Sometimes, life gets in
the way of the best of plans. When my newest book released at the beginning of
this month I thought, great! I’ll get a plan together to promote it, do some
book giveaways, some guest blogging and all those other fun things.
Screech…. That would be
the sound of the train derailing.
Somehow, my publisher
didn’t get the word that the release date for my books was right in the final
week of two simultaneous graduate level courses in which I had papers due…in
each class…at the same time. Hey, that was okay. I got the papers turned in…just
in time to have to push hot and heavy into prepping my high school students for
their End of Course Writing exams. I’ve analyzed more reasons, evidence and
counterarguments in the last month than I really want to see—at least until
next semester when we’ll do it all over again.
So, while I was deep in
the middle of reviewing parallelism and using specific vocabulary, I woke up
one morning and thought, “Gee, it’s cold in here.” However, with a terrier
curled against my back, I didn’t think too much about it, until I finally
stumbled into the bathroom where I could hear the outdoor portion of the heat pump
running madly, but couldn’t feel any air blowing out of the vent.
Not good.
The final distraction
to promoting Broken Heart came from
this cute guy whose picture you see here. Sweet face, soulful eyes. In fact,
this is the little cutie who likes to curl up to my back at night. He is also
the dog that my son takes great pleasure in teasing. This is not a good thing.
Said cute, cuddly, worshipful Jack Russell Terrier is also a former abuse case.
His previous owners saw fit to toss him out a car window, which is how we ended
up with him. We quickly discovered he has real fear issues with men. It took
him two years to warm up to my husband. He blows hot and cold with the
teenager.
Which is why I usually
find myself saying: “Get out of his face. He’s going to bite you.” I don’t even stick my face in this dog’s
face, and he thinks I walk on water, dance on the moon, and need to have him
lying near my feet or sitting on my lap whenever I remain motionless for any
length of time.
However, teenagers
being the way they are. I don’t know what I’m talking about when I say: “Get
out of his face. He’s going to bite you.”
Which is why I spent
Saturday evening wiping up blood, soaking a prized T-shirt in cold water, and
examining my son’s upper lip to decide if it needed stitches or not. I
refrained from being the first one to say: “I told you so.” My spouse took care
of that.
My teenager’s gone to
school with an ice pack this week.
All I finally said was:
“I’m sorry this turned into such a painful lesson son, but I hope you’ve
learned it this time.”
And he said: “I have. I
don’t want to repeat it.”
Which just goes to show
you, teenagers can learn something.
So, where does that
leave me with promoting Broken Heart, which—if I do say so myself—is a darn
good story? Leave a comment and I’ll enter you in a drawing to win a copy of
it. To be fair, I'll give away two copies. So I'm going to hold off and hold the drawing on November 9th.
