If we were having coffee…
I had a wonderful time with my daughter during our birthday weekend. The staff at the hotel went the extra mile by leaving a birthday cake in our room. They also offered us an upgrade, and both were pretty sweet!
Yesterday, I took part in a twitter campaign, which shows how far I’ve come – I still need to improve my social networking habits. Kathryn Craft organised the event, encouraging bloggers to tweet an empowering, positive message, using the hashtag #choosethisday. I have a number of favourite quotes, and I found a new one yesterday I wanted to share with you. I had an interesting conversation about it with my youngest daughter. She is always curious about what I’m doing and, as we were talking about our day, this came up.
Be the type of person that, when your feet touch the floor in the morning, the devil says, “Aww shit…they’re up.” Dwayne Johnson.
To sum up our conversation we talked about the different ways to interpret Dwayne’s words. My daughter pointed out this could either reflect a person’s innate goodness or the fear and intimidation they evoke in others. I’m sure the words are purely inspirational – to signify the light in all of us. But it made for a fun discussion!
The A to Z Challenge finished on Thursday, and I had so much fun I’ll definitely be taking part next year. It forced me to reflect on my blog, and that’s a good thing because it allows me to develop. I realised that, as I use Writing Room 101 for most writing related content; prompts, author spotlights, interviews, etc. and my author site to promote my work, that there is a distinct lack of focus on my blog. When I want to get my geek on, I do that by contributing at Sourcerer.
While we’re on the subject. I will also be contributing over at Comparative Geeks this month, and Part Time Monster. I’m really looking forward to it. Over at Silver Threading I will be contributing a piece of flash fiction in the form of a guest post. I was chatting with a group of friends on Facebook about writing prompts. One suggestion – ‘The alligator was unexpected’ stayed with me, so I might just do something with that! Maybe the team at Morgan and Fairchild can come out to play 🙂
But anyway, back to the point. This blog will be going through a period of review. I want to create a few features that give me a new sense of direction. The things is – if I use my other two sites for my main passion, i.e. writing, what does that leave me with? It’s a question I will be considering over the next few weeks.
My daughter had her prom yesterday, and she had a magical time. I always considered the prom to be an American thing, but it seems the UK are getting on board too. The school recently introduced year books, which seems to be a popular choice.
If you’re interested in my A to Z posts – a theme based around fantasy creatures, you will find the collection here. Most of you know that I review Arrow over at Sourcerer. There are only two episodes left, so things are really heating up. You can catch my latest review here. I will be contributing at Sourcerer in other ways, and I’ll update you on that when I can.
So that’s it from me. As soon as I’ve checked in with everyone at Diana’s place, I’m going to be concentrating on my upcoming release; a shared project with my friend, Gina Briganti. I’ve talked about my story, The Contract, before, and as there are only a few weeks to go, I need to take care of those last minute details. I will be posting a cover reveal and an excerpt at my author site and will share a link with you next week over coffee.
Have a great weekend. Thanks so much for stopping by.
Until next time.
Mel
Melissa Barker-Simpson 
I’m really glad you and your daughter had a great time, and I can’t wait to see the cover reveal! 🙂
Thanks, Callum 🙂 We did have a wonderful time. It lasted until we got home to a flooded house – but that’s a whole other story and I’d need lots more coffee! Have a great weekend 😀
Oh no! I’ve been there before so I can sympathise. I hope it wasn’t too bad and you’ve got things sorted!
Yes, thanks – all sorted now. I can even laugh about it!
Glad to hear it! 🙂
Congrats on all the good news and fun. Interesting quote and I think it’s supposed to be vague. Not that Dwayne probably meant that way, but it can certainly be taken differently depending on who says it. Enjoy your weekend.
Yeah, I didn’t explain myself very well – my fault. I should have talked about what Grace said because she’s a funny kid. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a great weekend 😀
Enjoy your weekend too. 🙂
Sounds like you had a great time at the hotel!
I definitely understand that a blogging challenge makes you review your blog. My own A to Z was off-topic for my blog, and it constantly made me question how I can go about incorporating more travel posts and photography going forward. And I get the “Wishing you were a plotter” part. I cursed myself several ties per day for not having scheduled ahead or at least sorted and edited photos.
Thank you for the coffee, hun!
You’re most welcome, thanks for stopping by 🙂 I did quite a lot of cursing myself, and because I was able to schedule six or seven of my posts, I got to see how much easier it made things! I might learn something yet! Have a great weekend 🙂
Congrats on surviving Blogging A to Z! Nice to see another survivor still blogging so soon after the end 😀 I will be on the lookout for your upcoming guest posts. Have a wonderful weekend. Oh, since you shared a quote, I will share one I found:
““One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.”
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
You can’t beat a good Oscar Wilde quote! Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend too 🙂
I SEE YOUR HOUSE FLOODED. So did mine. On the first, as a matter of fact. I was thinking, “This HAS to be a joke.” It wasn’t. Our house may be dry now, but it still hasn’t fully recovered if the state of the furniture is anything to go on hahah.
Ha! I can sympathise, I’m still dealing with the aftermath (part of the ceiling is damaged). My furniture seems to be okay but, come to think of it, there might be a reason for that squelching noise 😉
Congratulations on completing the A-Z Challenge, sorry to hear about your house flood that is never pleasant. Glad you had a lovely time away with your daughter, looks wonderful.
Thanks so much, Rosie 🙂 It was a lovely mother/daughter treat! Have a great weekend.
The weekend with your daughter sounds like a dream! I’m so glad it went well. I missed a lot of your A to Z posts but I’ll be going back through to read up on the ones I missed. I’m trying to read as many as I can.
Thanks so much, Corina 🙂 I missed a lot too and I have some catching up to do – I’m looking forward to it!
Seems like you and your daughter had a big week. Such a fun time for you two. It’s weird though because you look like your daughter’s sister. 😀
A trick of the light I’m sure! 😉 Thanks for stopping by. We did have a really good time – she already wants to go back!
I think any time you have a number of blogs (all going at once) having a clear focus really helps. Both the reader and you benefit from it. But, honestly, this one is my favorite. I hope you don’t change it too much. : )
A to Z kicked my fanny. I’m going to need a few weeks just to recover, so the fact that you jumped into several guest blogging spots right away, and managed a coffee share post this weekend makes me super jealous of your energy.
Keep up the great work! Thanks for coffee and fingers crossed for you to enjoy a killer book launch!
Thanks, Robin. In all honesty, it kicked my fanny too (just love that expression!) Because I won’t be posting on a daily basis, and will be developing the site, I felt able to cope with the contributions. But if I’m honest, my energy levels are lagging and though I loved the whole A to Z experience, I feel a little lost in terms of direction (hence the contributions, which I enjoy). I appreciate your feedback on the blog. I’m trying to let it settle for a few days, and not be impulsive, because at this point I’m tempted to reduce the number of sites. Anyway, I’m rambling. I’d better save it for my reflections post! Again, thanks for the support 🙂
I like that quote. It is very inspiring.
You survived the challenge too and I loved your theme. =)
Thanks, Patricia. I really appreciate that, and all your support during April 😀
It’s great that you and your daughter had a great time. And happy belated birthday to the both of you. It sounds like you’re going to be pretty busy over the next few weeks. Good luck with finding focus for you blog and congrats on finishing the A to Z Challenge and your upcoming guest posts.
Thanks so much 🙂 I’ve yet to write the reflection post – I’d better get on that! Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve had a few blogs I had to re-evaluate because I seemed to loose my way with them. Blogs take a lot of attention to keep them on track. I’ll be interested in what you end up doing.
Thanks, Jacqui 🙂
Happy birthday to both of you! Glad you had a lovely birthday weekend and she looked lovely for her prom. I’m looking forward to seeing your book reveal and your future posts. Good luck with it all. xx
Thanks so much, Eloise. She had a lovely time at the prom, and hasn’t stopped babbling about it since! I don’t mind a bit! x
So glad they have encouraged it here in the UK as it’s such fun! My niece is busy choosing her dress for hers in July.
ooh, how exciting. I loved that part!
That is an interesting quote to debate. I remember Prom… It is a fun time as long as it doesn’t get over-done… and from some things I’ve heard, that seems to be trend. That’s too bad 😦
Proms are tame in the UK! The school hired out a room in a hotel, which included a sit down meal (how very British) and a dance after. She had fun, and wasn’t too stressed about the whole thing, which is good. I’ve seen the movies about prom disasters though…and then there are the prom horrors!