Tag Archive for: dru’s book musing

Another ramble by yours truly

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What should I talk about? I have no idea. This is getting harder and harder to find a topic that will interest people to stop by and see what I have to say. Hey, if you’re reading this, thank you!

Someone asked with my daytime situation, how do I have time to do the other things that I do such as the dru’s book musings, quilting, Facebooking, I don’t tweet, writing a monthly blog for The Cozy Chicks and The Stiletto Gang and reading? I don’t know, I just do it. As an introvert, being in the comfort of my home gave me pleasure because I can entertain myself with my hobby of watching TV, going to the movies (although I do this rarely, but Godzilla sent me to the movies last week), so it was a natural transition to helping authors get the word out about their work, especially since I was already telling them I liked what they wrote.

It gets easier with time as you develop a routine for getting it all done. I don’t have deadlines like the authors do, although as I type this on Saturday morning at 5:49 EST, this is due on Monday at 3:00am EST, it will get done. I’m just rambling away filling up space. Do you find rambling help you clear your mind?

I dedicate an hour every day to do my blog activities such as sending out reminders to the author that their blog goes live the next day; selecting a winner for the giveaway; notifying author of giveaway winner; formatting blog posts for their guest appearances and keeping track of schedules and other blog related items. Hey, I have to be done before Jeopardy comes on. On Saturday, I devote up to two hours for my weekly round-up post and making sure the next week’s guest posts are ready for their scheduled publication. Do you use Saturday as your catch-up day?

Oh, in between that I’m reading books. I use to average reading 4-5 books but now I’m averaging 3-4 books per week. I’m reading 90% of my books on my e-reader and the worst thing that can happen is when you get to the good part of the book and the power runs out, especially when you are not near a power source. Has that ever happened to you with your e-reader?

In between that, I have to find time to work on my quilt project. I interrupt this note to say “there’s a cruise ship passing by on its way to port” and I can even hear it blowing it’s horn, it’s a bit foggy out here. Anyhoo, this week I want to finish the quilt I started a month ago, but before that I have to make a quilted pillow for a bride. I’m using her invitation as the centerpiece of the quilt. Are you crafty?

I rambled myself out of topics. See you in a month.

A Mix Bag of Topics

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Do you have auto buys? I do. I have so many; there are not enough fingers and toes to count them all. But, there are only two long-running series (and I’m talking over 20 books) that I do not hesitate in buying when their release is imminent and they are J.D. Robb and Janet Evanovich and I buy the hardcover edition but on discount. I also get the J.D. Robb book on my kindle as well. What can I say? I’m a big fan of hers and one of the items on my bucket list is to meet the fabulous Nora Roberts.

Back in the day, before I got involved with social media, the only way an author knew if I liked their book was the fan letter I wrote them. If I received a letter from them, it told me they cared to write me back and that meant all the world to me. It could a few words or sentences and sometimes I had a question about what I read and when they answered my question, again I was in heaven. With social media, it’s more about writing reviews and posting on various sites. I’ve tried, but I can’t write one for all the books I read because it would take away my reading pleasure. However, I still write that occasional fan letter to an author and still smile when they respond. I have kept all 539 fan letter responses that I’ve received. The fan letter to the right is from September 2006.

Do you have any auto-buys?

Do you write fan letters to an author after you’ve read their book?

Follow dru’s book musing on Facebook for book giveaways, contests, posting about discounted books and some of my reading musings.

The road to social media before it became social media

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June 1995

That’s the year I joined AOL and discovered the AMC bulletin board, where the talks were about our favorite Daytime soap opera, All My Children. Pretty soon, we started getting personal showing concerns for our fellow friends and as a result, the Personal Posters board was born and thus the group became AMC PPers.

A month later, a group of 22 AOL AMC Personal Posters and friends traveled by trains, planes, automobiles and the subway from Florida, Vermont, Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, Georgia, Michigan, Maryland, Virginia and Brooklyn to meet for the first time in New York City for an AMC PPer reunion.

The highlight of this reunion was a tour of All My Children’s studio. There we met the cast, saw them tape a segment and later had an autograph session where we were able to talk with the cast as well. While we were there, there was an ABC photographer and a reporter from Soap Opera Digest. We all got a copy of the show’s script and an advance issue of Soap Opera Digest. Later in the year, our visit to the All My Children studio was published in Soap Opera Digest along with the group photo. Click HERE to see article. In 1996, we had a second reunion in NYC and this time we took a tour of the editorial offices of Soap Opera Digest.

That would be the first of many PPer reunions/trips we embarked. We traveled to Chicago (1996), Richmond (1996), New England (1996), New York City (1996), Vermont (1996), Chicago (1997), Washington DC (1997), South Beach (1998), Caribbean Cruise (1998), Boston (1998), Virginia Beach (1998), Los Angeles (1998), Orange CT (1998), Seattle (1999), Seattle (2000), Chicago (2000), Virginia Beach (2000), San Francisco (2000) and Las Vegas (2006). All in all, we had a blast hanging out with each other.

Then the AOL bubble burst with many changes to their platform and finally they removed the bulletin boards and AOL was no longer our social media.

September 2003

I discovered blogs; author blogs, which led to socializing on friend’s blog. I also had my own personal blog where I talked about life in general, my participation in activities and events. At one point, I read or interacted with 100+ blogs learning all I could about an author’s work and also got snippets of their daily lives. Blogs are still around but not as proliferate as they once were. That changed when MySpace and Facebook entered the social media arena.

July 2008

I started a new blog using WordPress to keep a journal of the books I read. I enjoyed talking about my books and that is when I learned “review” etiquette—don’t give too much detail about a book. In the beginning I was rating the books, but not I choose not to because it’s my opinion and no one else’s.

That’s the year I joined Facebook. And this time we can virtually have one-on-one conversations with our favorite authors. It was heavenly to read their status and learn about their latest book from them as opposed to a page on their website. It was also there that I discovered that I could help authors get the word out on their books. That is where a chat with an author propelled me to attend my first Malice Domestic Convention.

Guess what? Some of the AMC PPers were on FB and lo and behold the Classic PPers were reborned.

May 2009

Twitter – 140 characters – need to have constant eyes to follow all the tweets and retweets. It’s good if you know how to write captions to get your message across.  I use it mainly to plug my blog postings for my “A Day in the Life” feature. My first tweet was  “learning how to “compute” using SPSS and I got it”

August 2011
The feature “A Day in the Life” first appeared on dru’s book musing. I always wanted to know what a protagonist’s day was like and just that snippet gives you some insight into the character and the book. I’m having so much fun reading all that the characters have to say and I

August 2012
Joined Goodreads – was using it a lot and then there were some discord among the other users, so I just took a break from it.

Other Social Media
Google + – didn’t like it.
Pinterest – got bored

So to Fran, Ida, Blanche, Liz, Risa, Jamie, Laura, Irene, Cheryl, Hilary, Anne-Marie, Karen, Ann, Marci, Julie, Gretchen, Peggy, Beverly, Beth, Cori, Jill, Amy, and anyone else I left out, thanks for being my foray into social media.

A special thanks to Blanche H. for her suggestion for this topic.

So how did you arrive at your social media outlet?

A smorgasbord of replies

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It’s that time of month again when I have no idea what to write or talk about. Instead, I posted a status on my Facebook page seeking help for topic ideas and what you see below is a smorgasbord of replies.

First Mystery
The first mystery book I read was Encyclopedia Brown and I read every book in the series. Believe it or not, I’ve never read an Agatha Christie book. I did read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. I enjoyed the television show as well. Reading mysteries is like solving a puzzle and you know how you smile and jump for joy when you place the last piece of puzzle, that’s the joy I have when I figured out the mystery and watch how it all came about.



Why I do what I do?
It all started with my emails to author saying I love their book; thanks for writing it and when’s the next one coming out. The more I read and enjoyed the books, the more these emails went out. One day I read the same book twice and that’s when I decided to write my thoughts and put it online for my enjoyment and as a journal of the books I read. My musing was not a “review” site then, nor is it now. It’s just a short (okay, sometimes it’s longer than I intended) paragraph on what I thought of the book. I also keep a database of ALL the books I read as not all books are mused. In the beginning I gave ratings, but someone commented that my rating wasn’t worthy of what I gave it. Hello…it’s my thoughts and not everyone is going to like a book the same way I do, so I stopped rating books on my blog. Word of mouth is a powerful promotional tool and I wanted to share the books that I read with my friends and this was the perfect way to do it.

How did I get a monthly post on the Cozy Chicks?
After reading several of my book musings, I was invited to do a monthly post highlighting the Berkley and other publisher’s books that I’ve read. I had some reservation because I knew that I could not write a “proper, standardized” review, but that was not a concern to them, so after some thoughts, I accepted the role and I do enjoy it because I get to bring books to readers who might not have seen the books listed elsewhere. My first Dru’s Cozy Report was on August 15, 2010 and featured “Death in Show” by Judi McCoy, “Maid of Murder” by Amanda Flower and “Death by Diamonds” by Annette Blair.

How did I come up my monthly feature “A Day In The Life?”
I would post a musing 3-4 times a week on my blog and I recall that I had a vacation planned which I took and while away, there was nothing new on my blog. I’ve learned that if you don’t have fresh content on a daily basis, you can lose readers and since my blog was still in its infancy, I had to come up with something to keep readers interested and coming back and that is when I came up with my feature. I always wanted to know what a protagonist’s day was like and just that snippet gives you some insight into the character and the book. I’m having so much fun reading all that the characters have to say and I hope my readers are too. This is another way of introducing characters and their book that otherwise they might not have known about since there are 1,000+ books published a day in the U.S. and U.K. combined. My first featured post was by Nora McFarland on August 8, 2011.

Chocolate
Several years ago, we went to a chocolate and wine tasting event and it was fun, but the lady who was leading it had me laughing as she kept says cacao and only 70% chocolate will do. I am not a fan of dark chocolate; I prefer milk chocolates. One of my favorite candy bars are Kit Kat, Snickers, and Hershey kisses. It’s no wonder my preferred hot beverage is hot chocolate.

Fangirl moment
One of the best fangirl moments was at my first Malice when I was invited to dinner with the Cozy Chicks and other cozy authors. Talk about going to heaven, I was in my glory or as I often said “I was in my element.”

When was the last time you sought help to jump start a conversation, blog or your work in progress?

Check out dru’s book musing here or on Facebook.

Christmas Memories

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I’m at a loss for words. I have no idea what to talk about once a month, let alone every day. So I decided that I”ll just ramble on and perhaps a blog will come out of this.

So what’s going on? It’s Christmas and the hustle and bustle of the city can be contagious. Everyone smiles, say their manners and just have a real good attitude.

The buildings and plaza are ensconced in trees and decorations and tourists and some natives take pictures to post on social media.

The stores play Christmas music to entice you to spend, spend, and spend. Do you realize that you can walk into a store during the holidays and when you hear the music, it changes your demeanor? I know it does mine. Hearing “Jingle Bells,” “All I Want For Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” all bring back joyous memories and opens that wallet. But that’s okay, because I feel happy and in good spirits.

It’s also the time you sit around you television and watch those movies that you grew up on. Who doesn’t recall “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Frosty The Snowman,” “White Christmas,” or “Charlie Brown Christmas.” Again, just thinking about it reminds me of my youth when all my sisters and my mother were together just waiting for the day that we can open our presents.

After all the presents were opened, and the paper cleared, the family headed to the nearest relative house for the Christmas Dinner and as the years go by, you wait for your chance to finally sit and eat at the adult table. As everyone bowed their heads, we thought of the past year and of our future to start all over again until the next Christmas season rolls around.

Christmas: a wonderful time and full of memories.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday to one and all (to those who celebrate).

Follow dru’s book musing on Facebook for book giveaways, contests, posting about discounted books and some of my reading musings.