Disappointments..

I remember growing up the worst thing I could do is to disappoint my parents... Mom in particular. I could ignore the negative feelings when I had fights with friends or get over insignificant hurts caused by classmates... but when I let my Mom down, it was hard to get over. That sick feeling in my gut lingered for days.

Interestingly enough, now that I'm Mom ... the worst thing I can do is to disappoint myself. To not think highly enough of myself to make the correct decisions and ensure that others around me give me the proper respect. I abhor making mistakes and my occasional errors in judgment. I slipped recently and am kicking myself. Should I have known better? Definitely. Will I make the same mistake in the future? Nope. Am I going to tell everyone what that mistake was? Not bloody likely. lol But I will take this lesson and learn.

Hopefully my kids are desperately afraid of disappointing me. Let the cycle continue...

Lisa's Journey

OK, so shoot me. It's been over a month since I last wrote. A friend mentioned reading this, and I suddenly remembered my intention to write weekly. Uh..huh.
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So what's on my mind today ... in the news I heard Bush talking about how Iran is sending bombs and other weapons to our enemies in Iraq, and that he intends to stand up to anyone who is going to be harming our soldiers. I'm terribly afraid of where this is leading. It makes my stomach churn when I think too deeply about it. "Peace" isn't the answer because our enemies don't want peace ... but I'm not wise enough to know where the answer lies.

Today was a snow day for us. It was lovely having a day off. I'm listening to the snow plow grinding its way up our street now. The ice from this storm was terrible. The kids have a delayed opening tomorrow. They're wearing pj's inside out as good mojo for another day off tomorrow.

I'm still catching up on my book since losing my hard drive late last year. That computer disaster set me back in more ways than one - my muse has taken a trip somewhere and I've been trying to locate her ever since. It's slow going, even though I have it all outlined.

Let's see ... current events. Anna Nicole Smith - I'm bored to tears. There is no great mystery why she ended up dying young.

It's early to get interested in who is running for president in 2008 - too many candidates will burn out. I like Guiliani on the republican side. Haven't found anyone on the democratic side that I could support as of yet.

Interesting item about how Anne Frank's father tried to get his family out of Germany to flee the Nazis, but was unsuccessful. He tested the waters for a Visa in both the US and Cuba, but didn't manage to get them out before they had to go into hiding.I'm curious that Cuba was considered a possibility - I'm not sure about the political climate of the country at that time. Anne died of typhoid at a concentration camp at the age of 15.

Random musings late on a Tuesday night ... be well all! Ah, and Happy Valentine's Day!

Freya's Bower Call for Submissions

Call for Submissions!

Freya’s Bower.com Celebrates Its One-Year Anniversary


To celebrate our one-year anniversary on March 5, 2007, we’re having a call for submissions and offering a nice advance against royalties for the top two manuscripts that fit the following categories.

For general submissions, we’re looking for sweet and/or tangy erotic romance manuscripts of category length (30,001-45,000 words) and longer of any genre. See our guidelines for regular submissions and how we rate sweet and tangy: http://www.freyasbower.com/content/view/12/31/

For our T.R.O.U.B.L.E. line, we’re looking for sweet to beyond sizzling ratings for category length and longer only.

Out of the accepted manuscripts, two will be chosen to receive a publishing contract, a print version of the manuscript six months from eBook release date, and a nice advance against first royalties, which will be discussed upon signing the contract. One winning manuscript will be chosen from the sweet and/or tangy submissions and one will be chosen for our T.R.O.U.B.L.E. line. Second place manuscripts for each of these two categories will receive a smaller advance, but the print option will depend solely on eBook sales.

Other outstanding manuscripts will receive a publishing contract with Freya’s Bower.

T.R.O.U.B.L.E. Guidelines:
(For male or female protagonists)

She’s gorgeous and causes chaos wherever she goes. Perhaps she’s a klutz, a walking disaster. Maybe she has the worst luck imaginable.

For males: He’s dangerous. The bad boy you can’t help but love. Maybe he’s a chick magnet, or maybe he’s the guy flipping burgers at the local diner. Catastrophe and mayhem seem to follow him around.

Use your imagination for the trouble theme. Any ethnicity, any genre welcome.

Protagonists can also be characters such as Valkyries (for our Valkyrie series), werewolves, vampires, wallflowers, etc.

Category length and longer. (30,001-45,000 words.)

Ratings can be from sweet to beyond sizzling for the TROUBLE line, but we are very open to sweet submissions right now.

First person submissions must be well written.

Please read our guidelines http://www.freyasbower.com/content/view/12/31/ for formatting and any questions you might have before submitting. Paste your query and first chapter directly into the body of the email.

ATTN: We have also opened an Angels and Demons category. If the angel or demon fits the TROUBLE theme or the sweet and/or tangy rating, these novels are eligible for the top novel decisions.

Final words: Submissions may be semi-rough drafts, but please don’t send something to us that you obviously have not checked over at least once. The key is semi-rough. Send the entire manuscript attached as an MS Word file to submit@freyasbower.com with the word TROUBLE or SWEET/TANGY in the subject line.

Deadline for this call is February 20, 2007. If you have questions email Faith at editorfaith@sbcglobal.net or Marci at mbaun@freyasbower.com

2007

I'm one of those people who looks forward to beginnings. I enjoy making resolutions, even though most won't last through the end of January. I like the freshness of a new year - the possibilities.

It is with this sense of hope that I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2007.

I confess...

I am a serial procrastinator. It's true, friends.....as evidenced by the fact that I haven't blogged here since October. Horrible of me when I wanted to do it every day. LOL I'll have to pull back on that commitment to myself and make it once a week. See, I'm very good at planning. I plan on making Monday my blogging day. Then Monday will roll around and the laundry won't be done...or I'll have to edit something...or it may snow and we'll be outside playing instead. I'm 41 and I think I finally have to accept this as a character fault and deal with it rather than try and change.

I had a horrible computer crash in November over the Thanksgiving holiday which resulted in my losing tons of work, both editing and my own writing. That, of course, has put me even more behind than usual. Our living room is almost complete - I'm painting today and tomorrow then furniture is being delivered. Then we can decorate for Christmas. We look like pagans amongst all the decorated houses in the neighborhood. My kids have volunteered to do the outside lights this year. I can only imagine how this will turn out. I'll post a picture on the blog to share their decorating abilities. Who knows - perhaps it'll be spectacular. At least it'll be done.

So beyond work, decorating, cleaning, Christmas shopping and photos, there just hasn't been enough time in the day these past few months. I'll never undertake such a large redo in the house again - we'll move first!

Ack! It's been a month!

This is the longest I've gone without blogging. Real life has gotten crazy lately. I started working at our local community hospital and while it's a part-time position I've been working full-time for the past four weeks training. I'm finally on part-time status and one of the women I work with was in a bad car accident and I've been covering some of her hours. Whew! I'm finally able to concentrate on my editing and writing duties.

I'm finding hospital work interesting. I'm working in admissions, doing registrations and also running the "bed control desk" for a few shifts. This is the desk that coordinates all the patients/ beds in the hospital and involves working with the ER and nursing staff through the hospital. It's a busy, hectic kind of job which I adore - it makes the time fly. My mom and sister are both RN's and I've always abhored their hospital banter. It's an inside joke with us that I hate talking medicine. Now here I am using their slang, which they love. lol

We also had a ton of work done on the house in the past month. We have a bi-level house, with the kitchen, living room, dining room and 3 bedrooms upstairs. Downstairs is a family room, laundry, and a 4th bedroom. We first knocked a wall down between the LR and DR, creating one large living space and put a half wall between the kitchen and former DR so it's all open and wonderful. The light spilling into the rooms makes me so happy - we have direct southern exposure on the front of the house and the back rooms were dark and unhappy. Not anymore! We also built a deck off the 2nd floor with a door leading from the former DR onto the deck. It's gorgeous - I just wish it were June instead of October so I could enjoy it more!

Anyway, enough ranting about myself. I've been in "avoidance" mode with the world. I haven't had the time to sit and watch the horrible news stories that have been out there - the Amish story in particular. Sometimes I just need to take a step back and concentrate on me and mine and forget that the rest of it all exists. Someone commented today on the radio that the "talking heads" on tv seemed disappointed Hawaii's earthquake wasn't more dramatic. Apparently there isn't much footage of disastrous things happening during it. That is the very thing that turns me off to the news.

Until tomorrow, friends...

Oh, one last thing - Freya's Bower is announcing their release of a collection of erotic and romance stories which will be sold with all net proceeds going to benefit a battered women's shelter. Check out www.freyasbower.com for the details. The book will be available in either e-book format, softcover and hardcover and will be released in February. Cool beans! The women that run FB are true class acts.

New Beginnings

Pray for me. LOL

I'm starting work tomorrow at a hospital, and while I'm only going to be working 8 days a month, I'm working full-time for training purposes for a couple of weeks. Ack! I haven't had to get up, showered and moving in eons. And I never had to do it while getting 3 kids out of the house and letting the contractor in to work on the house! DH and I just figure we'll muddle our way through it.

I'm going to be working on what's called the "bed desk". I will control (mmmwwwwaaahhhhhaaaa haaaa) the beds in the hospital, for patients in the ER who need a bed, keeping track of who left that day, docs will call with direct admits, etc. I like the job because it involves a lot of chatting on the phone, shmoozing the RN's for beds, etc. They warn me it's a stressful job, but heck, I'm working Wednesday one week, Thursday the next and every other weekend, Saturday and Sunday. All on the 3p-11p shift. No biggie, really. It will be nice to get out!

But in the meantime, working full-time is gonna hurt. I've planned ahead as much as I can with meals (bought tons of ready-to-cook crap today) and clothes (yep, folded and ironed - an amazing feat). So here goes nothing!

A Good Cause

Michelle E. Ellis is a phenomenal writer. I am very happy to call her both colleague and co-worker. She is donating all proceeds from QUITS, her horror e-book, to a children's charity, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), an English organization. QUITS will also soon be in print for you to buy. The link below is for a fabulous trailer for the book. The trailer is suspenseful and has a creepiness to it which is surprising - exactly like the book itself!

C'mon, support the kids. You know you wanna. ;-)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp6iLDnyseE

Call for Submissions

Hey everyone!

I wanted to take a moment and let my readers know that Freya's Bower and Wild Child Publishing (www.freyasbower.com and www.wildchildpublishing.com) are looking for sweet and mainstream romances. Erotic romance is also accepted at Freya's Bower, but both houses are searching for wonderful writers who tell sweeter stories.

If you are interested, please check our submissions guidelines, blog here or email me at Lisaba1@aol.com. Thank you!