a l p h a l o v e

When we play with our abc’s we find beautiful, simple ways to expand our lives. In our dream to make feeling good simple and fun, we turned to the source of learning that we all have in common, no matter what culture, gender, age, creed. The abc’s unite us in ways that we have only begun to find. The possibilities are endless, and the fun, simple: infinite.

http://www.amazon.com/Teffanie-T.-White/e/B009H8BS48 

l o v e

s u n s h i n e

t h a n k y o u Mary DeSantis, writer of Out of the Lockbox!!!! 

for giving p i c t u r e l e s s a Sunshine Award, which is for “bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.”

Like many such online honors, the Sunshine Award asks recipients to do a few things:

-Thank the person who gave you the award in your blog post.
-Answer a few questions (see below)
-Pass on the award to deserving and inspiring bloggers, inform them and link to their blogs.

Sunshine q u e s t i o n s????

Favorite Color: b l u e! All types - all kinds. I even had my first ten-speed painted blue like the sky. 

Favorite Animal: f e r a l ones.

Favorite Number: i have a few! 11, 7 and 13. 

Favorite Non-alcoholic Drink: green t e a. 

Facebook or Twitter: fb, fb, fb, instagram, fb.

Your Passion: w o r d s & hula h o o p i n g

Giving or Getting Presents: getting from the farmer guy. i'm not really g o o d  at choosing perfect presents. i'm planning to learn.

Favorite Day: s u n d a y 

Favorite Flowers: t u l i p s & w i l d

Finally, these are the fabulous authors I’m tagging for this award. 

Leslie Davis Guccione

Tiffany Airington-Hamm

Heidi Ruby Miller

Toni Spearman

Danielle Hinesly

Adrea L. Peters

love

guest a u t h o r - Victoria Thompson

writer to the r e s c u e

So what does an author do when she’s written herself into a corner and can’t for the life of her figure out how to get out of it—all while thousands of fans are clamoring for her blood?  That’s the situation in which I found myself last year at this time.

 

If you are a fan of the Gaslight Mystery Series (Berkley Prime Crime), you know that Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy of the New York City Police and Midwife Sarah Brandt have been solving mysteries and gradually falling in love over the first 14 books in the series.  Unfortunately, I had started the series by creating insurmountable barriers to their ever getting together, never realizing that the series would become so successful or that readers would become so invested in Frank and Sarah’s lives. 

Now let’s face it, how many mystery writers are lucky enough to have a series that runs for 14 books? I count my blessings every day. But in the spring of 2012, I realized that if I didn’t take care of Frank and Sarah’s relationship, readers probably would not keep reading. But how to do it without ruining the dynamics of the series? I was getting desperate, so I vented to my classmates. 

Classmates?  Yes, I was just finishing up my master’s degree in Writing Popular Fiction at SetonHill University.  One of my classmates, David Wilbanks, who writes Science Fiction and had at that time never read anything I’d ever written, took my challenge and sent me a list of about 20 things that could happen.  Unlike me and my fans, Dave was unencumbered by knowledge of the characters involved, so his solutions didn’t have to be feasible or even sensible.  His ideas were outside the box.  Some of them were even outside the Universe.  But one of them was the perfect solution to Frank and Sarah’s problems!

If you’re expecting me to tell you what that solution is right here, I’m sorry.  I write mysteries, so I’m not giving away anything that might  spoil the book for you.  I will say that in MURDER IN CHELSEA you will finally get to see Frank Malloy propose to Sarah Brandt. Of course they also solve a couple murders and locate the birth parents of Sarah’s foster daughter into the bargain.  This is a mystery series after all! And to thank Dave for his help, I named a major character after him in MURDER IN CHELSEA. 

 

So this is how a fellow writer rescued me, saving me from the wrath of frustrated readers!  You can see how he did it by reading MURDER IN CHELSEA, a May 2013 hardcover release from Berkley Prime Crime.  It’s also available in all electronic formats. Please let me know if you like the solution by contacting me though my website, www.victoriathompson.com or liking me on Facebook at Victoria Thompson Author or following me on Twitter @gaslightvt. 

Victoria Thompson

Gaslight Mystery Series

MURDER IN CHELSEA, Berkley Prime Crime, May 7, 2013 release.

h o p e

Helping people has been the primary intent of p i c t u r e l e s s books since Teffanie envisioned it years ago. We will donate part of our profits. We will give away books. We will give our time and energy to charities and people and organizations we believe in. We are partnering with others to create alphabets and projects that will further their causes and passions. It is our hope that we help. And so we will.

Read. Feed. Lead.

d r e a m

Desire. At p i c t u r e l e s s, we dive into our d r e a m s. Could a word, just one word, change a day? Bring a little lift to the dreary? We don’t doubt that discovering delightful d words is a pretty darn quick way to fulfilling our greatest desire: bringing delectable dancing deep within our reader’s hearts and minds.

smashwords got me going in c i r c l e s

Hula Hooping. I did it! I passed the Hoopnotica I curriculum. Shut - up! Super excited! So excited that I penned and published an alphabet book for hula hoopers! I want to share my j o y with you! 


This fabulous hooping alphabet - H is for Halo  is now available for free this week on Smashwords. Smashwords lets you download books to almost any e-reader. Hot!

to play with this new word list

• register in Smashwords 
• u s e  FREE code for YG72P
• e n j o y words  
• s h a r e
• r e v i e w  

We love posting pages of the pictureless books everywhere. 

You are fabulous! 

love

Look what Farmer Guy got me! A wooden hula hoop. Fabulous! Right? 

Kind of ready to sign - up for more classes. What do you think?

fabulous w o r d s everywhere

http://www.silive.com/eastshore/index.ssf/2013/02/staten_island_youngsters_learn.html

e x p e c t

h OO p y Valentine's

Listening to "What's Going On?", Marvin Gaye on Sade Pandora thinking about the journey and its fabulous detours. This past summer while my son attended a pre-college program at Pratt Institute the girls detoured to Girl Month.

Girl month.

We listened to audio books.

We made s m o o t h i e s, salads and soups.

We cleaned.

We called our girlfriends.

We did spa treatments. We scrubbed. We s t e a m e d. We hair straightened with Agave.

We road tripped. We spiked in Alpine. We shopped in Lubbock.

We worked out- girl look at that body.
Insanity, Zumba, Walking, Belly Dancing, Socacize, African Healing.

We ate c h o c o l a t e (good chocolate).

We fell in l o v e with Hugh Grant because we watched chick flicks.
Who knew that Julia and Jennifer had soooooo many movie credits?

When watching film, we integrated ab words (Of course, we played with words!). Like a drinking game, when the chosen word was said by a character- we hit the deck and did crunches. That got old quickly!

What else could we do that was ab - licious and fun?

It seemed like when I asked the q u e s t i o n, it appeared.

TE's exer-app updated on her FB page. You know the kind: TE just hula hooped for 10 minutes, and is now extra fabulous.

Hula Hooped? Really? And the point of that was what?
Jump roped for ten minutes... I got. Ran for ten minutes, uh yeah. Hula Hooped... mmmmm?

So I messaged her.
She responded.

The next night before the double feature, we went to the sporting good's store and bought a couple of hoops. With l i g h t s!

When ab words began. We hooped. We went to tennis courts and hooped instead. We replaced our morning Insanity class with hooping for obvious reasons. We just hooped.

It was then that I noticed an influx of elimination. TMI, but we love healthy number two elimination. I researched. Apparently the hoop massaging the c o r e and its internals did more than p u m p up the heart rate. Somehow my internet search lead me to a video of a beautiful masterful Black hoop artist, hoop dancing to "My Chick Bad".

I wanted to do that. We turned off the dvd and turned on the music. We tried.

Realization. People couldn't just DO that. I was gonna need a teacher.

Three months later, Farmer Guy handed me a b o x. A box with everything needed to become a licensed and certified Hula Hoop instructor from Hoopnotica! Shut-up!

Now I'm h o o k e d on hooping. So of course I needed beautiful hooping w o r d s! Introducing my new favorite p i c t u r e l e s s alphabet book.

H is for Halo available on Smashwords.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/284241
h OO p y Valentine's & Happy Hooping!

a m a z i n g

What is it?

People always ask, "What exactly is this w o r d thing?"

Here's the short answer (I think), "I want a word, any word, your word to make you feel fabulous!" I have seen it happen over and over again, and I want to share with e v e r y o n e. That's all for n o w.

l o v e

o n l y & l o o p e r s

MaRose called last evening to c h a t about how for years she had desired to work Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. o n l y.

Which made me launch into this tale-

On October 12, 1992 at 1pm, I met a guy. He spouted slapstick h u m o r (not the pie in the face kind, but the kind that made you wanna end each line with air drummer fists and a buddut shish). We shared our intentions for sitting on the l i l a c leather chairs in the reception area at the old old Houston Press on Bering at San Felipe. Cardboard for the move already lined the walls quasi blocking our area from an adjacent filing room.

I was there because of my aspirations to write. He was there because one day he wanted to receive an ADDY  (whatever that was) for his phenomenal and a w a r d winning advertising agency. AAA or Triple A, the agency named as such for Alfred's Amazing or Artistic Advertising would bear the logo of the Spanish Cervantes crest donned with A's throughout. Les jeunes!

It reminded me of when Awkward Black Girl realized that CC was awkward, too. My brain and my head voices couldn't compartmentalize this f e l l o w, but I knew he was friend.

Steven Barnes reminded us just today to c h o o s e our friends wisely.

Friend and I received our peon tasks as advertising assistants. Uh, what had I been thinking I don't even know this town. I worked for "the third largest paper in the fourth largest city in the United States of America" as friend would often emphasize to me. Rarely had I driven past Jones Road on 290 from Prairie View, and now I had signed up to gallivant about Houston points unknown?

No worries. Friend took one look at my face and offered his extra key map. Even then he held an affection for the severely local except for his whip. When it was apparent that I didn't even know what a key map was, he took out a paper and drew a circle.

"This is the loop."

Squiggles through 610 and scribbled cross streets later, I entered my own bohemian odyssey.

Fast forward a couple of years. Friend went to work in film. I met a boy, and moved to Paris.

At some point between the two, t r a j e c t o r y began. There were wrap parties and screenings and editing suites in posh hotels. Remember the wrap at Dave & Busters with the fabulous Aussie, Jack Thompson days before my move to France?

Friend shared his Houston with me.

He had an extra sensory perception to know where the best of Houston played, with the best music jamming, that coincidentally served the best tapas.

Who knew about rolling napkins down bottles to toss around the Last Concerts Cafe? Carolyn Wonderland? Flamin' Hellcats?

Fast forward a couple of decades. I have seen Alfred at least a few times each of those twenty years. Even our children have chosen to be friends. The journey has been rich.

He's the only person in my feed who's social media status updates indicate the pulse of Houston.

He's the only reason I agreed or even proposed to assist in planning a Free Minds, Free People in Houston. He's the only reason I agreed to host a local film room at said Social Justice conference.

He's the only person that I've seen soooo super committed to promoting H-town's fabulous scene consistently for the last twenty years.

He's the ambassador of art perfection Houston. He shares his Houston with us, and the world.

When Alfred text that he would be receiving the Only in Houston award.  It made perfect sense. Alfred is pretty much one of the Onlys in Houston. Wouldn't you agree?

It was when he emailed the announcement did I have a moment, a mind movie flashback kind of moment. Like a down the rabbit hole time travel Looper loop! "This is the loop." The you from twenty years ago, you.

I love listening to loops. I love watching loops. Like when D set an agenda to acquire an a g e n t and she did. Or when the Girl on Fire, Carnival Performer, OT pitched an intention last Spring to create a mobile South American juice bar and she did. Or when S expressed the desire to learn the vernacular of academia published her team's research in a Canadian journal this week.

Life is sooooooo delicious! Right?

"This is the loop."

Intentions and full circles and hula hoops.

Alfred subjected the email- Seventh "Only in Houston"

"More people have walked on the moon." [Or not.] From the movie Farmer Guy and I watched the previous night, Up in the Air.

"Award to be given at the 51st American Advertising Federation-Houston ADDY Awards..."

This is the loop. 

Farmer Guy always says, "If one just does the work and stays out of the way- it unfolds how it should."

MaRose and Alfred have closed a loop!

Has the rainmaker placed an order to close more?

Which loop would you like to close? 


e n v i s i o n
w o r k
c e l e b r a t e


Alfred Cervantes, Friend, this o n l y ' s for you!

Gil Scott-Heron - 'I'm New Here' (official video)

a n g e l

l o v e

instigated by Fabulous a r n z e n

"Exploit universal fears." -Mike
Arnzen

My mentor asked me to study voice in characters that live long after the book is finished. She suggested that I read Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons. I collect Newberry Medal books so I happened to have one on the shelf, although I had not yet read it. I took out a highlighter and started to mark things that I found interesting about Sal, the main character's, voice.

Certain words and phrases indicated to the reader which personality was talking. 'Huzza, huzza' let the reader know that Gram was talking. 'That's what I am trying to tell you' was one of Phoebe's favorite expressions. Ms. Partridge, the blind neighbor made up words. And Sal always prefaced sentences with 'peculiar'. Sal's voice was the most distinct.

Duh, character building 101, you might say. I did. Surely that was not the variable that would make a character's voice live on forever. I continued to search.

I read to the eleventh chapter, (Is that like the eleventh hour?) Flinching. A conversation takes place between Ben and Sal:

"Don't people touch each other at your house?" (Ben)
"What's that supposed to mean?" (Sal)
"I just wondered," he said. "You flinch every time someone touches you." (Ben)

In the middle of the chapter, on the middle of the page, I froze. I became incredibly sad. I haven't cried while reading a book since I read Bridge to Terabithia ten years ago. There I sat with tears filling my eyes.

When was the last time I had touched my own children? When was the last time someone had touched me? Those checked out okay. But when was the last time someone had touched my Aunt Marie in the nursing home? Or war vets in the VA hospital? It made me remember that one project of the infant monkey that died from lack of contact.

It was actually a universal fear displayed within a frame of twenty-five words. This would be the sole reason I would remember the resilient Sal and her peculiar voice forever.

Arnzen was right! He's kind of f a b u l o u s!

http://tinyurl.com/b4zkr5m Be an instigator, support the Fridge of the Damned poetry magnet kickstarter.

EPCC & MaKe My DaY!

s p a c e

Satiate. Scrumptious. Succulent. Silly! Ah the savory word. Our books are best, we believe, when devoured. Not just read aloud. Spoken. Saved. Swallowed. And not just in the moment of reading the book. Lived. We are moved beyond measure by the thought of these words finding a way into our readers lives. S is for Space. Own your space. (from A is for Angel, our talisman.)

b e l i e v e

c h o o s e

w i l d w i l d w e s t

Blerdesses love W e s t e r n s! I can't point my finger, yet, as to why. Oh, a [b l e r d e s s] is a female version of a b l e r d.

Westerns are not the most politically correct genre, nor, arguably, the most heady. Why DO we like?

Blerd girls play in alternate realities which makes tons of sense.

Star Wars ultimately models as a Western - which makes even more sense. Ask f a b u l o u s blerdess, Mellody Hobson?

Hot guy, Common, had a recent role in the TV Western, Hell on Wheels- which makes THE most sense.

Da haahh, da haahh
da ha-hahh- ha-hahh haahh!

I can't blerd chic my way to a logical conclusion of why blerd girls f a n c y Westerns. 

Aside from the o b v i o u s genetic component... our daddys' loved Westerns. Now we do. Background music to our lazy Saturday afternoon memories stream intro TV s p a g h e t t i Western theme songs.

Sasha and I texted on this topic during my recent holiday travels. There were too many components of Western life that we agreed that blerds adored. We realized that an entire month could be dedicated to blogging this intriguing pairing.

That was when I confessed that my favorite holiday d e s t i n a t i o n was not:

the Stratton Salon s p a trip,

or the m a g n i f i c e n t Tea Room,

or the s t e a m y hot springs at Trimble,

or even the m a g i c a l Silverton Cascade Canyon trip.

En route to Colorado...

I was extra excited to meet-up with the amazing a n g e l Adrea during the second leg of the Westward Ho annual Texas / Colorado road trip and a teeny bit excited about devouring precious p a r a n o r m a l pancakes- blue corn pinion bubbling with pine nuts at Santa Fe Baking Company and Cafe. 

Then a magnificent diversion occurred in New Mexico. 

The sign read: 

Billy the Kid's REAL resting place. 

d i v e r s i o n!!! 


Regulators, Let's Ride! 

I t r e a s u r e my own favorite Western, Young Guns featuring my own favorite cowboy, William H. Bonney.  

Back and forth through the town we searched for the REAL resting place of The Kid taking clues from confusing colorfully numbered town maps and official highway markers. 

Torn, I lamented aloud, "We don't have to go. If we can't find it this time, we should at least make it to the Baking Company," followed by tumbling exasperated sighs. 

Farmer Guy kept looking. Highly unusual for the 'let's get to where we are going- minimal meandering Farmer Guy. 

Ultimately he admitted, that in no way would he want to hear that dramatic monologue for the rest of his life, ”We were so close to Billy the Kid..." Followed by years of tumbling exasperated s i g h s.


Lo and behold! He found it! 

I was tickled to giddy. I read William's letters. I photographed everything. 

I saw the PALS tombstone. Shut - up! 

Farmer Guy thought there may have been some past life r o m a n t i c horseplay between me and the Kid. Impossible, because he's still, what, alive. 

Blerds also love people who are not really dead, but naysayers believe otherwise, but that's a whole ‘nother month of posts.

Tonto, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it...Kemosabi, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it... Custer, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it...Apache, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it...wowowowowowowowowowowowowoA- hunga-hunga-hunga-hunga!!!

love