The Boom Effect

The Boom Effect is a fund drive to raise funds for Sonic Boom, and was started by a group of podcasters and writers as a way for these communities to show support for the Morris family.

From The Boom Effect Blog:

Tee Morris is a beloved founding father of the podcasting community; co-creator of Podiobooks.com, writer of four social media books, and the first novelist to serialise his novel.

On the 5th of January 2010 Tee found himself facing raising his daughter (with the alias of Sonic Boom) alone, after the sudden, shocking death of his wife Natalie.

The podcasting, writing, and social media community gathered around and within days had raised over $10,000 to cover funeral expenses and other pressing bills Tee was facing. This response was incredible, and showed just how much Tee has touched the lives of others.

However now, as a community we are turning our attention to Sonic Boom’s future. She is only five now, and relying on Tee to provide everything for her. We have the aim of providing a trust buffer for her, so that she can go to college if she wants.

Nothing is going to replace her mother, but the funds raised will give more opportunities . So writers, podcasters and creative types of all stripes are offering up items for auction.

I have donated a 12 week workout and nutrition program to the auction!!! 

The program will be done completely online, via email, photos etc and is a 12 week “all inclusive” program.  That means it includes your personalized diet, cardio and weight program, as well as food journal checks, physique checks (via emailed photos) and program changes and updates as you need them.

I will send you a list of questions to answer (including pictures, measurements, your life schedule etc) so that I can then take all that info and make your program.  I have a client only discussion board where you will be able to chat with the other clients, including my competitive clients.

This Program Includes:

• A 12 Week Personalized Weight Program
• A 12 Week Personalized Cardio Program
• A 12 Week Diet Program
• Food Journal Checks
• Physique Checks and Program Reviews Throughout
• Extra Motivational Tools and Tips Throughout
• Group Support via a Private Discussion Board

FYI, This Program is not a “quick fix” solution that promises to have you looking like a superstar in 12 weeks.  It’s going to mean work on both our parts and will be a great step toward a healthier and happier you!

Click here to visit my auction, if you go to "home" you can see all the other fantastic items. Happy Bidding!

This event will be a webathon run by Podcasting’s very own Rich Sigfrit, with a plethora of special guests and fun. It will take place live online at 10amEST  February 27th 2010. Watch the event here

Catching up

We're back from Vegas, and I'm experiencing the post-vacation consequences..not enough sleep and an overload of work to catch up on.

Aaaaaahhh!!!

Since I didn't blog while we were away I just want to say "hi". I'm still alive, still around, but I'm a little swamped. Plus, I really want to get a writing session in today..somehow!! I did manage to write while were gone. I managed to write six days out of the nine days we were gone. I figure for being in Vegas, that's pretty darn good.

Oh, and I received an official rejection email on my short story submitted to the Tesseracts 14, by Edge Publishing. It had been so long I was pretty sure it was a "no" already, but getting that official word stings, just a little. I do know there were an extremely high number of submissions, and as Eileen Kernaghan put it (Canadian author who's workshop I attend), "Everyone's trying to get in to Tesseracts now." I shall be content for now with my Evolve Anthology story (the review copies are out, presales are happening, I'll be blogging about that more soon!) and will take another look at this story and then send it somewhere else.

Wait, this just turned into a real blog entry by accident! And look at the time, gotta run!!! 

Travel Plans

Cover via Amazon

I haven't blogged for several days, the good news is, I've been busy writing! (no, really, I have been!)

Tomorrow we're leaving for Las Vegas (isn't that a movie? Wait, not quite.) for our anniversary. We're going to be there for nine days, so I'm looking forward to getting writing done. What?! Writing in Vegas?! Yes, there's a lot of distractions in Vegas, but we've been so many times that we've seen and done a lot there, so it's more of a "vacation" and less of an "oh my goodness we're in Vegas let's go completely insane" kind of trip. We have our list of things we want to do and see, but I will also be getting some great downtime. Hubby goes out to play poker, and I get to stay in and enjoy the suite, relax, read and write. Perfect, right?!!

This trip we're staying in two different hotels. (due to my husband's thorough searching for many days to find the best deals in Vegas) First we'll be at the El Cortez in the "old" part of downtown Vegas, by Freemont street. If you've seen the movie "The Hangover", you can see the El Cortez sign in the background of many scenes. (just a random fact for you) Then we'll be moving to the BRAND NEW Vdara hotel in City Center!! I'll definitely have to take some pics and post them. If you want to see some cool graphics of City Center and all it contains, just click here.

We're off to Vegas, baby!

New Novel

I've been so busy blogging about our craftathon (we dropped the blankets off to the SPCA yesterday!!) and the happenings over at my Fit4Success network, I don't think I've mentioned yet that I've successfully started work on a new novel.

My previous novel is still in the tender loving hands (bah, ha ha ha ha ha) of Diana Rowland (who's second book Blood of the Demon comes out this month on the 23rd-CHECK IT OUT!). She is going to give me her feedback once again, on this, the fourth draft. She gave me a ton of input and help during and after the first draft, and I'm hoping I took that advice well and made improvements. Diana is so busy with her writing right now that she told me she felt bad she was taking some time to get back to me. I, on the other hand am so relieved to have a friggin' break from that novel, I begged her to take her time! LOL. I'm looking forward to making more improvements on it with her help, but ugh..I just needed a break from it!

So meanwhile..I'm working on a brand new urban fantasy, unrelated to the other one. This one is taking more time to research and I'm being smarter this time around and doing my outlining FIRST. (not between the second and third drafts, like last time) I'm excited about it, I think it has great potential.

I'm roughly 16, 000 wds into it (Chapter Six) and my goal is to write 8,000 wds a week-which translates to 1500 wds 5 days a week, 1000 1 day a week and one day off. I think that's manageable for me to stick with.

Now I have to go take care of work type stuff, so I can be free to write this afternoon and evening. :-)

Craftathon Results

We did it! We finished our 12 hour craftathon for critters..and it was fun, but exhausting! You wouldn't think it would be that tiring, but by the final hours, we were absolutely beat!! We actually didn't finish as many as we thought we would, I guess we had great visions of massing large amounts of blankets, but the truth is, it takes a lot of time to make them!!

Here's some photos of our efforts, thanks to everyone for their support! We'll be dropping blankets and our cash donations off to the SPCA this week.

Just before 9:00am, it begins with the overflowing yarn supply and a doubtful kitty:



Here's a shot of my mom, working hard:



Just to prove I actually worked too, with the help of my assistant:



Still going strong, and as you can see, my assistant is fickle, any ol' lap will do:



Each blanket WAS tested carefully for consumer satisfaction:



The final results of our 12 hours of hard work, being reviewed by the experts:



Okay, okay, I know that one's not quite finished, but the 12 hours was up!! I will finish it, I promise: