it.Since I'm cheating, I'll offer two movie picks. My number one "Irish-ish" choice is D-Bob played by Jon Favreau from Rudy. I'm a sports movie junkie. I really am and Favreau played the perfect sidekick to Sean Astin's intense "I have to play football for The Fighting Irish" personality. He was cocky and clumsy at the same time, super rich but lacking in the suave with the ladies department.
My next sidekick is Marty O'Reilly played by the late Caroll O'Conner from Return to Me. This movie is the perfect combination of tearjerker and feel good. O'Conner plays the funny dad. And he's spot on. An Irish man running an Italian restaurant. What's not to love?  Note: I could have picked actual leprechaun movies,
but those freak me out so much!

Think Out Loud [1]

[image error] Apartment noise! So a bit ago my life took a dramatic left turn. I went from married with two houses, two cars, and two kids to divorced with one tiny apartment, one car, and two kids. The left turn has been hard, but nothing forces you to face the world like redesigning your place in it. That brings me to a new discovery, apartment noise. I LOVE IT! I feel cushioned by civilization. Even the booms from my neighbors' high definition fancy sound system blasting through my walls on the weekends make me smile. So here's to unexpected comforts. Your turn to think out loud. Write about something you don't usually talk about or post on your blog. If you participate in this cool meme, be sure to add your URL to the Linkylink.

Feature and Follow [6]

This is a weekly blog meme hosted by Parajunkee's View and Alison Can Read.
Here are the general rules to Follow Friday:
1. Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts and any one else you want to follow on the list
2. Follow our Featured Bloggers - This week's feature is: Bookaddict Bieke and Pinkindle
3. Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments
5. Follow Follow Follow as many as you can
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
This week's question is: ACTIVITY! Hopefully warm weather for most of us is here soon…so tell us about your favorite outdoor reading spot. Or take a picture.As much as I love reading, when the weather is nice, I'm outdoors with my boys. We live in a shoebox apartment so when school is out, so are we. Take a look. When I get a chance to read, it's on this little couch. I have to share with the toys and my 4yr old. And that's my pillow I have to steal back. How about you? Where is your reading spot?All future followers if you could follow through Google+ or through email subscription that would be super cool since I have no idea what's going to happen to GFC. Is it really going away? Here's a link about switching to Google + http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/10/how-survive-switch-google-reader-google/44069/.While you're here, check out the kid quotes on the sidebar. And if you're interested in signing up for the Soul Bender Tour in April click on the button on the top left of the page. Happy blogging! 

New Release! Soul Bender, A Touched Girl Novel

Yay! Soul Bender is finally here.
How much can a soul take before it breaks? Anna Pierce has a vampire boyfriend, a driver's license, real friends for the first time since she was five, and now she faces one of her biggest challenges, senior year at a mostly all girls Catholic high school. Sure, she's a member of the talking crowd now, but she'll never be like everyone else. How can she when the first of her kind has camped out in her dreams? Little dead girl Emily decides Anna's destiny can wait no longer. It's time for this generation's Touched girl to hunt. Trained in a virtual dream landscape to destroy all in her path, Anna must choose between her destiny, the one beat into her on a nightly basis, and her legacy, the one instilled in her by her parents. Along the way, old enemies remain dutifully obsessed, new foes lurk in the shadows, and odd Little Duckie Anna Pierce sets out to be social.





Beginning April 15th, we will be celebrating the new release with a blog tour. Please stop by
JC's Book Haven to sign up.

Sidekick Saturday [8] NORTORIOUS

Sidekick Saturday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jaclyn at JC's Book Haven. There are many secondary characters that are as great as the primaries. In some cases, the sidekicks actually steal the show and you like them better than the heroine or hero. Maybe they didn't have enough page time for how great they were. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:• Choose a sidekick *or someone other than the hero or heroine* that you would like to put in the spotlight that fits in this week's type
• Share a picture and information about the character
• Give the title and author of a book the character can be found in
• Please don't include too many spoilers when describing why the character is such a great sidekick
• Put your link in the Linky thing and comment
This week's sidekick type is NOTORIOUS!Jaclyn at JC's Book Haven chose Vlad Tepesh from The Night Huntress Series by Jeaniene Frost. Now I really have to read this series because I just saw in her post that Vlad (AKA Dracula) has a couple stand alones in a new spinoff series.

My head was spinning on this sidekick type. Then Jaclyn offered the best suggestion, Bubba from the Sookie Stackhouse series. How I love the vampire world Charlaine Harris created. I must confess I'm a diehard fan of the early books, but my brain has shut off all knowledge that certain events have transpired in the later installments. So here's Bubba, a vamp with issues, and not the kind you may be thinking. Some people just can't let go and when you have the choice to sire Elvis Presley, you do it. You do it badly, you do it even though the guy needed to float off into the sexy superstar hall of fame in the sky. Bubba didn't turn out aces on the flip side of mortality. Nope. Bubba is a bit slow, really likes furry purry animals (not in a good way), and he's not so bad. Oh, and do not tell him who he looks like. Just don't do it!

Dreams

I once had a dream to be like Georgia O'Keeffe. I wanted to live in the desert and paint my days away. I imagined myself as the typical artist hippie, eating Tex Mex, falling in love with the electric skies, maybe even falling in love with another artist. I held onto this dream for years, then I graduated college and took a road trip from Vegas to Iowa. I saw the Grand Canyon (traumatized my mother for life when I stood too close to the edge). I saw Monument Valley. I got nose bleeds every day! That's right, nose bleeds and headaches. I was hot and sweaty and not at all hippie cute. The sunsets were pretty. That held true, but reality whisked my beautiful, romantic dream away.
I once had a dream that when the stick turned purple (i.e. I got pregnant), I'd be just like my mom. My mom was the happiest pregnant woman ever. Every picture had her smiling her big smile. Nothing slowed her down. Well, her doctor did tell her to get off the bicycle or else. And her water did break the day she played way too much tennis, but you get the idea. Guess what happened? I was the crankiest knocked up chick ever. Dream shattered. I once had a dream I'd write all these books and hand them over to a person who would turn them into brilliant novels with breathtaking covers and captivating blurbs. Then I wrote my first query letter. And I received my first rejection. You know what happened? I learned how to be a writer and I'm still learning. I discovered the world of Twitter and blogs and Goodreads. I broke through my cyber-shyness.  If the dream is comfort, if it inspires languid sighs and dazed smiles, give yourself a pinch.

Sidekick Saturday [7] "FOREIGN"

Sidekick Saturday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jaclyn at JC's Book Haven. There are many secondary characters that are as great as the primaries. In some cases, the sidekicks actually steal the show and you like them better than the heroine or hero. Maybe they didn't have enough page time for how great they were. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:• Choose a sidekick *or someone other than the hero or heroine* that you would like to put in the spotlight that fits in this week's type
• Share a picture and information about the character
• Give the title and author of a book the character can be found in
• Please don't include too many spoilers when describing why the character is such a great sidekick
• Put your link in the Linky thing and comment
This week's type is FOREIGNJaclyn from JC's Book Haven chose Vayl (or Vasil Brancoveanu) from the Jaz Park series by Jennifer Rardin. I haven't read any of the books, but uptight Vayl sounds entertaining (and hot).Now for my pick!I was tempted to play around with semantics and choose someone from another realm, that has to be foreign, right? Same goes with aliens, totally foreign. Then I thought of one of my favorite characters that truly deserves a book of his own, Asil from Patricia Briggs' Alpha & Omega series. Teak-tone skin. The appearance of Middle Eastern descent. Many centuries old. Werewolf. Gardener. Soulful widower with a broken spirit. And so much playful arrogance I loved him on the spot. Asil won me over the moment he gave Charles a hard time, Charles being the bogeyman to all shifters. He shamelessly flirted with Anna. He constantly baited Charles. He circumvented Bran's orders (Bran being top dog of all top dogs). He never stopped loving his wife. The man has an award winning rose garden, drinks tea, and is a complete sex god (the last part is me editorializing in a big way!). actor Naveen AndrewsOn a side note, I always pose this challenge to my mom and sister. My mom jumped in right away with several suggestions. I knew her first pick before she said it. Rosie from the Sue Grafton Kinsey Millhone mystery novels. I love Rosie, Hungarian, bossy, secretively sweet and motherly. We didn't put a face to name, but think tall, large, pretty in that completely unapparent kind of way. My sister chose Mr. Bishop from Rachel Caine's Morganville series. We argued about this pick. Why? Because we're sisters. I suggested the stepdad from Shaun of the Dead to play Bishop. Then I couldn't remember Bishop's ethnicity. She chose...I forget (because her pick was so BAD). hehe