KABAM (Kingman Area Books Are Magic)

Hey assorted friends, fans, and potential stalkers,

I'm peeking out of a stack of revisions to go to Kingman this Saturday, April 6th, for the KABAM festival. I'm assuming from the title it will be like a comic book and we will all be saying, POP! WHAM! and KABAM! a lot.

Here's the pertinent info:

This year, the outdoor poetry slam will be held on the evening of April 5th and the outdoor festival will be all day on April 6th, 2013.

Throughout the week, schools and literacy groups host events to encourage an interest in reading. Events include author visits to local schools and an evening poetry slam. The festival concludes with an outdoor festival in Metcalfe Park in downtown Kingman.

KABAM celebrates our authors, readers, and local businesses by bringing our community together to celebrate the fun and adventure of reading. We hope to see you at KABAM this year!

KAPOW! I hope to see you all there!

Things in real life I would never believe in fiction

As a fiction writer, I have to follow rules of believability. My plot and characters' motivations have to make sense. I can't yank the reader out of the story by making him stop, pause, and think, "That would never happen in real life."

The ironic thing about this rule is that generally it doesn't even matter if the thing in question does happen in real life. For example when I wrote Just One Wish, I originally had the cast of a TV show working over Thanksgiving weekend. I'd heard from my Hollywood sources that if a cast is behind schedule, they do indeed work over weekends and holidays. But my beta readers questioned the schedule so I had to change it.

As a writer, the whole truth is stranger than fiction principle can be baffling. People are continuously more stupid then I give them credit for.  Here are a few real life things that make no sense to me.

1) People who willingly go on national television to air their dirty laundry and share the most intimately painful details of their lives.

If I didn't know who my baby's father was, I certainly wouldn't want to advertise this fact. Ditto for my problems in bed, struggling marriage, or my children's behavior that is so unruly I need Super Nanny to expose their flaws and my pitifully inadequate parenting techniques.

How does a person show up for PTA meetings after going on one of these shows?

2) People who record themselves committing crimes and then post the videos on the internet.

On one hand, I've got to applaud these idiots for helping law enforcement to incarcerate them. Carry on, stupid criminal, carry on!

3) Whoever invented and first invested in bottled water.

I am old enough that I remember the time when you had to physically pour water into your own bottle if you wanted bottled water. Really, it's not all that hard. There is only one ingredient to this recipe. So when bottled water first hit the stores, I thought it would be a foolishly short lived idea. I mean, what was the original advertisement for this product? It's just like the stuff you can get from your sink, only more expensive! Who would pay for that? 

As it turns out, a lot of people. This is why I will never go into business for  myself. I apparently don't know a good product when I see one.  Although lately I have been toying with the idea of marketing bottled air. It would be a great way to recycle all those used water bottle containers.

4) People who break into cages so they can mingle with carnivorous animals.

If the thing is called a Killer Whale, it is probably a pretty good indication that you should not dive into the tank for a social visit. And despite the fact that baby polar bears look huggable, a two minute search on the internet will let you know that polar bears eat seals. You are about the same weight as a seal and apparently have a close enough resemblance to a gray mammal with flippers that the polar bear is not going to be all that picky about eating you.

And last but not least 5) Road construction projects that take four months. One of the roads near my home is the victim of such a construction project. It makes me wonder what the men in the orange vests are doing on the days they show up--panning for gold? Excavating lost cities?

Fictional characters would never get away with being so slow for no apparent reason--but alas, we live in real life.

Tucson Book Festival update

Despite just experiencing a bumpy airplane ride, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I haven’t blogged this week because I’ve been busy with school visits, conferences and such. I know you’re all wondering how the Tucson Book Festival went. Remember how I told you that my typical audience for a book reading at the teen tent was an average of, oh, a couple wandering people who wanted to rest their feet for awhile?  Well, you will think I’m a liar when I show you the picture of the audience I had.

But before you think I’m that cool, I have to admit that most of the audience who came for my reading were there because they knew R.L. Stine was doing his reading after mine and they wanted to make sure they had a seat. Smart people. And a captive audience. So yeah, the reading went really well.

The panel with Bruce Coville and Jennifer Nielsen went great too—except for the Q&A session when my friend, Angela Fox insisted that Hotel California was the greatest song ever written. Pa-lease, Angela. No one has done the Harlem Shake to that song yet.

Mysweater makes me look really fat in this picture. It is a clear sign of how awesome I think Bruce and Jennifer are, that I'm posting it anyway.

After the festival I went to Utah for a week of school visits. Those are always fun because a good author visit makes you feel like a rock star. I am currently at Lady Gaga status. Although no, I will not be donning a bubble dress or raw meat any time soon.

Lastly, I presented at Teen Author Bootcamp. The kids there rocked!

Now I’m back home and I want to sleep for a really long time.

 

You know you want to come to Tucson--and a true story

I'll be there this Saturday, March 9, and would love to see you. Really. I'm not just saying that because I want something from you. I'm not like those other love-em-and-leave-em authors that have done you wrong so many times. No, I care.

Now don't you want to make the trip out Tucson to see me? Forget the fact that it might be lousy weather. A little rain never stood in the way of true devotion.

Too much?

I've been reading romances today, so it's hard to be objective.

Anyway, I'm in currently breezy Tucson for the book festival. Close to a jillion authors will descend on the U of A campus Saturday. It will be awesome and literary and totally worth driving all night to get here.

2:30 – 3:15 –Teen and Author Meeting Place South of the College of Education on the Main Mall.
I'll be doing an informal reading and Q&A. These are generally lonely and sparsely attended events where authors ponder their popularity and careers in general.

True story: The last time I was at the Tucson Book Festival doing a reading, I was pleasantly surprised that I actually had quite a few people in the audience. A group of women had come with their daughters. They were attentive and laughed in all the right places. They asked thoughtful questions. Then as I wrapped things up, I asked if anyone had any more questions.

"Yes," one of the mothers replied. "When does Louis Sachar get here?"

Turns out they had come to see him and had gotten the time wrong.

Yeah, so if you're anywhere in the area, please come by.

4:00 – 5:00 Panel Discussion in Room 353: Worlds of Fantasy: Dragons, Monsters and False Princes with Jennifer Nielsen, Bruce Coville, C.J. Hill AKA Janette Rallison

This will be well attended because it's bound to be really interesting. I will pretend the entire audience has come to see me.


5:00 – 5:30 Autographing right outside the south entrance of the COE and to the east.

This is when my illusions that the whole audience came to see me will be brutally shattered. Again, if you can come by, buy a book and have me sign it. It doesn't even necessarily have to by my book. I'll happily sign Bruce and Jennifer's books.

I have my moments . . .

I admit I don't read all of my Goodread reviews. For one thing, it would be hard to keep up with reviews on twenty books. And besides, there is the author curse to deal with. The curse is this: you can read thirty glowing reviews about your book--and feel so happy--until you get to that one bad review. I know that it's impossible to write a book that everyone on the face of the planet will enjoy. People have different tastes. For example, some people inexplicably like the song Hotel California.

If you aren't familiar with the song Hotel California consider yourself fortunate. It is a slow ballad about a hotel that traps people inside. There is stabbing going on. I remember hearing once that the song was inspired by the movie Psycho. When it comes on the radio, I literally leap over furniture so that I can turn the station two seconds faster.

Anyway, so authors expect bad reviews. I shrug off most, but every once in awhile there is one that bugs me because it gets the facts wrong and then the reviewer states that s/he didn't like the book because of those facts. I know authors who have gotten bad review for books they didn't write. I once got a bad review for a book that I hadn't finished writing yet. (Apparent the reviewer had psychic powers.)

Sometimes I read reviews though and I had to say that I loved this review of A Longtime (and at one point illegal) Crush. I won't quote the whole thing because that would look like shameless self-promotion. I will say that the reviewer is brilliant and astute and right about all the nice things she said about me.

You know how (Janette Rallison) seems to create the most awkward, embarrassing, yet down right hilarious teenage moments in all of her books? (If you don't, read some and you'll see.) Well my friends and I have what we like to call "Janette Rallison moments". It's where we have the most humiliating experiences that are mortifying at first, but then we have a giggle fest later on about it. Like the time when one of my friends got their braces stuck to her crushes shirt. Yeah. Definitely Janette Rallison moment.

I am ridiculously proud to have humiliating moments named in my honor. This is perhaps because I've had so many Janette Rallison moments myself. In fact, you could pretty much say my life has been one Janette Rallison moment after another.

The latest, completely true moment that happened to me:
Imagine you are at a place where you are surrounded by people who are all dressed up. You are dressed up too. It is close quarters. You reach into your purse to pull out something you need--something that everyone is expecting you to have. It is at this point you realize that the bad smell you've been getting whiffs of all evening originates from your purse. Apparently one of your evil cats has recently crawled into your purse and peed inside.

(Here I am with the likely suspects.)

There is not a gracious way to get out of this sort of situation. And unfortunately, randomly screaming in close quarters is still not socially acceptable. That Janette Rallison moment will probably find its way into a book someday.

Things I learned at the ANWA conference

The reason I haven't updated this blog lately is not that I wanted to leave the Buy-my-new-romance-novella blog up forever. (Although you should in fact buy it because hey, it's only 99 cents. What can you find at the dollar store that's going to make you happier?)

 The ANWA conference was Thursday-Saturday and I was busy--literally--from the moment I woke up (way too early) to the moment I fell exhausted into bed (way too late). Still, it was an AWESOME conference. Here's some of the things I learned:

 1) Don't volunteer to introduce James Owen. Instead of reading his bio in the ANWA program, I went off the cuff and told people about him. I ended by saying, "And the best part about James is that even though he's a bestseller, he's still a wonderful guy!"

 Which had all sorts of connotations I didn't intend. (Apologies to my other friends who are bestsellers.) 

2) Don't volunteer to give James Owen the five-minute-til-class-is-over-sign. James has had an incredible life. He talks convincingly about the power of determination because he's overcome so much. I would like his achievements without all of that 'overcoming' he had to do beforehand. I was so engrossed during his class that I completely forgot to keep track of the time. When the people in the next room suddenly started clapping, I jumped several inches in my chair and hurriedly glanced at the clock on my laptop--which made James think the class was over. He wrapped up and still had five minutes left. It probably worked out for the best though, since so many people wanted to talk to him after class.

 3) I work with awesome ladies. A big conference doesn't happen without lots and lots of help. I was so impressed and grateful for everyone who selflessly helped.


Here we are at the protagonist ball.


 4)People who help out at conference win the Beginning of Book contests. The judging was completely blind/anonymous so there was no way anyone could have rigged the winners, but most of the people who won in the various categories of the BOB contest had also helped out at conference in some fashion. Are helpful people more talented? More dedicated to writing? Do you get extra creative blessings if you serve others? I have no idea, but I plan on using this phenomena to recruit helpers for next year's conference. (And Torsha Baker who was in charge of the AV at conference got an agent from the conference. Now don't you want to be on the conference committee?)

5) If I'm going to conduct any part of conference I need sleep beforehand. By the end of conference I was so sleep deprived I was beginning to sound and act like a drunk person. Seriously, when I introduced James for the keynote, I decided I'd better read his bio (see number 1) and I couldn't pronounce the word 'adaptation'. It took me three times to get it right. And did I mention that a film crew was there filming James's speech? I'm really hoping that none of my introduction is left in.

Here I am as Snow White who has wandered into the wrong film.

A Longtime Crush for Valentine's Day

Remember, like, three weeks ago when I said I would be putting up a couple of ebooks in a week? Well, that was proof that I'm overly optimistic about my to-do list. You would think that after living with myself for forty-some years I would know some basic facts:

1) No matter what my intentions at the store, I won't send in the rebate form.
2)  I also won't turn in my receipt to the Boy Scout adviser, Achievement Day adviser, conference committee, or any other place that I'm supposed to turn in a receipt so I can get reimbursed for whatever I just bought for said groups.
3) I won't have just one cookie. I will eat as many as it takes to make me wonder if there should be a reality show about people with no willpower.

And most importantly 4) Everything takes more time than I first thought it would. (This is also why I'm frequently late for things.)

Anyway, my romance novella, A Longtime (and at one point illegal) Crush is finally up at Amazon. (Techno-Bob put it up last night at midnight so it would be available for Valentine's Day, and he made some mistakes, such as putting the parenthesis in the wrong place and putting the author's note where the book description should be. I fixed those this morning, but it will take awhile for Amazon to update.)

You can buy it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Longtime-point-Illegal-Crush-ebook/dp/B00BFNYG1A/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1360867713&sr=8-5&keywords=a+longtime+crush

It's only 62 pages, but I must say they are good pages. In fact, I sort of have an author crush on Kye--which is entirely inappropriate since I'm about twenty years older than him.

Here's the real description:

From the day Elsie’s older brother brought his friend Kye McBride to their house, Elsie adored him.  When she was eight she secretly blew kisses to him. When she was twelve she sat on the stairs, unnoticed, and watched him escort another girl to prom. When she was a senior in high school, she walked into math class and found out he was her new math teacher.

With that much emotion fueling her, things were bound to go wrong. And they did. Elsie not only spent her last two weeks of school avoiding him, she turned avoiding-Kye-at-all-costs into her life-long philosophy.

Now three years have passed and Elsie has come home for her brother’s wedding.  She’s got to face Kye –hopefully without getting crushed again.

Upcoming Events You Don't Want to Miss

I've got a boat-load of events coming up. (Although sadly no cruises to make my boat-load of events analogy more apt.) If you want a Janette/CJ sighting or signing or even sighing here's where you need to be:

Feb 21-23 ANWA Time Out For Writers conference in Mesa, Az. For more info click:
http://www.anwa-lds.com/conference

Saturday, March 9, Tucson Book Festival 4-5:00 panel with Bruce Coville and Jennifer Nielsen
Worlds of Fantasy: Dragons, Monsters, and False Princes
For more info click:
http://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/

Saturday, March 16, Teen Author Boot Camp at Utah Valley University (for 13-19) For more info click:
http://teenauthorbootcamp.com/

Saturday, April 6 Kingman Area Books Are Magic (KABAM!) Festival. Kingman, Arizona

I would love to see any and all of you at these events! Hope you can make it!

Erasing Time giveaway

Free Book Friday is giving away three copies of Erasing Time on their blog. Plus there's an interview with me and I know you never get tired of hearing what I have to say. For example, you were probably just asking yourself today which fictional character I have a crush on. By the way, if we were basing it just on looks, Matt Bomer who plays Neal Caffrey on White Collar comes quickly to mind. And then insistently stays there. 

(I have a theory--based purely on wishful thinking-- that in heaven we will be able to look like anyway we want. I'll frequently look like Cindy Crawford and I'm going to make a request of my husband that every once in awhile he look like Matt Bomer. At least when he's not busy looking like Nathan Fillion, Hugh Jackman, and Richard Hatch. Oh, and some of the time he's got to look like himself too, because he is pretty hot. So if you see two people walking around who look like Matt and Cindy, you'll  know it's me and Techno Bob.)

Anyway, here's the link to the Erasing Time giveaway on Free Book Friday.http://teens.freebookfriday.com/

Random picked Julie

Send me your address and I'll send you your book, or if you'd rather have an ebook, it should be available this week. Either way, let me know at jrallisonfans at yahoo dot com

Which cover and a book giveaway

I just remembered that I signed up to do part of a blog hop today. Oops. Forgot to do that, so I'm just going to add it to this blog. I'll give away one of the original hardback copies of My Double Life to one of the commenters.

I've got the rights back to My Double Life, and so I'm going to put it up as an ebook. (Hopefully I'll have this book and a brand new romance novella up this week. Be excited. Be very excited.) However, as I don't have the rights to the original cover of My Double Life, I've got to come up with something new. Fortunately, there are some pictures on Shutterstock that fit with the theme. The very accommodating Su from Earthly Charms did three mock-ups for me so that you--my reading experts--could let me know which you liked best.

Please leave a comment and tell me your favorite!

Yallapalooza and writers conference on Sat, the 26th

This Saturday I'll be involved in two fun writing gigs. The first will be a YA writers conference at Dobson High School. Don't click on the banner. It won't take you anywhere. I just stole it from Changing Hand's website because I love how serious and slightly dangerous some of the YA writers look. That's how you can tell who the cool writers are.

Ten authors of young adult fiction, including several New York Times bestsellers, share strategies, tips, and tricks for writing engaging work for tween and teen readers. You can choose three of four informative sessions to fill your three-session schedule, including "Unforgettable Characters," "Heroes vs. Villains," "Writing Realistic Dialogue," and "Essentials of SciFi/Fantasy."

If you want more info on the conference (I believe it's 85.00 for the day) here's a link: http://www.changinghands.com/yawriting2013

Then there will be Yallapalooza at Changing Hands. If you've never been before, it's free and it's fun--sorta like a game show in which you get to work with groups of authors. Plus there is pizza. Here's the details:

At 4pm Saturday, January 26 Changing Hands Bookstore presents YAllapalooza 2013, a literary extravaganza for tween and teen readers. Here's your chance to mix and mingle with your favorite YA authors, get signed books, enjoy pizza, and more!

Attending Authors: Tom Leveen, Cecil Castelluci, Amy Fellner Dominy, Shannon Messenger, Suzanne Lazear, Janni Lee Simner, Kevin Emerson, Erin Jade Lange, Lisa McMann, Suzanne Young, James A. Owen, C.J. Hill (aka Janette Rallison), Laura Ellen, and Lisa Schroeder.

Come be on my team! I always bomb when it comes to the first line in a book game so I need your help. For more info on that, you can go to: http://www.changinghands.com/yallapalooza2013

Partying with authors

I'm always up for a party--as long as it is at somebody else's house. Having a party at my house inevitably means that I have to nag my children for 24 hours straight to pick up their junk, do their jobs, etc. My children combat my efforts by working at the same rate that fossils solidify and by vanishing every time I'm not physically making eye contact with them. I tell a child to take out the garbage and poof, he or she is gone for an hour.

So yeah, I don't do a lot of entertaining.

Thankfully the same isn't true for my author friends because we just held our second Teacher/Librarian appreciation party at Amy Dominy's home. Our awesome publishers donated not only copies of our books to give to educators, but also provided other books and swag as well.

Here's a picture of us hiding behind our books. Authors do that a lot.

Here's a picture of us being more social. You can see Lisa McMann, Bill Konigsberg, Me, Jon Lewis, Aprilynne Pike, (second row) Shelly Coriell, Janni Lee Simner, Angela Morrison, Amy Dominy, Nancy Bo Flood, (First row) Suzanne Young, Erin Lange, James Owen

Here's a picture of all the awesome books publisher's donated. (Photos by Zac Dunn)

 Oh, and by the way, this is Amy's laundry room. Seriously. I soo have laundry room jealousy now. For some reason that I have never fully understood, builders all put dining rooms into houses--which people never use--but think homeowners all want to do their laundry in cubical-like closets.

If any architects are currently reading my blog, do us all a favor and switch that around.

The captain is our unofficial blow-up mascot. A man in a cape and underwear is always fun at a party.

Thanks publishers for being so generous, and thanks teachers and librarians for all that you do!

Middle daughter's commentary on reading

My teenage daughter--who has been known to go days without emerging from her room--sent me this video to let me know that "this is how she feels sometimes".

I thought I'd share.

I lovingly told my middle daughter, that yes, I understand her love of reading, but she still has to come out of her room and do her jobs. I'm heartless like that.

New Year's resolutions, revised

Every year I make New Year's resolutions, and every year I break them. In fact, my usual tradition with my New Year's resolutions seems to be that around June I get them out and laugh at my naive optimism. So this year, I'm taking my resolutions and doing what writers do best--revising them

Picture by 22dragon22burn

 1) Exercise more. Hide the treats better. Maybe I'll forget where I put them.

 2) Stick to a budget. Resist buying more Christmas cards and wrapping paper, even if they are 75% off right now.

 3) Have a family dinner every night. Cook something once in awhile that requires more work than slitting open the top of the package and programming the microwave.

 4) Declutter the house. Put a moratorium on the stray cats my children keep collecting. Ditto for those pesky stuffed animals that appear like furry big-eyed mushrooms in every room of the house.

 5) Make myself presentable every day, even when I have a deadline. Try to convince people my pajamas are actually medical scrubs and I'm just back from a 36 hour shift.

 6) Read the classics. Watch Doctor Who while I fold laundry.

 7) Learn a new skill. Learn how to work the TV remote. (See resolution 6)

 8) Become best-selling author. Stop writing 400 page novels.

 Okay, that last one isn't particularly funny, it just seems to be something I need to keep reminding myself. Because even though on the outset of the last four books I've written, I specifically told myself my book wasn't going to go over 300 pages, I keep writing these mammoth stories that take way too long to write and revise.

Which cover picture do you like best--new photo added

I have a romance novella that I'll be putting up on Amazon soon. Possible title: Long Time (and at one point illegal) Crush I need a cover. So I've been looking at pictures of hot guys on Shutterstock (It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.) and now I want your opinion.

Kye, the hero, is a guy who's family owns a large ranch in Montana. When his father had an injury, Kye changed his plans from being an engineer to being a high school math teacher so he can help out on the ranch.

We see him in a cowboy hat, in his school teacher duds, and in a tuxedo as best man at the heroine's brother's wedding. You would think it would be easy to find pictures of a hot guy in a cowboy hat--and it is--except that none of the pictures seemed appropriate for one of my stories. According to Shutterstock, cowboys wear very little clothing. Apparently something in their job requires them to walk around shirtless, with glistening abbs. (I sooo should have been a cowgirl.)

Let me know which picture you think would make readers look twice. (Oh, and by the way, the guy is age 24 and then 27 in the story.)

***news flash**** I have a new contender in the hot guy cover category. A friend pointed out this awesome photo by photographer Rob Lang. I emailed him and asked for permission to use it on the blog so you, my dear readers, could vote on it. Keep in mind that even though you may want to copy said photo and wallpaper your bathroom with it (who wouldn't, after all) it's copyrighted and a flurry of lawyers will pounce on you should you press the "save image" button.

Creepy Christmas gifts--the annual report

It's that special time of year when random companies send me their catalogs. I don't know why anyone thinks I might want to buy Meerkat statues, dancing pigs, or dress-able squirrel magnets, but apparently I fit the demographic, because the catalogs keep showing up. Of course, even the stores have their share of creepy Christmas presents.  Here's my top pick of things you probably won't want to receive this Christmas. (If you're afraid any of your relatives might send you these things, do yourself a favor and email them the blog link.)

First off, let's talk about Dora the Explorer--that charming little girl who wanders the countryside, constantly lost.  Last year I was creeped out to see the Dora Pillow Pet because it looks like some horrible species-cross-breeding experiment that went horribly wrong.  (When did people become pets?)

Do not ask what Dora is doing with those Winnie the Pooh Pillow pets. You don't want to know.

I had high hopes that Dora would be back to her normal winsome self this year. Alas, it was not to be. I walked by a store and saw this.

 If I were Hello Kitty, I'd be nervous. Apparently Dora ate her last sidekick. 

Dora's new "husky" size  made me wonder about the obesity problem here in the US. Why are we so overweight?  And then I saw these next Christmas ornaments.

Since when did  Christmas trees start doubling as snack bars? How food obsessed are we as a nation that we think strips of raw meet are a good decorating medium?

Okay, enough talk about obesity. In the last week, I have eaten far too many sugar cookies, gingerbread men, and brownies  to get up on a soapbox about junk food. (And okay, I did just buy a cupcake ornament--but it was cute.)

Speaking of Christmas decorations, here's a two-story tall blow up Santa. Nothing will thrill junior quite as much as a Santa the same size as King Kong.  I mean, that's not going to cause any nightmares. The reason Santa knows when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake is because he can look right into your bedroom window. And he does . . .

What do you get the person who has everything? How about a horse head mask? I mean, how many times have you been walking around your house wishing you could slip into something a little more equine?  I love how the horse looks startled--like he's just watched the decapitated horse head scene from the Godfather.

Sometimes I think certain gift ideas must have come about after drunken parties in the marketing department. Marketeers were clearly trying to outdo each other by finding the absolutely stupidest objects they could make people in third world sweatshops produce. This mounted squirrel head (only 24.95) is not only sold by Wireless, it's on the cover of their catalog. Yep, the flagship of gifts, the hot item this year--a fake, dead, half a squirrel. Personally, I'd expect a real, dead, half a squirrel for that much money.

Just kidding! Lest I get angry comments about my inhumanity toward fake or real squirrels, let me emphasize that I love animals as much as the next person--in fact, arguably more, since I have so many cats I have been accused on more than one occasion of hoarding them. (The strays come and refuse to leave. It's really not my fault.)  However, even I--animal lover that I am--found these next shirts creepy.

Remember the scene from Alien when an alien popped out of somebody's stomach? Yeah, that's pretty much the impression you'll give people if you wear this shirt.  And the cat shirt--is it just me or does the cat look like it's just as horrified by this fashion choice as everyone else?

Lastly, for a mere 109.95 you can buy a two and a half foot tall Green Thumb garden statue. 

All I can say about it is: Well, at least it's not the middle finger. That, I suppose, would really be more of a statement to your home owners association than an actual Christmas gift.

Sadly, there are many, many more tacky gifts where these came from. 

If you want a great gift--and one that's a lot less than 109.95, try one of my books. I promise it will give you more enjoyment than half a squirrel or a gigantic, severed garden thumb.

If you're into romantic comedies about women who work for hot, single movie stars: 

http://www.amazon.com/Masquerade-ebook/dp/B00AAQVTYU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355816239&sr=8-1&keywords=cj+hill+masquerade

If you'd like to see past years creepy gifts, you can check them out here:

http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-you-could-have-gotten-for.html

http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/2011/12/worst-christmas-gifts-you-can-give.html

http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/2012/01/creepiest-kids-toys.html

Random chose Eliza

So send me your address (or the address where you want the book to go) at jrallisonfans at yahoo dot com and I'll mail it off.

Failed Family Mottos book give-away

You know what would be a perfect Christmas gift (besides my books, that is)? This awesome book of failed family mottos.  You know those samplers and plaques with uplifting, motivational saying that you frequently see in peoples homes?  These are the ones that didn't make it.  Here are a few samples from the book:

See, you can tell the author had lots of boys. (Four, I believe.)

I actually have a Return With Honor plaque hanging in my house. Now I will think of this one when I see it.

                                            This is frequently how our family prayers at our house go. Sigh.

For a chance to win this book, leave a comment about your family's motto (failed or otherwise) I'll choose a winner on Sunday and mail the book out on Monday so that hopefully it will get to you or your loved one by Christmas.

Or if you'd rather just pay the 7.95 and order the book, here's a link to the website so you can do that:

http://middle-agedmormonman.blogspot.com/search?q=failed+family+mottos

You'll see the book in the right hand corner. Click on it for buying info.

The Bad Boy Appeal part 1

I'm deep in revisions, so today my commentary on the Bad Boy phenomena is going to be this very funny music video, called Nice Guys.

The first lines are:
Nice guys finish last,
that's why I'll treat you like trash.
It's not what I really want to do,
but you only date bad guys,
so I'll give it my best try
to treat you the way you want me to.

It's funny because there's a grain of truth to it. I mean, there must be or we wouldn't love those fictional bad boys so much. (Warning for my sensitive readers. The song contains the h word.)