Promote Your Book Bloghop: Meet and Greet

While catching up on blog visits, I learned that I'm signed up for a Meet and Greet blog hop. I don't remember signing up, but then again, I don't remember much these days.

So, listen up Buttercup: since I rarely answer questions about myself, please seize the opportunity to learn secrets about me. I bet you didn't even know I can touch my nose with my tongue and have the rarest common blood type, AB Negative. But no one wants to know that.

This is what was asked . . .

What is your favorite animal?  

My dogs, or course

 

Where have you traveled to (outside of your country), and what's been your favorite destination? 

I'm an American who has traveled to France, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Bermuda. Each place has been wonderful, so it's hard to choose a favorite. I enjoy warm places with oceans and beaches, but then again history rocks!

How many siblings do you have?
I have one brother and two sisters, and they are all older than me, which means they are REALLY old.

 

Are you a lefty or a righty?

I'm a lefty, which means I'm in my right mind. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and the right side of the brain controls the left side, so us left handed people are the only ones in our right minds.

Since picking a favorite book is nearly impossible, who is your favorite author or which one has had the most influence on you in your writing career?

I love Margaret Peterson Haddix and Gordon Korman. Peterson for her heart-pumping action and Kormen for making me laugh. There are many other fab authors. As far as who has most influenced my writing career, it would have to be all of those Midsouth authors who I've met through SCBWI. Josh Adams, Peterson's agent, will be at our next SCBWI conference. Woo hoo!

Joyce Lansky teaches intellectually gifted children, is active in SCBWI, and has completed five novels. In May 2011, she published a story in AppleSeeds magazine, a division of Carus. She currently blogs at Catch My Words. If her blog makes you laugh, please inquire about her MG and YA humor manuscripts that are looking for a home. jlanskyATcomcastDOTcom.

Writer's Post: Internal Affairs

This picture plus the words "Internal Affairs" is the prompt for this week's writer's post.



After the trip down The Wizard of Oz's Yellow Brick Road, Tin Man had finally gotten a heart. Possession wasn't good enough because a heart belongs in the chest taking care of internal affairs while banging life throughout the body.

So, Tin Man opened wide and swallowed the heart charms. Unfortunately, it didn't attach to his chest nor stop between non-existent lungs. The charms tumbled to the floor of his bodily barrel and made horrendous rattles every time he moved. Plus, that silly little charm tickled.

The Tin Man visited Scarecrow, who had an incredible brain, and asked him how to fix the problem. Scarecrow suggested he see an auto mechanic in Kansas. They asked Lion to come with them, but he was too scared of the noisy shop, so Tin Man and Scarecrow traveled down the flat roads by themselves.

When they reached the shop, the mechanic pulled out his power tools which sang a cheerful tune while opening the Tin Man like a can of tuna fish. At which time Toto darted into the shop and snatched the charm in his doggy lips. Dorothy pried the furry rat's mouth open until the heart dropped to the ground and broke.

After that, Tin Man not only had a rip in his chest but was also heartless.

Lost and Found #GBE2

#3 = Lost and Found

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, perhaps in the year 15 BC (before children), my mind started to gradually slip away. It wasn't anything dramatic like space aliens ringing the doorbell and asking for brain samples, but rather a slow deterioration of sanity.

Maybe it started in middle school when the dorks teased me for wearing my sister's powder blue, handi-me-down gym uniform instead of the sexy red ones on sale at school. With the red garbs, one could  turn them around backwards and slide the zipper down low. Ms. "McFeel," the questionable PE teacher didn't seem to mind as long as we wore a PE uniform and took our showers after class. If not the uniforms, perhaps the brain drain came when I was brave stupid enough to get on stage in a flapper outfit and dance the Charleston with Steve Noonan in front of the laughing student body.

"What was everyone laughing at?" I later asked a friend.

"Your costumes," she said.

Yeah, right! I was almost naive enough to buy it. Junior High School definitely chipped a good 10% of mind out of my clueless head.

High school must have taken some more. Shortly after my sixteenth birthday, I got my driver's license and proudly drove into the car next to me in a snowy parking lot. Okay, I wasn't proud of hitting the car (multiple times when the honkers made me panic), but I was proud of the first time being alone in the car, until . . .

Being a mindless teen, I stuck a note about the size of a bobby pin on the damaged car's windshield wiper and crawled home to tell my dad. He took it well. In fact, he took it a lot better than the lady I hit. For the next year, my parents begged and pleaded me to take the car out alone, but by then about 20% of mind went missing, so no can do. I've only been in one other mild fender bender in over thirty years of driving daily, so maybe I found five percent between then and now.

College took more due to a little bit of drinking at parties. Alcohol has been scientifically proven to kill brain cells, so go ahead and remove the five percent I'd found plus 5% more and now I'm down to 75% sanity. Until my boyfriend said, "Will you marry me and live in Memphis?"

Marrying him was actually a fabulous idea, but I question my mental state when I said,"Yes to Memphis." If that ain't love, I don't know what is. Take away another 5% for moving to Memphis and becoming a teacher. A teacher? Did I say, "5%?" Better make that 5% for moving to Memphis and 25% for becoming a teacher. What am I down to now? 45%? Being able to do basic math means I have a little bit of mind left add 5%, but then I got pregnant. Three times. Three children.

Some comedian, can't remember who, once said we lose half of our minds with each child born. That would put me far into the negative category. Just because I scratched my head and hopped like a monkey to get my babies to smile does not mean I've lost my mind? I mean, doesn't everyone do that?

Since this challenge is called "Lost and Found," I must end with the story about how I got it all back. We put the baby on a bus this morning and sent her off to be a camp counselor for the summer. The middle one comes home in five days and stays for a few weeks, but come fall we will be official empty nesters. If that doesn't restore my mind, nothing will!



If you like my post, please click the white picket fence or the snippet. Thanks!