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Hi! Thanks for the invite. I'll be publishing my first novel on 25th August (YA fantasy) so it's great to see where there are a bunch of reviewers hanging out! I'll be releasing a free short story before that, as a taster :)I'm also an AVID reader so I'll be looking out for whatever gems you guys uncover! Looking forward to chatting to you all :D
Anne-Mhairi wrote: "Hi! Thanks for the invite. I'll be publishing my first novel on 25th August (YA fantasy) so it's great to see where there are a bunch of reviewers hanging out! I'll be releasing a free short story ..."Congrats on the publication of your new book!! And welcome to the group Anne-Mhairi!!
Mod
Amy wrote: "Welcome Anne!! Publishing a new book is ALWAYS exciting! Make sure to share links to it when it comes out!!"Oh I will, you can be sure of that! I've got First Book Terrors, scared no one will like it, so I'll be posting links everywhere to get reviews and find out for sure!!
Ann-Mhairi, congrats on the first book! As a first-timer myself I can tell you that every book gets some good reviews and some bad ones, but a lot of the reviewers here are really constructive and helpful in their comments so if you engage with what they say, you'll come out with a stronger book for it!But you'll meet some FAB people along the way, esp if you hang out in this group...
JAC
Congratz Anne-Mhairi! I know exactly how you feel :)
Stephen wrote: "Cambria wrote: "A town called normal is probably full of serial killers and people who eat only toast....@ everyone who has recently joined and I have not had a chance to say Hiya....Hiya!!! Welc..."
@Stephen: For Halloween a couple years ago, my husband hung a Froot Loops box around his neck and stuck a large plastic knife through the middle. You can guess what he was...
J.A. wrote: "Ann-Mhairi, congrats on the first book! As a first-timer myself I can tell you that every book gets some good reviews and some bad ones, but a lot of the reviewers here are really constructive and ..."Yeah, I figured about the reviews but you can't please every single person in the world, so I can handle (theoretically speaking :D) some bad reviews. As you say, if they're constructive then at least they're helpful, and if they're just hating, well, I don't worry about those kinds of people anyway!
Mod
That is a great attitude to have!! :)
Yes, Anne-Mhairi you are sooo right!! By the way I love the way your name is spelled!
I have to admit, I'm sure it will sting when I get bad reviews, but like you say, it's part of the job.@Cambria: It's Scottish :) My grandfather was Scottish and wanted to spell it that way. Technically it's pronounced Vaari, so technically I mispronounce (or misspell) my name, because I say Anne-Marie :)
Stephen wrote: "Cambria wrote: "LOL. Are you a comedian Steve?"Maybe if my life had gone a different way. But I love jokes and making people laugh.
Q: What were the headlines when the midget clairvoyant escaped..."
LOL!!!!
I sure have anti virus now...I use McAffee. I used to have spyware but I learned the hard way that spyware is not the same as anti-virus
oh poor Cambria! But it's all so confusing and they don't tell you what you actually need as they're all too busy telling you to buy everything. Ah well, McAffee's one of the top ones so you should be safe going forward, at least.
Is your book file safe? Do you have something like Dropbox?
Mod
Oh yeah, JA I have back ups of all my books(all 7 of them)....I am ultra paranoid about that. And now its even worse! LOL. I have been known to carry a flashdrive in my pocket when I go out....LOLnever know about a fire....
I know I am insane. But as a writer I am sure you know all about how much work goes into a book and how absolutely devastating it would be to lose that.
What is a Dropbox? I like the sound of this....please elaborate.
Yes, I feel better having McAffee. I can always see the little green check knowing that it is working...!
Mod
HA! My pc loves me. Well, it did before it died.LOL
But i am glad i sent those to you...but unfortunately they were in my sent box ripe for the picking by nasty vile hackers....so my anxiety is a little high because of this.
Tony thank you! this is all very helpful!
Cambria, Dropbox is great and has saved my bacon a couple of times!!It works like My Docs but online; if you're on your own computer you just save to but if you're elsewhere or on someone else's you go to the Dropbox website, log in and then you have access to your folder wherever you are. Someone told me there's an app for it (haven't got round to it yet) but the fantastically valuable thing about it is this: if you are a proper numpty like myself, and spend all day making a pretty brochure for something irrelevant - then when saving get click-happy and accidentally SAVE OVER YOUR NOVEL, that's a bummer.
When you go check your backup copy and realise you forgot to back up last week and the week before and have written 15k words since then, that's a bigger bummer.
But then when you log into the Dropbox website, choose the file-name and can roll it back to the previous version.....!
Well let's just say that I'm glad I had that particular stupid moment AFTER downloading Dropbox rather than before - phew!
JAC
Oh, and if your computer dies or gets nicked or you need to travel and want your etickets someplace retrievable it's pretty handy too. JAC
And you can share folders (so Amy could edit right onto your files if you wanted).
Mod
SO useful... I have the free one and there are categories of pay-ones as well - basically depends how much storage you want. I don't keep much in the way of photos on mine (i use Flikr or photobucket for those) so as it's mostly text and the odd author photo or book cover the free one does me fine.Actually it occurs to me that if anyone fancies signing up to I get more storage if I refer people! Up to you of course (and I promise I had forgotten that until this very minute!) but if you fancy signing up and would be up for saying I referred you, drop me a line. Don't need the extra right now but going forward I daresay that's likely enough.
There are a few other variants, I should add at this point, but I never bothered to investigate them. You could probably find them on Google though if you search "online file storage" or something. (Just in case you're dubious about my altruistic motives on this one!)
;oD
Wow! i wonder why i never heard of this before...it sounds really useful! thanks JA!
Hello. I'm a newbie to this whole thing. Thanks very much for the invite. :)
Hi Sammy! Welcome! Please feel free to poke around and join in the conversations and if you write reviews feel free to share those as well. If you have a blog please post that info in the member's blog folder so we can check it out!
Mod
Cambria, I save all my WIP files on Dropbox--saves a lot of $$ that I would have spent on flash drives.And when I freelance for publishers, I often use Dropbox as it's a good way to share working files among more than one person.
After you sign up for it, the Dropbox icon can sit on your desktop screen, which will keep reminding you to use it before you sign out! I think you get up to 2 GBs free, which is a lot. You also get extra storage added on when you send a friend their way. (I'll have to show them this comment and see if they'll do anything for me!)It's very easy to sign up for and use.
As I'm only using it to save work files and my fiction WIPs, I don't worry about privacy. However, I probably wouldn't save anything to Dropbox that I did want to safeguard. That's just being careful.
I also back everything up on an external drive. I'm going to check out Dropbox though!!
I kind of feel like this too Stephen....I have an external harddive and a bunch of flashdrives. I also have printed copies of several of my books...
Yes they work good and I lik dthem b/c they fit in my pocket and don't take up a lot of space. I have like 6 or 7 of them. lol. Most of mine are 4GB but they come in varying sizes of memory. You can get them fairly inexpexively and everywhere....I usually get mine at Walmart.
Amy, Cassie and Cambria, I listened to your radio blog again this week. All the zombie talk reminded me of a pop song from 'way before any of you were born, called "The Tennessee Birdwalk". It was about some featherless birds that had to walk south for the winter in their dirty underwear. I wondered what might happen if they met your zombie friends in their transparent underwear?
Phil wrote: "Amy, Cassie and Cambria, I listened to your radio blog again this week. All the zombie talk reminded me of a pop song from 'way before any of you were born, called "The Tennessee Birdwalk". It was ..."I have to look this up...
Phil wrote: "Amy, Cassie and Cambria, I listened to your radio blog again this week. All the zombie talk reminded me of a pop song from 'way before any of you were born, called "The Tennessee Birdwalk". It was ..."This is the BEST thing ever!!! Hahahahaha... I love it!! Thank you, Phil! You made my night/day ;-)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-OrVQ...
"The Tennessee Birdwalk"
by Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan
Take away the trees and the birds
All have to sit upon the ground, uum
Take away their wings and
The birds will have to walk to get around
And take away the bird baths
And dirty birds will soon be ev'rywhere
Take away their feathers and
The birds will walk around in underwear
Take away their chirp and the
Birds will have to whisper when they sing
And take away their common sense and
They'll be headed southward in the spring
Oh remember my darling
When spring is in the air
And the bald headed birds
Are whisp'ring ev'rywhere
You can see them walking
Southward in their dirty underwear
That's Tennessee Bird walk
How about some trees so the birds
Won't have to sit upon the ground, uum
How about some wings so the
Birds won't have to walk to get around
And how about a bird bath or two
so the birds will all be clean
How about some feathers so their
Underwear no longer can be seen
How about a chirp so the birds
Won't have to whisper when they sing
And how about some common sense so they
Won't be blocking traffic in the spring
Oh remember my darling
When spring is in the air
And the bald headed birds
Are whisp'ring ev'rywhere
You can see them walking
Southward in their dirty underwear
That's Tennessee Bird walk
:-)
Mod
Thanks for that, Phil and thank you, Cassie for pulling it up for us!!
Stephen wrote: "4 gigs would hold a lot of text. Thanks."Sure thing! And I have Itunes but haven't used it in so long I don't remeber how anymore. Stuff like that confuses me. :)
Phil wrote: "Amy, Cassie and Cambria, I listened to your radio blog again this week. All the zombie talk reminded me of a pop song from 'way before any of you were born, called "The Tennessee Birdwalk". It was ..."LOL!!!
Thanks for forming this group - Excellent idea!I have a book review blog/web site where I post my fiction reviews. I'm an eclectic reader so you'll find reviews for almost all kinds of fiction. http://PopcornReads.com.
Mod
I am definitely sending my book to popccornreads. It's a cool site when you go to check it out and I love the title.Splitter
Hi! I'm Kim and I have a blog called kimtalksbooks where I review books and talk about writing, etc. I am also writing a novel, which I hope to self-publish before the end of the year. You can find my blog at http://kimtalksbooks.wordpress.com.
Hey Kim! You have come to the right place! Great to have you here and I will check out your blog right now!Also, Welcome Popcorn reads!! Nice to see you and I will check out your blog as well!
Kim- Do you have a follow button? I love your blog it is so well put together! Mine os so simple but yours looks fabulous. I didn't see the follow button tho, i owuld be happy to follow if you point it out to me!Popcornreads- your blog is also fabulous and I am now following vis FB!
thanks for sharing ladies!
Creative Reviews
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Charlie Courtland (other topics)
@ everyone who has recently joined and I have not had a chance to say Hiya....Hiya!!! Welc..."
Stephen wrote: "Cambria wrote: "A town called normal is probably full of serial killers and people who eat only toast....
Lmao
@ everyone who has recently joined and I have not had a chance to say Hiya....Hiya!!! Welc..."