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EC: Giovanni's Angel Sample Sundays

Sample Sunday 29

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Here is approximately 100 – 150 words from a randomly selected original piece for your enjoyment. These samples can include excerpts from my all my WIPs and my Eternal Curse Series, but only as works in progress (not the final products). These samples of published and unpublished works are protected under the U.S. Copyright agreement.

Eternal Curse: Giovanni’s Angel chapter 5 (wip)

“That’s ok,” Giovanni replied. “It’s been so long since I’ve been around someone new. I can’t image how strange that must be for you,” he said, leading her around the corner, back towards the main hall. There Giovanni pointed at a painted floral feature hanging on the wall along the side of the staircase. He slid his hand down the deep engraving of a petal and rolled his index finger over a small bump. There it was revealed, a secret door leading to a small platform and another staircase going down into darkness. Mira followed him down the staircase, after a slight hesitation, until they reached the bottom, where Giovanni switched on the lights. Right away, Mira blinked her eyes rapidly from the shock as they adjusted from total darkness to extreme brightness.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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AdventuresNBlogging

Adventures in Blogging: Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves

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I’ll be writing about my adventures, from my point of view, while offering my opinion on whatever the current matter happens to be. I hope you will enjoy it, if for no other reason, because you’ll get to see just how crazy my mind and reactions can be sometimes.
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Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves

When I visit a blog, there are certain things that turn me off, but I’m not too obstinate about my reaction to these. I realize that while some of these things drive me crazy, they may not brother someone else at all. In the end, good content always wins out, but…

If it’s troublesome for me to view the things I want to read, I don’t hurry back to read them.

Cool crazy fonts– These look good until you try to read something. Then it becomes a matter of interpretation. Is that an ‘o’ or is it an ‘a’; was that word supposed to be “bubble” or “babble”? Hopefully the context will help with this, but that’s only if you can read it well enough to understand the context.

Cool crazy wallpaper– For, pretty much, the same reason as above, complex background images drive me crazy. I am currently following one blog through Feedly, where 90% of its posts appear in the Feedly preview. Anything I can’t read there, I don’t. I made the mistake of visiting the actual blog to continue an article and I couldn’t read it. The background image interfered with the text to the point where it was hard to see the letters, let alone understand them.

Too much going on– This is something I constantly stress about on my own blog. I have lots to share, but I try really hard to keep it all well-organized and sectioned off so as not to clutter up my blog. There are many blogs that I stopped reading because there was just too much going on; it was too distracting. On the other hand though, one of my favorite blogs to read, is full of clutter and it drives me crazy every time I visit it, but the content is so good that I just bear it and move on.

Pop-ups– Advertisement is part of the blogosphere, so complaining about it is pointless. People do what they have to do to maintain their blogs and some of us are just stuck with the consequences of using particular services, but pop-ups are something else. Sure there is always pop-up blocker to help with that, but sometimes something gets missed, especially on pages your computer knows you visit a lot. It drives me crazy to be in the middle of an interesting article and then have someone walk across the screen offering me classes on how to write a book.

Last one, for today.

Hunting– Hunting isn’t a feature blogs have, but is the result of something they don’t. I really don’t like having to hunt down information on a blog that should be clearly displayed or searchable.

When I visit a blog and the owner of it leaves a message on the page somewhere, stating to the effect, “Contact me for more information,” but then I can’t find a way to contact them, it drives me crazy.

When I read a good article, which is clearly part of a series (such as this one), and would like to read more; it drives me crazy when all I have is an archive sorted by date to search through.

It really drives me crazy when I start to like a blog and want to know more about the blogger, but can’t find anything about them. I search their bio and find a one liner, “My name is Bob and I write this blog.”

So there you have it, for now anyway. These are some of my Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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IWSG

#IWSG January 2014: Public Speaking

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Created and hosted by the Ninja himself, Alex J. Cavanaugh, the Insecure Writers Support Group posts the 1st Wednesday of every month. Click the image to learn more or sign up.

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This month, while I do have something positive to share, I unfortunately also need to whine a bit. You see my new year is starting off a little rocky, but it’s really not that bad. It’s very cold for where I live right now, but it’s cold a lot of places. My main issue with the weather, at the moment, is that it’s making it hard for to me to fight off illness.

As usual, I’m busy with my day job, my blog, my efforts at writing, and my sometimes sorry attempts at reading for enjoyment. I haven’t read any of my favorite blogs in days and have five books sitting on my night stand taunting me. The fact that I’m event awake to write this article is amazing to me. I came home after work today and passed out. I think I woke to find food and remembered I to needed a post for tomorrow (today now 🙂 ). Well, that’s life. It can be bothersome sometimes, but it’s worth it for all the sublimely wonderful moments you live for.

So, now on to my positive news…

 

I’ve put together my 2nd public appearance as an author, but this one feels more official than the first. The first event was comprised of mostly friends and family who were ready to support me; this new event is completely different. I’ve put together an event to, hopefully, help spread the word about my book to my local community. It feels strange to know that there are people in the UK willing to buy my book, while my neighbors have no idea I’m an author (but then you don’t know my neighbors).

I guess the whole point of this is to show myself that I’ve made an effort to reach out to my community event if it doesn’t reach back. I’m not shy about speaking in front of people, but I am leery about putting myself “out there” exposing myself to criticism or perhaps worse. Only time will tell.

In any case, there’s no turning back now. I’m excited to see where this will all lead.

Be sure to stop by and visit this month’s co-hosts: Bob Milne, River Fairchild, Julie Dao, and Sarah Foster!

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Click here to visit other IWSG blogs and sites to receive and share inspiration and support (I’m #269).

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords