The First Loves Blogfest

I’m posting today for the First Loves Blogfest, hosted by Ninja Captain, Alex J. Cavanaugh. We are to name our first loves in movies, music, books, and people.

First love movie:
Born Free

This is one of the first movies I ever remember watching. I have always loved animals, especially cats, and the story of Elsa stuck with me emotionally. (My husband doesn’t like me to watch it because I spend half the movie crying. Yes, I’m aware that Elsa doesn’t die in the movie. But she dies in the NEXT movie and that is so sad.)

First love music:
ELO

I really wasn’t into popular music until someone gave me an Electric Light Orchestra 45 for my 12th birthday. “Turn to Stone” became an instant favorite and I had to have the album. Then I had to have all of the albums. I was hooked! Fell in love with many of their songs, including 10538 Overture. (So imagine my delight when one of my favorite bands, Def Leppard, did a cover of this tune a few years ago. Joy!)

First love book:
The Chronicles of Narnia

A friend introduced me to this series shortly after my father died, when I was about eleven. After my father’s passing, my perception of the world changed and I became more ‘aware.’ Enter a series that took me to a fantastic, magical world while laying down Christian principles and ideals. My imagination took off from that point, leading me on many great adventures. The movies haven’t been perfect, however - watching previews for the very first one and hearing Aslan roar sent chills down my spine and brought tears to my eyes.

First love person:
My father and my husband

Before he died, I followed my father everywhere. I wanted to do whatever he was doing. I could spend hours in his workshop (he was a carpenter by trade) just quietly polishing his rock collection while he worked. I adored him and it’s a shame I never got to know him better.

My first romantic love was my husband. In typical girl fashion, I had a crush on everyone. Even dated a couple guys I thought I loved. It wasn’t until my husband that I really understood love. We were best friends for a whole year before we dated. We had so much in common and such a foundation of trust. He is the hero in my life and we’ve been married for 21 years now!



Those are my picks. What are yours?

The Kindle Fire is Fizzling

After making a big splash last fall, sales for Amazon’s Kindle Fire have dropped - drastically. According to Tech Fortune, “Kindle Fire shipments falling from 4.8 million in the Christmas quarter to less than 750,000 units last quarter.”

"To put it short," wrote Paulo Santos Thursday in Seeking Alpha, "the Kindle eReader has dropped out of bed. It has fallen beyond the wildest dreams of Amazon.com's management."


"This is simply not a positive development," Santos concludes. "This is another development confirming the migration of e-reading from Amazon.com's controlled environment, to a larger set of devices.”


"(This) means that Amazon.com's attempt to mitigate Apple and Google's dominance has already failed."

Amazon is very secretive when it comes to sales figures. While their actual sales numbers aren’t known, these facts are known:

The IDC revealed that the Kindle Fire's share of the tablet market fell from 17% in Q4 2011, to just 4% in Q1 2012.

That’s a big drop! Even accounting for the drop after Christmas, because all tablets dropped then,

Amazon wants to dominate, but 4% is a far cry from dominating. (And Apple still holds over 70% of the tablet market.) Think Amazon has finally met a mountain peak it can’t occupy? Think consumers now want more sophisticated tablets?

A to Z Challenge Reflections

I survived another A to Z Challenge! I say survived because I don’t feel like I conquered it.

I stopped posting daily two years ago because I just couldn’t keep up. Between speaking engagements, clients, and other duties, there are days when I’m away from my computer. I’d scheduled all of my posts for the A to Z, but responding to the daily comments was next to impossible.

I thought the hosts did a great job though. They made an A to Z blog, Facebook page, and removed a lot of inactive blogs from the list. They communicated well with everyone, too. I felt this year went much smoother and I hope they keep the same format for next year.

I’ve no idea what topic I’ll tackle next time, but I intend to participate in the A to Z in 2013.

Thank you A to Z Team and everyone who stopped by in April for leadership and goal-setting tips from my book, Overcoming Obstacles with SPUNK!

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

It’s time for another edition of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group, hosted by Ninja Captain, Alex J. Cavanaugh.

I have a blog tour coming up in two weeks for Overcoming Obstacles with SPUNK! Many of you read short excerpts of my book during the A to Z Challenge. One of the guest posts asked me to talk about my average writing day.

That really got me to thinking. Ten years ago, my typical writing day was so different than now. With my current schedule, I’m lucky to steal an hour now and then. I discovered that writing non-fiction requires at least an hour of my undivided attention. With fiction, I can be productive with 15 minutes here and there.

Ten years ago, I had several hours a day to write. I wasn’t online, so the Internet didn’t eat up my time. I was self-employed with only one business. I wasn’t speaking professionally. And I wasn’t going a thousand different directions, spreading myself thin.

For those of you not published yet, I say this - enjoy the present. Yes, I am proud of my six books and all of the opportunities that have come from being an author. But at some point, you begin to feel like a jack of all trades and master of none. You miss being able to focus on just one thing. You miss all the free time to write when everything else consumes your day.

Just enjoy your time now. And write like a maniac.

And my in-laws are coming for a joint anniversary celebration - our 21st (which was Tuesday, May 1) and their 50th. So I will be back on May 7 for the A to Z Challenge reflections post.