My Versatile Blogger Award!

I’ve been honored with an award from an awesome new friend of mine and fellow blogger, Pamela V. Mason, who’s much more of a whiz at social media than I’ll ever be.  Thanks, Pamela, for the cool award and for your generous support of my writing.

Here are the Versatile Blogger Rules:

1.Thank and link to the person who nominated you. (Done. See above)

2. Share 7 random facts about yourselfOkay, let’s take a trip back in time, waay back… Oh, never mind!
1)     I only ever really knew one grandparent, my maternal grandmother, whom we called Granny. She lived next door and was one of the biggest influences of my youth.
2)     I began wearing glasses in the second grade, after my mother discovered I couldn’t locate a helicopter in the sky.
3)     I learned to read at age three by sitting with my sister, Sue, and watching as she practiced her first grade primers. Same with abc’s. Learned from observing her drawing them over and over. To this day, I’m a visual learner.
4)     I’m the fourth of four children.
5)     Five years after my daddy died, I met the boy who would eventually become my husband. I was fourteen.
6)     We lived in a semi-rural area and didn’t have a lot of houses near us, but the next door neighbors had six kids. Boy did we have fun!
7)      These days, I average cooking about a meal a day, for the seven days of the week. Usually dinner, with the occasional big breakfast thrown in, which includes baking biscuits or muffins from scratch.

3. Pass the award on to 5 newfound blogging buddies. Hmm. This could be a bit more problematic. It’s the ‘newfound’ bit. I haven’t had time to do much blog-hopping for new blogs. So, maybe I’ll fudge a teensy smidge.
1)    My friend, Gail Dayton, for her blog Dreaming in Daylight. It always amazes me how she can turn a little walk on the beach into an interesting blog post.

2)   My blogging sister at Petit Fours and Hot Tamales, Linsey Lanier for her blog, aptly titled Linsey Lanier’s blog. She’s jumped into the wily world of self-publishing too!

3)   Randy Jeanne over at Randy Writes Romance. A terrific lady I first met on the internet, then in person. She has a wonderful sense of humor and writes such fun chick-lit, laugh-out-loud books! Check out her awesome new website and two new releases, Stealing Amy and Lights! Cameras! Love!

4)     A new-to-me blog: Brenda Drake Writes but I like what I’ve seen so far. Brenda writes YA and enjoys her coffee. 🙂 She also puts heart in her posts. If she does the same in her fiction writing, she’ll have books out soon.

5)     And last, but certainly not because she’s least in any way, my good friend, Susan May, who blogs a lot more consistently than I do and is one of the best evah! people I know.

4. Contact the winners to congratulate them. (Heading that way now.)

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Short stories – does anyone read them?

I write short stories: confessional type, memoir, romantic, sweet, futuristic, and even one that’s rather sad and has a literary feel.  They’re varying lengths from flash fiction to 5-6K.  Insight is one such short story, but I’m not talking about my Annie Rayburn work today. I’m referencing Carol Burnside writing. So, short stories…

Does anyone read them? How about books of them?

I’ve been toying with the idea of compiling six or so of my short stories into one volume and selling it as an e-book. Hubby asked me if there was a common theme. Well, no. They’re not even all romances, though now that I think about it, they do all have a theme of love. Searching for it. Losing it. Romantic love. Familial love. Yeah, I could work with that.  Here’s what the book would hold:

Winter’s Bride: a rather haunting and literary styled short-short story. Not romance.

Assuming Love: another short-short piece, sweet romance

Cutest Thing in Jeans: A futuristic story told in a tongue in cheek style.

Marinara Magic: A first meeting of neighbors holds the promise of more…

Home for Christmas: Danni and Joseph meet unexpectedly, both recalling a brief, hot liasion during another holiday that killed their casual college friendship. Can they begin again and forget the past, or is ‘home’ right in front of them?

Mr. Dependable: Should friends risk a perfectly good thing for the possibility of more?

So, that’s it. Six short stories totalling over 10K. Does it sound even remotely like something you might buy if priced low, like at $1.99?

Posted in Carol Burnside, Everyday blather | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Blog design

Aside from the group blogs, it’s a personal thing, isn’t it, what a blog/website looks like? Mine is no exception. A lot of authors have definite ideas about theme and what colors their homes on the internet will have. I didn’t.

As Annie Rayburn, I write steamy contemporary romance with paranormal and sci-fi elements. As Carol Burnside, I write in several different sub-genres of romance, some of them steamy, some not so much. I also write short stories in a variety of genres, some of them with no romance at all.  So with that in mind, I didn’t want to slant my site toward any certain genre or subgenre. WordPress’s Twenty-Ten theme worked for what I wanted to accomplish, as I could customize it a bit.

My love of tea could’ve been incorporated, and one day it may be. I could have gone with the ethereal beauty of dragonflies, another fav, but I chose to incorporate my love of the beach. The picture in my header is one of my own, taken on Sunset Beach, North shore, Oahu a few years ago. I love the colors in it, love the feelings it evokes. I look at it, close my eyes and can almost smell the salty air, the faint aroma of sea and sunscreen. The background color grew from the sunset, though my favorite colors are purple and green and aqua.

I still have some work to do to accomplish my vision for this site, but to do them I have to learn to alter the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). That will take some quiet time and concentration, both in short supply of late. So, for now, this is it. Nothing fancy, but it works for me.

How about you? Suggestions? Comments?

Posted in Annie Rayburn, Carol Burnside, Everyday blather | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Blog design