Free!

It’s here!  The short story my husband has been working on the past few weeks, Barrel of Fun, is now published and free for a few short days on Amazon.  Grab your copy while you can, and tell your friends! 



Barrel of Fun [Kindle Edition]

 

Dane Tyler (Author)

Book Description

Stanley Danslow is a two-bit private eye. He’s not Phillip Marlowe or Sam Spade, though. Danslow’s the guy you go to when you think your spouse is cheating on you, or the insurance company thinks Joe Blow’s running a worker’s comp scam.

So when the beautiful Mrs. Tellinghousen comes in and asks Danslow to check out her husband, who she thinks just might be a killer, he’s a little out of his depth.

He doesn’t find out just how much he’s out of his depth until he’s in way over his head.

Clipped from Barrel of Fun: Dane Tyler: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

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Free Today Only!

It’s a wonderful way to spend a Wednesday!  Right in the middle of the week, get a free book, spend a couple hours reading and relaxing … well, if you can call hiking around a scary lake relaxing.  Ah, you know what I mean!  It’s a fun story, and a creepy story, and there’s even a little sub-story going on too.  Grab your copy now!  Just click on the pic below, or the link at the bottom.  Happy reading!

Here’s the blurb:

Tam is a curious soul. When she overhears some small town teens talk about a monster in a nearby lake, it’s more than she can resist. Then she finds out the lake has been closed for years. The town’s drying up because of it, and plenty of people have gone missing on or near that lake. What’s happening, and why? Is the monster legend real?
When Tam tries to unearth the truth, the lake ranger steps in to put a stop to her digging. But Tam’s never been one to just give up and go home. She’ll find out what’s happening at Siren Lake, or die trying.

Siren Lake: by J. Dane Tyler

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What’s your speed?

I took a little speed reading quiz.  My speed is so slow now!  In high school I was timed at 600 wpm, now I’m down to 437.  *sigh*  At least I answered all the questions correctly! 

How about you?  Fast reader?  Slow reader?  They say slower readers usually have better comprehension of what they’ve read. 

The link to take the test is also at the bottom, in case the embed didn’t take. 

 
Source: Staples eReader Department

link: Staples eReader interactive infographic.| Staples.com®

Writing

I don’t know how he does it.  I mean, I do, I see him do it all the time, but watching my husband write a story is a pretty cool thing.  Now that his computer is back up and running, he’s been trying to add to his latest story every day.  He just slaps words up like he’s made of them and I’ll cry or laugh or get mad – at the characters. 

Me, I used to want to be a writer.  I long ago realized that my stories pretty much went: boy meets girl, they live happily ever after, amen.  I, uh, don’t like drama, apparently so much so that I can’t even make it up for fiction.  We won’t even go into how much I despise drama in my real life!

Anyway, tonight he sits down and starts typing away and a few minutes later states, “Another thousand!  Got it!”  Just like that *snap*. 

He’s hoping to have it ready for Kindle by the end of the year, and at the rate he’s going, barring anymore computer hiccups, he should nail that no problem.  I’ll keep you posted, of course.   

Thanks to Hira Animfefte for the picture!

Weekending

It was a pretty special weekend for us here in the Darc house.  A certain pretty princess, who came into the world on a Sunday morning, turned 6 yesterday.  She has been so excited for so long!  A few weeks ago she saw me browsing recipes and one caught her eye.  She asked me, with sugar coated sweetness, if I would make it for her birthday.  This is the result:

I was so happy!  It’s been a long time since I’ve done a layer cake – usually I stick to sheet cakes for the convenience factor – so I was a tad nervous about how it would turn out.  For the recipe and more pictures, check out my Nessipes blog, or the At Grandma’s Table blog.  Best part, the princess was thrilled. 

We decided to hit Borders this weekend before they disappeared.  Honestly, their sale prices were way higher than Walmart’s full prices.  A 40% off DVD cost $25?  And they call that a sale?  :roll:  Now I know why they’re going out of business!  We dropped a dime on a few things – I found a book on the history of serial killers, booyah! – but for the most part were really disappointed in what we found.  Bye Borders.  It was real, it was fun, but it wasn’t real fun.

Darc did more keyboard shopping so I picked one up for myself too, one of those ergonomic dealies.  I swear, I’m trying really hard to get used to this thing.  I’m going to try to stick it out for a few days though.  I thought my typos were bad before!  Wow.

All in all it was a pretty great weekend.  How was yours?

©DarcsFalcon All rights reserved

 

Multiples

I’m a bit of a geek.  Not much, but a little.  My husband had to set up some things on his computer and I volunteered for the task.  Figured out why his Firefox install wouldn’t open the new tab to the page he wanted it to, too.  Now it works like he wants, his computer is set up like he wants, and my guy is a happy computer camper.  In all the years I’ve known him, I don’t think he’s been as pleased with his computer set-up as he is now.

For that matter, that goes for me too. 

My little tablet came in a few days early – joy jumps galore!  I got the Kindle App on there right away and now I don’t have to read on my little 2” phone screen, and I don’t need my reading light.  Now I have a big (by comparison!) 7” tablet screen.  I think I downloaded close to 30 books that night – all free, so the tablet has already paid for itself, and I’ve only gone through the first couple hundred items of Google’s free section.  There are over 15,000 items in there!  It will take me months to go through it too, so I won’t suffer from any reading shortage for probably years.  Hallelujah!  I felt like a junkie getting multiple fixes all at once.  Oooh, that one looks good!  Click!  Hey, I’ve always wanted to read that one!  Click!  And like magic they show up on my tablet, ready for me to dig in.  The thing I love about my tablet is that it does everything my smartphone does, except the phone part, only bigger.  So I can web surf, download apps, take pictures, and have a kick-ass eReader too.  All for less than the cost of a Kindle.  Technology is so awesome.    And I am so grateful.  A mere 6 mos ago the thought of actually owning anything like this seemed like some kind of impossible dream.  God is good. 

My house is a disaster though!  I spent so much time setting up computers and running around and yes, being lazy too, that I didn’t get a wisp of housework done.  It shows!  It’s the kind of day to throw a roast in the oven so I don’t have to worry about dinner while I get my butt in gear and get some stuff done.  Monday has its advantages!  Often it’s nice to get back in the groove, back in the routine of things.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment in a way, and a sense of accomplishment is a wonderful thing. 

So how was your weekend?

Get your copy of my husband’s books!

Buy J Dane Tyler’s Fiction now!

Weekending

We decided to give the kids a couple of weeks off of school in honor of Easter.  Needless to say, they were thrilled.    So for the next 2 weeks they will have absolutely nothing to do despite all the toys and video games they have! 

Mommy, on the other hand, is actually not really getting that break.  I opted to help my beloved with the latest Slurp he’s got going on.  I’ll be spending my days researching and doing a bit of editing.  Slurp, for those who don’t know, is what we call the non-fiction books my husband writes.  He referred to the 1st project he had as his “Super Secret Real Life Project” or “SSRLP” and people noted that looked a lot like “slurp.”  Now you know.    So this will be his 3rd book.  Because of his work schedule, I think I’ll be much more involved with this one as well. 

Time to start the water to boil for the eggs this week too.  We wanted to find an Easter tree to decorate, much like the Christmas tree tradition, but we couldn’t really find an indoor tree to suit our needs right now.  Hopefully next year we’ll be able to do that.  We want to set up a tree and decorate it with Easter ornaments and have presents for the kids under it.  I thought a palm tree would be appropriate, but can you imagine how hard it would be to put ornaments on something like that?  And who has a little 3’ or 4’ decorative fake palm tree?  So, more searching I suppose. 

We went to check out Kindles this weekend.  We found out Target sold them OTC so we thought how cool it was to check them out, do the touchy-feely thing, see it up close and personal.  We both walked away feeling … meh.  Perhaps because Target is only selling the Kindle2 right now, and not the new Kindle3, I dunno.  But we both were hoping to be more impressed for the kind of money Amazon is asking for it.  Shouldn’t we have been wowed?  Or am I expecting too much for $150?  My phone was way less than that and I was a lot more wowed.  Apparently more research is required. I was so hoping to be wowed.  But maybe it’s me.  Do you have a Kindle?  What are your thoughts? 

My weekend was pretty nice, I hope yours was too!

And a blessed Shabbat Shalom to you too, in honor of Passover tonight.

 

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