Archive for May, 2010

What’s on my iPod : Everybody by Autovaughn

My post is up today on Victoria Janssen’s blog. This week she is talking about vampires : why we love them and why we write them. In a word I love them, and right now, my favorite fictional vampire is Damon Salvatore.

Ian Somerhalder as Damon Salvatore

Check out Victoria’s blog HERE.

If you haven’t heard, Nashville – my beloved home – was hit by record flooding last week, May 1st and 2nd. It was so unexpected and so many people barely escaped the rising waters of the Harpeth and Cumberland Rivers. This past week has been both amazing and heartwrenching. The response to the clean up effort was fast. In fact in the neighborhoods in Bellevue that I’ve driven by just about all the debris has been hauled out of these homes. Cleaning up and cleaning out kept everyone’s minds focused, but now comes the hard part – rebuilding. It will be slower going I’m sure. And this is where the donations and relief effort are needed. So many people, friends, neighbors, customers of mine didn’t have flood insurance. And if they had Home owners insurance to cover thier possessions, well that doesn’t cover loss by flooding. All these wonderful people litereally have nothing but the clothes on their backs. So I’m posting this to let everyone know about this amazing auction going on. A group of writers – Victoria Schwab, Myra McEntire, and Amanda Morgan, organized a website to auction writerly things to raise money for relief aid to Nashville Flood Victims. And the publishing community across this great nation jumped in whole heartedly. Check it out, there’s even a signed sheet from Twilight with Rob Pattinson’s signature – you may have to out bid me for that one.

Here’s the address, please help Nashville and bid or donate directly to the Red Cross.

Do the Write Thing For Nashville : HERE

Red Cross Nashville relief site : HERE

Here are some pictures I took on my phone from the Beech Bend Neighborhood just the other night. They aren’t great, but it shows you what it looks like all over Bellevue and pretty much all of Middle Tennessee. It looks like a war zone.

Mounds of debris on the curb in the Beech Bend neighborhood.

What’s on my iTunes : Kick by INXS

Recently agented YA author, JA Souders is hosting a fabulous Secret Agent Contest. It’s too late to enter this one, but I’m sure she’ll have more.
Check out the entries and give some great feedback. Mine’s in there
Check out her beautiful site HERE. The entries are on her blog page, HERE.

And just ot get you motivated….a little picture of my favorite vampire……and my visual inspiration for my character….

Please help Nashville by donating to the Red Cross. You can go HERE.

Here are pictures of Opryland Hotel

This is a view of downtown Second Avenue seen from the pedestrian bridge that goes over to the Titan’s Stadium. 

Titan’s Stadium across the Cumberland River looks okay, but all of First and Second Avenue Downtown Nashville is underwater.

The past two days have been crazy. I am very fortunate that I live on a hill, but people I know and care about have been deeply affected by the recent flooding Nashville and Bellevue in particular. We haven’t seen this kind of rain in over half a century. The sad thing is that just about all these families didn’t have flood insurance. It wasn’t needed, the Harpeth is a small tributary of the Cumberland River, heck many summers we have complained at how low the river was and how it was impossible to go canoeing down it. Now, people have lost their homes and it is going to be a long struggle to get things right. On top of all this, Opryland Hotel was flooded. I was going to RWA Nationals in just a two months at the Opry. It will be moved now, but where?

Okay so the reason I am posting is to put up the Red Cross’s website so that you can donate. Right now the Red Cross is asking for monetary donations as opposed to other things because they just don’t have a place to put it. They don’t even have enough shelters for all the people that are homeless right now. And that doesn’t included people traveling and were stranded on the three major interstates in and out of Nashville – I40, I65 south, and I24 south. Or the 1500 visitors staying at the Opryland Hotel.  Please help if you can. Nashville needs this. For the first time the Volunteer State is asking for your help.

Here is the Red Cross website :  http://www.nashvilleredcross.org/general_calltoaction.asp?CTA=1&SN=8522&OP=8919&IDCapitulo=78T3Z2WSK0

Well, as I get closer and closer to publication, I realized that I needed to do some trimming. I love participating in Excerpt Monday, but so much that I post is from selections that I eventually plan to develop. So I’ve trimmed some of those posts to smaller snippets. Of course since the stories are still in progress, what you see here is rough draft and will change. So enjoy.

What’s on my iPod : Wanna Be Starting Something by Michael Jackson

This year I’m participating in the Summer Reading Trail. You can go to the following websites to start the trail :

A. J. O’Donovan UK Trailhead
http://ajodonovan.co.uk/?p=450

Voirey Linger US Trailhead
http://www.voireylinger.com/index.php?p=1_12_Trail-Head

Or you can jump over to my page for the trail below :

Enjoy!!!