What a Year!

Please forgive me while I whine for a few lines.

In the past year I had a major household move, a concussion which is still affecting me eight months later, a hospitalization for a heart issue, and I lost a brother.

I have never left you, but I have had to take time off.

While I was grounded due to the concussion my librarian turned me onto "Playaway". A small devise which has an entire book loaded onto it.

If you haven't tried one yet, ask your librarian if they can get you a few. They're great in the car, at the beach, or if your doctor says "No reading."

I have found listening to books not only entertaining, but better for my knitting than television, which occasionally makes me look at it.

To paraphrase a slogan from Timex--I can take a licking and keep on ticking.

I am easing back into writing and blogging. I hope you will stay with me while I do.

Until next time--Keep on Reading!

Transitions

tran·si·tion

  [tran-zish-uhn, -sish-] (meaning from Dictionary.com)

noun

1.

movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another;change: the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

2.

Music.

a.

a passing from one key to another; modulation.

b.

a brief modulation; a modulation used in passing.

c.

a sudden, unprepared modulation.

3.

a passage from one scene to another by sound effects, music, etc., as in a television program,theatrical production, or the like.

verb (used without object)

4.

to make a transition: He had difficulty transitioning from enlisted man to officer.

Life is a series of transitions. 

Some are normal, like moving from infant to toddler, some are not like being a sweet child and turning into an angry adolescent overnight.

Some are easy, like tapping your feet to music, some are as difficult as learning to pirouette on your toes.

Life is full of transitions and so is writing.

Writing transitions is hard work. Some transitional scenes take authors hours, days, or even months to write, and then they may still not be happy with what they have produced.

This column is actually a transitional column. Up until now it has been about writing, books, and authors. There will be more columns like that in the future, but they are going to take turns with life's observations.

I have found that although I love to expound on writing, I get tied of harping on the same things bothering me. I have also found that things that bother me don't bother other people until I point them out to them. (My daughter will never forgive me for a comment I made about Mr. Bingley's head. And no, I am not going to repeat it here, because then it will bother you too. Just forget about it.)

I have not been a good little blogger writing every week the way I had promised myself I would. Writing, life, and the Little Guys tend to have other plans for me. However, I am going to give it my best shot and I intend to write about the mundane and the profane and every so often I will throw some tips or gripes into the mix.

I hope you will all read the columns and let me know what you think of them. If you have a favorite subject you would like me to rant or rave about, let me know. I may, or I may not, use it. 

Read and be merry, my friends!

Oh, and be sure to enter The Scavenger Hunt. There are fun prizes to win and it is easy/peasy!  scavengerhunts.vpweb.com/Event.html

Girl Cave

Shannon O'Brien has graciously agreed to step out of her Girl Cave for a little visit in the Spell Room. 

Girl Cave 

by Shannon O’Brien 

I’ll read pretty much anything.  I love to be transported to strange new worlds (The Hobbit), enjoy bizarre British humor (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).  I love to be whisked away to foreign lands (Cutting for Stone) and getting creeped out (The Strain).  I love old whodunits (Murder on the Orient Express) and traveling back in time (The Other Boleyn Girl).  I love disturbing contemporary tales (Room), and sexy supernatural beings (Sookie Stackhouse Series).

And where do you think I go to experience all of these magical places?  My bedroom?  My recliner?  My formal library filled with plush wing-backed chairs and orderly rows of books snuggled into built-in mahogany shelves? 

Nope.  My bathroom.  That’s right, the tinkle closet.  I have a husband, two small boys, a boxer who thinks she’s a lapdog and a surly old cat.  I have to hide to read.  But they always find me.  Their voices haunt me from the other side of the locked door.  “Hon, does this shirt go with these pants?”  “Mommy, he’s not sharing!”  “What’s for dinner?” “Whattcha doin’ in there, Mommy?”  “Hon, you can’t hide in there forever!”  “Meow” and “Woof!”

Once in my Girl Cave I am transported into someone else’s life.  I get to crouch in the trees with Katniss Everdeen, soar over Hogwarts with Harry Potter, and kiss an ethereally handsome vampire with Bella Swan.  I get to be in the operating room, spaceship, swamps, and turn of the century London searching for Jack the Ripper.  You name it, I’ve done it.  Of course, only within the comfort of my little locked room.

I bet some of you hide to read too.  Would you like to know secret?  Short stories.  For example, my story, Winter Twilight, is a short contemporary romance which has just been released as part of an anthology, Snowbound Hearts by Still Moments Publishing.  In Winter Twilight, the young, recently divorced female protagonist, Teagan O’Leary, finds herself in a new city with a new life and falling for her coworker who is also a secret front-man for an up and coming Seattle rock band.  Wow!  So much to absorb yourself with, and it’s only twenty-six pages long!

You can purchase the anthology as a PDF document at http://www.stillmomentspublishing.com/p/ebook-store.html, and read it on your computer, laptop or print out one story at a time.  Or you can download it to your E-Reader, I-Pad, I-Phone, etc. (coming soon to Smashwords.com). 

With crazy schedules and getting pulled in thousands of directions, make sure to find some time for yourself.  And with all the choices you have on how to read books now, you too can have a Girl Cave anywhere your little heart desires. 

Forgive me, but I have to go now.  I need to finish a book…I-I mean, use the restroom.

~Shannon O’Brien

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