New Book

Hello everyone. Its been awhile. Today lets talk about if we like or dont like famous historical characters in our books. I currently have to books I am writing.  One is a western erotic romance and i am about a quarter done with it. The second book I am writing is a light paranormal.

The paranormal has two iconic heros in it that battled two thousand years ago and now are ready to battle again. But this time the old bad guy is the hero and the good guy is devious and evil!

Who are my characters? None other than Achilles and Hector! I love their stories and well even though the film version of Troy is not exactly correct its still fun to watch.

So how do you feel about famous real life heros being fictional characters in a book? And who would you like to see in a book?

Happy Tuesday folks!
Sayde

A Moment to Remember

Hello everyone! I’ve been quite for a while now but not for any other reason besides me being lazy. I have a winner for my ornament, Dianne!!

So today as we all are heading here and there to finish our Christmas shopping I want to take a moment to let you all know of something I just donated to. I don’t usually encourage people to donate to any charities that they don’t normally donate to. However this holiday season I’m stepping out on that. We’ve all heard about the Sandy Hook tragedy and we all have broken hearts over it. While I believe that no matter what law is passed or upheld a crazy person is going to do crazy evil things, I don’t want to get into that discussion.
What I’d like to share is the news that the rotary club there in Newton is raising money for funeral, short term and long term counseling for students, staff and responders as well as starting scholarships in honor of the victims. To do this they need help. While I had planned to donate to St. Judes and still will I also took a portion of my last royalty check and donated to the rotary club to help them.
I encourage you all to take a moment and think of all the things we are blessed with each day and how devastating it would be to lose it all. With help the community, school, students and others will recover over time. I support this effort and hope you all will find something you feel passionately about this Christmas season and support it also.

Thank you and yall have a Merry Christmas
Sayde

Early Christmas

So who wants early Christmas present? If you do all you have to do is answer 1 of the following questions and put the answer is the comment box for entry to enter to win 1 a Cowboy Christmas. It’s been awhile since I’ve held a contest so when I saw all the cowboy Christmas I ornaments I was inspired.

Today in order to enter time win you have to answer a question from one of my books. Besides my Built Cowgirl Tough series I have two paranormal books published. In one my hero is the unlikely heir to a werewolf pack. What is the name if that book and character?

Have fun searching and here is a picture of the ornament up for grabs today.

Thanks all and have a great day,
Sayde

The Dentists!!!

Wow, that title sounds like a horror movie doesn’t it? Well in my mind going to the dentist is a horror movie! I dread the dentist like crazy. Tomorrow morning I’m embarking on an adventure to the dentist. You see I have a tooth that I cracked and the filling came out. Well, it never hurt and still doesn’t but it needs to be dealt with as its broken really bad. So I called my dentist who I’ve seen like two times in ten years and made the appointments to go get my teeth checked out. Turns out not only is that tooth in need of removal but all of my sinus headaches and soreness may be cause by a molar whose roots have grown into my sinus canal. Yay!! Another tooth that I’m going to have to have removed. But guess what? My dentist can’t do it. Nope, I need an oral surgeon to remove it.

Okay, that sucks right? Yep, I agree. And at this point my blood pressure is sky high and I’m seeing dots. Also my stomach is trying to crawl out of my body. I am past ready to bolt. However, I get the courage to make an appointment with my dentist and have the surgeon remove it. So they call in some sedation medicine for me to take prior to my appointment in the morning and all my pain meds. I’m set right? WRONG!!!
Nope, of course not. My horror story is not done yet. I get a call at 5pm from my dentist. The girl on the phone informs me that as my dentist and the surgeon are reviewing all of my xrays that find a tooth that I had worked on in MIDDLE SCHOOL that is infected. WHAT??? How does this happen? I have zero pain, heat, inflammation or signs at all that the tooth is infected. Yet, it is and so severely that they believe the infection may be in the bone!!
**Passes out, wakes up, vomits, and passes out again!!**
Oh my. How on earth has this happened? They don’t know but they do know it HAS to be removed. There is no getting better. So now I am beyond upset and terrified. At this point I am tempted to pull every tooth in my head and have implants inserted. I am panicked. So while you all are working, resting, eating or whatever I will be in between passing out and vomiting over being terrified tomorrow. Please say a prayer for me and hopefully I will be here next Tuesday to post about cowboys and an interesting job I found out about!
Thanks all
Sayde Grace

Oh and goodluck, stay safe, and have lots of fun for all my friends going to the M & M Conference in Atlanta, Ga. I’d much rather be with you all!!

Technology Help!

Hello everyone! Todays post is going to be different. You see I need help. My phone is an Android3 and at first I loved it. Now I hate it. I had to send one back because the thing kept shutting off and reloading. Now the one I am using has a glitch in the keyboard. Im so done with my phone! I’ve had my eye on the Galazy 3 but now with the iphone 5 coming. Out im torn.

Heelllppp!

Sayde

Books Turned Into Movies

Whether you love it or hate it, books being turned into movies is an old tradition and one not going away anytime soon. While some of my favorite movies are from books that I’d read some of the worst movies ever are also. Recently I watched The Hunger Games. Now, I loved the books. The world the author built was unlike most I’d read before and had just enough adult content and science fiction to really hold my interest throughout the entire series. So, I was pretty excited to see the movie out on DVD.

 

With that being said lets talk about a few other books made into movies. The Twilight series for one. I LOVED the books, and I can say I was one of those middle aged women waiting in line to see a teen flick without shame. Then reality hit, I HATED the movies!! They were awful to me, now don’t get mad with me, it’s just my opinion!! But I really did hate them.

Another one was One for the Money. LOVED LOVED LOVED the book but the movie fell a little flat for me. It wasn’t horrible, it just didn’t have it for me.  Pride and Prejudice is of course a favorite book and movie.

But my favorite will always be The Sookie Stackhouse series and True Blood. With that being said I’ll explain why:

The books were written magically, connecting me to the characters and their world. They just pulled me into that world and I loved it. The television show did the same, BUT and this is a big BUT, the writers of the show veered off the books just enough to keep my attention and never truly knowing where the show would go next. The writers gave my imagination a chance to think of new plots, new what ifs, and new ever afters! I love that!

So back to The Hunger Games, I was told this was not a good movie, it was boring. I didn’t find it boring. I found it to be a little flat but because I didn’t feel the writers dived deep enough into the backstory between all the characters. It felt rushed and missing emotion to me.

So with all of my opinions I have to wonder about movies that are scheduled to be produced from books. The next big thing I’ve read about is The Fifty Shades of Grey books being turned into  a movie. Yes, I’ve read them and I can honestly say there is something about them that compels you to read more however as I’ve read like a million books in this genre I can recommend more that are better. And I don’t mean that as a cut on the author but there are hundreds of better books. Yet, she hit the market at the right time and now is all the sensation. So I’m curious to see how Fifty Shades of Grey is made and how I will feel about this movie.

 

What are some movies made from books that you love or hate?

 

Stay safe everyone, so far we still have power and just a tad bit of wind and rain!

Sayde

What to do When You Screw Up?

Hello everyone! Wow, it’s been forever since I sat down and wrote out a blog post and actually posted it!! I feel so out of base with everyone! Now that school is out for the summer maybe I can get back into writing and blogging!

Today I want to share a life lesson I just learned the hard way. I am a member of several blogs and one I designed myself. I love playing on the computer, designing and goofing off. I searched for a while on the standard buy out right photo websites like IStock and others for a header. I never found anything that just struck me. I took a chance on searching images outside of those sites. While doing so I ran across a website from a woman claiming to own all the photos she’d posted and because of her love of them she just wanted to share them and pass them along. So what did I do? Yep, I screwed up. I took her at her word and used an image from that site as a header.

I have had all of my books pirated and let me just say, it effing sucks!! I get pissed each time an alert goes off saying another site has pirated my book that took my time away from my family and in many ways drove me insane while writing. All of my books were ones I spent lots of time and energy on writing and worked really hard to get published. The thought of someone stealing my work sends me into a rage each time I think about it, yet I stole someone’s work!

Turns out the website and the woman claiming to own those pictures was a complete fraud. This woman had stolen a bunch of copyrighted photos from various artist and claimed them as her own. How do I know this? The artist of the header I used took legal action against the blog I’m on. Yep, I totally screwed up!

Just to be clear though, I in no way blame this artist for being pissed! I get mad every time I see my work stolen too!

So what do you do when you screw up? Well for me, I take the hard-earned lesson and store it for future use. I also apologize for my wrong doing and in this case need to apologize to all the authors on The Wild and Wicked Cowboy blog as well as artist and author, Megan Oteri.

So the lesson here: life throws things your way sometimes that are unexpected and can be disastrous. Breathe in deep, admit if your wrong, try to make amends and smile through it because it will get better. No matter how  inadvertently something was done, if you were wrong, and I was, make sure you do whats right in the end. The ladies on WWCowboys are fantastic. I in no way expected anyone to have my back and understand how I had let this happen but those ladies did. They realized everyone makes mistakes and backed me 100% in understanding. Thank you to all of them. And to artist, Megan Oteri, I truly am sorry this whole thing has happened and wish you the absolute best in your artistic career and writing career.

So take my lesson and store it for your future use. Remember what happened to me and let it never happen to you! Be responsible for your actions and breathe through it! Always admit when you’re wrong even if you meant no harm. Do whats right because it’s the right thing to do and in the end smile because all things will get better with time.

Sayde

Young Adult

Hello everyone! Happy Tuesday! So I posted on another blog yesterday about the Scholastic book fair we are having at our school. I love this one because its the buy one get one free sale. So far I’ve spent about thirty dollars and have picked out two more books today. See what I am doing is buying young adult books to read and then I donate them back to my school library. We have K-8 here and I feel we are lacking in popular young adult books.

Yesterday I picked up City of Bones and Cleopatras Moon. Today I am thinking of getting Once Dead Twice Shy. But the biggest thing I am seeing in young adult is post apocalyptic novels and ghosts/zombies. I have only found two vampire books but tons of apocalyptic books.

Where do you see the young adult market going next or what do you like to read in young adult novels?

Have a great Tuesday,
Sayde

Great Reads

Hello everyone! So I have had a great weekend of reading. My critique partner who I have seriously neglected these last six months sent me her latest book. I gotta stop here and brag about how lucky I am! So far the book is of course fantastic and makes my writing look completely suckish. I wish I could hate Rebecca but I just can’t.

And just because I love you all too I will tell y’all she has a novella out right now called Tempted and its a free read! Go and get it while you can.

I also have been reading Hunger Games. Im hooked. In fact I’ve already bought the other two in this series and skipped to the endings 🙂

So what great reads have you read lately??

Thanks all
Sayde

Future Artist or Jail Time??

Okay so sometimes real life is just too crazy to put into words. My youngest child is a boy, and I mean ALL boy. He does everything, good and bad. Im shocked he hasn’t broken any bones yet. He’s four and with that age he gets into everything anyway. Over his short lifetime he has done numerous things to make myself and my husband. I have a ton of white hair now and attribute them all to Blake.

So yesterday I decided to practice baseball with my daughter who is seven. She does excellent in practice but loses her nerve in the game. I got the black spray paint out proceeded to spray a home plate and batters box. It looked good and I was happy. Then things went downhill. Of course I was wrong about everything. Also about halfway through our argument I look down to see the spray paint missing. GREAT!

Look around and whew, wipes forehead, Blake was only spraying the dirt to make him a homeplate. At least that’s what I thought until my husband came in screaming and red faced wanting me to come see what MY son had done now.

Ok, so it was like eight o’clock and I could have cared less. The longer I took to get outside the faster my hubs spun around getting madder and madder 🙂

Finally, I go out side. He simply points. What you ask does he point at?? Oh my Tahoe!

Yep, that’s right the four year old vandalized my rim! Just add it to the list of insane things that kid has done. And when asked he said, “I didn’t do that, Bailey did!” So he’s either going to be a great artist or spend lots of time in jail. Only time will tell!

Have a great day folks and a laugh on me.