Lins Own Speculations & Newsletter

LIN'S NUMBER TWO NEWSLETTER

2012-01-13T20:08:00.000-08:00

I was going to use this newsletter to rant about the inanity of MOST reality TV...such as does anyone really think the

Kardashians or the

New Jersey Shore characters represent real life? I live in NJ and when I was a kid we spent a lot of time vacationing at the NJ shore and The Poconos Mountains. NEVER did we run into anyone remotely like Snookie. In fact I actually spent my sixteenth summer at the shore getting to know this adorable guy from Canada. I assure you he did not have a

Situation!

A lot has happened since my last newsletter. The Preditors and Editors 2011 Poll has concluded. We only found out about it four days before it ended, so our nominations for our works, had a lot of upward challenges. PLUS

I'm an idiot! I didn't realize the link they ask for is the link to your bookstore page. I gave them the link to one of my blogs and Kat's website. Definitely am not operating on all my cylinders since that last mini-stroke six weeks ago now.

HOWEVER despite that distinct lapse in protocol,

Kat, my gorgeous and most prolific daughter DID manage to take tenth place with

The Lighthouse in the

Mystery Category. Not bad for only four days.

The rest of our stuff? Overall not too bad again when you consider we were only available for voting four days. (Voting started, I understand, though don't quote me, on December 21, 2011. That means we missed sixteen days of potential votes.)

How DID we do? We should at least get a few Honorable Mentions...but truth time...

In the Romance genré, I squeaked into the 20th place with

This Time Forever, with a fantastic cover I wish I had thought to enter...except like the book it would have only had four days. My Cover Artist and Kat's the

Queen here at

Muse, took First place in her category...so maybe it's just as well I didn't know I could nominate my covers. Wouldn't want to dilute Delilah's showing, by tossing our covers into the mix. As it is she produced NINE of the top twenty covers. Pretty damned good!

In the Sci-Fi/Fantasy realm, I really let Kat down.

Frozen, with another cover to die for, came in at 23. This is saddening. The Artica Lights Series is so spectacular and inventive, it makes me really feel the fool for denying Kat the opportunity it deserved. But there's always next year.

In The Erotica Genré, I squeaked along with two of my other

Musers into 13th place. I must admit to being surprised how close to the top ten I made it. But then

Suc-U is a delicious story with another Delilah winner of a cover. With two more written in this series and one more this close...(anyone want to donate a tongue-in-cheek epilogue?)...to being finished, maybe next year!

In the Thriller category, once more I squeaked the wheels and landed again at position 13 with

Beyond Yesterday, another one of my favorite stories, with I think my favorite Delilah cover so far.

On to the Short Stories Realm

Short Story-Horror...I took 14th with

Twilight Comes. the darkest story I have ever written, but again it has one dynamic Delilah Cover.

Short Story Sci-fi/Fantasy...Kat comes through with a 13th placement for the second in her Gods At Work Series, richly entitled

The Heart of the Queen. Delilah's cover even gave Hera her peacock. How cool is that?

Short Stories...All Others...Kat once more claimed 14th place for her first Gods At Work book,

Working Under Covers. Aphrodite in 14th place? Hmmm...there may be repercussion coming our way from Mt. Olympus. And of course this is another Delilah cover.

Kat and I both adore our Delilah covers, but I just got my very first

Goddess Nika Dixon cover for my Feb. 2012 release

She's Gone and let me say I am awed by its power. This is a story that is very dear to my heart. It's very short, and it's a mystery. I really hope it does well.

Kat just released the next book in her Gods At Work Series today...Hades, the God of The Underworld, In Death's Arms, and let me just say...yum! I hope you'll check it out.

Now down to the mundane...Kat and I are going to be

moving this year, but it's going to be daunting. We have lived here twenty-one years and have acquired

a lot of stuff. I think I need to take stock out in

Hefty bags, because it looks like we're going to be using a whole boatload of them.

We'll share more about the move in the weeks to come.

I've got my first BIG BOOK coming out soon and the editing process has me wanting to morph into an ostrich so I can bury my head in the sand and let the world pass me by. This story,

Echoes From The Past holds my heart in it's grasp. I love

Ahoishmahir, the hero...and no, I haven't a clue where that name came from, except it popped into my head and FELT right. Aho, (for short), travels through three different times in this story, but to give you an idea what he looks like in our current time,

have a gander. Can you tell why I love this hero?

I'll be sharing more about Aho and his heroine Kira Firebird in the coming weeks and months too. But I'll tease you with this...the middle time period Aho travels through is that of the

Anasazi. Do you know the story of the Anasazi? If not, all you have to do is Google them. I am amazed by them and hopefully gave to Aho an accurate portrayal.

I feel a

migraine coming on, so I'd better finish this and get my

Imitrex ready.

Thanks for checking in...I'll be back with the next newsletter soon!

Lin's Number One Newsletter

2011-12-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

This is Lin's Very

First

Newsletter.

Today is December 28th, 2011.

I received a beautiful Christmas Card from our very own Kevin Hopson and his lovely wife Gunes, inside I found a keeper that is being added to our own personal photo album, but I hope Gunes and Kevin will permit me to share it, and tell you about the charity they hold dear in their hearts.

First...isn't this a great picture? And now the charity. Gunes and Kevin are grateful for the photos they have of Aydin born without the gift of breath. They mentioned many charities, such as MISS Foundation, Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support and March of Dimes...but the closest to their hearts is NILMDTS...

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep...

a non-profit organization of volunteer photographers

who capture memories of still born babies free of charge.

Kevin and Gunes say their photgraphs of Aydin are one of the few tangible memories they have of their miracle son, and therefore, are their most cherished possession.

I pass this along in the hopes we can all see fit to honor Kevin and Gunes for their strength, their generosity, and the wellspring of love that lives so powerfully within them. Skyler Blue is here, but so is Aydin, and the pictures the volunteers made, I know are treasures the Hopson family will cherish forever.

Karen I hope you will add this charity to your avatar list on our brother's behalf. This group of dedicated photographers are God's angels too.

In a world that seems to want us buried beneath the dubious celebrity of reality shows, finding people like Kevin and Gunes, and Muse gives me hope the world hasn't totally slipped from the values I hope I have lived.

The past few days have overwhelmed Kat and me with the bountiful hearts around us. My therapy is via

Jewish Family and Children Services. On Friday two of their fantastic volunteers drove up to our apartment armed with ALL the equipment Kat's allergist told us we need...but because of the changes our Governor here in NJ has made were no longer considered of enough medicial need to have insurance cover them.

Angels abound and appear when we least expect them. To Lisa, I give my deepest thanks. You passed our need along to those in position to grant wishes even though we did not know we were making wishes. Thank you all.

More news...Kat and I will be moving this year...not sure when just yet, but it's definite...so I spent part of yesterday wading through our pictures and I found two I haven't posted anywhere yet, so let make amends

to our cherished

Peanuts with these pics.

Until next time...

THE CHRISTMAS COMET WAS SEEN?

2011-12-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

I know my eyes are like the rest of this

fermenting body, but the

Christmas Comet makes news?

HELLOOOOO! I know it might seem like she is Santa, what with all the generous things she does ALL year long, but

The Coté Comet can be seen just about every minute and without struggle.

Alright...I admit she disguises herself well this one night a year. Who would expect the cute dynamo that is

Karen Coté to be hiding beneath so much padding, a grizzly beard and shoulder length white hair, but then again...are you really surprised?

The Coté Comet soars through our hearts dropping bits of loving care here and there every day and all without fanfare.

So MAYBE it's understandable, we, her adoring masses, have to give her one night a year filled with fanfare and recognition...

but that's OUR need, not hers.

She quietly wakes each day, looks around, and sees where the Coté Comet can drop its magic dust and cheer.

I for one would rather NOT call her the Christmas Comet. We'll leave that to those that need myth. Instead I will praise and honor the

REAL comet, the one that brings cheer and peace into all our hearts all year long...the forever beautiful Coté Comet.

Karen and Todd...together you make the Coté Comet soar, and we adore you.

Merry Christmas, oh great and powerful Comét de Coté

Reflections of Sixty

2011-12-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

I know you are probably all tired of my ruminations of late, but

life is funny. We never know when we arise each day what the day will bring or if tomorrow will come. Because of that, I don't think we should ever take for granted those who have come to be the best of the life you are leading.

At 11:07 on the evening of the 12th of

December, I officially turned 60...yep, a geriatric!

How do I feel about this momentous, tipping over the hill twice? You're supposedly

over the hill when you turn 30. And back in the early history of man, 30 was getting long in the tooth...hence the justification for marrying girls off when they first hit puberty.

I am starting down the long slope of the SECOND hill, into my SECOND CHILDHOOD?...and have been doing a lot of reflecting.

When did Nudge my writer's voice take up residence inside me? My publisher says she started writing while in utereo and used the umbilical cord as a faux pen. Did I? I'd like to say yes, but I don't think I remember anything from that insular world.

Officially I did not become an AUTHOR until March 29th, 2010 when I received my first contract from a soon to launch publishing house,

Muse It Up Publishing, five hours after subbing it. (That won't happen now...such a short turn-around is not possible with the explosive success Muse has achieved.)

60 years...hmmmm I just discovered I share this monumental celebratory year with the Queen of England. She is celebrating

60 years as Queen, and I'm celebrating 60 years on the planet. They're calling this her

Diamond Celebration...I loathe diamonds. They're colorless without the shine and

prismatic life light gives them. I'm a

sapphire girl...rich, vibrant blue...just like the hottest portion of a candle's flame.

I have discovered a treasure trove of sapphires,

opals, (my second favorite),

amethyst,

amber,

rubies and

emeralds and each one made my sixtieth birthday the best birthday...because Muse is not JUST a publishing house, it's a family, and a conduit to the

hearts and affection of other authors as well. I have always thought authors were the true, although unsung

superstars of our world.

The fleeting stars of movies, tv, sports, music, give way to the vagaries of change. One of the saddest things history has lost through its own shortsightedness, are the

books burned, banned, or otherwise deleted from today's audiences. The written word, if honored as it should be, will never leave us.

So now I thank those who made my 60th birthday the richest ever.

First, my beloved daughter, who makes every day a joy, fellow author Kat Holmes

Lea Schizas...more than a publisher...more than a friend.

Litsa Kamateros...Lea's partner...my friend...my sister...and more.

Delilah K. Stephans...my cover artist...your beauty extends beyond the incredible genius of your visions.

And of course her other half Cover Art God,Tiger. You both know how much you mean to me on so many levels.

Karen Coté...my favorite comet...words pale beside your generous spirit and loving heart. You made me the FIRST in so many ways on your incredible avatar sight. You stepped into my world, filled it with light, and won't allow any darkness to return.

Ginger Simpson...You seem to know when I need to laugh and are right there spreading sunshine...but you are more than that Ginger. You inspire me Dear Lady to always show grace in the face of life's punches.

Glenn Kleier...your words gave me the courage to live...your friendship gives me the power to every once in a while actually toot my own horn...and your generosity has opened a bigger audience for my fledgling flights into the skies of published writer.

Gail Branan...You made me one of the first flowers on your fence...an honor beyond anything I ever hoped for.

Tanja...I lived a quiet life, and know I will never travel, but you, Dear Heart, gave me Malta, and your rich soul.

Brad...you have given me so much, dear brother, but you also gave me BACK my brother. I love you.

Kevin...I am so proud of you, and so grateful to you. You let ME be the venue for sharing the miracle you and your family are.

Jim...you made me an oracle AND a bear. How could I not love you?

The world has been placed at my fingertips through the immense wonder that is the Muse Family. CANADA, Austraila, New Zealand, Italy, Greece, England, Scotland...just to name a few.

You have all lifted my heart from a place I'd locked it in so many years ago and gave me wings to soar. But you also gave me friends, family, brothers, sisters, cousins, beloved ones.

So my reflections of turning sixty are...I think I have found the best time of my life and it is now!

Love and

More to All of You.

As a December Geriatric, I cannot post this without adding one more, very important thing:

Some of my favorite things

2011-12-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

LAZINESS WENT DOWN THE HOLE!

2011-11-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

Anybody remember

Plucky Duck's famous line when he flushes the toilet..."IT GO DOWN THE HOLE....AGAIN! AGAIN!" ...as he eagerly flushes again? Today my laziness of late went down that hole.

Kat and I know

we have been a bit

lazy of late. Life has thrown us a

curve ball or three dozen of late. BUT I finally sat down here for

three hours today and worked on my

prequel to the Suc-U series...yes it's

tongue in cheek, but it's

erotica...for me erotica NEEDS tongue in cheekiness.

Someone once told me writing erotica has to be hard for Kat and I given our pasts. When you've no concept of normal love, you have no choice but to

make it up as you go. So tongue-in-cheek is as close to what I believe normal to be...Of course it helps that of late my erotica stories have been about

Succubi and

Centaurs. It doesn't really MATTER what consitutes

"normal". They cannot BE what makind interprets as NORMAL no matter how hard they might try (no pun intended.)

I digress...can't do that...that's what leads me to being lazy.

Three hours is how long I sat. I let me go and allowed

Nudge, my wicked little

task master to take over. 3,674 words in three teensy hours. I really was keeping Nudge down wasn't I?

Shame on me.

Nudge wants me to share some of her more creative character names with you...and I remind you, this IS

tongue in cheek and if you have any issues with this, blame Nudge. She's my creative voice...a nuisance much of the time...but she knows her stories!

Okay, can I just take a moment and tell Nudge,

I am in AWE of what you channel through me. You DO

rock!

How about Mel. T. Gasbags. (The "T" is his middle name initial and that happens to be TING...See his mother's name is Bea Ting...oh and his father's name is Justice Gasbags.)

Mel is the current Universal King of the Incubi, but Peter Byrd is in the wings. Peter has a brother named Dick Byrd, and he's got a problem with a client stealing Inc named Thorn E. Dawg.

Anyone who's read book one in this series, SUC-U, knows the current Queen of Earth Sucs is Wetniva Dreams.

You will meet her counterpart, the King of Earth Incs. in book two SUC-U-TOO...maybe...if it gets contracted.

In book three, and in this prequel you meet

Peter Byrd, The Universal King of Incs, and his counter-part Universal Queen, Gyna Strokes. (Don't they look GREAT together?)

One more character you will meet in Book Two...maybe...is a gorgeous wine red maned suc

named Bal Buster. (Balisima actually but she likes being called

Bal Buster, very few know 'isima' fallows her Bal.)

I think that's it so far, but Nudge is not ready to write

THE END to this prequel, so who knows what she will come up with next...But I can assure you it won't be borning.

IN HONOR OF HEROES

2011-11-11T18:32:00.000-08:00

I am disabled. I did not get that way from donning the uniform of the brave ones and

defending the rights of those of us who never faced the confusing enmity of others, but in my life as a disabled woman, I have met many who stood up and faced the

horrors of ideology, jeaoulsy, righteous or not-so righteous disdain masked as war.

I have a driver...he's seven years older than I am, and I am about to turn the BIGGER THAN LIFE

60.

He is one of the drivers I often have when I go for my medical appointments. He served in

Viet Nam from it's inception, before the American people even knew we were fighting an undeclared war.

Viet Nam...My oldest brother Bob

(here at the christening of my son, Christopher) served during the Viet Nam war in the U.S. Navy. Bob is nine years my senior, so I was just a little kid who thought the only evil in the world, outside the

devil our Priest spoke of with such barn raising vitriol, were the

monsters that lived underneath my bed or inside my closet...

Until we drove down to

Norfolk, VA to pick Bob up for his short leave from his first return from Viet Nam while serving on the

USS Intrepid.

I was a

CHILD! I thought my brother was the bravest man I'd ever met, and I had the hugest sister-crush on him.

Imagine then what it felt like when we drove through Norfolk, a city dependent upon the dollars spent by the Naval base personnel, and I saw the postage stamp lawns of the Norfolk people displaying signs that said,

"SAILORS AND DOGS KEEP OFF THE GRASS!"

My driver friend told me he has people come up to him today and

THANK him for his service back then.

I remember seeing images of our Viet Nam soldiers returning from that horror of war to the horror of being greeted by their fellow Americans SPITTING on them!

My friend tells those who NOW honor his service back then, they're forty years too late. Honor those who are serving now.

I do not like war. I do not pretend to understand it, but I deeply honor and respect those who do not sit before their TV screens yelling at the images of who we are told we"hate" but step up to defend all that we are.

War is horrible. I wish it was mandatory for all politicians to have to serve a minimum of two years in the Miltary up close and personal with the realities of war. Maybe then, they would not be so eager to send our heroes to their death like they are nothing more than

chess pieces to be moved across a world-wide chessboard.

Today is Veteran's Day. I have in my family several who stepped up...to them I say,

thank you, just as I say thank you to all the brave men and women throughout the world's history who stood with their courage knocking at their knees and brought honor to us all.

To you I say...YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN and THANK YOU!

A HOLE IN MY HEART

2011-11-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

A HOLE IN MY HEART

The past year has been an amazing roller coaster with incredible ups and soul-breaking lows.

The war we waged to wrest my daughter from what was little more than indentured servitude masked as success, took a deep toll that I'm not sure either of us have fully recovered from.

We do not understand evil...in spite of what our past has forced us to endure, we do not understand it.

We do not understand anyone devoting the energy to inflicting evil upon another. To have a so-called professional do it just because she can while twisting the dreams of others into horrible knots similar to the knots one finds in the neglected acreage of

gnarled and thorny weeds is alien.

I do not understand the pleasure such people get, and unfortunately there are many.

I have a hole in my heart, and I'm not sure why it's there.

Coming to Muse was a Godsend and there's so much love and acceptance here, but no place is without

its thorns.

I do not understand those who think everyone should step aside because THEY are now in the big leagues and their agendas are the only ones the rest of us should give credence to.

Adults acting like spolied children because they don't get their way in the Big People's World saddens and infuriates us. How can anyone live with themselves when they will

thrust the shafts into your back because it's expedient for them to bypass you any way possible?

I have a hole in my heart, and I don't know why.

Right after coming to Muse, my health took a serious turn that nearly destroyed me...and still weighs heavily upon my soul. No one knows how much those months took from me, and what made it worse, the original battle for my daughter's

artistic voice escalated at the same time.

I saw my daughter struggling to understand such evil but couldn't explain it away or ease

the hole forming in HER heart.

The almighty dollar...

is it true money is the root of all evil? No. It's certainly one of the catalysts of evil, but not the root. Evil is its own root.

There's something dark and twisted inside some people, and I try, I really TRY to understand it, but I can't, not even with all my education and wisdom.

So there's a hole in my heart.

Often...far too often, we have been delegated to the back burner over the years. It's a lonely place to be...a sad place to be.

So, there's a deepening hole in my heart.

When you follow the rules, you expect things will improve and you've finally found your way onto the right track, but you see how others who throw their tantrums, stomp their feet, and purposely set out to make you less than them, come out ahead over and over again.

I try to decipher this dichotomy, but it makes no sense.

My own son has treated people like dirt over the years, yet they keep opening their arms to him like he's some kind of a prodigal child and they are lucky he notices them enough to treat them like the mat he wipes his feet on.

I don't know why.

This past year I tried therapy. Having news of my ex crashed back into our lives after almost thirty years of trying to exist beyond him, splintered whatever platform I'd built beneath my feet to keep me from drowning in the morass of my past with him.

Three so far...and in that is also a problem. Each one wants you to start over and tell the horrid story from its inception again.

Why am I on my third therapist? The first one Lisa, got badly beaten up by her autistic son last April 2010. She has not returned.

I held out against starting over until the she-devil from my daughter's indentured servitude reared her ugly head again five months later.

Okay, admittedly in the end we won against that hag, but I had to start over in therapy with Staci.

Staci hung in until she decided she needed to move south so she could be with her niece and nephew...Admittedly, good reasons, but it meant starting over again..and I found out she was leaving the day before she left. (This after she had to take eight weeks off to recover from back surgery during our brief time together. She was only back for three weeks.)

Couldn't she have called me and given me more than our final fifty minutes notice that our end had come? Did she have to wait for that final appointment to drop the bombshell and let me know any progress we'd made was moot?

Now I'm with another Lisa and we've started again...from the beginning.

Lisa asked me if I'm depressed. And the answer, I realized tonight, as my eyes tear and I know not why, that I am.

Hence I have a hole in my heart, and I don't know why.

A year, this has been such a year. Yet, because we do not whine...

I have a hole in my heart, and I don't fully understand why...

just that it hurts...a lot.