Your Two Cents Thursday: House of Payne

Atlanta was a test market for Tyler Perry's House of Payne, so I was prepared for some revisions of the show. Yet...

What's your two cents on it? Did you like it? Do you think you'll keep watching?

Leave your comments here.

Bully & the Beast Tonight

Reminder: Tyler Perry's House of Payne returns tonight, with him guest starring as Madea. On TBS at 9pm EST.

Cupcake Dreams

I'm in love with cupcakes. Have been since childhood. When Selah was born the cupcake fascination returned. This week I'm making cute Gidget cupcakes for our girlscout troop's pool party on Friday. I've read and made so many cupcakes that I decided to include this fascination into my novel. Let me tell you my second draft has new life . Chucky P told me in a letter he sent me two years ago when I participated in his writing workshop that if I'm not having fun with my writing, then don't write. Back then writing wasn't so much fun. Now it's a piece of cupcake :)

Some of my favorite new writers have a fresh vibe to their work. I think because they are having loads of fun and infusing their passions on the page. Mair Burney is a CSI fan, so her Amanda Bell Brown mysteries feel so good reading down. Mary Griffith's If The Shoe Fits (Steeple Hill Cafe) fits her personality so well, I had to call her midread to tell her. Cyndy Salzmann's Crime and Clutter (A Friday Afternoon Club Mystery) is chock full of home cleaning tips. I could tell that Cyndy watched Martha along with me everyday. There's just something about including your passion in your stories that make you stand out.

What keeps you up all night? Are you writing about it?


photo courtesy of Atlanta Cupcake Factory. Cute!

Summer Good Read: Sweetgrass

I spoke about Nicole Seitz wonderful book cover last month. I'm delighted to give you another dose of her. And I plan to have here this month for some FAQ. So let me reintroduce you to her debut novel,

The Spirit of Sweetgrass

Integrity/Thomas Nelson (March 6, 2007)

by

Nicole Seitz

ABOUT Nicole:

NICOLE SEITZ is a South Carolina Lowcountry native and freelance writer/illustrator published in South Carolina Magazine, Charleston Magazine, House Calls, The Island Packet and The Bluffton Packet. Her artwork inspired this book. Thomas Nelson publishers used her painting to design this beautiful book cover. Wow!

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Essie Mae Laveau Jenkins,a 78-year-old sweetgrass basket weaver, who has spent her life creating "love baskets," and praying over her customers. Yet her
her daughter Henrietta wants her to retire from her roadside stand and move into a senior living center instead. When Essie realizes she owe $10,000 in back taxes to, she loses her faith in life's worth. Her dead husband Jim is calling her home to live with him in Heaven. Will she go? Can she save her family from the other side?

Nicole can be reached through the Contact link on her Website

the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Counting Down Good Beach Reads-

Finally, I have my list of Good Beach Reads for Christian Fiction's Summer Reading Fest. The first book on this list is:
The Elevator
THREE WOMEN . . . ONE MAN . . . A GATHERING STORM
In the path of a devastating hurricane, three very different women find themselves trapped in the elevator of a high-rise office building. All three conceal shattering secrets unaware that their secrets center on the same man.

The betrayed wife, eager to confront her faithless husband, with rage in her heart and a gun in her pocket . . .

The determined mistress, finally ready to tell her lover she wants marriage and a family . . .

The fugitive cleaning woman, tormented by the darkest secret of all . . .

As the storm rages ever closer, these three must unite to fight for their lives in the greatest test of courage and faith any woman could ever face.

Now does that sound like a good read or what?

It is JUNE 1st, time for
the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day
of every month we will feature an author and his/her latest book's FIRST
chapter!

This month's feature is:

Rebeca
Seitz

and her book:

PRINTS
CHARMING

(Thomas Nelson Publishers, March 15, 2007)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rebeca Seitz is Founder and
President of Glass Road Public Relations. An author for several years, Rebeca cut her publicity teeth as the first dedicated publicist for the fiction division of Thomas Nelson Publishers. In 2005, Rebeca resigned from WestBow and opened the doors of GRPR, the only publicity firm of its kind in the country dedicated solely to representing novelists writing from a Christian worldview. Rebeca has worked with such esteemed authors as:Robin Jones Gunn, Ted Dekker, Frank Peretti, Walter Wangerin, Jr., DiAnn Mills, Brandilyn Collins, Colleen Coble, Melody Carlson, and numerous others. She has secured coverage for novelists in a variety of media outlets, including The Today Show,USA Today,Chicago Sun-Times, AtlantaJournal-Constitution, Publishers Weekly, Christian
Retailing, Aspiring Retail, Southern Living,Daystar Television, HarvestTV, WAY-FM, K-LOVE, and others. Rebeca makes her home in Kentucky with herhusband, Charles, and their son, Anderson.

AND NOW...THE FIRST
CHAPTER:

Chapter One

"Girl, where are you?" Lydia tightened her grip on the cell phone as she
wondered anew how any woman could be late to every single thing in her life.
She had thought Jane might’ve changed in the two years they’d been apart, but
Jane was evidently still living up to her old high school nickname of Late
Jane. The woman would get to her own funeral about an hour after they started
the music.

"I’m coming, I’m coming." Jane kept one hand on the steering wheel while
frantically sifting through the things in the passenger seat of her Blazer.
There was a brush somewhere, she just knew it, but finding anything at seven in
the morning was difficult at best. Why in the world she’d allowed herself to be
talked into attending a sale that started at seven a.m. was beyond her ability
to fathom. Finding her shoes had been a reason for cheering. A brush might just
be asking too much.

"Do I need to grab anything for you? This stuff is going fast." Lydia watched a
woman stretch for the last package of Times-style foam alphabet letters and
readjusted her own heavy shopping basket. In the five minutes she’d been in the
store, it had already begun biting into the skin on her arm.

"Nope, I don’t think so. I’ll be there in about two minutes," Jane said, still
searching for the brush while trying not to drop the cell phone from her
shoulder.

"Okay, but hurry. I’ll be over in the baby girl section. I need to find
something for Olivia’s first bath pages and get ribbon for Mac."

"Got it. Baby girl. Be there in a flash."

***

Jane snapped the phone together and slammed to a stop at the red light. Turning
her attention to her still searching hand, she finally grasped the elusive
hairbrush and quickly raked it through her long black hair. She had been
looking forward to this sale all week but, of course, Mr. Wonderful had chosen
to make his appearance a mere thirty minutes before she walked out the door.
They had fought over Wilson. Again. When would the man get it through his head
that Wilson was in her life forever?

She pushed thoughts of her soon-to-be ex-husband out of her mind as the green
arrow finally appeared. Squealing her tires, she tore into the parking lot of
The Savvy Scrapper. Tossing the hairbrush back into the passenger seat, she
threw the car into Park, grabbed her purse, and flung open the door.

"Ouch!"

Jane looked up just as her door collided with the midsection of one very tall
man.

"Ohmigosh. I am so, so sorry. I’m just in a rush. The sale is happening and I’m
late and—"

"It’s okay."
Mr. Tall held his hands up as if to ward off any other car doors she might be
hiding somewhere and she noticed the coffee cup in one hand and bagel bag in
the other. Bagels would be so heavenly right now.

"I’m fine, really." He set the bag down on the ground and brushed the dust off
of his olive-green sweater, then looked at her. "I know how women can be when
there’s a sale involved." He grinned as he knelt to pick the bag back up.

She tried hard to ignore his sexist statement and not remind him of how many
guys camp out at golf stores before a sale or sleep in the parking lot to get
tickets to a concert.

"Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, I have insurance and we can call somebody."
Jane forcefully tucked her hair behind her ears, willing herself to focus on
the problem at hand rather than the sale happening about ten yards away or the
way her stomach was now grumbling for coffee and a bagel.

"Really, go ahead. I’m fine."

"Okay, thanks." She turned and made her way around the back of the car.
"Really, I appreciate this. It’s just that this only happens once a year and my
friend is waiting . . ." She stopped on the far side of the car and looked at
him. He could sue if he was really hurt and her luck with men right now meant
he would definitely sue and she would surely lose. "You’re absolutely fine?"

"Go." He made a shooing motion with the bag. "Happy shopping."

Her mother always said to never look a gift horse in the mouth and this was one
time Jane would be obeying Elizabeth rather than giving in to her own desire to
argue. She practically sprinted to the front door of The Savvy Scrapper, yanked
it open, and burst inside.

***

"Jane!" Lydia was in the front corner of the store, surrounded by pink, yellow,
blue, lilac, and pale green. She waved a die-cut of a bathtub and bubbles above
her head. "I found the perfect stuff for Olivia and Oliver’s First Bath page."

"Great." Jane joined her, looking a bit frazzled but otherwise okay.

"Okay, here’s the deal." Lydia turned toward the back of the store and pointed.
"All the Times letters are gone, the vellum is quickly going, and the dog
section is getting riffled through as we speak. Where do you want to start?"

"Dog section, definitely." Jane stuffed her keys into her purse. "I took great
pictures of the ex this morning picking up Wilson’s poop while stepping in
another pile."

"You are so gross. What was he doing there?"

"Trying to get me to give him Wilson again." Jane scanned the rest of the
store, making a quick plan to get the most stuff. "He’ll get the picture one
day, just not today. He’s insane if he thinks I’m letting my puppy come live
with him while he’s spending all hours online with his e-mistress."

"Okay, that still sounds so weird." Lydia’s eyebrows rose as she gave Jane a
disbelieving look. "E-mistress? Really? That’s what we’re calling her?"

"E-mistress is the only thing I could think of that’s fit for public
consumption." Jane grimaced. "Anyway, forget her and him. I’m here to shop,
honey."

"Right. Go on over to the dog section. I’ll come over there when I’m finished
here. Can you grab me that new paper with the red stripes and dark-brown bones?
I’ve got some pictures of Otis with Olivia and Oliver from last week."

"Dale let that pug get near his precious twins? I thought you said the only
thing he cared more about than SportsCenter was those babies."

"Dale hasn’t seen the pictures yet. He never comes in my scrapbook studio. Says
it’s my workspace and that I spend too much money on all this junk as it is."
Lydia waved her hand to encompass the store. "He’s probably right."

"Oh, please. Men are never right," Jane said and turned toward the dog section.
"Dogs, on the other hand, are absolutely wonderful companions who never cheat
and can’t even turn a computer on."

Lydia laughed and turned back to the wall of baby-themed paper in front of her,
leaving Jane to take care of the dog paper. Stripes or flowers? She didn’t want
to make the scrapbook too babyish, but she also didn’t want it to look too
grownup. The papers were all on sale, so maybe she would just get both. Dale
would never know since he didn’t come into her studio anyway, and she could
give some of it to Mac for Kesa’s baby book. She took two sheets of the
pink-and-lime-green-striped paper, then two of the blue rosebud ones.

"Men are never right," she muttered under her breath. Maybe Jane had a good
point.

Prints CharmingRebeca SeitzCopyright © 2006 by Rebeca
Seitz.

Your Favorite Fonts

What's Your Favorite Font?

Slate asked a few writers what was their favorite font and why? Mine is Dark Courier. It's easy to see. I know I don't have to worry about my editors converting my text. They all use Apples and I don't...yet. What's yours?

Dee