Writing Prompt Contest

The Heartland Writers Group is using one of my writing prompts for a free writing contest they are holding. You don't have to belong to RWA or anything to enter, no entry fee, and there's a five dollar prize. (Smile) I'll be judging the entries, but no one's name will be on them so I'll have no idea who wrote what. If you'd like to give it a try, the contest info is pasted below. Please read it before you write a scene since there's a word limit, a way you have to submit, and such. (You have a couple of weeks left to give it a try and there's only been a couple of entries so far.)

Here's the link where you can read the short scenes that have been entered and see later who wins.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=179976555

By the way, the free on line group I own for writers has a sister list just for weekly writing prompts. If you are interested you can find info about the RWC groups here....
http://www.charlottedillon.com/RWC.html


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HEARTLAND WRITERS GROUP MONTHLY CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISES!!

JULY CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISE CONTEST INFORMATION: :ONCE AGAIN, IT'S TIME TO HONE THOSE MUSES!! SINCE THERE WILL BE FIREWORKS SIZZLING THE SKY, I THOUGHT WE'D HEAT IT UP A BIT.... HERE IS THE CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISE CONTEST INFORMATION FOR JULY, 2007:::

THE PROMPT: She's a nosy single-and-looking neighbor.He's the sexy single moving in next door.She's being her nosy self, trying to find out who's moving in and everything about him.He catches her.Then What?

In approximately 500 words or less, write a sexual tension scene between the two characters. Spice level medium to hot--No erotica, please.

****Special THANKS goes to romance author Charlotte Dillon for permission to use The Sexy Neighbor Writing Prompt.****

Send all entries to grievekathleen@ yahoo.com They must be received by July, 31st, 2007 no later than 12 noon central standard time to be considered. You must have "HWG JULY CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISE" in the subject line.

All entries will be posted anonymously on the HWG MYSPACE BLOG. Winner gets her/his picture posted on HWG MYSPACE, a $5 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, and will start the second HWG CONTINUING MYSTORY--details to follow.

This months judge will be romance author Charlotte Dillon. To find out more about Charlotte, you can go to her website: www.CharlotteDillon.com

Congratulations to June's Contest Winner--Patricia Martel. The entry was # 4 on HWG'S MYSPACE BLOG. Hers will be the first BIO posted on HWG's Newsletter, "Muse News", her picture is posted on our MYSPACE , and she received a $5 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. COME AND JOIN THE FUN WHILE LIGHTING A FIRE UNDER YOUR MUSE!!!GOOD LUCK!

KathleenHeartland Writers Group

25 Years & Counting

Today was a special one. I've been married for 25 years. Okay, so well, hubby has been part of it too. At least half of it. (Smile) This is a picture of the cake the kids surprised us with. Look at all of those huge chocolate covered strawberries. I'd actually never had chocolate covered strawberries until today. Needless to say, it wasn't a sugar free cake, so I only ate a small slice and a couple of the strawberries, but it was so good and the card they gave us was as sweet as the cake.

Minutes for the Troops

As an Army vet, Monica Burns knows first-hand how the sound of a loved one's voice is music in a soldier's ear. When she was stationed 3000 miles away from home, she lived for the sound of a familiar voice or the occasional care package that came showed up at mail call. That experience on intense homesickness has prompted her to organize a Minutes for the Troops donation program.

Monica has a troop contact in Iraq that she can send AT&T phone cards to. The minutes are then allocated to soldiers so they can call home. Apparently, AT&T phone cards are the only cards that work relatively glitch free with Iraq's phone system dialing out to the USA. If you'd like to help the American soldiers stationed in Iraq communicate with loved ones, here are your options:

Option 1 - AT&T phone cards are available at retail stores such as Wal-Mart. Once you've purchased the card, email Monica with the phone number and the pin number that are listed on the back of the card, along with the number of minutes on the card (knowing the minutes helps fairly allocate minutes to the troops). Send your phone card info to monicaburnsauthor @ comcast.net (eliminate the spaces before and after the @ symbol). Place "Minutes for the Troops" in your email subject line so her SPAM Assassin doesn't eat your email. She'll compile all the phone card information and forward it to her military contact so the troops can use the minutes you donate to make their calls.

Option 2 - Some people can only afford to spare a couple of dollars, so if you have a PayPal account, Monica is willing to take donations via her personal account. She'll purchase phone cards with those donations and forward those to her troop contact. The disadvantage is that your contribution has 3 percent removed from it by PayPal, so if you want to claim the donation on taxes, you'll have to allot for that 3 percent deduction when you calculate your donation. For instance, if you wanted to donate $1.00 you would actually only be donating 97 cents. Just keep this in mind if you want to donate via PayPal.

Option 3 - If you can't afford to buy a phone card, and don't have a PayPal account, you can always send a check or money order to Monica Burns, Post Office Box 68, Richmond, VA 23235. Monica will apply your contribution to the purchase of a card. A copy of the check or money order should suffice for your charitable donations write off on your taxes. Please do not send cash due to recordkeeping restrictions.

Monica thanks you, and the troops thank you.

Website Update & Changes

It's taken me days, but I've finished a major update on my website. Well, not really finished, since there are still a lot of pages to work on, but I've finished all the main pages for both the writer's and the author's sides of my site. I hope the way things are done now will make it even more easier for people to find their way around on both sides. After all, it's no fun going to a site for information and then having to do a search and find forever to actually find the one thing you came for.

When you get a chance, check out both sides and let me know what you think! You can find the link on the side bar, or just go to www.CharlotteDillon.com

Time Saving Tip: Frosting

Want a quick frosting that won't taste like just another spread on can of it?

Once your cake is cool, simply warm up a can of frosting -- not too warm, just warm enough that it is easy to work with -- then put it in a bowl and stir in a container of Cool Whip. Adjust the amount of Cool Whip, using more for a milder frosting and less for a sweeter one. You can use any flavor of frosting you like. (Of course once spread on the cake, the cake will have to be kept in the fridge.)

My family doesn't care much for frosting from a can because it is just so sweet, but everyone who has tried one of my cakes made this way loves it and thinks it's some kind of frosting I made from a recipe that required work. (Smile)

Warning About Flea Treatments

I've really, really had my hands full the last week, especially the last few days. If any of you have been to the pet page on my website, you know I have way too many dogs. (But I love 'em all.) We've had a time with fleas this year. Used to, Frontline seemed to work, along with this flea dip I can't get any more. Then Frontline got where it just wasn't working that well at all and wasn't even lasting very well. On top of that, the price has gone up a lot in the last couple of years until it got to the point that I really just couldn't justify or afford the huge cost with the number of large dogs I have.

Well, things were already going bad first thing Tuesday morning. I've been dealing with a very sick puppy for a few days, making trips back and forth to the vet. Tuesday morning I awoke to find the two dogs that stay outside, were both missing. Some how the gate had got opened during the night and they were gone. After searching the neighborhood, we managed to find one, but not the other. I had to have the puppy back to the vet for another IV at eight-thirty, so I gave up after another hour and came home to get ready to go.

Believe it or not, on the way to the vet, I actually found my other missing dog walking down the road with a woman. We were late for the vet, but I was so happy to have found Kane and Clover and have them both home safe and sound.

I was at the vet a long time, Korin's IV bag takes nearly two hours. We made it home and Korin was doing so much better than he had been doing for days before, that I actually felt hopeful he was going to make it. Since I was feeling a little better about him, and was feeling a little better myself since I had been dealing with a stomach bug too, I thought I would go on and treat the well dogs with some flea stuff I picked up at Wal-Mart. It was Sergeant's Gold Flea & Tick, the kind in the little tube that you squeeze on down their backs. (I've used a lot of different kinds over the years, cheap and not cheap.)

After I used this one though, in less than an hour, Lucky started throwing up. I thought with dread that he was taking the same nasty virus that Korin had. Then Lucky began to shake, then shake worse, then he couldn't walk. I thought about the flea stuff and grabbed him up and bathed him twice. I then handed him to my daughter and ran around checking on my other dogs. All seemed well until I looked outside at the two out there. Clover was drooling every where and shaking all over. That began a mad dash to wash every dog at least twice, once with a shampoo and then after doing a little research on line, we used dish washing liquid. During the research we found page after page of info from people who had lost their pets after using this flea stuff, or some other one like it.

It was a very long evening after an already long last few tense days, but by yesterday morning, Lucky and Clover seemed to be over it, and all of the other dogs were acting fine. I took Korin back to the vet and he is off the IV, doing well, eating, on meds by mouth, and the vet said she doesn't need to see him again. I still almost ended up by there yesterday. I have a dog that has seizures and wouldn't just know that he had to have one yesterday just when everything seemed to be calming down again. But he is fine and I was able to control the seizure and get it stopped without a trip to the vet. (I didn't put the flea stuff on him, Korin, or Kane.) I hope they all stay fine for a long while now. So does my credit card. (Ouch!)

Long story short...

If you have a dog, please be very careful with any of these once a month flea treatments, especially this one and other over the counter types that promise to act quickly and last a long time. If you have a cat, be even more careful, since it seemed there was even a larger listing of people who had lost cats from one of these types of flea treatments.

Prayers & Good Wishes Needed

Over a year ago I wrote a message here about my my sister's grand baby needing prayers and good wishes. Well, he needs them again. He's in the hospital once more, this time on life support. Back then they didn't give him much hope of seeing his first birthday. Well, he made it. Now we are hoping for a second one. He was born with something called Autosomal Recessive Cutis Laxa Type One. There are only a couple of hundred people or less in the whole world with Cutis Laxa, and his is the very worse kind. It is a rare genetic disorder of the connective tissue. On the outside it shows up in loose and hanging skin, but it does worse stuff inside. He has had one battle after another, and has seemed to be doing so well lately. He just started walking and seemed to be so happy, and now this. I'm hoping there's some way for him to have more time, if it can be good time. More time for him to laugh, to play with his big sister and his grandma's dogs, to enjoy the new freedom he's found since he has a special daycare where he can spend a few hours at a time with other children. So, if you have a moment, please say a prayer, a blessing, send good thoughts, white light, what ever you can, that he'll beat the odds and be laughing for one more birthday.

Pet Tip: Giving Your Dogs Medicine

If you have more than one dog, like I do, when it comes time to give them all medicine, it can be a little overwhelming. (Smile) I give my dogs heartworm medicine every month, and the regular wormer about once a year. I've learned a few things to help make it not so overwhelming.

First, I keep a piece of paper in the drawer where I keep the meds. On that paper I have each dog's name with their weight wrote out next to it. (You don't have to reweigh them more than once a year unless you have a growing puppy or you notice by looking that your dog might have gained or lost weight.)

Next I bring out a couple of disposable foam plates and a marker. (I only do two dogs at a time instead of wasting a pile of plates.) I write the dog's name and weight on the edge of the plate with the marker. I put some can dog food on the plate, the amount depending on the size of the dog. You don't want to put too much because you don't want to take a chance on them maybe not cleaning their plate.

Now that I'm ready to measure the meds, I have the dog's name and weight right in front of me. That way I'm not likely to make a mistake, and I'm not going to mix the plates up and give Max at 67 pounds the plate I fixed for Clover at 53 pounds. I've worked hard to train my dogs that when a plate is put in front of one, that the food on that plate belongs to that dog, but them being dogs, you still have to watch closely until those two plates or clean. If you can't get your dogs to do that, then put the food and each dog in a room away from the others so there is no chance of someone not getting all of his meds, or even worse, of someone getting an overdoes.

When those two dogs are done, I pick up the plates, mark through the names and weight on them, write in the next two dogs' names and weights, and repeat until they have each had their meds.

The last thing I do is mark it on the calendar so I'll know for sure what date they were given the meds on.

On To The Next Publisher

Well, after a few rejections on my starter book for romance writers, my agent, Elizabeth Pomada, is at it again. She's in New York right now and has pitched my starter book for romance writers to St. Martin's Press. When I talked to her tonight on her cell, she said she will be sending the complete to them.

Sooooooo.....cross those fingers and toes for me once again. (Smile)

The other publishers who have rejected the book said they thought there wasn't a big enough market for it. 'Market' being romance authors who would need my starters from time to time. I think there's a whole pile of us out there who hit blocks and need starters. Right? (Smile) Now I just have to hope that St. Martin's Press knows that too, or is willing to take a chance on it.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the moms out there -- Happy Mother's Day!