Category: Life

Life, Writers' Tools of the Trade

Tools of My Trade: Day 6 Pocket

Last year one of my featured tools was Flipboard and I still love that app and use it all the time on my iPad. It’s like reading a magazine instead of ugly news feeds from Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader. For this year I found something else that is kind of related to Flipboard, but different. It’s Pocket (formerly named Read It Later). And good news, it’s not just for iOS, it also works for Android and Kindle Fire! Today’s favorite tool is perfect for offline use. Find an article online or a blog post you want to save and read later? Maybe while you’re commuting on the train to work? Save it to Pocket. It will be available for off line reading anytime anywhere. Log into your Pocket account on your computer at home or at work, and your saved items are there. Open the Pocket app on your iPad, even without wifi (such as while you’re on a plane), your saved items are there too! Open it on your iPhone while waiting in the dentist’s office, your reading materials will be there! Are you done with a specific article after reading it? Delete it. Is it something you’d […]

Life, writing romance

THE BIG REVEAL: BIG CONTRACT NEWS!!

I’ve been sitting on some news for a while now. Really good news. News that still gives me a thrill when I think about it. It’s been very tempting to say something before now. What stopped me initially was disbelief that it would amount to anything. Then my superstition that keeps me from announcing anything until the ink is on the contract. But now the time has come…for me to set the scene for you. I’m a writer–you didn’t think I’d come right out and just tell you without a long drawn out story, now did you? Twas just before Christmas and in my little house… I was procrastinating because I was supposed to be writing. So, like all good procratinators, uh, I mean authors, I took a little time to check and empty the spam folder in my email account. But among the discount insurance and drugs guaranteed to make penises grow, one email stood out. Maybe the name was familiar to me because I’ve seen it around the web. Maybe it was the subject line which read “Your Agent”. Either way, this junk mail looked different enough to make me open it rather than trash it with the […]

Life, Romance eBooks

News and Novels–reality in romance

Sometimes my life, and my job, is really cool. Like this morning when I was anxiously waiting for the coffee to drip, one slow painful drop at a time, while the small television in my kitchen was tuned into the ABC morning news. Even in my caffeine deprived state, certain words from the newscaster captured my attention. Pirates/Navy Seals/Rescue. I knew without hearing more that in this day and age if there were pirates involved we were talking about Somalia. And if there was a rescue involving helicopters in that region of the world, that helo would be going to Djibouti. How was I so certain of this before I’d even heard, or read, the entire story? Because through my book research, through the contacts I’ve made in the active military world, I’ve had what is nearly, but not quite, an insider’s view of the Joint Task Force’s Camp Lemonier on the Horn of Africa in Djibouti, just miles from the Somalian border. I know there are special forces and there is always a squadron of US Marines maintaining heavy helicopters (CH-53s) there. I know what the hangers look like, the Cantina where the troops relax with a beer after a […]