Posts

Showing posts from October, 2012

Boo! Happy Halloween!

Image
Yesterday I wrote about scary things that  happened in my childhood--didn't write them all--didn't touch on the time I thought the Black Dahlia's severed leg was on my bed, but I think I wrote enough. Today, I'll tell about some scary times that happened after I was grown and a mom. One New Year's Eve, Seabee husband was in Vietnam so I offered to babysit all the neighblorhood kids so the parents could have a great celebration. It was like a giant slumber party. After a treat of root beer floats and playing games, the kids settled down somewhat to wait for the New Year to arrive. Most, including my own children, were in sleeping bags on the living room floor--except for my youngest who was in my bed. That room had a sliding glass door to the outside. Finally, things had quieted when my ltttle boy came into the room and announced, "Mommy, there's a big man in the bedroom." Here I was, the one who had to protect all these children. I grabbed a base

Scary Stuff for Halloween

I visited a friend's blog today and she's relating scary stuff that has happened to her. I decided to do the same thing on my blog today and on Halloween. When I was a kid of about 12 and babysitting two doors up the street for a policeman's two little kids, someone tried to get in the front door around 11 p.m.. The policeman had left a loaded gun home and told me where it was (can you imagine?). First I called my dad, then I got the gun and went to the door. Far braver than I felt, I shouted, "I've got a gun and I'll use it if you come in!) My dad arrived about 15 minutes later (seemed like an hour) because he got dressed before he came up. I'm sure he thought I was imagining things. He checked all around the outside of the house and told me no one was there. Of course not by that time. Another time when I was a teen, I got brought home after a young people's church group--my folks were still at church--unlocked the front door, came into the hous

Sell More eBooks - How to Increase Sales, Review

SELL MORE E-BOOKS--HOW TO INCREASE SALES by Lucinda Sue Crosby and Laura Dobbins For anyone wanting to sell more e-books, this is a wonderful guide. There is a big plus, in that the first part of the book explains how to self-publish and e-book with many easy to understand directions and tips. Probably the most important tip is to first write a good book and make sure it is edited properly. Not doing this might mean that any books you publish after this one will not be purchased by previous readers. When the book focuses on selling e-books, there are many tips on how to do this, including offering it for free for a few days--and how this works. There are directions and the URLs for places to promote your freebies and how to continue promoting after the book is no longer for sale. I purchased this as an e-book, then went back and bought a paper copy so I could mark up the books

Working on my Next Rocky Bluff P.D. crime Novel

Or at least that's what I should be doing. I've had so many distractions, it's going to take a bit of doing to get my mind set right. I need to immerse myself in Rocky Bluff--the small beach community somewhere between Ventura and Santa Barbara. When I'm there in my mind, it seems like a very real place with the bluff that's give the town it's name, the battered rental houses on the beach front, the rotted pier, the homes that climb the sloping hillside leading to the freeway, the ranches and orange groves on the other side of the freeway, and the businesses that line the main drag, Valley Blvd. Oh, I was going to tell you what story lines I need to continue, but I can't do that because it would spoil the book that is coming in 2013, Dangerous Impulses . Sometimes this whole writing process is weird. One book at the publishers while writing the next one. And in my case, I'm also working on the edits for my next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery which I

How My Writing Has Changed

Trail to Glory was my first published book. It was/is an historical family saga based on my own family genealogy. When it was published I really didn't know a whole lot about writing or getting published. It was rejected close to 30 times before Leisure books picked it up and published it as mass market paper back. I also knew nothing about promoting. I did send out flyers to announce the book to friends and family and arranged one book signing. And that was it. I did get a nice advance and one royalty check. The book faded into obscurity and truthfully, I forgot about it as I continued to write and eventually get other books published. With all the excitement about Kindle books, since I had my rights back, I decided to publish the book on Kindle. I no longer had a copy on my computer due to many changes of computers and word processing programs. I sent the book off to a company that scans the pages and puts them into Word. I got busy with other stuff and kind of forgot al