Free Ebook with any order of any of my books

Romantic Picnic Basket Recipes is an ebook I compiled to help celebrate summer festivities.  This book includes the following recipes. Order any of my ebooks and I will send you this ebook free.  (Offer lasts until the end of summer.  If you want the ebook you can go to Amazon.com and order it for the Kindle for $2.99)  To get your free copy just email me the receipt at collette-thomas@sbcglobal.net. 

APPETIZERS

Tangy Stuffed Tomatoes  

Deviled Eggs 

ENTREES

Romantic Burgers                                

Soy and lemon Chicken                                              

Salmon Sandwiches                                                 

Rib Eyed Steak in Bock Beer Marinade                          

Pinto Bean Casserole                                                               

Hot Wings                                                                                     

More Summertime Burgers                                             

Portobello Mushrooms and Goat Cheese Sandwiches           

Grilled Chicken     

Chili Chicken Casserole  

SIDE DISHES / SALADS

Italian Pasta Salad        

Antipasto Pasta Salad 

Artichoke Dip       

Grilled Sweet Brown Sugar Potato Sticks

Potato Salad  

Spinach Dip in Hawaiian Round Bread 

Macaroni Apple Salad   

Red Cabbage with Apples 

Avocado Salad      

Avocado, Tomato and Sweet Onion Salad 

Green Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette 

Grilled Chicken Citrus Salad 

Mandarin Orange Salad  

Oriental Spinach Salad   

Spring Mix Salad  

DESSERTS

Cantaloupe Soup        

Cream Cheese with Fresh Fruits    

Banana Bread 

Margarita Dessert Dip with Cinnamon Chips 

Cinnamon Tortilla Chips (or as appetizers as well) 

Strawberry Blossoms  

Strawberry Delight 

Chocolate Bars    

Cocoa Kisses  

Both of my books are included in Program Book at Thrillerfest 2011!!!

DEADLY GAMES AND DEADLY AFFAIRS are included among other great titles from ETERNAL PRESS and DAMNATION in the program book at Thrillerfest 2011.

You can check out these stories at DAMNATION BOOKS   and ETERNAL PRESS 

Great Summer Read

Getting Back On Track

Holy smokes!  We're over one week into May.  I'm trying to get back on track with my writing.  I have several projects that I now feel I've neglected and are in a holding pattern.

Last night my neighbor is over.  I made her a nice peach shortcake and we enjoyed some tea as we watched Dancing with the Stars.  Yes, in the back of my mind I kept telling myself I need to be here sitting at the computer and getting that latest story uploaded.  Instead, I ignored the "voice" and continued to stuff my face, sip the tea, and watch Kirstie Alley make it through to the semi finals.     GO KIRSTIE!

Now all I can say is I've been rooting for Kirstie.  After all she's only five years younger than myself.  I of course easilyb identify with Kirstie knowing that because we've reached a certain age does not mean we're totally out of the game.
No.  Instead we can go the whole course and perhaps even make it pass the finish line.

Yet, when my neighbor says things like "What did you do today?  Not much, huh."   She says this a lot because after all I'm not working outside the house but instead I'm here inside with only myself to tell me what I should or shouldn't do.

And the words triggered a reflex inside me telling me I better get off my ass or more aptly I better affix my ass to this chair and get back to my writing projects because I'm the only one who is going to make it across that finishing line.  If I don't focus now when will I focus? 

Poor Rhonda.  Her story has been languishing here inside the computer on my hard drive waiting to be released.  The fact that it presents a turning point in my mini series that takes the story into a slightly different direction should be enough motivation to get it uploaded.

You think?

Lately in fact I may be my own worse enemy.  Lately I haven't been all that confident and so that may be one of the problems.  Yet inside my mind scenarios, characters, plots, dialogue continue.  The well has been filling up and I think it's now about to overflow.  Also, I feel this anxiety building up inside me; another way of my subconscious mind telling me to get to it.

Writers need to write.  That's a given.  And when we don't exercise that creativity a lot of other stuff can arise, such as depression as well as the anxiety, and a feeling that time is awasting, plus the fear that years are flying by and we may not get to write all those stories that exist in our subconscious, just below the surface where they will continue to wreak a bit of havoc.

Okay, enough.

I'm going to open up the file to Rhonda's Story....go through it once more and hopefully feel it is ready for a go!

On Writing

I am just about to upload the eighth story in my mini series The Pleasure of Our Company.  This one has proven to be the turning point in the way the storyline is progressing.  In fact it may be the pivotal plot point that shows these stories indeed have a purpose in the overall scheme of what is going to occur next.

Readers who have been following will begin to realize that the series brings them on a journey of not only discovery but also that call to adventure many fiction writers based their own story line on.

Distractions have been the bane of my writing existence lately only because I allow them into my life.  Today I found too many other things to do when I should have been sitting and typing away.

I'm not sure at this point why I allow these distractions to take top billing.

Okay, writing is hard work.

And it can be tiring as well...until one actually gets into a story.  That's when a sense of exhilaration can rise inside that will provide the necessary energy to get to that so sought for ending.

I'm there with Rhonda's Story, again this is the eighth story in my mini series The Pleasure of Our Company.

The first seven are already up on Amazon and Smashwords. 

IT IS FINALLY SPRING!

I think! 

I'm still wearing winter clothing.  I'm looking out there now and will soon take my dog for her walk.  Do I still put on my earmuffs, gloves, scarf?  Yesterday we had a wet snow falling during the afternoon.  I do see a few robbins and wonder if they're confused by it all.

Meantime, I'm finishing up on the latest story in my mini series The Pleasure of Our Company.  I'm enjoying this project simply because although I have an idea where it's going to go, getting there is half the fun as well as the frustration.

Rhonda's story is the most recent and creates a turning point in the overall story line.  Readers will realize yes the small community of Weston Cove is indeed at war, or will be soon but don't realize it yet. 

The story should be available at Amazon by next week.  I'm tweaking a few things and look forward to adding it to the seven stories that are already available at Amazon.com

Meantime, let me go get my earmuffs, gloves, scarf and get my dog out there.  We both need to get out there and get some good old sun.

It's Almost Spring ---

We had a rainstorm last night.  I looked out my window this morning and saw my lawn for the first time in weeks!  Yes, I have been pretty much snowed in this winter.  It was a rough winter for most of us here in the Northeast, especially here in Connecticut.  And especially with roofs caving in right and left, one of them not less than a mile from me, an abandoned building that is now a pile of twisted steel and concrete. 

The winter actually distracted me from my writing projects.  For some reason I just couldn't quite concentrate.  I gave myself a bit of slack because of it.  When you see your neighbors climbing their roofs to shovel off two feet of snow it can produce some anxiety and cause for concern.  I literally had tunnels made so that I could get out of my house.  For some this was a fun adventure.  For me at my age it kept reminding me how mother nature can dictate what we can or cannot do. 

Today I felt once again hopeful that things may get back to normal, except normal is a term based on a lot of variables.  Living all the years I've lived normal loses its full meaning because a life changes in ways that one is either prepared or not prepared for and simply learns to go with the flow.

The certainty that I had once felt in my younger years is gone.  Yet because of that life takes on a whole new dimension that at times fills me sometimes with awe, sometimes with "uncertainty," and sometimes with a determination to see it all through.

The snow is disappearing, and soon the crocuses that always show up bringing along with them that feeling of certainty will hopefully find there way up through the soil again.  Four plus feet of snow laid on top of that earth pile for weeks so I'm hoping and praying that things will get back to normal.

My latest story  - Rhonda's Story is awaiting my input.  I think the longer days help me by providing the sunlight that in turns feeds the energy I need to complete this latest in my mini series The Pleasure of Our Company.  The whole thing has been germinating for a while now, and I am feeling that restlessness that can come when developing these storylines.

Meantime, I cannot wait to spot my first Robin. 

Ipad

I'm typing this short post via an Ipad. It never ceases to amaze me the way technology gives us these newer devices that brings the world to us in a way that we are able to get our message out there in a matter of seconds.

The laptop may become obsolete. I see the pros and cons. Focus on the writing might be difficult only because a device like an Ipad offers so much at this point it seems unlimitless in what is can do.

I feel as if I'm only touching the very tip of the iceberg.

2011 I think will be a very interesting year indeed.