Halloweenie

Halloween is my fifteenth favorite holiday. It's a time of year when we piss away money on costumes we'll wear once and eat candy from tiny bags instead of normal sized bags. I'll admit I haven't been interested in decorating since the wind blew away our plastic jack-o-lantern four years ago. Living at the end of a cul-de-sac makes front yard decorations short-lived.

This is the first time in seventeen years I haven't gone trick or treating with a kiddo. Roo decided he wasn't interested in going out. Instead, we ordered pizza, played Jenga, Uno, and charades before watching hours of those ghost hunters shows. In Yamalamadingdong, trick or treating was rescheduled for the weekend because of a storm, so we'll have a second Halloween tomorrow. However, I doubt the pizza will last that long with teenagers in the house.

Earlier in the week, I caught a cold. It didn't slow me down writing and I'm hoping to finish the first draft of Outlaw by early next week. I'm hitting all the action scenes now with only a few doinking scenes left. This novel is much more action oriented than my other Damaged books.

My writing plans for the year keep shrinking. At this rate, I'll be lucky to get Blue Awakening and Scattered finished. Don't know if I'll have much time in December to goof around with Shadow World books. All that means is that 2014 will be even busier.

This week, I started the new book review blog. Only two reviews are up so far because I got sickie as did one of my reviewers. "Just That Good" is an in-joke from my Blood Tide book. Candy Girl gets it and that's all that matters. I figured I'll kick the blog into gear next year. So far, I have reviewers Sheena, Candy Girl, and Mustang Sally. I love working with such diverse badass babes and their varied tastes. The first reviews are for The Gate by KT Grant and Binds by Rebecca Espinoza.

On Where Zombies Come to Read, I posted an interview with GB Banks along with a review from Deadly Dee for The Most Uncommon Cold. I also added a little chewy brain treat for Halloween with Our Favorite Cinematic Zombies.

For the Whisperer blog, we profiled several whiny nobodies on our update. Plus, we asked F&G to retire or improve her game because she was boring us. The BBA have been quieter this week which is good news for readers. Maybe the whiners took the week off for Halloween.

While I didn't have a chance to add anything to Indie Angie, I did write an update for my Bijou blog.

Lastly, I want to send happy thoughts to Lauryl who bought a house in Oct. It's been a wild year for her, but her family will enjoy their first holidays in the new abode. With things settling down for her, I look forward to her next books. She's working on three! Way to multitask, badass babe!

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and happy November!!!

Monchichi Goes Military

With Halloween around the corner and zombies back on TV, I had to change my Monchichi avatar. He's a precious little guy prepared for the mayhem of the zombie virus breakout. Ah, I love freckles!!!

I want to start off by wishing Mustang Sally a happy birthday. A few months ago, I mentioned buying her a laptop. Instead, she wanted a new recliner for her reading den. I also bought her all of the books in the Hollows and Fever series. Sally has been hogging the library's editions for over a year. Now, she has both series in her personal library and is super stoked. I have no idea how I'll wow her for Christmas.

With all of the shopping I did for Roo and now Sally, I'm psyched about the holidays. In fact, I'm already putting together our Christmas card and letter. Yesterday, I bought new tree ornaments to replace the ones destroyed by our then kitten Tinker. Even a year old, she'll likely view a tree in the house as an invitation to attack. Plus, those colorful balls dangling are just begging for a beating. Yep, I bought the shatter-proof ornaments.

I've been pretty lazy the last week. Writing Outlaw with the hopes of publishing around Halloween, I didn't focus on editing Scattered. I did take a break from goofing off to post an interview with Jeffrey Littorno on Indie Angie. Plus, I added book showcases on Indie Angie and Where Zombies Come to Read. KT Grant's new romance, The Gate, was published last weekend. The sequel to the zombie novel Red Dust is also available. Finally, check out Zombie George Washington by new authors by GB Banks and Blaine Hislop. This week, I plan to post Deadly Dee's review of an erotic zombie compilation. Yeah, it's as gross as you're imagining.

Speaking of Dee, I'm creating a book review blog soon and she'll be my main reviewer. She reads everything from horror to romance/erotica and even young adult on occasion. Candy Girl might share her eclectic tastes on the blog too. Eventually, I'll add a few more reviewers, but I don't want to take on too many projects for the rest of 2013.

The main reason I decided to start a review blog was because authors I'd interview would often ask if I wanted to read their books. I know how difficult it can be for new authors to get reviews. Especially since the bigger bloggers are avoiding indies now. Thanks, BBA.

This week, we wrote a few posts on the Whisperer blog. One was the update and the other focused on F&G's lie about doxxing. With the hate site retiring soon, we'll likely blog less. Candy Girl and I could really use a break for the holidays. No doubt in the future, the asshats will congregate around a new whiner cooler to moan about conspiracies. Until then, we hope to reduce our blogging to the weekly updates. Our work will continue behind the scenes though.

In fact, this week F&G pissed themselves in glee over how a jackass created a fake book on GR to mock a reader. Their happiness led Candy Girl to discover the sock who created the book. GR deleted the book as well as the sock. We have no doubt the person behind the sock will return. She's had plenty of fake accounts deleted. No doubt she thinks she's sly, but we know what she's up to when not hawking her books. We'll let the pathetic whiner have her fun. It might be the only amusement she has in life.

As for me, I love October. Two big birthdays and Halloween begin the holidays in the best fashion. If I manage to hit my deadlines with Outlaw, Scattered, and Blue Awakening, I'll take December off to write Shadow World books. After all, I really haven't written enough poop humor lately.

How awkward!

Weirdest thing happened yesterday. I was working at Denny's (not the weird part) and one of the regulars started talking books with me (again not weird). She likes those Southern mystery-type books. I don't write them but found myself recommending one. Here's the weird part. It was a Peggy Holloway book.

If you don't know who Peggy is (get in line), she's an indie BBA who whined about reviewers months ago. Why would I recommend her book? Two reasons. Well, mainly one. Here's a hint: p-ty.

Reason One: Mustang Sally read a book by Peggy and didn't hate it (got it for free, of course). She didn't love it either, but that genre isn't really her deal. I tried reading it, but I don't have the patience to read much the last few months. The book wasn't bad. I don't mean it wasn't bad compared to books by BBA like Spamalotta and Krazy Monkey Ass (shudder). I mean, it was an okay read.

Reason Two: I do pity Peggy. I can imagine the chick was trying to fit in with the cool kids back in December when she kissed Claude's stinky ass. All of the lame losers in her author groups were bitching about reviewers, so Peggy did too. She's a sheep, not a shepherd. What did it get her though?

Nothing.

When Breaking Bad Santa posted her picture and called her a liar on his FB page, where were all of her BBA buddies? They didn't give a shit.

Scammer Mouse didn't even offer to buy her damn books like she did with Butt Plug. Athelissa allows Hoax Hugger to post on her shitsite at will, even though she doesn't like him.

No one likes the fucker, but that's the point. They hate readers so much that any author who attacks a reviewer is immediately in their clique. Standards aren't in their vocabulary since none of the shitheads stuck up for Peggy. Not Princess PP or Annabutt. Not the other jerks whose names I don't remember. No one. In fact, Rick still has Peggy's picture plastered on his FB page where he calls her a liar and none of them care.

So I felt sorry for Peggy who wrote an okay book and was screwed over by her allies in the asshat arena. I guess I felt sorry for her because no one else did and she deserved some defending.

Rick was full of shit by attacking her for being a prolific reviewer. Just because he doesn't read or review books except for those belonging to his friends and clients, doesn't mean other people don't read and review a lot. Mustang Sally has read tens of thousands of books over the years. Who's to say Peggy hasn't too? Screw Dipshit for saying otherwise and screw the F&G fucks for not defending Peggy over that piece of shit.

With that said, Peggy remains on my BBA list and I'm not planning to friend her or anything. It was just weird to be in the position of recommending a BBA's book. I think I'm getting too nice in my old age.

Otherwise, the last few days were all kinds of tough because of my new tomato allergy. Getting the hang of avoiding my beloved fruit is tricky since I love salsa, spaghetti, and ketchup. Even as I type this, the bottle of ketchup at Denny's is mocking me.

I've started writing three books today while Candy Girl beta reads Vivi. My main goal is to write Damaged and the Cobra since it's the book that readers want. The last few days I've craved writing Dmitri though. I think because the heroine is Vivi-like and I enjoyed goofing around with her. Blue isn't a goofing around character, but I need to finish the series soon. As much as I liked writing young adult, I'd rather stick to adult books for a year or two.

Oh, Mustang Sally wants a laptop now. In the past, she never had interest in one. As soon as extra money started coming into the house, suddenly she thinks a laptop would help her proof my books. Uh-huh.

I've wanted to buy her one for a while. As I wrote above, she's a hardcore reader. A book a day. While the local library is stellar, more and more of their catalog is ebooks. Sally prefers physical copies, but I know she'd love access to a wider selection. Just the free books on Amazon would keep her in reader heaven. Since Sally's a Libra, her birthday is just around the corner. I guess I know what I'm buying her.

Before I sign off, let me draw attention to a few awesome authors. On Where Zombies Come to Read, I interview J. Powell. His book, Vermont Voodoo, takes zombies in a great new direction. Very cool.

Also, Grace Lost by Lauryl will only be .99 for a while longer. Her zombie books are sexy fun. The sexy isn't with the zombies. Just wanted to clarify that.

KT Grant just released a new paranormal romance called Sharp Bite of Pleasure.

Let's finish with some funky ginger fun...