Ahoy There! The Pirates Hale us Again.

Ahoy There! The Pirates Hale us Again. 

21 May 2013

Yesterday The Prince Consort and I drove to the lake to fish. Last year a male mallard landed next to our boat as we floated in a cove. He paddled up close and gave us hard looks. We didn’t have any bread or other duck-qualified food, so the drake took off to plunder another boat across the lake. 

Quietly and suddenly like pirates appearing off a ghost ship a pair of mallards showed up at the side of our boat yesterday. This time both Captain Mallard and First Mate Mrs. Mallard gave us hard looks. I was prepared; I had the booty to hand over and insure our safety on the High Seas. I had stale bread. First Mate Mrs.Mallard was less than  thrilled with the torn bits of not-whole-grain bread. She accepted a bit and then paddled away. Captain Mallard scarfed up a bit more, then paddled after to prevent a mutiny.  

I put away the bread. TPC decided to move our boat to a better no-fish- catching spot. I looked back, and the pirates were in pursuit! This time First Mate was lead paddler. 

Apparently there had been discussion and agreement that even if the stale bread was not seven grain, it would do. 

The pirates accepted more tribute then paddled off. Last we saw, Captain Mallard was standing 

on Treasure Island and First Mate was guarding the shoreline. 

Kath: Nine more days left for voting for the CBAY Books Writing Contest winner:

Pansy Pants & the Search for Magic

 http://cbaybooks.com/info/?p=274

What IF?

What IF? 

18 May 2013

Today my youngest niece graduates from college. Wow! It was only yesterday that I was creating my first picture book for my little sister. In full eight-Crayon-box glory I colored those stapled-together pages with its main character, the PB, fashioned after my roly poly baby sister.

Here we are a ‘day’ later, and I’m hoping to publish my first children’s novel. What if I do?  What if I won the CBAY Books writing contest and got that book contract for Pansy Pants & the Search for Magic? 

How would my world change? (Other than the characters I write about might finally stop grumbling about being attached to an Unpublished Scribbler.)

My author friends tell me I would need an Author Photo. ARGH! I have a serious allergy to photos of me. I think the last good one was taken minutes beforeI filled my diaper while wearing a rather frilly baby dress. 

So I’ve gone through my photographs looking for options. 

And here they are: 

Nice Smile, huh?

Pretty face. 

Pretty Fancy! And I do love to write about dragons

. 

Close up! 

I’m the sulky carp on the right who wants to know why the cheapskates are throwing stale bread in the water and not fresh Cheezits. 

Napping, one of my favorite activities, after reading and writing. 

Nikki Cat says I can use his photo, but I have to use his name as author. 

Practically a Glamour Shot with all the blurry trees. Hmmm.

This one looks like me, down to the purple slippers and the au currant hair style. 

Which would you choose? 

Kath who is now looking through her baby photos. 

Kath Boyd Marsh 

Pansy Pants & the Search for Magic

http://cbaybooks.com/info/?p=274

Look Out, Cheezits and Pansy Pant’s Cellphone Cover

Look Out, Cheezits and Pansy Pant’s Cellphone Cover

15 May 2013

I don’t feel so well. Anxious eating got the better of me, and all the cold pizza and most of the first box of emergency Cheezits are gone. Who knew you needed to pace yourself on Cheezits? 

The CBAY Books Writing Contest voting site went live this morning.

 http://cbaybooks.com/info/?p=274  And will be up through May 30. 

If Pansy Pants & the Search for Magic wins, I could publish my first book!  

I voted. The Prince Consort voted. Professor Daughter voted. My wonderful friends and family voted. My sister asked how often she could vote. Apparently once and her cat’s vote was not counted, but that may have more to do with him sitting on the keyboard instead of selectively clicking on a single voting bubble.  

My cat, Nikki, is laying low in the basement. If that means he voted for one of the other books .... never mind. There’s no way I can threaten a cat that I won’t live to wildly regret. 

For those of you who have read the sample chapters of Pansy Pants & the Search for Magic (http://cbaybooks.com/info/?p=247) you know Pansy is poor. And she is Creative! Mostly the second. Pansy does not have a cellphone of her own, so when I whined about how ugly my khaki green rubber cover was, she gave me an Arts and Crafts lesson. 

At the hobby store I picked up the plastic owl charm in the jewelry making aisle. ( 40% off with a coupon) In the grocery store I found the ‘diamond’ fingernail decals in the cosmetics aisle. A little glue and Voila’ from plain to: 

Kath who is wondering if there’s a Cheezits Anonymous group for out of control anxiety Cheezits eaters. 

It’s Not All About Me? Fire Within

It’s Not All About Me? Fire Within

14 May 2013

Shock alert. It’s not all about me. Really. Today it’s about my friend,  critique partner, and amazing author: Ally Shields (AllyShields.com) .  Last year, for Mother’s Day she got her first book contract from Etopia Press. And during the last year, Etopia re-proved their genius by buying more of Ally’s Guardian Witch series. 

In time for this year’s Mother’s Day, Ally’s second Guardian Witch book, Fire Within,  is now out in paperback as well as ebook. (available through Amazon, soon Barnes & Noble,  and eventually to be listed at the Book Depository-which ships free worldwide with no minimum purchase).

Now why do I have to have the paperback versions in addition to the ebooks? (I guess this is about me after all. Huh?) Because I can take the paperback to the beach (Except The Prince Consort grew up in Miami and HATES the beach.) or the lake (TPC loves fishing, so we do go to the lake. Wait. This is once again veering off being about me. Hmmm.) 

 I’m buying my lake copy as soon as I post this blog. Despite having read the drafts, I am completely addicted to the main character, Ari, and her hunky love interest, Andreas. Is it hot in here or what? Oh, yeah. That’s the other reason I like having Ally’s books in paperback. I don’t want my iPad to burst into flame lusting over Andreas.

If you didn’t get a gift card for Mother’s Day, Ally has set up a Goodreads giveaway! 

Goodreads' Giveaway of Guardian Witch #2

Kath: Who is headed out to the lake today for fishing and relaxing, without Cheezits. Although if I take my paperback Awakening the Fire instead of my iPad, I’d have room for Cheezits in my boat bag. 

Tomorrow public voting opens for the CBAY Books Middle Grade contest. 

http://cbaybooks.com/info/?p=247

Zombie Faces and Mother’s Day Bouquet!

Zombie Faces and Mother’s Day Bouquet!
13May 2013

Look at this!! It’ s my Mother’s Day bouquet!!! Professor Daughter, the smartest progeny ever, sent flowers that will probably live longer than I will, unless I turn Zombie. (Which apparently I did today.) She sent flowering bulbs that we promptly buried in planters.

 As I mentioned in my last blog, I bought make up. To wear. Unfortunately I am so Cheap I decided to use up the OLD make up this morning. (Old like from when make-up was stored  in jars that Egyptologists like to discover.) I painted it on, just like the cosmetics lady in the department store showed me. The Prince Consort came in to see what the hold up was, took one look, and blurted out, “Is that the stuff you just bought?” 

When he was satisfied it was not, he said, “Well it looks better when you step away from the florescent lighting.” And he hurried downstairs to wait for me in the car. He knows when he’s about to say more than his life is worth. 

But when I appeared in the dimly lit garage, he came close to a heart attack. My face was ghost white. He trashed any effort at control and spent the rest of our trip into town asking me to show him how zombies filled their drink cups at the fast food unit, how Zombies walked in the grocery store, how Zombies .... He was quite the comedian on how jerky my movements should be to go with my death mask make up. 

By the time we got home, I assured him he had worn this joke out. He asked, “Do you have any more of that make up?” I’m not sure if he was relieved or sorry to hear I’ve thrown the old stuff out. 

Pansy Pants is featured on CBAY Books’ Facebook page today. https://www.facebook.com/cbaybooks?ref=stream

Wednesday the voting opens at CBAY Books. 

http://cbaybooks.com/info/?p=247

Kath: Not that I’m nervous. But I did stock up on Cheezits and should make it through every box by Wednesday.  Which means by the end of voting, I’ll weigh approximately 5000 pounds. Give or take. 

According to my Fortune Cookie and Painted Lady

According to my Fortune Cookie and Painted Lady

10 May 2013

Today The Prince Consort and I drove to the mall to shop for Mother’s Day. The circle had come around, and it was time to go back to wearing makeup. The department store sales lady asked what I wanted the make up to do. I blanked. 

Do? Cover my face and make me look princess beautiful, of course. But I couldn’t spit that out before she asked if I wanted makeup for covering wrinkles, brown spots, evening out color. I just nodded and made a check mark in the air, “All of the above.” I was depressed. Clearly she’d pegged me as an old crone with a LOT of problems. Beautiful princess was never mentioned. 

Sigh. 

The Prince Consort wandered off, but came back in time to vote for the color of base the saleslady liked, and I did not. When I told him, “Wrong answer.” He panicked. But since there was only florescent lighting to judge whether I looked more like Posso than Abdon (see Pansy Pants & the Search for Magic) , I had to depend on the majority vote. 

I also needed blush that didn’t make me look like a clown. (refer to yesterday’s blog on my terror of seeing that nightmare clown in the bathroom mirror.) To nail down the right color, the saleslady asked what lipstick color I used. Again, I blanked. Is Chapstick a color? 

She offered to retrieve several colors from their Chubbie line. And TPC lost it. He couldn’t stop laughing at the terribly unfortunate name for a lipstick. For someone like me who has fought weight every day of her adult life, Chubbie is not a line of anything I want on my lips. 

I got the last laugh. TPC paid for the makeup: mascara that will make my apparently sparse lashes full and curly, blush to match the Chubbie lipstick, and a special trowel, I mean brush, to apply the make up. 

Then TPC offered lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant. I had the best chicken noodle soup in the world, with lots to take home. But the highlight of the meal came with the fortune cookies. I like the taste of fortune cookies, but I’ve never gotten a fortune that meant much. Until today. 

My fortune said: You are a lover of words. Someday you should write a book.

That’s me!!! I wrote a book!! I’ve written 8 or 9 manuscripts. I’d get the exact count, but it‘s been raining all day, and my face got wet. I have to repaint the painted lady.  

OH!!! If anyone out there is as computer-challenged as I am, if you can’t get the CBAY Books sample books to download, you need to load one of the free computer programs out there for downloading ebooks. (I learned this after winning a Sony Reader during my county library’s summer reading program.) 

For MOBI files you can download the free program you need from Mobipocket. 

You can also read MOBI files using the free Kindle reader that is offered on Amazon, both for Mac and PC.  Amazon Kindle 

 I also use Adobe Reader, which is available for both Mac and PC. 

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5561

 Kath:Pansy Pants tid bit: Every character I write about has a name that is meaningful to me. Chester the dragon was originally Clarence. He was named for my father who was the bravest, smartest, kindest, gentlest, funniest, most honorable. Chester is the best of any of us, as was my dad. 

Where Do I Get This Stuff?

Where Do I Get This Stuff? 

9 May 2013

A few years back, when The Prince Consort was still willing to read my rough drafts, he walked into my office staring down at the pages of my vampire and demon manuscript. The whites showing around his eyes, and his voice rising with just a shade of panic, he asked, “Where do you get this stuff?” 

Shrug. Just do. Maybe I’m haunted. If so it started a long time ago when as a pre-schooler I saw that nightmare clown face in the bathroom mirror. (That face showed up again in my adult bathroom mirror after the last time ( So help me.)  I let anyone give me a ‘permanent’. YEOW! Talk about scary.) 

Or maybe when I saw the two ghosts in the four-hundred-year-old Rhode Island farmhouse? Or maybe when I saw the ghosts in the sorority attic. 

 All I know is: I sit here, and they show up. Pansy Pants. Posso, Chester, Abdon (who is Very high maintenance and has appeared in four of my mss.) Great and Might Wizard, Cl’rnce the R’ver Dragon . . . 

And now they’re all crowded around, waiting and hoping that Pansy will win the CBAY Books Middle Grade writing contest and be the first to get a book published.  Me to. 

To entice you to read my ebook sample chapters on the CBAY Books site:

http://cbaybooks.com/info/?p=247

 the end of Chapter Two of Pansy Pants & the Search for Magic:

A heartbeat later light bloomed in front of Posso. His wide grin looked creepy now. Pansy stepped away as he pulled something out of his top pocket. He held it out to her. Painted over what had once been a smiling picture were the letters: ‘FOP’

“Yep. Posso love Poe. See, Friend of Poe,” he said. “Pansy Pants plenty smart know about Poe. Poe make good magic. Pansy make good demon.”       

He tucked the badge back in his pocket and walked around her. “Not going to die. Yet.”       

And he laughed.

Kath: Who can hardly wait for Wednesday, 15 May 2013, to arrive and the beginning of voting at: http://cbaybooks.com/info/?p=247