Heading Home

Today I'm heading home from out wonderful week-long Caribbean cruise. Right now I'm more than likely on the plane heading either to St. Louis (We have a lay over.) over Chicago. *sigh* Back to reality.

Next week I'll share some photos and stories from the trip.

For today...

Happy Easter!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Ft Lauderdale Day Two by Margot Justes

The morning was spent at the restaurant, sitting outside in the sunny warmth, drinking coffee, writing my daily journal, and waiting for everyone to join me. I love mornings like that. After a buffet breakfast at the hotel that included everything from freshly squeezed orange juice, to an omelet station to plain Greek yogurt, and not bad restaurant coffee, the day was mine.

On my second day in Ft. Lauderdale, I found the Bonnet House, and wrote a blog about it. I love to walk, so taking a cab was not an option for me, I find pleasure in seeing as much as I can on foot, whenever possible.  All I can say it was an exhausting and exhilarating day, and the trek to find the Bonnet House was worth every blister.

 
I went back to the hotel to meet up with friends, who are gold members at the Hilton. Nothing went right for them from registration going forward, the staff apologized at every turn and were always ready with free vouchers; they were flowing at a rapid rate. The last mishap included a sixty dollar credit at the restaurant. Guess where we ate lunch? The management handled everything with aplomb, and abject apologies, and the ever ready free vouchers.

The hotel restaurant was located by the pool, a lovely place to sit and relax. I do not have a Hilton membership, but everything went according to plan, that included a beautiful room, with a view of the water, so there were no free vouchers for me. I do however intend to join the club.

Diet not going too well, after a solid breakfast, we had to use the sixty dollar voucher, after all, we were checking out the next morning for our cruise. A Margherita Pizza seemed like a good idea for lunch, filled with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, it was delicious. The rest of the late afternoon was spent with friends. We fell in love with the Casablanca Café and we went back there again for dinner.   
I know we should have tried something new, and usually that is what happens-but you have to realize-the eggplant was simply amazing and not to be missed. I would go back there again just for the Moroccan eggplant. We saw a small fender bender on the A1A, no one was hurt and people involved were chatting amicably. The roar of the cars is amazing on that road, it seems to be non-stop.

After dinner, the walk along the shore was a delight, blisters and all; the area is stunning, we had a full moon and the reflection in the water was mesmerizing.

Cheers,

Margot  Justes

A Hotel in Paris

A Hotel in Bath

www.mjustes.com

 

Contest Juding Time! by DL Larson

I just received 5 entries for the Daphne deMuir Writing Contest.  I'll be judging the Paranormal category, where the eccentric and supernatural happen. Digging in to the surreal scenes always amazes me at the diverse imagination of others.  The deadline to have the judging returned is April 20th. 

That's a tight window.  Preparing for my book, getting ready for Easter and spring planting crowding into my "To Do" List is bound to make my schedule for the next few weeks a challenge. 

Spring is chaotic, spring never looks like it does in the pretty magazines where the flowers magically appear and the yard looks as if a twig or leaf would never dare drop and mar the picturesque landscape.  Well, here in realilty, my yard is short on pretty and long on needing attention. 

I plan to try the balancing act.  I'll work in the yard, work at the library and come in feeling tired and achy in places I don't want to mention.  But I'll have these "out of this world" stories to rejuvenate me.  Or so that's my hope.

I'll let you know as the weeks slide by.  Until then, have a wonderful Easter, Passover, or simply enjoy the spring-like weather.

Til next time ~

DL Larson

Marilyn Meredith's Dangerous Impulses

Please Welcome F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith to Acme Authors Link 

F.M., also known as Marilyn Meredith, is the author of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series. She first became interested in writing about law enforcement when she lived in a neighborhood filled with police officers and their families. The interest was fanned when her daughter married a police officer and the tradition has continued with a grandson and grandson-in-law who are deputies. She’s also serves on the board of the Public Safety Writers Association, and has many friends in different law enforcement fields. For twenty plus years, she and her husband lived in a small beach community located in Southern California much like the fictional Rocky Bluff. She is a member of three chapters of Sisters in Crime, Epic, and Mystery Writers of America.
Webpage: http://fictionforyou.com/

Blog: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

And on Facebook and Twitter as MarilynMeredith

Marilyn's Shares Her Writing Journey With Us Today -

Looking Back Over My Years as a Writer  

by F.M. Meredith

Sometimes it’s a good idea to look back over your accomplishments and disappointments in order to see how far you’ve come.

My first book (an historical family saga) received nearly thirty rejections before finding a publisher. (This was back in the days of typewriters, carbon paper, submitting full manuscripts in a box with another pre-addressed and stamped box inside.) I knew nothing at all about promotion and expected the publisher to do it all. One thing I do know, the distribution was good because people spotted it in markets and drugstores. The editor who bought it left the publisher—a big setback.

The second book (also an historical family saga) was accepted by a publisher that turned out to be a crook—and guess what, I self-published with another company that also turned out to be dishonest. I bought a lot of the books and managed to sell them myself, but never received a single royalty.

I changed genres and wrote my first mystery, The Astral Gift. This poor book found a home first with another crooked publisher (back then, there were lots of them preying on writers), 50 books were printed and the publisher disappeared. The Astral Gift had two more publishers after that.

Somewhere in this time period, I found another publisher who wanted me to make my submission camera-ready, long before print-on-demand companies, I struggled but managed to complete the project only to learn the publisher died.

When I wrote my first Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery, it was accepted by an e-publisher before anyone had a clue what this meant, nor were there any e-book readers. This was an unsuccessful venture. I’ve already written about what happened next, the series went through two more publishers until finally begin published by Oak Tree Press.

My other series about Deputy Tempe Crabtree has had a similar rough path to publication and staying published. An agent told me she wouldn’t represent me unless I changed Tempe’s name. She thought it too unusual. I found another agent who loved the name but accomplished nothing in four years. I struck out on my own and sold the book to a small independent Press, Golden Eagle. Four books were published, and then the publisher who’d become a friend, passed away unexpectedly. Hard Shell Word Factory republished the series as e-books, including a prequel. The publisher sold the company and all this series was picked up by Mundania Press both as e-books and trade paperbacks.

None of it has been easy. Would I do it again? Only if it were in this time period of computers and the Internet. Today, self-publishing is much easier with far better results. There are many legitimate small presses out there looking for good books to publish. It is easy to contact authors for a recommendation of their publishers. You can find out about all the best ways to promote through the Internet and get lots of advice and support from fellow authors.

This is the briefest of histories, there were other books and other mishaps along the way, but this is what I remember the most clearly. One thing that I mustn’t forget is I learned a lot along the way, some from other agents I had, much from writers’ conferences, writing magazines and books, but the very most from the members of the critique group that I joined over thirty years ago.

Now a bit about Marilyn's latest, Dangerous Impulses:

An attractive new-hire captivates Officer Gordon Butler, Officer Felix Zachary’s wife Wendy is befuddled by her new baby, Ryan and Barbara Strickland receive unsettling news about her pregnancy, while the bloody murder of a mother and her son and an unidentified drug that sickens teenaged partiers jolts the Rocky Bluff P.D.

Buy Link:  http://tinyurl.com/byxomtk

 And A Contest!

The person who comments on the most blog posts on this tour may have a character named after him or her in the next Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel or choose a book from the previous titles in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series in either paper or for Kindle.

Rocky Bluff P.D. Series: Though each book in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series is written as a stand-alone, I know there are people who like to read a series in order. From the beginning to the end:

Final Respects

Bad Tidings

Fringe Benefits

Smell of Death

No Sanctuary

An Axe to Grind

Angel Lost

No Bells

Dangerous Impulses

Find F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith at: 

Webpage: http://fictionforyou.com/

Blog: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

On Facebook and Twitter as MarilynMeredith

Check Out F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith's last stop on the tour tomorrow, March 28, when she visits Chester Campbell at http://chestercampbell.blogspot.com/

Please leave a comment to welcome F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith to Acme Authors Link.

Creativity of another kind

Thought I'd share today that I'm featuring the work of a unique artist today at my other blog, GirlZombieAuthors.  See some incredible "zombie" and monster dolls here.

Up, Up, and Away

Hopefully as you read this, depending on the time of day, I'll be either on a plane heading down to Miami or on board a cruise ship heading out to sea.

The hopefully part comes in because we're expected to get, of all things for this first weekend of Spring, a snow storm here in the Midwest. Since hearing the weather report on Wednesday, I've been in a bit of a panic. We're on a fairly tight schedule to get from the Miami International Airport to the Port of Miami in the first place. For a while now I've been a bit nervous about a delay on our flight. (It never dawned on me to schedule one for the day before and stay overnight in Miami...next time I'll know.) With the bad weather coming it definitely slid from nervous to panic. Thus, there were tears, frantic phone calls and Internet searches trying to find a flight out on Saturday, an Amtrack route, or a rental car, and pleadings for prayers from friends for some peace and calm.

In the end, there was no way we could pay the exorbitant fees involved in changing flights. Amtrack doesn't go directly to Miami. And rental cars one way cost a fortune, too. We were forced to stick with our original travel plans.

As of right now, (I'm writing this on Saturday.) it looks like we'll be okay with the flight. A friend mentioned the earlier we go the better as then we're not waiting for the plane to come in from another airport before taking off with us. We're scheduled to go at 9:00 a.m., which he said was good. I even checked the on-time averages for flights out of O'Hare at that time on Sundays and they were listed as 100% on time. The weather system looks like it will hit farther south and/or later in the day here.

So, I'm breathing a little easier, but will finally exhale all the way when I'm sitting on that plane and we've put wheels up around 9:15.

As for the Caribbean part, we couldn't be more thrilled. We honeymooned on a cruise fifteen years ago and are so excited to be going on another one now. We decided this is the first 'real' week-long vacation the two of us have had alone in, well, fifteen years. We are scheduled to hit the ports of Nassau, San Juan, and St. Thomas. We were scheduled for a stop in Grand Turk as well, but apparently there have been some issues with food causing possible sickness there, so the cruise line has decided to skip that port. Fine with me. I don't want to take even the slightest chance of getting sick on board.

I just want to soak up all the fun and sun I possibly can in a week! And who knows, my honeymoon cruise inspired the locations for Wild Wedding Weekend. Maybe this one will spark some new ideas...you never know.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Day One by Margot Justes

For the first time, I decided to keep a daily log of my vacation, and I would like to share it with you.

The morning arrival at the airport was uneventful, as was the flight to Ft. Lauderdale, just the way I like it.

The Hilton Ft Lauderdale Beach Resort is lovely, the room had a view of the ocean, and the hotel is hidden and a bit away from the hubbub and incredible loud environment along the A1A. Talk about vibe-the ground shook from the all the people drinking, enjoying themselves and the cars roaring up and down the street.

I will I say, I have never seen so many beautiful cars on parade; Lotus, Aston Martin, Ferrari, to name just a few. The revved engines purred like wild kittens. I have retained an affinity for sports cars, in my youth I used follow formula one races.

We decided to eat at Café Casablanca. I had a Moroccan sampler, how can one go to Café Casablanca and not order a Moroccan dish. I also had a traditional gratinee French onion soup. It was almost as good as the ones I used to have in Paris many years ago, in the old market place known as Les Halles; it no longer exists.  

My Moroccan dish had the best ever roasted eggplant with lots of garlic; nice chunks of eggplant and garlic. I love eggplant and garlic. The vampires stayed away, there was so much of it. Positively yummy. Hummus, tabouleh salad served with warm pita completed the meal. The hummus was rich with olive oil and a tad spicy.

The restaurant is situated across street from the water, and dimly lit, so even the atmosphere was pure magic. I highly recommend it. Did I forget to mention we sat outside? We did, and the view was fantastic.

A short stroll back to the hotel in the evening along the shore was delightful. We decided to sit by the Jacuzzi and dunk our feet, too tired to change. I helped my friend down the stoop, she didn’t want to get wet. Alas, I didn’t have a firm grip on her hands, she missed the step and flopped in the water. No worries about getting wet. Much too late for that.

At first we weren’t sure whether to laugh or not, but that lasted for about a second, after making sure she wasn’t hurt, we burst out laughing.  The water was warm and the bubbles soothed my aching feet. Not a bad day-not at all. In fact it was perfect.

Cheers,

Margot  Justes

A Hotel in Paris

A Hotel in Bath

www.mjustes.com