Nicki Elson's Not-So-Deep Thoughts

Welcome to the Mid-winter's Eve Giveaway Hop sponsored by the I am a Reader blog and organized by Mary at Bookhounds.net . Things are getting pretty exciting with my upcoming Chick-lit love story with good vibrations, Vibrizzio . "Lyssa Bates doesn’t need a man. Not when the world is fully-stocked with double A batteries and a wide array of options in Amazon’s health and sexual wellness category." The big cover reveal will be on January 23--- sign up at Xpresso Book Tours ---and all sorts of fun things will follow. You can now read a very few teensy  excerpts at my website  (I'd put them in this post but I'm afraid they might cross a line on the G-rating of this hop). To enter my giveaway, just follow the link in the Rafflecopter below to check out the full blurb for Vibrizzio at Goodreads---if it sounds like your cuppa, please add it to your to-read list. The prizes are a $5 gift card to Amazon, a choice of eBook (either Three Daves , a New Adult rom...

And so we have the predictable end to an unpredictable season. Overall I'd say San Juan Del Sur ranks about middling for me amongst all Survivors. It was fairly boring up until the merge, then it got interesting...but in really weird ways. It's dissapointing that of the final five, Natalie was really the only one still playing the game (but props to Jac for the impressive comeback win in the final challenge). It's pretty bad when Nat had to resort to making supposed "big" moves just to do something . A trend in the game that I'm not personally excited about is the making of big moves simply for the sake of making them. Sometimes they're necessary to get to the finals, sometimes they're not, and I can appreciate a player who's stayed on the right side of alliances the whole way through whether or not they've had to make a big move to be there. Natalie's strength in the game was her subtle play and quiet manipulation. In my opinion she di...

If Jon has learned one lesson from this game, I hope it's to LISTEN TO HIS GIRLFRIEND! It must've been fun for those two to watch that episode together. Moreso for her than for him. Since this is my last post pre-finale, I'm going to break down the remaining five from the perspective of a jury member---i.e. if I were on the jury and knew everything I currently know, would I give her/him my vote for the mil at the final tribal council?  This is NOT necessarily how I see the real jury voting. Baylor - No vote from me. She's been spunky but has been led like a little lamb the whole way through. Jaclyn - Too wishy washy. No vote from me. It's good to be flexible & willing to make big moves but she relied too much on the swing vote position and didn't build depth in alliances with anybody but Jon, who she knew was a primo target. Missy - She hasn't been my favorite, but I could see possibly voting for her. She formed solid alliances and made herse...

This week, though it was a double episode, I've just got one question - WHY didn't anybody talk about voting out Jaclyn? As soon as Jon won immunity, it was like Jac became invisible. If Natalie was willing to show her hand by voting Alec, why didn't she take it a step further and actually accomplish something by voting Jac, thus weakining her prime target? As I typed that, I had a thought about a possible reason. Nat knows Jon has a hidden idol...right? Is it possible she thought he might be spooked enough from tribal last week to give it to Jac? She wouldn't have had enough support to split the vote between Jac & Kieth or Jac & Alec, so maybe she didn't want to take that chance?? I give a salute to Reed for playing hard till the bitter end. And dammit, I'm back on the Keith train. He does't have any idea how to do subtle, but he does his best to get into peoples' heads, and he's kicking bum at the challenges against all those young ...

This week is the promo tour for Claiming Excalibur by LH Nicole, the upcoming sequel to Legendary (featured here during the Realms Faire ). Claiming Excalibur 's release date is set for December 16. On that day, you'll find excerpts and other fun stuff at my Facebook page . Today you can: Enter a Rafflecopter to win that eBook plus others Add it to your to-read list at Goodreads   I asked LH one simple question: If you had to choose one song that best captures the essence of the Legendary saga, what would it be?  Here's her answer: Meet LH Nicole  I am a seasoned Pastry Chef in our nation’s capital and a lifelong fairytale (Disney and Grimm) lover, believes in love at first sight, is addicted to 80’s & 90’s cartoons and anything that can capture my ADD-way-to-overactive-imagination. Joan Lowery Nixon and L.J. Smith were the first authors I became addicted to and who inspired me to steal away whenever I could to read and write....

Welcome to the December 2014 meeting of the Insecure Writers Support Group, brainchild of Alex J. Cavannaugh . I hear there's big news about the new guide a whole bunch of us contributed to, so head over to Alex's or the IWSG website for details. Last month I told you about my own private NaNoWriMo, in which I vowed to spend 90 unplugged minutes a day writing. I'm happy to tell you that I succeeded in doing just that. I didn't set any word goals, just required myself to move forward each day, so I'm rather surprised to find that during the month of November I added 30K words to my WIP. I actually found that it was good for me to set an upper limit on my writing time. On the few days when I had hours stretched in front of me to do nothing but write, my progress was sluggish. When I knew that I absolutely had to stop writing at the end of 90 or 120 minutes, I wrote with a greater sense of urgency and  therefore was more focused. The best thing about this NaNo...

Soooo...can we all forget that thing I said last week about Keith having game? He wasn't strategizing when he voted for Reed last week; he was just following orders. *sigh* I don't know why I so badly wanted him to turn out to be some kind of latent genius. But his comment at his week's tribal - you know the one - proved beyond a doubt that while he may have a good, practical mind, he ain't got no game. It's pretty rare that we get to see the precise moment, the exact words that sway an outcome, but Keith sure did provide us with that. It wasn't Jon he swayed, though - it looked like Johnny boy didn't plan to use that idol until after Natalie told him to. Do you think she actually thought the vote was going to go toward him or do you think she was just using his shaken confidence to get the idol out of his hands? Ever since the merge, there have been a lot of small, strange, un-Survivor-ike moments that have impacted whose torch has gotten snuffed: 1...

Saving Poughkeepsie Debra Anastasia Add Saving Poughkeepsie to: Goodreads   On 11/22 Buy from: Amazon   | Barnes and Noble Beckett Taylor’s quest to be a better man has brought Eve Hartt back into his life, but sometimes it feels like they’re bound together with barbed wire. Though he longs to love her without causing pain, the wreckage of their past continues to crash down around them. Yet with the help of this brothers—and for his brothers—Beckett won’t stop trying. He’s determined to make them all a family, to make a life they want to live, and to make Poughkeepsie a place that’s safe to live it. He can feel their futures balanced precariously on his shoulders: Blake and Livia and their children, Cole and Kyle and the new baby they’ve just brought home, and Eve…always Eve. He wants their dreams to be real. But murderers don’t just get Happily Ever After handed to them. They have to wrench it away from Satan himself. Good thing Beckett is pr...

NOW we're playing Survivor! I have to say they gave the show an excellent edit this week. I was GOLing (gasping out loud) during the reading of the votes. I can not believe Missy flipped so easily. I'm not sure what her strategy was with that. Jeremy was an obvious threat to take the million, so I can see why she'd want him gone at some point, but there are still too many players left in the game to give up a solid ally like that. And for who? Jon & Jaclyn? They've already flipped...how many times now? Why would she trust them to stick with her? I like to think that if I'd been in Missy's place, I'd have gone to Jeremy with the news of Jon's idol so we could make a plan to flush it out. I hope future contestants were taking notes this week. Never ever give away your reward thinking it will cement you in someone's favor. Here's why: #1 It's blatant suck uppage. Nobody likes a blatant suck up #2 Because of #1 it shows your tribem...

How perfect is it that the cover reveal for LH Nicole's Claiming Excalibur is the very same day I get to give out prizes for the Wisdom of the Creative Realms event at the Realms Faire? Oh, how I love a theme. I'm awarding one of the five owl bookmarks pictured at the left to each of the five bloggers who shared the most wisdoms last week. They go to: Janie Junebug Mary Pax Alex J. Cavanaugh Michelle Wallace Tyrean Martinson   Can I get a little Kermit style cheering? Next we have two eBook winners of Legendary by LH Nicole (book #1 of the series for which Claiming Excalibur is book #2). Winners were chosen randomly from all comments during the week of Realms Faire. Liz Blocker Alex J. Cavanaugh Our final two randomly-chosen winners will receive an eBook of Shades of Avalon by Carol Oates. Sheena-kay Graham Michelle Wallace   Congrats to all the winners & thank you so, so much for stopping by to share your wisdom during the Faire...

Click image to watch this week's episode of KNOW-IT-ALLS Well, Josh bit the dust. He had such a good game going before the merge, though it looks like his vote for Baylor in episode one may have played a role in his doom. She cited that vote as something that held her back from trusting him. So if he'd written a different name down at the very firt tribal (and really, why didn't he??), could he have built up that trust with her enough that she would've done more to work with him post merge? Maybe if they had a more solid relationship he wouldn't have resorted to playing that impotent you-owe-me card. My soft spot for Keith is gone. He, Wes, and Alec are such dumbasses. Have they never watched a season of Survivor? Do they not have a freakin' clue that the social game matters? And that women's votes count? I'm happy happy with the way the vote went down because three weeks from now, I'd much rather watch Jeremy, Missy & Natalie strategize th...

It's the final day of M. Pax's Realms Faire ! As you know, all week long I've hosted the Wisdom of the Creative Realms . Through the ages, the arts have spoken truth and wisdom in a way that resonates far deeper than the words from any textbook can. King Arthur's table was round to encourage equality and open sharing of opinions. From November 10-14, consider my blog to be a round table at which I invite you to sit and share wisdom from the creative arts. Today we're finding bits of wisdom from Jester's Choce: any wisdom from any of the creative arts . ~.~.~.~.~ Either in the comments here or at your own blog, share with the round table a quote or piece of wisdom from any of the creative arts. Here's mine: Monet's Series of Haystacks  famously depicts the mundane subject matter of, you guessed it---haystacks---at different times of day and in different seasons to capture the effects of varying light. The wisdoms I see here are: #1 The sa...

It's Day 4 of M. Pax's Realms Faire ! I'm hosting the Wisdom of the Creative Realms . It has been so much fun---as well as enlightening---to read all of the great quotes you're posting in the comments. I can feel myself getting wiser already. Thank you, thank you! Through the ages, the arts have spoken truth and wisdom in a way that resonates far deeper than the words from any textbook can. King Arthur's table was round to encourage equality and open sharing of opinions. From November 10-14, consider my blog to be a round table at which I invite you to sit and share wisdom from the creative arts. Today we're finding bits of wisdom from Music . ~.~.~.~.~ Either in the comments here or at your own blog, share with the round table a quote or piece of wisdom from a piece of music. Here's mine: The whole song is rife with practicality and keen observations on the various walks of mankind. If you don't have time to listen to the whole song, her...

It's Day 3 of M. Pax's Realms Faire ! Here I'm hosting the Wisdom of the Creative Realms . Through the ages, the arts have spoken truth and wisdom in a way that resonates far deeper than the words from any textbook can. King Arthur's table was round to encourage equality and open sharing of opinions. From November 10-14, consider my blog to be a round table at which I invite you to sit and share wisdom from the creative arts. Today we're finding bits of wisdom from Movies . ~.~.~.~.~ Either in the comments here or at your own blog, share with the round table a quote or piece of wisdom from any movie you've watched during your lifetime. Here's mine: (The wisdom starts at 13 seconds in) Because really, if we don't just say "What the heck " every one in a while, what's the point of anything? Sure, sometimes it ends up being a huge mistake, but then we face our consequences (as discussed in yesterday's post) and grow wi...

It's Day 2 of M. Pax's Realms Faire! Today, the fiesty Liesel from Hans & Greta has been challenged to a duel over at Cassandra Webb's. She needs your help! Please go throw some votes to Liesel and her lethal stilettos at Dueling Bards . I'm hosting the Wisdom of the Creative Realms . Through the ages, the arts have spoken truth and wisdom in a way that resonates far deeper than the words from any textbook can. King Arthur's table was round to encourage equality and open sharing of opinions. From November 10-14, consider my blog to be a round table at which I invite you to sit and share wisdom from the creative arts. Today we're finding bits of wisdom from Books . ~.~.~.~.~ Either in the comments here or at your own blog, share with the Round Table a quote or piece of wisdom from any book you have read---or written!---during your lifetime. My wisdom is a quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. When I first read this one, the tr...