Tag: Noon and Wilder

  • Open the Seal Blog Book Tour – Day Two – Bestseller!

    Open the Seal Blog Book Tour – Day Two – Bestseller!

    Wow.  Thank you, Dear Readers, for making SEALED BY FIRE a bestseller on All Romance eBooks its fourth day out!  We\’re grateful to you all for your support and plan to continue writing the best stories that we can.

    On today\’s second day of our blog tour, I wanted to share a funny story with you about the writing of this book. See, it goes like this:

    Rachel: \”Um, Noony? You have Nash\’s eyes this color in Chapter Two.\”

    Me:  \”Yeah…\”

    Rachel: \”But they\’re not.\”

    Me.  ~blink~  \”But…\”

    Rachel:  \”They\’re a specific color, you know.\”

    Me. \”Yes, dear, I know that.\”

    Rachel:  \”Then how come in Chapter Seven they\’re this other color?\”

    Me:  ~blink again~  \”Because magic?\” ~big grin~

    Rachel: \”And Jordan drives a Bronco.\”

    Me:  \”Oh.\”  ~thinks~  \”Maybe we need a list.\”

    Rachel:  \”Yes!\”

    See, Rachel is the list-maker of the two of us.  I\’m the right-brained, non-sequential of us.  This makes us a really strong team because our skills complement each other.  But occasionally I\’m reminded why lists are useful.  Like, say, with eye color or our characters\’ cars.

    What skills are you glad your best friend has, so that it keeps you on track?
  • Release Day – Launching the Open the Seal Blog Book Tour!

    Release Day – Launching the Open the Seal Blog Book Tour!

    I am so excited!  Today is the release day for Sealed by Fire, our first novel with LooseId LLC.  The cover art is phenomenal, as you can see, and we\’re stoked to be part of the LooseId author community.  Some of the biggest names in romantic fiction work with them and we\’re thrilled to count ourselves among that number.

    Here are five things to be excited about for today\’s release day:

    1. The book is out!  (You HAD to see that one comin\’, I mean, come on.)
    2. The book is… Just kidding.  But the fact that we see our names on the cover and that it\’s available on the LooseId website still gives me chills.  So aside from the fact it\’s available for purchase, just the simple fact that it\’s there is shiver-worthy – \”we wrote that!\”
    3. Every book is a team effort.  Our editor Jana, the cover artist Valerie Tibbs, and the whole team at LooseId made this a reality – thank you!
    4. We streamlined the character list from the original manuscript, which makes this book a lot tighter AND gives us more characters for whom to write sequels.  (Yes, that is a blatant plug – grin.)
    5. The book is out!  Check it out on the LooseId website and enjoy!
    What exciting news do you have this month?  I\’d love to know; please share with me in the comments.
  • A To Z Challenge: Reflections and Tue Cent Twosday

    A To Z Challenge: Reflections and Tue Cent Twosday

    It\’s May. How did April go by so fast? And yet, it didn\’t: it went by fully.  It wasn\’t so much the velocity as the content. Here\’s what I mean; my ten things list of what I learned from the April 2014 A to Z Blogging Challenge:

    1. Challenges stretch you. They push you to do better.
    2. I adore participating with others. As much as writing is a solitary activity, I\’m a group-oriented thinker and this suited my approach to writing, and life, perfectly.
    3. Daily discipline leads to changed habits.
    4. Sustainable growth is preferable to sudden expansion, because the latter is followed by the inevitable contraction.
    5. There are some damned fine bloggers out there.
    6. Optimism takes work.
    7. You\’ve got to give to get.  Social media is less about the media and more about the social.
    8. One blogger complained that it was too much work, she didn\’t really gain new friends, and that her sales didn\’t improve. I think this misses the point. To me, the Challenge is about the collective outpouring of effort focused around a common, shared, goal – to see if we can write 26 posts in a row and witness each other\’s birthing pains. It\’s not about \”gimme,\” it\’s about \”let\’s.\” Together, we are stronger: but together begins with me, reaching out of myself and visiting other places, other blogs, even other countries.
    9. Cultural sensitivity is key when blogging.  I\’ve met folks from India, New Zealand, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East…  The world is a big place, but the internet builds bridges.
    10. I am so grateful to the unsung heroes that did the early work of the internet, from 1969 and its beginnings as ARPANET/DARPANET, to the development of the Network Information Centers at places like Stanford Research Institute, to CERN and the World Wide Web. We stand on the shoulders of giants, my friends, and we are the better for it. When I feel down about the state of the economy or world peace, the internet quite literally reminds me that life will find a way. We humans are communicative creatures and the internet brings me hope that we will stumble on a way to find peace with each other, a common understanding and respect. Yes, even with lolcats.
    What did you learn from participating in the Challenge, either as a reader or also as a participating blogger?
  • Thursday 13 – 13 January Images

    Thursday 13 – 13 January Images

    It\’s snowing.  My husband is not amused.  🙂

    Boria napping in our new living room.  We had to get rid of the beanbag chair, but the cat loved it.

    Here comes the train.  It\’s snowy and they don\’t put salt down on the platform, but sand.  Yes, it\’s slippery.

    This is a path that leaves the corner of my usual lunch park.  Where does it go?

    This is the viaduct.  I love the cave-like hold under the train. Gorgeous.

    Waiting for the bus to the Purple Line to go downtown.

    Moon over train. Or, wait… is that a glare on the camera?

    Cloud ceiling under the plane.

    Peeking over the seats at the people ahead of me on the plane.  I am NOT creepy.  Just curious.

    Red Rock Canyon.  Actually, I think this is a canyon south of it.

    Bird.

    Creosote?

    Knot?
  • A to Z Challenge, Day 26: Z Is For Zen

    A to Z Challenge, Day 26: Z Is For Zen

    Image © 2014, A. Catherine Noon, All Rights Reserved
    Zen Koan

    Chao-Chu fell down in the snow

    and yelled, \”Help me up! Help me up!\”

    A Zen Monk came and laid down beside him.

    Chao-Chu got up and went away.

    Thank you for visiting and traveling with me during the April A-Z Blogging Challenge.  I\’ve enjoyed making new blogging friends and collecting new followers.  It\’s readers like you that make writing such a pleasure.  I appreciate your support!

    Happy blogging!

  • A to Z Challenge, Day 25: Y Is For Yesterday

    While the past can sometimes drag you under, and it\’s important to stay rooted in today, our yesterdays teach us about where we\’ve been, who we are, and where we want to go.  As author and filmmaker Julia Cameron puts it, in order to create original work, we have to be the origin from which it comes.

    Today, instead of letting the past haunt you, make peace with the fact that it happened.  It\’s over, and can\’t be changed.  Its story, however, can be told:  it can be written down, made into a poem, painted, sculpted, cooked, cleaned and ordered, any of a hundred other interpretations – and all from the same root material:  our own lives.

    In what city did you live when you were twelve?
  • A to Z Challenge, Day 24: X Is For X-Ray

    A to Z Challenge, Day 24: X Is For X-Ray

    The development of X-Ray technology meant that we could look inside things.  This revolutionized all sorts of things, from medicine to astronomy.

    But I\’m not going to talk about X-Rays in specific; I\’m going to talk about the Scanning Electron Microscope!

    While the SEM doesn\’t use X-Rays to see stuff, it actually uses electrons to bombard an object and then take a picture, it\’s a tool that allows us to see the surface of really small stuff – which is almost as cool as seeing inside stuff!

    Pumping Station: One has the only working SEM in the country, that we\’re aware of, that members of the public can see and that members of Pumping Station: One can be trained to use – and just for the price of a membership, which is only $40 or $70 a month depending on the level of membership you select.

    Curious?  Check out more at our website, here.

    What tool would you love to play with, that\’s usually at big fancy institutions or in another part of the world from you right now?
  • A to Z Challenge, Day 23: W Is For West

    A to Z Challenge, Day 23: W Is For West

    Sorry, folks.  My brilliance is on hold on account of I have a cold.

    I hate being sick.

    What\’s your favorite simple joke? 

    Humor is the best medicine, after all.

  • A to Z Challenge, Day 22: V Is For Victory

    A to Z Challenge, Day 22: V Is For Victory

    \”Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one\’s definition of your life; define yourself.\”

    Harvey Fierstein

    It is all too easy to succumb to the desire to be liked.  Loneliness is a powerful motivator and causes us to lose our nerve, not confront our fear of being ostracized, and thus we step back into the shadows, mute.

    If this is you, take heart.  The victories that count are the ones that we win with ourselves, that enable us to be more fully the person we are inside and not the one that our parents, our peers, or society want us to be.  It is a lonely road, this road to self actualization.  But it is worth it.

    That is the victory worth having.  At the end of our days, when we sit in silence with ourselves and the Beloved, it is not the games we played that will bring us peace.  It is the self we shepherded into being, the self born of Spirit and nurtured in Love.

    \”If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?\”
    Dame Edith Sitwell

  • A to Z Challenge, Day 21: U Is For Umbrella

    Those of you who have been with me a while know that I\’m superstitious about carrying my umbrella everywhere.  It hasn\’t rained in a while, because our winter was too flippin\’ cold for rain, but this week we got our rain forecast.  Sure enough, Monday evening it was supposed to rain.  Started early, too; around 5:30 instead of 8 like they said on the news (thereby proving my point that the weatherperples don\’t know what the buzz they\’re talking about, but that\’s a different post).

    ANYway, so I carry my umbrella, right?  Yup.  In my backpack with a cute little cover.  Glad I had it Monday, on account of it was, you know, raining.  For the first time in weeks.

    I left the house yesterday, which for you math whizzes means yesterday, and guess what?

    I forgotted my umbrellaz!  Oh noes!

    Just goes to show you.  You break your own rules, you end up riding a bike with a baby seat turned upside down on your head.  Srsly.

    What important piece of equipment do you make sure you carry with you everywhere?

  • A to Z Challenge, Day 20: T Is For Tailor

    We\’re almost to the end of the A-Z Challenge!  You still with me?  Drink some coffee, walk around the block, jump up and down a bit to get the blood flowing.

    There.  Better?  Thought so.

    Today is T for Tailor.  I find sewing a fascinating hobby.  I read once in a Vogue Sewing Book from 1968 (or was it 86? I can\’t remember, to be honest) that it\’s like sculpting with fabric.  The description stuck with me.

    Of course, the word tailor always reminds me of the song, The House of the Rising Sun:

    Why am I bringing this up now?  My husband is a photographer and is starting a studio, Wolfshead Photography.  He\’s been sewing costumes for his models, anything from Victorian lingerie to full gowns.  I don\’t have pictures at the moment, though you can wander through his galleries on the link I gave you.  I just wanted to give a shout-out to those of us who can sew and enjoy it.  We\’d look a lot less cool without clothes and we\’d sure be a lot more cold.

    What craft do you admire, even if you can\’t (yet) do it yourself?

  • A to Z Challenge, Day 19: S Is For Station

    Pumping Station: One is a hackerspace located here in Chicago.  Part of a growing movement of makerspaces and tech labs, the defining characteristic of a hackerspace isn\’t the stuff in it, it\’s the community and culture that create it.  Simply put, it\’s a collaborative community-run workshop where the membership gets to decide the tools, resources, and whatever else is available.  PS1 is 250+ individuals committed to the open pursuit of knowledge, as well as the sharing of ideas and resources.

    What community are you part of, and why?  
    I\’d love to know!