To celebrate my new contract for Whitney in Charge with Desert Breeze Publishing, I’m giving away a book by one of their authors. I’ll draw a winner on May 1st! The winner gets to choose the ebook!

Amanda has a Prom countdown! She’s so excited that it’s this Saturday. I ordered her a wrist corsage. I found a cute pair of shoes at Payless Shoe store and they match her dress. They probably won’t show but knew she’d love having a pair of pink flats.
I’m disappointed that no one else in her special needs class is going to the Prom, but know Amanda will enjoy wearing her dream dress.

I bet you didn’t realize April is National Poetry Month! I didn’t until I read it the other day in the Ladies’ Home Journal. I remember I had a scene in my Never the Same book where a secondary character discussed Emily Dickinson’s poems in her high school class. My editor told me to cut it which was hard for me, but looking back I can see why it wasn’t necessary to the story line. I have a poem written by a teenage boy, Ryan, included in Never the Same. When he sees his unborn child during a sonogram, he’s inspired to write his feelings. I enjoyed writing the poem. I used to write poetry in college but not as well as my roommate Claudia. She expressed her feelings beautifully in poetry.

When my character learns to read in my book, THE CHRISTMAS OF 1957, he reads one of my favorite poems, “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost.

I have to admit though I never liked teaching poetry. I enjoyed teaching the literature part of the curriculum the most.

The funny thing about it being National Poetry Month is I did test scoring of Louisiana 8th grade poetry papers with essay questions. The students had to answer questions about irony and how the imagery was similar and different in two poems. We finished the Louisiana tests on Friday. My next scoring job starts this Friday. I’ll be reading Alaska Science tests - 3rd -9th grade. It will be a small group of readers so it should be interesting.
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I finished formatting my Whitney in Charge manuscript and emailed it yesterday to my editor at Desert Breeze Publishing! Woohoo!

WHAT I’M READING: Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz

(I’ll have a new hottie of the week soon!)

My new publisher, DESERT BREEZE PUBLISHING, is having a sale on their books!

April Special - Purchase one or more books through April 30th, and

take 20% off your purchase! Enter Promotional Code Open4U at checkout.

Register as a New Customer through April 30, 2009 and be eligible

to win a FREE May release.

Click here to check out this great deal!

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WHAT I’M READING: I just finished reading MANHUNT by Janet Evanovich. It’s one of her older romances. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

I better get off here - they told us yesterday that our project will be finished this Friday. The tentative date was April 30th so we are doing well on scoring.

Good Morning,

I need to jump in the shower and leave soon so will be short. I’m glad it’s Friday. It’s been a long week. The days go by so quickly when I’m at home but not at work. I graded over 300 tests probably - not sure of the exact count. My team leader gave me the morning count and it was 273 - I’ll get the total today for yesterday. I had good accuracy so pleased. Two readers score each test. I’m sure we will get this Louisiana Reading Test completed by the end of April and meet our deadline. I’m drinking tons of coffee at work because my eyes glaze over after reading so many poetry exams. LOL

I haven’t written my blurb yet for my new release but started filling out other paperwork. I am so thrilled to have a new contract. THANK YOU for all the kind comments congratulating me on receiving a contract for Whitney in Charge. I need to format the manuscript this next week for the editor.

My husband has been so supportive and cooks the evening meal. Last night though he bought a pizza and we ate outside in the warm sunshine. We were celebrating my new contract!

Better go - there was a bad accident yesterday on Interstate 275 and it took me almost hr. to get to work.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Desert Breeze Publishing offered me a contract today for Whitney in Charge! I emailed two other publishers that I was withdrawing my submission to them and one replied that she was writing up an acceptance for it, too. She had read my revised manuscript last night. But I’m happy about my contract from DBP. They do not publish erotica or erotic romances so this will be a good fit for my book.

I have shopped this book around to several publishers, and I took their suggestions about revising it. It pays to be persistent and not to give up. My release date for Whitney is this August! I have tons of paperwork to fill out for this new release and need to format the manuscript before the editing starts.

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I received my stats for scoring at my job for Friday. I scored 346 tests so that’s good. They want us to score 300 a day to meet the deadline. Two readers score each test and my scores matched the other reader’s 70% of the time so that’s good. And the other 30% we only varied a point on each one.