ANSWER to Thought for Thursday

Answer: Limoncello.

Danny DeVito's Premium Limoncello lauched in May 2007

Thought for Thursday

Thought: What's the alcoholic beverage being marketed under actor Danny DeVito's name?

Take a guess and then come back around 3 to see.

ANSWER TO WORD FOR WEDNESDAY

Answer: Reticent is reluctant, silent, reserved. If you want to read more and listen to the pronunciation, check it out here.

Word for Wednesday

Word: Reticent

Do you know what it means?

Take a guess. And, don't forget to come back around 3:00 to find out if you were right.

The 7-Sins of Bad Writing

Writers love to describe things: scenes, people, places. It’s no wonder we get carried away sometimes and over qualify our descriptions.

I thought I'd share my list of 7-deadly sins to boring writing:

1) Rather
2) A little
3) A lot
4) Seemed
5) Only
6) Slightly
7) Just

These are words to watch out for and then, when you find them in your writing, cut them. This is one time you don’t want to reuse – instead, recycle and reduce your word count by eliminating these unwanted words.

Here are a few more to watch out for:

8) Almost
9) Nearly
10) Sort of
11) Kind of

I hope this helps you find ways to watch your “word” weight and cut down on your waste

;-)

Happy Writing

The BEA

I was talking with a group of writers and mentioned the BEA. One of them finally said, "What's the BEA? Is it like DOA?"

I know . . . , kind of a little morbid but, then, she works in a hospital and we are all colored by our perspectives.

"I'm no expert." I told her, "It's some kind of a book fair or exhibit--I think."

That conversation made me think, "I should look it up and see what all the on-line hype is about."

So I did.

Here is a link, thanks to A. Suen

The Children's category is supposed to be a bright spot in publishing right now, which is encouraging to me since that's the genre I write in.

I read that not only are books on display, there are over 1500 exhibitors including book accessories.

So I came to the conclusion that the Book Expo America is a bookaholic's dream come true - at least that's what it looks like to me.

Bridget Zinn's Silent Auction was Friday 5/29

It was a great night. Bridget looked beautiful standing here with Jone.

And I finally got a chance to sit down and chat with Suzanne Young, who I met at a conference a year ago but have never been lucky enough to spend any time with. She's a bubbly bundle of energy and she ran around selling raffle tickets for the cause.

I also got a chance to sit between the two wonderful writers who both go by the same name: Lisa, Schroeder and Madigan.

Plus, the great illustrater Matt Holme from Baby Mouse was there.
.

My husband and I were checking out the items up for bid, when I pointed out a pet message that I thought would be fun to bid on.

He said, "Are you crazy? If anyone's getting a message, it's going to be me."

So we ended up winning a Thai message for my hubby. It sounds heavenly.

I was lucky enough to win a critique from Margot Finke. There were other great prizes and other great people there. Check out the links to read more.

A special Thank-You! to Jone MacCulloch for all her hard work putting the event together and Lisa Nowak!!!

(Two of these photos were taken by Suzanne Young - I only had my cellphone with me - so I'm sure you can guess which ones those are. ;-)