Outlaw, Thugs, Full Time Author, and Charity

Happy dance! Damaged and the Outlaw is in its final stages. Sally has read the book and says it's her favorite Damaged book so far. Trust me that the chick doesn't bullshit when it comes to books.

Candy Girl is reading it now. I'm still tweaking things. Adding and deleting, editing and proofing, but it'll be in the hands of my other beta readers by the end of the week. The publishing date is set for November 26.

An awesome romance blog called Read This ~ Hear That did the cover reveal on Saturday. Thanks to Natalee who put it together last minute. Not only is she aces, her blog is sexy fun with lots of great book giveaways.

For Thanksgiving week, I'm set to edit Scattered. As some of you know, I homeschool Roo and Pooh. Normally, kids attend school Mon-Wed during the week of Thanksgiving, but they honestly never do much. I've decided to have my boys take the week off and add those missing days later in the year. So next week will be relaxing for everyone.

I'm also psyched to start Blue Awakening. Last weekend, Candy Girl helped me decide on a cover for the book. Now, I just need to write it. While I've completed the first chapter and a few other scenes, the gist of the novel waits for me to get cracking. I'm even listening to Susan Boyle to set the mood.

This last week wasn't all happy happy joy joy. A particularly stupid BBA decided to turn full-on thug and use an offensive slur against the disabled. She giggled about it later. Blew off anyone who might be offended then made herself the victim. Same old crap from her type of loser.

Months ago, I wrote about how hurtful and evil the R word is to anyone who truly cares about the disabled. As a mother with two sons on the autism spectrum, I have no patience for excuses by people who attack the disabled. I never wrote about my sons' disabilities before because I know the asshats would mock them. That's what the sick bastards do.

In the end, those bottom feeders can write whatever they want about my family. They are beyond help, particularly when they make excuses to use hate speech. Some words are just ugly and should never be used.

Possibly, this selfish chick is from a part of the country or belongs to an age group that believes the disabled should be shuttered away and pitied from afar. It doesn't matter why she believes hate speech like the R word is acceptable. She's filth like all people who attack the most vulnerable in society. Yeah, I'm pissed. Use that vile word and I go Mama Grizzly. No sympathy for bigots.

In good news, my girl Lauryl quit her "day job" and is a full-time author now. Congratulations! It's a big deal when an author can claim writing as their occupation, rather than a hobby. She's worked hard the last year, publishing three books and building a fan base. Here's hoping 2014 is even more successful for Lauryl as she expands to new genres and gains more fans.

Lots of great blogging this last week. On Indie Angie, I interviewed a really cool UF author named Rebecca Espinoza. Candy Girl previously reviewed Rebecca's first book, Binds. This week, she reviewed Café Insomniac. I added a review for Lady Sings the Blues. On Where Zombies Come to Read, Deadly Dee gave a stellar review for Corpse Days which is by a new hot author named Jonathon Kane. We're all looking forward to his upcoming UF novel.

With Outlaw's approaching release, I wrote up a Bijou Babbles. Later in the week, I'll post an excerpt from the book. Finally on BBA Whisperer, we giggled through our weekly update, pointed out a raging duh from one of my fandorks, and revealed the nastiness from the asshat I mentioned earlier.

I want to end this post by mentioning the recent natural disasters that have taken the lives of so many. I have several friends with family who have been devastated by the typhoon in the Philippines. If you're interested in donating to help those who've suffered greatly, you can do so here. There are many other groups providing relief like Doctors without Borders, UNICEF, OXFAM America, and Save the Children.

Closer to home, a tornado tore apart towns in Illinois. If you'd like to help those hurt worst, you can donate here.

I hope everyone who believes in the power of God will pray for those suffering. If you're not a believer, please send positive thoughts to the survivors.

High Five for Book Five

What a wild week! Highs and lows, joy and anger, giggles and growls. In the end, it was more positive than negative.

Finally published Vivi#2 aka Ain't No Queen. Thanks again to Candy Girl and Mustang Sally for their help preparing the book. In Candy Girl's case, she helped edit the book, pick the cover, and work on the blurb. She's a badass friend.

I'm currently working on four books. I have a sickness, I tell ya! Still slowly writing Blue Awakening. Fellow author and super sweet friend Lauryl gave the first Blue a shout out. Having gotten a taste of her newest horror book Schiessl House, I can say she's writing one heck of a freaky novel. The cover alone has me salivating for its release.

My writing focus is mainly on the romances. This week, I started Dmitri for my Carys Marie pen name. I had worried about Dmitri being too much of a pig or having a personality that would naturally lead to cheating. I hate cheaters. I wrote the first scenes when Dmitri meets Catalina and they hit just the note. Dmitri was the right amount of strutting bad boy without being a Cooper ripoff.

Working on Damaged and the Cobra too and I am loving how Aaron is coming along. Less certain about Lark. How strange that I was so worried about the H and it's the h who is giving me trouble now. I hadn't been able to figure out Tawny either initially, but she ended up being my favorite Smith sister.

The fourth book is one for my new pen name Etta Simone. I had initially planned to release it under Bijou's name, but I decided to make the characters older. Thirty! One foot in the grave really. The working title is The Rebound Biker and I'm still in the plotting phase.

My goal is still to get Dmitri and Cobra out next month. Unsure if I'll make both books. Really unsure if I can get Blue done. I do know in September I'll start editing Scattered, the third book in the Angelic Redemption series. It's finished but needs deep editing before it'll be ready for the beta readers.

Blogging took up a lot of my week. On Where Zombies Come to Read, I interviewed author R.J. Spears. I had an interview for Indie Angie with New Adult romance author Chantal Fernando. I was also lucky enough to share excerpts from God Attacks! by J.R. Kiefer and Schiessl House by M. Lauryl Lewis. Plus, I worked on several posts for the Whisperer blog. There were so many lies to sort out and bullies to profile that it took awhile to organize. Agent M kept me focused and tracked down the info. As usual, we made a great team.

One of the butthurt authors I've put in the mocklight has decided to make herself the victim (shock). A few months ago, she used a slur against the disabled and said she used bats to deal with them. She claimed later to be kidding. Then, she claimed she liked saying the slur for the attention she received for her blog. She proceeded to use the slur a few more times. Now, she's decided she's the victim.

She even had her friends message me to say how she's the nicest person ever and I'm mean and should never speak for the disabled. Let them speak for themselves. Though her friend who wrote this comment claimed to have autism, I assume he doesn't have much experience with others with spectrum.

Communication difficulties are a common problem for those with autism. Even those with strong verbal skills can have trouble explaining their feelings or standing up for themselves. I know a teenager who is essentially nonverbal. His only speech is parroting. One word he parrots when upset is the slur this author used so lightly.

While I doubt he knows the meaning behind the R-word, he understands enough. When he was called this slur, he was six-year-old. Ten years later, he still uses the word when angry. He knows it meant the woman thought he was defective and inferior. He knows it meant he was bad.

Explaining otherwise does no good because he lacks the cognitive skills to rationalize what happened. He can't tell himself the person who used the slur was wrong. He certainly couldn't stand up for himself as a child or even now as a teenager. I suspect when he's sixty that he'll still call himself the slur. It's burned into his mind.

Yet, the author and her friends think I should lighten up. After all, she was just being funny. They claim it's a common thing to say. Maybe it's a cultural difference. Possibly, these people live in a place where using slurs against others is acceptable. However, I live in the US where it's considered cruel and wrong.

It was disheartening to see how far people will go to defend the indefensible. There is a lot of talk of bullying lately and I can't imagine anything worse than mocking those unable to defend themselves.

As you can see it was an emotional week. The upside is I've published my fifth book this year. I'm writing again and no longer have to focus on boring editing. This week, I enjoyed promoting positive professional authors while Agent M and I showcased the badly behaving ones. As I wrote above, the week was more happy than sad so I'll end with cute Boo...

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...