Repair Land

Sadly, my laptop is away in Repair Land for another few weeks. Apparently there's a motherboard issue & she's not talking to the cord for some reason.

I can take my work computer home sometimes, but I'm not able to access some sites, including many blogs. Or TweetDeck. Or Gmail depending on its mood. And it doesn't have Word. *sigh*

I've been able to visit a few blogs in the last week, but not many. It'll probably be the same for the next week or 2 as well. Sorry! I'll visit when I can. Withdrawal is not a pretty condition!


In the meantime, Happy Earth Day! Be kind to our planet & all its inhabitants!

I also finished The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting. It was a fun, fast-paced read! It's got a bit of everything: mystery, suspense, paranormal, romance. I really enjoyed it.

Any suggestions for what I should read next to take my mind off my missing computer?

Hmmm ... Cookies!

"C is for Cookie & that's good enough for me!"

Don't you just love Cookie Monster? :)

 

Thank you!!! I didn't feel like a complete loner or loser over at From the Write Angle the other day. As promised here are those virutal chocolate chip cookies!!

Okay, okay ... I didn't make these. But I promise, my own look very much the same. :)

While I was Googling images, I found this...

Yup. Those are candles!

And this...

Yup. That's a ring!

And even this...

Yup. That's bacon. Really. There's even a recipe.

Really.

Yuck.

So, what cool things have you found Googling lately???

***

In slightly more frustrating news, my laptop cord has stopped working & I don't know if it's the cord or the laptop. I can't take it in until at least tomorrow night. Hopefully it's a simple fix & I'll be back soon. If not, I hope you'll understand. I'll try to keep up on my iPod, but I'm really not very good at that! I'll be reading your comments though & I'll catch up when I can. I'm powering down now to try to save the battery! At least I was able to do a full back up on the external drive!!

Wish me luck!

Great Reads

I've read a couple of blog buddy books lately, and even though I don't do reviews, I wanted to share!

Liar Society by Lisa & Laura Roecker

Fabulous mystery story of a teen who refuses to stop hunting for the truth behind the death of her best friend. When said best friend sends her an email a year AFTER her death telling her to keep looking and to find the answers, the plot more than thickens. It boils and simmers and bubbles! Secret societies, teen romance, and more than a little mystery! Frawesome!!

***

Return the Heart by TK Richardson

Great story of a teen who has a gift of reading people's hearts and knowing who they really are. This makes her a bit quiet and shy, until she meets up with other teens who recognize her power because they have similar ones of their own. Cue the kidnapping, mayhem, Russian mobs and CIA and you've got a fun, fast paced adventure with a touch of romance. Love it!

***

The Keepers of Sulbreth by Susan Gourley

A terrific fantasy adventure set in a unique world where 2 people who would rather not be heroes are thrust into that role. All kinds of fast paced adventure in this one! LOVE the world Susan's created too - very detailed and believable. Awesome!

Those are a few of the blog buddy books I've recently read and enjoyed! How about you? What's been a great read recently?

PS - I'm posting today over at From the Write Angle about book trends I see in my classroom. Please pop on over and check it out. I'm terrified no one will come - so take pity on me please! I'll send everyone virtual chocolate chip cookies -- Thanks! :)

Bounce

I've been struggling to find time to write in the past few months. I'm in the middle of rewriting my Steampunk to fix a plot problem. I'm nearly done my NaNo novel, but I'm going through it and doing an outline at the same time to make sure I don't have major plot holes like the Steampunk. I don't want to write the climax and resolution until I know it works. So, I've got a pretty full writing plate at the moment.

But... I was jumped by a shiny new idea the other week. It ran around in my head for a while, content to be left on its own to stumble around in my subconscious.

Last night it bounced to the forefront of my brain and demanded some attention. Apparently it knows life is already on overload, but it really doesn't care. :) I'm not going to start writing it yet, but I did cave in and write some mini character bios and a general overview.

My steampunk is YA, my NaNo is an adult romantic mystery. Shiny new idea??? Neither one of these.

MG fantasy adventure with a touch of sci fi. Yup. New age level and new genre. Why should anything be easy? :)

Do your ideas bounce in from all directions, or are they more orderly creatures who know how to form a line and wait their turn? (Someone please tell me I'm not the only one with ideas all over the spectrum!)

PS - Thanks so much to everyone for your incredible support for From the Write Angle. As always, my blog buddies amaze & humble me. You are all totally awesome!! Sending virtual cupcakes to everyone!!

Today, Cat Woods talking about the surprising things she learned at SCBWI - #1 sure surprised me!

Check out Calista Taylor's great post from Monday: Introduction to Steampunk Awesome!

From the Write Angle

Fun news!! I'm part of a new blog that's starting up today - From the Write Angle. We're a group of writers at various stages of the journey who are hoping to help other writers learn more about the publication process.

In 'our' words:

We learn best, not from our bigger than life heroes, but big brothers and sisters. We run fastest to catch the person just in front of us, not who has already finished the race. We seek The Write Angle to help you, not because we have reached the summit, but because we are in arm's length, and when you are arm's length ahead of us, we hope you'll remember how you got there.

Our blog will focus on helping writers find information to assist them throughout their own journeys. It's going to be a great resource for writers of all genres and age levels. Our 4 main topic areas are:

Genre Talk
Publishing Industry
Query Questions
Writing -- The Art

We also have a couple of pages that are loaded to the brim with useful definitions and links:

A Writter's Glossary (subsections: Buzzwords of the Biz, Categories, Genres, The Art & Craft of Writing)
Online Writer's Toolbox (subsections: Fun Analyzing Tools, General Reference, Writing/Craft Related Reference, Marketing/Publishing Reference, On Querying)

We'll be blogging on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays for now. Each of us will post about once a month, so there will be a great variety of personalities and approaches to topics. We've uploaded some posts now to give everyone a taste of what FTWA will be like. There are several posts under each tab, so you'll have lots to choose from (my first post is under Query Questions).

We'll also be tweeting under the name @WriteAngleBlog

I'm SO excited to be a part of this new blog with such talented writers (check out who's who on the About the Team page - they're all amazing!!). I hope you have a chance to pop on over. I'm betting you'll like what you see! :)

My Timing ... Not So Good

In my last post, I talked about statistics and the fact that I've never bothered looking at mine. But some of you talked me into it. I've braved a new world. :)

Okay - maybe not that brave! :) One thing it did tell me is that my timing is not the best. When I first decided to blog & tweet, I checked out the name Jemi Fraser - just to make sure it didn't bring up a lot of sites not connected to my name. Lucky me, nothing at all came up. Cue the happy dance.

A couple of weeks later, 2 celebrities (Demi Lovato & Joe Jonas) started dating. In the spirit of Brangelina, these two were quickly dubbed Jemi. Apparently the two are no longer a couple, but the name persists. I've had many teeny-boppers add me as a friend on twitter without realizing I have nothing to do with That Jemi. I used to send a nice tweet explaining I wasn't That Jemi, now I mostly just block them. (Hope I'm not traumatizing anyone!)

This trend is apparently alive and well according to my stats. A LOT of people search Jemi, land on my site for under 5 seconds and leave again. *sigh* The most popular search term for people finding my blog is Jemi, not Jemi Fraser. *bigger sigh* By mentioning their names & posting the photo below, I bet I'm going drive a few young celebrity hunters crazy!

Maybe I should have gone with the longer form of the name ... Jemima. Yeah. I didn't think so either.

So, anyone else out there driving teeny-boppers looking for idols crazy?

Stats Anyone?

A few months after I started blogging, I signed myself up for the free version of Stat Counter. I checked it a few times after I signed up, but I honestly don't think I've looked at it in well over 6 months, maybe a year. I see a stats tab at the top of my blog options. Sadly I haven't even clicked on it yet.

I have no idea what it would even show me. I know some people say they've seen people find their blog by Googling something totally irrelevant and a little bizarre. Sometimes even creepy. Strangely this might be the best reason for me to click on the tab - that's fun information. Other people talk about traffic to their blog and throw around numbers about visitors and page views and other scary items. I don't know if the numbers could tell me anything - is there a baseline comparison I should know about?

Sadly, I just don't care.

Why? Probably because in my day job (teaching), I'm constantly collecting and analyzing data. I'm looking for connections and trying to find teaching methods that will help the kids learn better. I collect, mark, collate, analyze & interpret, and plan accordingly. Then do it all over again. For every subject I teach.

I blog for fun - stat checking sounds a little too much like work. I think.

Do you check stats? Should I check stats? If so, what in the world should I be looking for???