The Week Begins: Daily Blog Post

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Just for fun!

 

Hey!

Monday was busy. Hubby had blood tests at 10am. He’s had stomach problems (an old issue), which have resurfaced over the last week. The docs are trying to identify the current problems.

I had a book festival meeting, also at 10am. We went over status of where each department is at this point and reviewed the feedback from authors and attendees. Lots of good comments there and a few good ideas for improvements. Then I went to lunch with one of the committee members and her husband. That was fun.

On the box set, I have one more book to edit and I can update the Amazon copy, publish the Smashwords copy, then re-format for the paper box set and get that uploaded. There is an end in sight! Yay!

A reminder: The 2018 Authors/Bloggers Summer Giveaway is in progress at https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/giveaways-and-prizes/. There’s $80 as a Grand Prize Paypal Cash and 27 books and 27 prizes available to win.

That’s it for today!

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy my Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.

A Writer’s Job: Monday Blog Post

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Newest News:

It’s possible that you wonder why, as a writer, I cannot get stories to you faster. I understand. It seems to take a really long time for me to produce and publish your next favorite series book. To be honest, it feels like a long time for me, as well.

A look at my current to do list might let you in on what’s going on. These are not in any kind of order. Just how they occurred to me as I was making the list.

AuthorShow.com – a note to myself to apply to the audio and visual podcast program that provides some exposure for authors. (Marketing)

Brown Rain Covers – I have them done, just want to update the interiors to match Tested’s interior. (Marketing)

Brown Rain Interiors – Yep, see above. (Marketing)

Gulliver Box Sets – What I’m currently working on. (Marketing)

Pre-Order Slave Elf – Get the story Slave Elf up on multiple platforms/sites as a pre-order. (Advertising)

Edit Slave Elf – (Editing)

Amazon Affiliate – Re-apply to Amazon for affiliate status. That way people coming to my author page or a book page, can continue their other Amazon shopping and I get a tiny cut at no additional expense to my readers. (Cross-Promotion)

Set up Amazon AUS, NZ, CAN – Officially set up my author page and books on these country sites for more exposure to English speaking readers. (Marketing)

Set up Optimize Press – This is a site that gives me assistance in setting up my marketing pages. (Marketing)

Pinterest Class – This is a Mark Dawson beta class that I have not been able to access despite the fact it appears on my class page. I’ll have to contact someone to get it to open for me. I’d love to learn how to use Pinterest to expand my reader base. (Marketing)

SAM – this is actually a book festival reminder that as a non-profit organization I have to annually re-certify that our organization is tax-exempt. (Volunteer)

Post Review – I had a nice review of Tested from Reader’s Favorite. I need to post it on my Tested pages (Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords) (Advertising)

You may notice there’s no reminder to write. I don’t need a reminder to write, it’s always in the back of my mind. I need to write a flash fiction to post every Friday and current writing projects include finishing It’s All About the Music, (plus 2 more to make 5 in that series), a horror story for December deadline, and edits for both Mystery at the Reunion and the 2nd Zoe Ohale story, Troubled Campus.

I’m also scheduled for a book selling/signing on September 15th, October 13 – 14th, and December 8th. So I need to inventory my on-hand books to see what needs to be ordered. I sold quite a few at the Payson Book Festival and need to re-supply.

It’s obvious I do a lot of tasks that are marketing oriented. I need to if I want my reader numbers to grow.

And that’s it! Lots to do and all of it needs time and energy. Some days I just want to play games on Facebook.

Giveaways:

The 2018 Authors/Bloggers Summer Giveaway is in progress at https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/giveaways-and-prizes/. There’s $80 as a Grand Prize Paypal Cash and 27 books and 27 prizes available to win.

Newsletter Sign Up:

Click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ve put sign-up gifts on the regular and the SciFi/Fantasy and the Cozy Mystery newsletter sign-ups. That’s right. If you sign up for my newsletter you get a free story from me. Be prepared for fun and contests! Click on the video link for a short video from me. Hear what I’m working on. Join my “A” Team to be the first to read my books and hear what new books are coming.

Don’t forget to follow my blog, too. Different material goes in the blog as in the newsletter. You can share both, so spread the word!

Newest Book Release:

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy this Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.

Saturday Relaxing: Daily Blog Post

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Pretty Picture of my Sungold Cherry Tomatoes

Hey!

Saturday was relaxing for me. The hubby has been sick but on Saturday, felt pretty well. I trimmed my lavender bush and gave the blossom stems to a friend who makes lotions. I went to the Farmer’s market and bought basil and microgreens. I also talked to a number of friends as I made my way around the stalls. When home, made chicken vegetable soup so the hubby would have something easy on the tummy to eat.

I did try to play Mahjong Trails on Facebook but must be several million other people were trying to play too. The game was so slow to load, I just gave up.

No writing work today. Yesterday I left off edits of The Challenge about half-way through the book so I’m progressing nicely.

That’s it for today!

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy my Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.

Friday’s Fun: Daily Blog Post

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Hey!

Friday is a bit of a fun day for hubby and me. Our local casino offers a Veteran’s Promo on Friday mornings and we go down there for that. We meet up with a couple other of our friends, gamble a little until we meet the required point goal, go get our casino cards updated, get a free $5 comp that covers our breakfasts, then go back to gamble the $10 in casino dollars they give up.

We spend more time at breakfast than gambling but that’s all right with me. Friday morning I won $5 and hubby won $15. Free money, free breakfast and a meet-up with friends. A good start to the day, I say.

Also yesterday, when I returned home, I processed more peaches into peach puree for smoothies (or those bellini’s I mentioned a few days ago.) I still have more peaches in the fridge and have given up getting the last of the peaches from the tree. I can’t reach them and by now they’re too ripe to pick. Let the birds and the bees have them.

Then I wrote this blog, and will continue to edit my Gulliver Station series. I’ll have to be done with this box set sooner or later. Sooner, I hope.

That’s it for today!

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy my Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.

Watching the Rain: Friday Flash Fiction Story

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I wiped the fog from the kitchen window with the towel I’d been using to dry the dishes. Rain. What a surprise.

When they’d told us on Earth that the planet was rainy, it never really registered with me. I was from Seattle after all. I was used to rain. Anyway, that’s what I thought. I sighed and turned back to the kitchen. The psychologists made sure our prefabs were bright and cheery. All of the lights, in every building, were full spectrum so that we wouldn’t suffer from seasonal affective disorder. SAD they called it back on Earth. Here it wasn’t something just the occasional person got. Apparently quite a few of the original colonizing scientists went mad and killed each other. Can’t have that with the permanent colonists.

I finger-combed my son’s fine hair, same as his father’s, and gave him a smile. “Finish your breakfast, Eddie.” He nodded, mouth full of scrambled egg, as he kept his eyes on the cartoon on the monitor.

“Breakfast, Ed!”

“Right there!”

I dropped sliced bread into the toaster and poured a coffee for Ed. I was still amazed at how well the agriculturists could mimic real coffee from the yeast vats. There was some squawking about when we’d get real coffee, real dairy, so on and so on. You’d think they were deprived or something. All we ate on Earth was yeast food. Just because the scientists said we’d get real food someday. I rolled my eyes. Takes time to raise animals after all, and plants. Nothing Earth derived could survive the climate here. Time, I thought. Need lots of time.

Ed came into the kitchen. He kissed Eddie on the top of his head and gave me a kiss on the cheek as the toast popped up.

Eddie finished his egg by pushing it onto his spoon with a slice of toast. Then ate the toast.

Ed buttered his toast and slurped his coffee. “Great bread, honey. I love that you make it from scratch.”

I smiled. As a botanist, I had a part of a greenhouse. I was developing a strain of wheat that might work here.

Ed finished his toast. “Come on, buddy. Time for me to walk you to school.”

They both put on their rain gear and walked out the door with a wave to me. I watched from the cleaned window. They got halfway to the next pre-fab and collapsed. I pulled the curtain and cleaned up the kitchen. The bread went into the disposall.

I was at my computer when the knock came. I answered, letting the colony leader and the security officer into the foyer. “James, Alex, what’s going on?”

James looked uncomfortable.

“Uh, Anna.” Alex pulled his hood down. “There’s been a problem.”

I looked at each in turn. “Problem?”

“Yeah.” James took a deep breath. “Your husband and son were found out on the walk. Dead.”

I blinked at them. “Dead?”

“Yes.” Alex pulled his pad from an inside pocket. “Something about poisoning. The local plant alkaloids. Was Ed experimenting with anything here at home?”

“No. No. He kept everything in the labs. Some of the local plant life is toxic even to touch.”

The two men nodded. “Sorry for your loss, Anna.” James took my hand and patted it. They pulled up their hoods. “We’ll send Mary by.”

“Mary.” I nodded. “That would be good.”

“Sure.” They left.

I went back to the computer. That would be good. I was sick of Mary, too.

Writing: Daily Blog Post

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Moon and Clouds by Randy Cockrell

Hey!

Writing, or really, editing. I’m going through the Gulliver Station box set and correcting those pesky punctuation and grammar errors. Have also found a missing word or two.

On the other hand, I have a horror story due by December. I’ve been thinking about possible story plots after reading the book Writing Horror. One idea concerns the local saloon that’s said to be haunted. One of the several ghosts seen on the property is of a prostitute. I’m thinking some sort of body take-over of a modern woman who’s “compatible” with the now dead woman. The modern woman is aware of what’s going on but not in control. How would she get out of the control of the ghost? How’s that sound for an idea?

That’s it for today!

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy my Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.

Hiking: Daily Blog Post

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Hey!

In my Jean Hays series, Jean and her friend Karen like to go hiking. They even found a body on a hike in Mystery in the Woods. I love to go hiking. I like being out in the woods, or because I live in Arizona, the desert, and listen to the quiet. Tuesday is a regularly scheduled hiking day. I go out with the C Group of the Payson Packers. This hiking group has been around over 25 years and grown to the size such that we break up into groups based on hiking ability, desire for hard or easy hikes and length of hike. My group, led by my hubby, does easy-moderate hikes of 4 – 6 miles in length over easy to moderate, occasionally hard, terrain.

Yesterday we went to a spot called Jones Crossing. This was a 6.5-mile hike on level terrain through a ravine with a streambed. No water in the stream this year as we’re in a drought though there were a couple of pools that had polywogs in them. And, it was hot! Probably about 95 degrees as it was 99 in Payson. At any rate, the turn around point has a slot cave where many sat and had their snack as it was quite cool in there.

There was no writing on Tuesday. I was just too worn out from the heat. I’ll pick it up today.

That’s it for today!

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy my Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.

Peaches!: Daily Blog Post

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Frozen peach slices

Hey!

So I mentioned in Monday’s post that I have an abundance of peaches. Monday morning I made cobbler, which used up 4 cups of chopped peaches. I had some of that for breakfast, yum!

I turned three other containers of peaches into sliced peaches and put them in the freezer. If you also have an abundance of peaches, here’s what to do. Quickly blanch your whole, ripe peaches, about 2 minutes. Drop them into ice water to stop the cooking. Then with a paring knife, peel each peach. If your peaches are truly ripe, the skin will slip right off. If your peaches aren’t fully ripe, you’ll have to actually peel them. Take care to just take the skin and as little of the peach flesh as humanly possible. Then half, pit, and cut into slices. Put them on a freezer-paper lined cookie sheet or sheets, in my case, and put in the freezer. I usually let mine freeze at least 24 hours. Longer if I get busy. Anyway, take from the freezer, loosen from the freezer paper, and put into gallon freezer bags.

There you have it. Frozen peaches ready for cobbler, smoothies or bellini’s. Don’t know what a bellini is? Check this out: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/238504/classic-bellini-cocktail/

That’s it for today!

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy my Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.

Gulliver Box set, New Ice Cream Maker, Gardening: Monday Blog Post

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Newest News:

So, I have the Smashwords copy of the Gulliver Station Box set formatted and the table of contents linked. I’m going to go through it today to try and get rid of the punctuation and grammar errors I see in there so when I do the paperback version, it will be cleaner. I’ll update the Kindle copy as well. It’s a tedious process, folks, so please bear with me.

Ice Cream Maker

I mentioned a few of days ago that I was buying a new ice cream maker because I couldn’t find the motor and paddle for my old one. Well, the Cuisine Art maker came, and Saturday I made a new batch of vanilla paleo ice cream. I put it into the maker and it worked beautifully. Hubby tried it Saturday night and while he declared it wasn’t as creamy as regular ice cream, it was good. Better with the addition of fresh, cut-up peaches, of which we’re swimming. That’s a whole ‘nother story.

The garden is going strong. I have peaches. Lots and lots of peaches and they all ripen at once. So we give away a lot to friends. The a good many I’ll blanch, peel, and cut into slices to freeze. The freezing part is easy. Lay the slices out on a freezer paper lined baking sheet and put in the freezer. The next day, loosen them from the paper, put into a gallon freezer bag, and you’re done. Unless of course, like me, you have several more containers of fresh peaches in the fridge. Then it’s round two! The picture is of 2 containers already washed, and my gathering basket of just picked peaches, before they get their bath.

Giveaways:

The 2018 Authors/Bloggers Summer Giveaway is in progress at https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/giveaways-and-prizes/. There’s $80 as a Grand Prize Paypal Cash and 27 books and 27 prizes available to win.

The Smashwords’ site’s Summer/Winter Giveaway is over. I hope you had the chance to get many of my books for free or at a significant discount. Now you can find a list of all of my books at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/conniecockrell and in whatever ebook format works for you.

Newsletter Sign Up:

Click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ve put sign-up gifts on the regular and the SciFi/Fantasy and the Cozy Mystery newsletter sign-ups. That’s right. If you sign up for my newsletter you get a free story from me. Be prepared for fun and contests! Click on the video link for a short video from me. Hear what I’m working on. Join my “A” Team to be the first to read my books and hear what new books are coming.

Don’t forget to follow my blog, too. Different material goes in the blog as in the newsletter. You can share both, so spread the word!

Newest Book Release:

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy this Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.

Cell Phones Update: Daily Blog Post

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Samsung Galazy J7

Hey!

My new, Samsung, Android J7 arrived Saturday! Yay! It came with a charging cord, and I purchased the skin and a car charger to go with the phone. It looks like my Moto 3G with just a couple of small changes in microphone openings, On/off switch and volume buttons. Anyway, I’ve charged it up. Then Sunday morning, I went into the system and yay! They’ve made it easy to transfer contacts and applications and files from the old phone to the new one. All I had to do after that was call Consumer Cellular and have the new phone activated, the phone number transferred and the old phone de-activated.

That’s it for today!

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy this Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.