the sun will come up

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There’s something special about a sunrise. And there’s something even more special about a sunrise over the ocean.

I take a lot of things for granted in my life and spending time at the beach watching the sunrise every morning made me realize that it’s the little things matter the most.

My favorite sunrise was my last morning at the beach. I enjoyed it so much that I forgot to snap a picture as the bright sun peeked over the horizon. It was the first completely cloudless morning. There were no pinks, no grays, no purples. Only dark and light. And it was amazing. That sunrise will be forever burned into my memory.

So this is my last post about Florida. I know y’all are all probably sick of them by now anyway. I’m refilled and refreshed and even though I wish I could pick up and move there today, I know it’s not my time.

But I was made to be a beach bunny. And one day, I will make it so.

pictures from RT

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Well, it’s hard when you have to return home. LOL

I had the best time last week. It was so great to see my friends and meet some new ones. I enjoyed myself tremendously.

Here, let me show you:


Me and Maria Geraci just before Deidre Knight’s Gods of Midnight party.


Deidre and her Spartans


A spartan…mmmmm


Me and Kitteh (aka Kristen Painter)


Me and one of my favorite people ever! Roxanne St. Claire


Me and Jane from Dear Author. It was great meeting her finally.


Me and Angela James (who is seriously one of the sweetest, cutest, and most genuine people I have ever met)


Will Belegon and Alessia Brio


Me and Terri Garey. How freaking cute is she?


Christina Cross vamping it up. *rowr*


Me and Deidre

I have not died

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I’ve been in Orlando at the RT Convention being a very good girl.

I have NOT stalked anyone. I have not been laying by the pool for endless hours. I have absolutely not had one drop of wine.

I also did not go to Maria Geraci’s Bunco Bash and help out. (If I HAD been there, I could tell you it was a raging freaking success, but you know, I wasn’t there.) A little birdie told me that Deidre Knight’s Gods of Midnight party was awesome, but I wouldn’t know, because I wasn’t there. I was too busy being a very good girl. Going to bed early. drinking only water.

Yup.

I will have pics later. I’ve been twittering, and posting some pics there, so if you want to know the truth (not that I’m lying, because I would never do that) head over to my livejournal page where I import all my daily tweets. You’ll get links to pics there and little snippets of my day.

I will be at the beach starting tomorrow for two days. I bet I’ll do better about catching you guys up.

Or not.

We’ll see.

I promise I will definitely catch y’all up next week. Just be patient.

Love you. Mean it.

sorry ’bout that

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I kinda forgot to blog yesterday. I blame Jennifer Christmas Christman. From now on, it will always be her fault if I don’t blog.

Today is a cave day. If it’s not raining, I’ll head to Burns Park to see Rader play soccer, but it looks like it’s gonna be rainy all day. And I need to pack. Because just in case you haven’t heard, I’m running away to Florida for 10 days.

That’s right. 10 whole days. Orlando for the RT Convention.

I’ll be blogging during the week, possibly multiple times a day. I’ll also be a twittering fool. So be prepared.

Have a great Saturday! I’m off to pour myself another cuppa joe and start packing. Bathing suit? Check. Flip Flops? Check.

Done.

wax on; wax off

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This post may be a little bit on the TMI side. If you work with me, you’ll probably want to stop reading now.

Seriously.
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Last chance….
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Yesterday, I checked off another item of my 40 Things to do at 40 List

Get waxed (Legs, pits and um…yeah. I’m gonna go there. All the way there.
That will be some blog…)(I’m planning this for April, before I go to
Florida where I plan to get loads of sun…)

So, I did it. (Not the pits. I didn’t let the hair grow out enough. Let’s
face it, that may never happen because EWW!)

I was nervous. Even though I managed to nearly fall asleep during my 3 hour tattoo session I really thought waxing was gonna hurt like hell.

Um. Will you kill me if I tell you I nearly fell asleep while she was ripping my leg hairs out by the folicle? Obviously, I have a very high tolerance to pain. Or I find it very relaxing. Whatever.

I twittered the entire time and I texted a couple of friends while it was happening.

The legs were nothing. That actually felt good.

The hoo-ha? Didn’t hurt like I thought it would. It was uncomfortable a couple of times, but overall, no problemo.

One thing you may or may not know about the Full Monty wax (or the Wax-a-hoo as I’ve been calling it) is that they do more than the girly area. Oh yes, they do the butt crack, too. Apparently everyone (but me, of course) has a hair buttcrack, who knew?

Also, Cassandra (my wax on, wax off girl) gave me my new favorite word: Assfro as in, some people grow ass on their cheeks and that is called an Assfro. (BTW: I am not one of those people)

And there you have it. My TMI blog about my wax-a-hoo.

You’re welcome.

haiku hatred

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Yesterday, while on twitter, I joked about having an all haiku twittering day.

I was unprepared for the deluge of Haiku Hatred replies that I received. Totally unprepared.

I had no idea that people hated Haiku. How can you hate Haiku?

My new TBF (TwitterBestFriend) @jenthegingerkid (visit her online at http://jenthegingerkid.blogspot.com/) threatened to unfollow me if I twittered in Haiku. Of course, this devastated me. How could she unfollow me over Haiku? Everyone loves Haiku.

But then the @replies continued to pour in. Only three of my Tweeps encouraged me to Haiku. (and that @amiestuart only wanted me to so that @jenthegingerkid’s head would explode)

So I gotta know:

Why you be hatin’
What has haiku done to you
Don’t be a hater

I will admit to having to stifle the desire to haiku all day today. I also will admit another little secret that I don’t think @jenthegingerkid picked up on this morning…my first tweet to her was a haiku. My oppositional-defiant nature couldn’t resist.

MelissaFrancis: @jenthegingerkid
good morning my friend.
Did u get a good nt’s sleep?
Have u missed me much?

Oh yes. I’m good.

Of course, now that I’ve outed myself, will she forgive me or will she unfollow me? We shall soon see…

another busy day

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I’ve been up since 4:30 working. I swear, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to accommodate me and my needs.

The countdown to Orlando has begun. This time next week, I’ll be getting ready to jet to Florida for the RT Convention and some face time with friends! I can’t wait to soak up the sun, soak up the booze, and soak up the energy from the conference.

This will be my first RT. I hear I’m in for a helluva time.

Due to some unforeseen circumstances last year (would anyone like to buy a house in Oxford, MS?) I didn’t get to do the conference thing. It was my first year to miss in 4 or 5 years. I was so upset. So I’m making up for it this year by adding RT to the mix.

I’m so ready.

But until then, I have a book that’s due. So it’s time I get back to it.

How was your weekend?

the twitter winner & my daddy

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Congratulations MAD! you were my Random.org pick for my book! Contact me at tellmel@melissafrancis.net with mailing information and who you would like the book signed to!

Yesterday on a whim, I did a little twitter experiment. (Would that be a twitterment?)

I announced a Twitter only contest. If you leave a comment on yesterday’s blog, you’d be entered for a chance to win an ARC of BITE ME!

I did this for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to test the power of twitter. Would my blog traffic increase? Would I get some new twitter-followers? Would I get some new commenters on my blog or gain new blog readers?

My blog traffic exploded. It was a slow morning, when I posted the tweet, I only had 64 hits to my blog. 15 minutes later, I had 124. That’s a pretty big increase! I gained new followers and new commenters and we’ll see if I gained some new blog readers. Not sure about that one yet.

Twitter is a pretty amazing social network. My contest was ‘Re-Tweeted’ and spread across the Twitterverse. Never deny the power of a tweet…

Thanks to everyone who stopped by. I hope you’ll continue to come back and play. There’s always something going on here in Melville. (Like Whoville, only better.)

Now onto today’s random thought about my daddy.

Last night was the first real severe weather of the season (usually by now, we’ve had two or three ugly storms come through, but this has been an unusual winter/spring here in Arkansas) Anyway, we were watching TV and good old Ed Buckner interrupts (which I’ll admit pisses me off. I know it shouldn’t but dammit, I’m in the middle of a really interesting show and you’re interrupting to tell me the storm has just crossed into Arkansas? I’m 250 miles away, dude. /rant) But Ed does say something that interested me. The storm was about an hour away from Mt. Ida.

Mt Ida is a tiny little community about 15 minutes from my parents place on Lake Ouachita (it’s pronounced Wash-i-tah not Oh-u-a-cheetah). My daddy pretty much stays up at the lake in the spring and summer. So I called to warn him b/c there really is no telling if he’s paying attention or not.

I forgot it was poker night, so he wasn’t up at the lake. This is a good thing.

Anyway, when I call, he answers the phone and I hear all the old man ruckus in the background. (Have you ever heard old man ruckus? It’s a hoot) There’s something about my daddy that cracks me up every time. (Besides the fact that every one of our phone calls is almost exactly the same no matter the topic. Seriously. We can discuss tornados, fishing, cancer, politics or watching the grass grow and they are all the same.) That’s not what cracks me up the most.

Nope.

My daddy can’t say ‘I.’ As in “I love you.” “I thank you.” “I smell what you’re stepping in.” “I know what you did last summer.”

Nope.

He says ‘we.’

Me: Daddy there’s a tornader headed to Mt. Ida, but I hear the Grumpy Men Brigade in the background, so you’re not at the lake are ya?

Daddy: Naw. It’s poker night. But we thanky (prounounced thankee) for callin’.

Me: No prob. Just didn’t want you to be swept off your feet and unprepared.

Daddy: Naw but we appreciatey. (this is appreciate you, btw)

Me: Have fun. Love ya, Daddy.

Daddy: Weloveytoo. (all one word. the quicker the better)

This conversation cracks me up. EVERY TIME. I have made it my goal in life to get an ‘I’ out of him just once. The man is 73 years old and so far, I’m failing at my mission.

But it will happen. You’ll see.

We thanky for readin’ today. Come back soon, ya hear?

the day has come…

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Almost every author I know has the same inner fear.

Rejection

What if someone reads my book and doesn’t like it? What if they hate it? or worse yet, what if their reaction is “Meh. It was okay.”

Shoot me now. There’s nothing worse in my mind than a ‘meh’ reaction. That means I didn’t do my job. I didn’t write a story that evoked any emotion at all. And boy, when you’re a hot mess like me, the last thing you wanna do is write a lukewarm story.

Getting my ARCs was a blessing and a curse. Sure I get to hold, molest, sniff, lick, and sleep with a copy of my book. That’s the blessing. The curse? People I don’t know are reading it. And they’re gonna comment on it. They’re going to tell the world how they feel about it. And me and my book are lying in bed, waiting. Waiting. WAITING.

The wait is over.

I got my first reaction from Elaina who was one of the limerick contest winners. She said something along the lines of “I love BITE ME! and want to have its babies.” (okay, I may have taken some liberties with that quote. but the meaning is the same. She had a very strong, a very positive reaction. and I had a happy.)

Then my 11 year old son read it. This to me was the most terrifying of all because A: he’s a big reader. He reads 3-4 books a week and when I say books, I mean BOOKS. He read TWILIGHT in a day. B: He has no filter. (Much like his momma) If he doesn’t like it, he’ll tell me. So when he finished the book and said “Mom, this was so funny. When can I read the next one?” I was so relieved. I was so thrilled! And then he started asking me questions about my research and my characters. And when he told me who his fave character was, my heart melted.

And now the big news. I just received my first official review from a review site called Teens Read, Too.

Bite Me! by Melissa Francis

Category: Paranormal
Age Recommendation: Grades 9+
Release Date: 7/28/09
Publisher: HarperTeen
Reviewed by: LadyJay
Rating: 5 Stars


AJ Ashe, a teenage Southern belle, is hiding a secret.

Her family is descended from a long line of vampires – yep, I just said vampires. AJ has fangs and occasionally craves blood, but she has also suppressed many of her vamp instincts to fit into “normal” society.

The part that’s not normal – AJ’s mom is marrying her boyfriend’s father.

AJ knows she can’t be with Ryan, especially now that they are step-siblings. The reality of the situation doesn’t make it hurt any less. AJ tries to push Ryan into the arms of another willing female, but they just can’t seem to avoid one another.

And then, of course, other weirdness starts going down. AJ discovers that her family is part of the Serpentine clan; a high school friend is killed, rises from the dead, and begins to stalk her; AND she gets suspended from school.

Just another day in the life of a teenage vampire!

Melissa Francis has successfully produced a fun and fresh vampire novel. The story itself is engaging, and you can’t help but love the characters. Many a teenage girl will empathize with AJ and her angst-ridden relationship with Ryan.

I enjoyed the fact that Francis has made her vampires very different from those in the TWILIGHT series. These vamps have their own set of rules to follow.

I am so glad that I got my hands on this book. The ending left me wanting more, so here’s hoping that many sequels will follow!

Now I know that BITE ME! isn’t going to be for everyone. I have prepared myself for some bad reviews. I’m waiting for the hammer to fall because it will inevitably. But right now, I’m floating on cloud nine. This is a great way to lead up to my release date!

ETA: Twitter contestants–Random winner will be announced tomorrow!