I should know better than to try to post anything on my blog when I haven’t had enough sleep. I looked at the schedule wrong…and didn’t see that there were two stops today.
Elizabeth…I sincerely apologize…and encourage everyone to swing by Silver’s Reviews to read the lovely review she wrote about Enza.
If I were a bulldog named Harvey, this would have been me last night…
…Kathleen over at CELTICLADY’S REVIEWS.
When I stopped over to make sure I had the link right, I found the review already up. Thanks so much, Kathleen, for the lovely review! 🙂
Day 5 on the blog tour… Stop by and see what Paula has to say about Enza at The Phantom Paragrapher.
~~~~~
Eight more days left and so far I couldn’t be more pleased. There have been moments when I’ve felt like I was sweating bullets waiting to see what the reviewers would have to say, but the responses have been terrific.
Even if they had turned out to be dismal, though, it wouldn’t have mattered. Well it kind of would…but not as much as you might think.
Writing Enza was a labor of love for me. Dumb as it may sound, I’m not even sure I had a choice in writing it. It almost feels like it chose me. Yeah, that’s weird. It’s also true because I’ve never had another story grab me like this one did. And it wouldn’t let go.
Kind of like Rose tells Jack in Titanic…
In looking through videos, I found this alternate ending.
I hadn’t known another ending had been filmed. And this is one I think most of us would have preferred. But I guess the writers decided that, realistically, a guy who had been in water that cold…for that long…probably wouldn’t have survived. The final scenes wouldn’t have had as much impact either.
That was actually a conundrum I faced while writing the final chapters of Enza. Did I want to continue the story as realistically as possible? Or did I want to bring it to an end readers would enjoy more?
Marcy Kennedy addressed this exact thing in her blog on Wednesday, when she reviewed Jeff Goins soon-to-be- released book; You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One). In a nutshell, we need to be true to ourselves and write the stories we want to write. We can’t write to please other people because then we’re conforming. We’re not letting our voices be heard. Instead we’re trying to be an imitation of ourselves…and originals are always better.
And that’s exactly what I did. What I always do with my books. It’s definitely the right choice for me.
Please stop by Seeking with all Yur Heart and Cocktails and Books Since I’m posting this about 1:30 a.m., I can hardly wait to stop by, too, after I get a little sleep. 🙂
(Third stop on the blog tour is…actually two stops. Debra Kristi and It’s All About Me)
Okay, back to the rodents…
Unless they’re my cute little ceramic Christmas decorations, or the kind that makes it possible for me to use my computer, I have no use for mice. Well, I admit that Jerry’s little cousin, Tuffy Mouse, is adorable. But that’s it. That is it.
He’s cuter when he doesn’t talk…
Why do I hate mice? I don’t know. They just scare the heck out of me and if I never see one again it will be too soon.
We lived in a mouse-free apartment in town. Until a major snowstorm hit. I’m not sure why but after that there were always a few around. Pretty sad when you make your kids stomp into the kitchen before you’ll walk into it (because I could hear them in the drawer under the oven).
That was also where I had one dart between my feet while standing in the kitchen (I discovered I really can dance that day). Even worse, I felt one run across my foot while sitting at my desk one night. That was an experience I’ll never forget. People a few houses down the street probably remember it, too. I never sat at my desk again without a pair of shoes on…this from a gal who used to love going barefoot.
After that I wound up getting a cat (even though it was forbidden in the lease…a lease that didn’t forbid mice, of course). But Sam wasn’t the best mouse-catcher around, so enter Sophie.
Sophie is a stupid cat. I love her, but she’s not very bright. She would corner a mouse, bat it around the room a bit. Swat it under the table…then run around to the other side of the table…and wonder where the little rodent disappeared to (I only know this through my daughter…I would be too busy hiding in my bedroom). Two cats who couldn’t rid my home of mice? Seriously?
So, based on what other people told me, I was pretty nervous when making the move to the country. There was no evidence of mice during the inspection…and I wanted to keep it that way. Which is probably why I let my daughter con me into keeping three stray kittens that year. Yes, we added Oreo, Lil Dude and Jasper to the household. Yes, I spend a small fortune on cat food, litter, catnip, toys and pet meds, but it’s worth. The house has remained mouse-free.
Until Sunday.
Jasper is a little escape artist. If we don’t shut him in the bathroom when it’s time to take the dogs out, that little sucker will zoom out the front door…and sometimes it’s really hard to track him down.
He got out on Sunday. But for a change, he zoomed back into the house almost immediately.
Because he wanted to play with the MOUSE he brought in with him.
After panic ensued…my daughter screaming and me knocking things down in my office in my haste to get as far off the floor as possible…the mouse is dead and safely out of the house.
Jasper is grounded. Permanently.
I would be like the guy who jumped on the counter…only I’d be screaming.
Be sure to stop by Radiant Light today and see what Andi has to say about Enza.
It feels like it’s taken forever for this day to arrive…but Enza is finally here. And to celebrate, there are some special things planned. Stormi, over at Lightning Book Promotions, has scheduled daily stops at blogs around the cyber world. Not only that, but there are going to be prizes! Yes, you read that correctly. You’ll have to visit each blog on their scheduled days for details, but there will be gift cards, and digital and paperback copies of Enza to be won.
First I want to wish a very Happy 29th Birthday to Breeana Puttroff (author of one of my favorite series, The Dusk Gate Chronicles). I am pleased to share my birthday month with both her and Debra Kristi.
As the banner says, all of the comments from each participating blog will be entered into a drawing for a $50.00 Amazon gift card and 10 digital copies of Enza. So please be sure to visit the following blogs:
Ramblings of an Amateur Writer
Books, Movies, Reviews! Oh my!
Kristy K. James (Yes, mine counts, too)
Giveaways for each blog on the tour will include 1 paperback and 3 digital copies of Enza. All comments from the tour will be entered into a drawing for ten-$10.00 and two-$25.00 Amazon gift certificates. Participants in the blog tour for Enza are:
Monday, April 23rd: Patricia @ Live and Dream a Little Dream
Tuesday, April 24th: Andi @ Radiant Light
Wednesday, April 25th: Heather @ It’s All About Me
Wednesday, April 25: Debra @ Sparks in the Fire…
Thursday, April 26th: Lisa @ Seeking With All Yur Heart
Thursday, April 26th: Shannon @ Cocktails and Books
Friday, April 27th: Paula @ The Phantom Paragrapher
Saturday, April 28th: Kathleen @ The Celtic Lady’s Reviews
Saturday, April 28th: Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews
Sunday, April 29th: Molly @ Reviews by Molly
Monday, April 30th: Hayley @ Hanging Off The Wire
Tuesday, May 1st: Tracy @ Booked Up
Wednesday, May 2nd Donna @ My Life. One Story at a Time
Thursday, May 3rd: Ruth @ My Devotional Thoughts
Thursday, May 3rd: Reena Jacobs, Ramblings of an Amateur Writer
Friday, May 4th: JakiCheli
I will be posting daily reminders for the duration of the tour. Thanks for helping me celebrate!
…aren’t really helping a whole lot right now. Nope, with the release date for Enza fast approaching (Monday-yikes!), I’m getting a little nervous. Okay, so I’m getting a lot nervous. Sometimes I think I’ve got everything as ready as it can be, other times I think I’ve probably forgotten some very key things.
But with T-minus three days and counting, whether I have…or whether I haven’t…is now a moot point. As a number of people I know would say, ‘It is what it is.’ And it is. Therefore I refuse to stress over it. Much. (maybe)
As memories of the early March anxiety attack dance in my head…I am reminded that it isn’t an experience I want to repeat. Then it was the seemingly never ending, relentless formatting nightmares, which I think a lot of people could relate to. Deadlines kind of suck when things don’t go according to plan…
Doesn’t matter though, because it’s not happening again.
So I’m just going to pretend I’m a laid-back gal. Kind of like those people who sit around around, eyes glazed over, voices sounding like someone flipped a switch and they’re now on slo-mo. “Whoa, dude! I just like saw Elvis in the dust particles floating in front of the window. Are there any Rice Krispy treats left?”
Well, maybe I don’t want to be quite that laid back. Pretty sure it would involve the use of an illegal substance to get there. That or sticking one too many bobby pins into electrical outlets….and I don’t think I’m up for either one of those activities.
I would like to achieve the same level of laid-back-ness as Cody seems to experience in Step by Step.
Since I shared with you about the day it was taken, I thought I’d post the results here. I would like to thank Connie Orr, owner of Impact Portrait Art Studio, for doing such a fabulous job. The only way I’d be happier with the results is if she’d made me look like Sandra Bullock’s identical twin sister. The one who couldn’t act if she was offered the keys to Fort Knox, but just looking like her would be good enough. Anyway, this is what I look like all cleaned up. 🙂
Some of you may know that my new book, Enza, is a story that deals with the 1918/1919 influenza pandemic. But I wonder how many people have ever actually heard of it. I know I don’t remember the subject ever coming up in all of the history classes I took. Because I’m fairly sure that if it had, I’d have remembered it. The same way I remember learning about the Holocaust and other horrific events.
Estimates for the death toll, worldwide, range between twenty to forty million and fifty to one-hundred million, depending on the source. And even though most strains of influenza kill only the very young and the elderly, more than half the deaths in the 1818/1919 pandemic occurred in those 18-40 years old. Stanford.edu states, “More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351.” And they’re the ones estimating the lower numbers.
I also learned, while watching the PBS documentary, that the Spanish flu killed more Americans than all of the wars in the 20th century. That’s almost unbelievable, isn’t it?
To put all of this in perspective, a number of sources claim that, “If 1918-19 mortality data are extrapolated to the current U.S. population, 1.7 million people could die, half of them between the ages of 18 and 40. Globally,those same estimates yield 180-360 million deaths…” Scary thought, isn’t it?
But it was the thought of those who perished nearly a century ago that nagged at me…and wouldn’t let me alone…until I began to write, and finally finished, Enza.
Given that I’d only penned romance novels until then, it was a tough subject for me to delve into. Especially when I only had two choices. Play the influenza aspect down, or try to keep the story true to what really happened. I chose the latter. It was a horrible time in our history and it deserves to be remembered. So do all of the people who lost their lives to it.
