One Lovely Blog Award

And now that I have a moment to breathe...

Here are the rules for this award:

Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and their blog link.

Thank you Kelly. I'm really honored you put me on your list.

Kelly Hashway's Books

For any of you who haven't been, go check out her blog. Tis full of awesomeness.

Okay moving on...Pass the award on to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered.

1. The Slight Detour - by Sam aka Samantha Sotto-Yambao
2. Fi's Magical Writing Haven - by Fi aka Fiona Phillips
3. Catherine Stine's Idea City - by yes you guessed it Catherine Stine :)
4. Impudent Hatchling - by Hillary Jacques (snagged this one from Sam's list for the ISB award)
5. Janel's Jumble - by Janel Gradowski
6. Brenda Kezar's Official Horror Blog - By Brenda Kezar
7. Operation Awesome - by Angela, Michelle, Amparo, Katrina, Kelly, Kristal and Lindsay
8. The Book Frog - By Rebecca Glenn
9. The Secret Life of a Bibliophile - by Jen Lamoureux
10. The World Crafter - by Cat
11. Alexandra Bracken's Blog - by Alexandra Bracken
12. Confessions from Suite 500 - by Suzie, Meredith, and Joanna
13. My Thoughts Exactly - by Jessica Brooks
14. CYNSATIONS -by Cynthia Leitich Smith
15. The Supernatural Underground

Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Thanks again, Kelly. I really appreciate it!

The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award

Well I'm honored to say that I've received my first blog award and isn't it a beauty?

Okay, okay stop trying to eat it already!

Here's how the award goes:

1. Thank and link back to the person that gave this award.

THANK YOU SAM! You rock it big time!!!

2. Share 4 guilty pleasures that you have.

Oh geez. Only 4? I'd better make them good....hmm.

1.) On the days were I want to do nothing but veg, I'll put the kids to bed and flip on the Netflix to watch Bones Marathons. Although now thanks to a certain Dr. Who fanatic I may have a new addiction. (I'm looking at you Sam!)

2.) Frozen (yes I said FROZEN) Mint Milano Cookies. Do not knock it till you've tried it, my friends. Yuuuuu-uuum.

3.) Snuggling down in my bed with the door shut, to read. And I'm talkin' a real ink and paper-paged, bound, hard cover (and yes I have a fixation with hard covered books) book. Reading is a total sensory experience for me so I just can't get into an E-reader. Give me an old fashioned book anytime!

4.) Running away from mommyhood for two hours while both the munchkins are in school and vegging out in my favorite cafe with a large caramel latte in my hand, a laptop/notebook in my lap, and an eye on the decedent cupcakes sitting in the display case right in front of me. *Sigh*

3. Pass the award along to 6 other sweet blogs.

Well if I could I would put Sam's blog in my list, but I'm pretty sure that isn't allowed so...

Confessions From Suite 500

Two of the peeps from FinePrint -Suzie Townsend and Meredith Barnes

They are full of awesomeness.

My Thoughts Exactly

by Coffeelvnmom aka Jessica Brooks

A blog where an Internet loving coffee addict posts her thoughts, feelings and current happenings in her life. Oh, and she writes. And loves owls too.

(yeah I didn't make that one up but don't you love it!)

The Secret Life of a Bibliophile

The thoughts and ramblings of an avid Reader.

by Jen Lamoureux. My good friend and walking library database. She comes in really handy while bookstore stalking. :D

The World Crafter

crafting worlds one idea at a time.

By Katrina (another SheWrites babe!)

1st BOOKS: Stories of How Writers Get Started

by Meg Waite Clayton

She gets extra mega props for putting together the SW Blog Hop. You have my respect Darling!

The Book Frog

by Rebecca Glenn

She's got a FABULOUS site. I absolutely love it! And come on, people! Its called The Book Frog! How cute is that?!

Hi SheWrites!

Welcome SheWrites Blog Hoppers!

to

C.M. Villani: Inside the Heart of a Storyteller

My blog chronicles the misadventures of the wild, high-living, munchkin wrangling, hubby pleasing, butt kicker that is me - CMV. :) Just kidding (well sort of). Honestly, I started this blog at the beginning of last year to post about the highs and lows that come with the desire to become a published author. And boy are there many.

On occastion, I'm also known to post up some snippets of advice, total all out rants, and a good song here and there. Hope you guys poke around a little bit to check out what I'm all about.

* * *

~Something Old~

For my blogging advice, I wanted to repost the links I put up at the beginning of the week to the how-to tutorials for creating Blog Badges/Buttons and the scroll box for the embed codes below it. It really isn't all that hard and it makes a great way to promote your blog!

Check it out

~Something New~

For those of you who have been here for a while, you'll know that I recently came to the decision that I needed to rewrite the first few chapters of my current work in progress

- THE TOUCH OF DEATH -

So as something big for the SheWrites blog hop I wanted to share my recently finished first chapter. Enjoy!

** Chapter One **

~Something Borrowed~

As I said above I - on occasion (okay three times last week but who's counting) - post up great new songs that I find.

Here is a great new one

~Something Blue~

Well besides the majority of my blog... :)

I created a series of Blog Badges/Buttons for Snag My Badge!

If you want to/like to, you can grab one to post up on your site!

Check them out on the right hand side of the page.

Thanks in advance.

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO THE BLOG LIST

Updates

So its been a while since the last time I blogged. I seem to be going in cycles. I blog for a while, I write for a while, I veg out and watch tv and eat a pint of ice cream...well you get the idea. So today while I was messing around with my blog layout (what do you guys think? I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet) anyway, I decided to blog about some fun stuff I found on the internet lately.

First up:

Tony Eldridge over at MTFA posted an entry by @duolit entitled: 7 Tips for the Introverted Author. Now to be honest with you all I'm not the most outgoing person when I'm thrown into an environment that I'm not familiar with. So the whole idea of having to go out on the road to promote a book and do interviews and all that is - while a thrilling prospect - also an unnerving one. But here are a few tips to help those of you out there who a like me.



Next Up:



I do have to come clean on this next one. So one night while procrastinating on Twitter instead of writing (i know, I know shame on me. :P ), I stumbled across @coffeelvnmom on the #amwriting trend. The next thing I know I have an email in my inbox saying she was following me and I thought "oh that's nice. I love new followers (especially ones that aren't stupid companies trying to get you to buy stuff - LAME) anyway. So today I fired up my blog and found I have a new follower. Guess who? Yup Jessica Brooks aka @coffeelvnmom.

Well it turns out Jessica has a blog of her own entitled - My Thoughts Exactly. And people let me tell you, It's Great!!! If you haven't found it yet, you've got to check it out. She is witty, brilliant, and dude she loves coffee! That's a girl after my own heart. So go check out her blog. :D (And no she isn't paying to say that either. :D )

Book News (Reading Not Writing):

My latest novel love is a book entitled Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken. It is a fabulous read! Just to tell you how good it was I staying up until 4 am reading it in one night, under the penalty of having two kiddos to wake up to first thing the next morning. Yes, my friends, it was that good!

In more Book News (Writing this time):

My current WIP - The Bearers - has officially came in at over 23,000 words. I just started Chapter 14. I'm not sure if this is just me but I always worry that I won't have a long enough manuscript. (Which is usually silly because I have found out that I'm incapable of writing short stories. They always come out a heck of a lot longer than I ever intended. Case in point: my original manuscript was something like 175,000 until I split it in half) Two words: long winded. O_o

Moving on...

Music News:

So I've found a great new song to add to my writing playlist. This is King of Anything by Sara Bareilles.





Hmm...what else?

Oh yeah! I'm not sure if anyone hasn't seen it yet but the new trailer of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows has been released and it looks AMAZING!!! Seriously. Now you may as what does this have to do with writing/publishing/agents/ or the whole online writers community as a whole. Well Harry Potter was actually the book(s) that started me on the road to wanting to become a published author. Goblet of Fire to be more specific. Something about it just sent a thrill thru me. I picked up a pen (or keyboard as it were) and have put it down since. :D

so without any further - yeah okay I'm just going to show it now. :D Enjoy!

A New Book Blog

So my friend Jen is a Bibliophile in the truest sense of the word. I think she has more books than the library of congress. :D Anyway she is always one of my go-to's when I need a new book to read and she has started a book blog.



If you're into YA, Chick Lit, and/or Romance novels I highly suggest you check it out because she has some great taste.

The Secret Life of A Bibliophile