Ten Fun To-Do Activities to Celebrate Getting My Vaccine! ... by Delsora Lowe

May is a special month, as the weather warms up, flowers bloom, and folks start putting in gardens and getting outside. And May 10 marks several different things in my life.

It’s my dad’s 102nd birthday. I miss him so much. I know if he were with us, he’d be celebrating mightily. Before he turned ninety, he decided he would throw himself a big party. My sister and I already had big plans underway, so we ended up telling him about the surprise. Instead of being disappointed he had ruined our surprise, he threw himself into helping us organize. Luckily, everything he wanted, we already had on our list. It was a great party. He passed away a few weeks prior to his ninety-first birthday. But I’ll always have my memories of that fun time—both the organizing and the partying.

On May 10, 2019, I released the first book in my Cowboys of Mineral Springs series. At the time, I had written drafts for five books in the series and started a draft on book 6. I released book two in October 2019. I really need to get back to editing the rest of the series.

On May 10, I will have had my second Covid vaccination and will have quarantined for 2 weeks! Yay! So, without further ado, I will list ten things I really want to do this year—all, sad to say, still masked. But best to continue to be safe. Besides, I discovered when I wear my mask walking, it helps keep the allergens in the air at bay and I am able to walk without wheezing. All good! It’s important to focus on every little positive thing we can and not obsess on the negative.

So, in no particular order, my top ten things to do this year (and in honor of RTG’s Ten Year Anniversary):

1)      Enjoy a backyard cocktail or cup of tea with friends.

2)      Hit the local food truck scene and sit on a bench in the sun on the town mall to enjoy whatever I buy.

3)     Spend the 4^th of July (and my grandson’s birthday, later in July) with my family, watching fireworks over the water, from my son’s front deck.

4)      Enjoy the beach with my 3 grandsons later this summer as they attend surf camp (cancelled last summer.)

5)     Enjoy time spent with my daughter and family when they visit from Colorado (cancelled last summer.)

6)     Sit outside in the sun with my mom at her retirement community. We haven’t had face-to-face time since last summer - except waving to her through her apartment window.

7)     Go to the farmer’s market and other outdoor events.

8)      Get together in person for monthly fall meetings with my writers’ group (also cancelled.)

9)    Attend a fall conference (also postponed from last year.)

10  Attend my daughter’s wedding (which means getting on a plane without freaking out, and still having to wear a mask for the five-hour trip.)

Here’s to a good rest of 2021. 

And huge congratulations to the Romancing the Genres blog on ten years of success!

What is something you really look forward to?

  The Love Left Behind

Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Left-Behind-Hartford-Estate-ebook/dp/B08L5N5DS9/

 Books2Read   

books2read.com/u/mglVqK

 

 ~ cottages to cabins ~ keep the home fires burning ~

Delsora Lowe writes small town sweet and spicy romances and contemporary westerns from the mountains of Colorado to the shores of Maine.

Author of the Starlight Grille series, Serenity Harbor Maine novellas, and the Cowboys of Mineral Springs series, Lowe has also authored short romances for Woman’s World magazine. Her newest novella is The Love Left Behind.

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CLIP ART:

Fireworks - free fireworks clipart - Google Search

Food Truck - Free Food Truck Cliparts, Download Free Food Truck Cliparts png images, Free ClipArts on Clipart Library (clipart-library.com)

Cocktails - free cocktail clipart - Google Search

Farmer’s Market -  free farmer's market clipart - Google Search

Engagement - https://pixabay.com/illustrations/love-romantic-relationship-together-3581038/

 

Fireworks: Colour Chemistry #amwriting #scifirom

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of SciFi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. As a Brit, we don't really celebrate the 4th of July here, though living in a garrison town we've had a few US military personnel stationed here so we've heard a fair few fireworks on Independence Day. Or for Chinese New Year. But our traditional day for fireworks is Bonfire Night on the 5th of November, when we tie Guy Fawkes to a stake, set fire to him, and set off fireworks in memory of the thwarted Gunpowder Plot. Yeah, we Brits are a bit weird...
As a former analytical chemist and general science fan, one of my favourite experiments at school was the flame test (I was a closet pyromaniac too). A flame test involves using a clean metal wire dipped in hydrochloric acid then dipped into various ground metal salts in turn (cleaning the wire between each to avoid contamination, of course). These are then placed into a Bunsen burner flame, and the colour given off helps to identify the metal salt.

So I know something about the chemistry involved in making a flame different colours. Metal salts are used to give the different colours in fireworks in the same way. I found this handy chart to summarize them.

So while I love fireworks and still find them magical, a small part of my mind is thinking about what metal salt is responsible for the glorious colours I'm seeing! 

A challenge for you - why don't you use the chart above to take
a guess at what metal salts give these fireworks their colour?

And while I write mostly SciFi and fireworks might seem rather old fashioned in the far future, I managed to sneak them into my debut novel for one of my favourite scenes. My heroine Quin loves them. My hero Keir...well, he has other things on his mind...

Low lighting triggered as he came into the room, giving everything a soft yellow glow that was easy on tired eyes. He gave the room a cursory glance. Most of the objects were unfamiliar to him, although the large bed was self-explanatory. A stiff breeze blowing through the chamber stirred the filmy white curtains on the far side into a slow dance, like twining skeins of mist. Brilliant flashes of multicolored lights burst and bloomed in the sky, drawing him onto a small balcony outside.

He stood in the shadows and watched them in fascination, the night air cool on his skin and the wind ruffling his hair. His quarters overlooked the stone bowl of the plaza in which they had arrived, a deep crater in the craggy mouth of the mountain that cupped the shell-like palace. Even in the glow of the illuminated sky, he could see nothing below the crater’s rim or the landscape beyond, all of it hidden by night’s dark mantle. The stars were white pinpricks, dimmed to insignificance by the explosion of lights and veiled by a mixture of smoke and wispy clouds.

Amidst the noise and flashes, the sound of movement drew his gaze aside. Quin had stepped out onto the adjoining balcony to lean nonchalantly on the ledge and admire the show. The light display forgotten, Keir immersed himself deeper in the shadows and watched her instead. 

###

But to finish... This year I was hoping to have something of my own to celebrate on the 4th of July. I keep Pekin bantams (half sized chickens with fluffy feet), and my youngest had been asking about hatching some chicks. Now, we don't have a cockerel to get fertile eggs - we live on the edge of town with close neighbours, so the early morning crowing would be antisocial - so I ordered six hatching eggs online and put then under one of my hens who was being broody (this is when they go into a kind of trance and sit on the eggs to hatch them). They were due to hatch on the 4th. 
Nothing happened. 
On the 5th I thought I could hear tapping and scraping, but thought it might be wishful imagination but my 12yo agreed he could hear something too. By the next day we could all hear tapping and even cheeping.

The first two chicks start breaking through!

The first two eggs hatched on the evening of the 6th, with the rest hatching overnight and into the 7th. Better late than never! 

Our first two hatchlings - the darker is Splash, the silvery
one is Mot.

Our mama Effie with all her babies

(Pssst, for more videos and pics you can check out my posts at Spacefreighters Lounge HERE & HERE or follow me on Twitter as @pippajaygreen for instant and daily updates on my little fluffballs).

Fireworks books from Sizzling to Beautiful!

By Diana McCollum

Here are four fireworks filled books. A historical love story from WWII, a murder mystery, think cozy, a clean, sweet feel good love story and a hot romance. All happen in the summer and fireworks are involved one way or another.

It's always fun to try someone new. And these authors are all new to me.

By Jeffery Stepakoff:  "Every so often that story comes along that reminds us of what it's like to experience love for the first time—against the odds, when you least expect it, and with such passion that it completely changes you forever.
This is the story of Lily Davis Woodward in 1945, and the five days that forever changed her life. Married for a week before her husband is sent to fight in WWII, Lily is worried about him. She prays for his safe return and the  chance to begin their life together. The small Georgia town of Toccoa plans a big celebration for the returning soldiers.

Jake Russo, a handsome Italian immigrant, also returned from the war, is in charge of the  fireworks display. He and Lily have a chance encounter in a star-lit field, and he steals her heart and soul.

Lily must choose between a commitment she's already made and a love she's never known before.

Fireworks Over Toccoa takes us to a moment in time that will resonate with readers long after the book's unforgettable conclusion. A devastating and poignant story, this debut novel will resonate with anyone who believes in love." Blurb

By Linda West

This is a truly loving and moving story about a 

military war hero that heals and finds love in a very special place called Kissing Bridge Mountain

"What a heartwarming story. A very wholesome novel about a broken PSTD war hero and a heartbroken young lady finding love. The trials and tribulations that they both go through are to be felt but the HEA ending is worth it. A very feel good read." Reviewer on Amazon, Delightful.

By Dahlia Rose

HOT! HOT! HOT!

.

"He invited her out for the Fourth of July weekend, and Cierra had no problem saying yes. After all the steamy conversations, it was high time 

they got down to making their own…fireworks" quote from Blurb

By Susan Bernhardt

"Wedding bells are in the air, and so is murder.
Kay Driscoll's son's wedding reception for two hundred guests is in her backyard. As if that wasn't enough, a precocious and troubled twelve-year-old is foisted on her two days before the wedding. When the happy day arrives, one of the guests disrupts the event and is asked to leave: a womanizing member of Kay's book club.

A few days later, after a Fourth of July fireworks show, he is found dead on the beach. Kay and her ever-present friends, Elizabeth and Deirdre, investigate the death, which at first is declared a suicide. They believe this is a cover-up and go about to prove their theory, an arduous task because the potential suspects are many, and few (if any) will regret the victim's death" Blurb

Have you read a 'New' to you author this summer? What Genre?

Fireworks in Alaska? by Lynn Lovegreen

I’ve never been a fireworks fanatic, and I think it’s because I’m an Alaskan. We shoot some off on the 4th of July, just for tradition’s sake, but it’s not very dramatic. Remember, this is the land of the midnight sun, which means fireworks are hard to see then.

via Alaska Memes, @907memes on Facebook

Our best fireworks holidays are in the winter, when it’s dark in the evenings. My favorite fireworks memories are from New Year’s Eve and Fur Rendezvous (an Anchorage winter festival held in February). But there are times when it’s too cold to be outdoors for very long without getting frostbite. I admit I can be a wimp about standing around in the middle of a winter night just to see a few man-made sparkles in the air.

So fireworks are not a big thing to me, unless we’re visiting Outside (outside Alaska) and we see some where it’s warm and dark at the same time. That’s always been a novelty to me—back home, it’s either warm or it’s dark at night, not both. 

I guess it’s all in what you’re used to—I love it when I can go to bed in the sunlight in the summertime, but some people can’t sleep when it’s still light out. What’s up with that? ;-)

Lynn Lovegreen grew up in Alaska, and still lives there. She taught for twenty years before retiring to make more time for writing. She enjoys her friends and family, reading, and volunteering at her local library. Her young adult/new adult historical romances are set in Alaska, a great place for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com. You can also find her on Facebook, Goodreads, and Pinterest.

Fireworks Everytime!

By: Marcia King-Gamble

www.lovemarcia.com 

We all have our favorite authors . Authors we know deliver time after time. Their books are memorable because their  characters aren't perfect people. They come with flaws and foibles, just like real people.  It makes for page turners, hardly boring people who are very much alive.  

Readers  root for heroes and heroines who are sympathetic,  relatable people. While they might be living everyday lives, there's something about their personalities that make them special.   Could be a hobby, a habit,  or even a quirk, whatever, you just want to get to know them better. Take for example, my heroine, Lana, in Loose in Las Vegas. She's  a struggling dress designer on a quest for love online. She takes a chance and goes to Las Vegas  to meet a man she doesn't even know. Most of us think it, few of us do it, and that's what makes her special.

While our character's job may be mundane,  they're usually not mundane people, or why would you want to read about them?  Readers read to escape. Experiences and lifestyles are what form people. And as writers, it's our responsibility to  create multidimensional characters.  These are characters that jump off the page and make you want to get to know them up close and personally.    

Even if our characters are accountants or engineers (typically stereotyped as not the liveliest of  people),  who says they have to be staid and conservative? The  writer's role is to create  a personality that is  different than expected.  Give that accountant an edge. It's called character development.  Could be this person has wanted to be an artist, but circumstances or  fear, caused them to choose a profession more secure.  Just think of the fun you could have writing or reading  about the  rogue accountant with a host of tattoos beneath that buttoned down appearance. 

As a romance writer,  it is my job to make sure my characters sizzle.  With every interaction, Roman Candles  should  go off.  It's  a veritable explosion of sparklers. Main characters  should not just be likable,  but be the two sexiest people you've ever encountered. From the moment they meet, sparks literally should  fly.

Think  of the success of writers like Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Her characters are often hugely flawed, but from the day they meet all sorts of pyrotechnics are in the works. Fireworks between them isn't a once a year thing. It happens with every encounter.  Susan writes about the unconventional hero and heroine. She  has written about football players with a past; overweight, but sexy heroines, heroes suspected of murder, and a woman  who runs off on her wedding day.  See http://susanelizabethphillips.com/ for more.

This month, on July 22nd to be exact,  I'm  giving a workshop on  this  very topic. It's titled, Making Your Characters Come Alive. For more information, click on the below link. For those local, I hope to see you there.

https://sherman.library.nova.edu/sites/spotlight/event/making-your-characters-come-alive/

And for those unable to make it, remember that romances are about fireworks and passion.  Why not make every day the 4th of July!  Add snap, crackle and pop!

Romantically Yours,

Marcia 

About Marcia King-Gamble:

Romance writer, Marcia King-Gamble originally hails from a sunny Caribbean island where the sky and ocean are the same mesmerizing shade of blue. This former travel industry executive and current world traveler has spent most of life in the United States. A National Bestselling author, Marcia has penned over 34 books and 8 novellas. Her free time is spent at the gym, traveling to exotic locales, and caring for her animal family.

Visit Marcia at www.lovemarcia.com or “friend” her on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1MlnrIS