If you’re a writer like me, occasionally, you experience lulls in your writing, whether it’s due to lack of inspiration or lack of motivation. So when I saw this post http://www.weronikajanczuk.com/2010/05/page-day-challenge-begins.html on Weronika’s blog, I thought it was the perfect way to kickstart my writing.

So today, I started work on a new story and although it was in long hand and not necessarily the first page of the story, I feel really good about it. Here’s hoping that tomorrow is even better.

Happy writing!

If you want a chance to win a mega prize pack from Jackson Pearce that includes an arc of Sisters Red, a mystery arc and all the swag from past months, just write a post anywhere on the web (except Twitter). But it has to be done by today!

For more details, click the link above to watch the video of Jackson and Space Dog explaining the rules. Good luck and have fun!

http://ultimatebookhound.blogspot.com/2010/04/blogoversary-giveaway.html

There are a lot of great picks, so hurry on over! Contest ends May 2.

http://storywings.blogspot.com/2010/02/49-followers-contest.html

Between Me and the River, by Carrie Host, is one of those books that grabs you by the hand from page one and pulls you along on a journey into the life of the writer. It dares you to stop reading along the way, but you can’t stop reading because you have to make sure that everything turns out okay even though you know it must because it is, after all, a memoir. But still, you find yourself wondering along the way if it will be okay, if the author will beat the odds, because you become emotionally invested in the author’s life.

This book deals with the subject of cancer with an honesty that can be at once breathtaking and brutal. It is unflinching and doesn’t waste any time in setting up the issue. Here is the first line from the first chapter, entitled Miles and Miles, for instance:

“Hardly any other word leaves us as numb or as frozen in time as cancer.”

And with those words, you are hooked. Who among us hasn’t had the same thought, or dealt with the same fear? Coming from a family that has lost many people from cancer (on my father’s side and my mother’s side), I have a great intimacy with the devastation that cancer can wreak, not only on the victim, but on the family of the victim, as well. And I fear it. I fear the mere possibility that it could strike again, at any time, in any member of my family or circle of friends, or even in myself. But reading Ms. Host’s memoir, I am not quite as fearful as I formally was and for that, I thank her.

Although it is often not an easy book to read, I would recommend this to anyone who’s had a challenging time in their life and needs a reminder that they are not alone.

Between Me and the River is published by Harlequin and is available at Amazon.com.

Isn’t it pretty? What are you still doing here? Go enter the contest! Ends 3/15

http://histficchick.blogspot.com/

http://aparkavenueprincess.blogspot.com/2010/01/fallen-by-lauren-kate-giveaway.html

Thanks to a tweet by Robyn of Robyn’s Online World, I became aware of a sweepstakes sponsored by HP, Dara Torres, and Mombloggersclub that could really make my life so much simpler. It’s called the Simplify My Life Sweepstakes and the prize is an HP Mini with Windows® 7 Home Premium. All you need to do to enter is tell how an HP mini would simplify your life. Well, that sounded easy enough, so I figured I’d give it a shot. So here is how an HP mini would simplify my life.

Currently, I only have one operating computer in my house that my younger daughter and I have to share. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if it wasn’t for the fact that I am a writer and when not working on one of my books, I write reviews and do interviews for one site and blog posts for three others (including this one). Add to that the fact that my daughter likes to write a lot of fanfiction and has online friends from all over the world and constantly wants to talk to them and you can see where the trouble comes in. So that is one way that an HP mini would help me.

Here is another. My daughter has a lot of health issues, so we are constantly going from one appointment to another, so one of these computers would help me to organize all of our appointments and keep better track of everything that needs to be done for her. Not only that, but she is due to have surgery on her back (as soon as the issues with her teeth are cleared up, which has been a long process) and it is going to be a long procedure, so it would be nice to have a small computer there with me to keep me occupied while I wait for it to be complete. And after the surgery, when she is recovering, my daughter will need to be occupied, but I know that she will not be able to get out of bed for awhile, so a mini computer would really help to keep her busy – and connected to her friends.

So there you have it. Some ways that an HP mini could simplify my life. How could it simplify yours? Comment here for a chance to win one of three (3) HP Mini 110-1100 by Studio Tord Boontje PCs.

More details can be found at http://www.mombloggersclub.com/page/simplify-my-life-sweepstakes

Read more about it here: http://www.laurendane.com/blog/2009/12/21/curl-up-with-a-book-and-a-nook-contest-sticky-new-content-below/