The POWER of my cover

In a few hours I will be breaking down my computer so I can send it out tomorrow along with the last of our things before Kat and I leave here forever on Thursday.

Kat installed my current book cover for my June release, Life's Journey, over on Twitter and I was just sitting here mesmerized by it, so decided my final posting before I go offline for, who knows how long, should be about my cover.

I am so in AWE of this cover done for me by Delilah K. Stephans.

Life's Journey is partially autobiographical. My main character is involved in a serious car accident. Eleven days after 9/11 I was involved in a serious car accident. Unlike my character, I did not have to face a leg amputation, but the rest my character confronts comes from my own story.

There are scientists who tell me finding one's self visiting with long dead relations is caused not by 

esoteric design, but by lack of oxygen to the brain. I could debate with them, but it doesn't matter which of us is right. I'm content believing as I do and have no need to try convincing anyone of the veracity of my claim.

I found a wealth of unconditional love and acceptance. If it's my brain responding to lack of oxygen, then I'll give up oxygen in a heartbeat anytime. I felt wrapped inside a sea of pure, compelling love. Does it hurt the naysayers for me to claim what I believe? 

You know I don't think so, so why are they so militant about attacking me and others like me simply because we believe we've experienced the touch of pure love?...

...who do we harm?

This cover reminds me of the wonders of the place I went to and the beauty I saw and felt there. If that's delusional, then I think I like delusional.

How about you? Is reality all it's cracked up to be?

Putting My Feet Up?

Y'all read my inner

Slug ranting, (she's delusional today, can you tell?) but what the little demon has not told you is I only have today, Sunday, tomorrow, Monday, the next day, Tuesday, and the following day, Wednesday to get everything done that needs to be done before the Airport Limo picks us up bright and early Thursday morning.

Admittedly, the place is looking...

spartan...when you compare it to how it looked just four months ago, but according to the check off list the complex gave me, I can pretty well kiss my

security deposit goodbye.

There's no way I can carry our big white leather couch out of here...and now that I went and had a bad coughing spell and cracked one rib, carting the bedding down to place beside the dumpster is another...

NO GO!

I have done an okay job with the plastic shelves we bought into over the years...and of course the minute I place them beside the dumpster and turn away to get the next set, someone comes along and carries the first set off. Don't know who...it's not dark so I don't think it's the shelf-snatcher's

elves, but off they go.

The same happened with things like our stereos...those I think they were hovering around waiting for because I turned back when I got to my apartment door to look at the dumpster and they were already gone! We're talking

THREE minutes? Maybe!

According to the checklist,

I'm supposed to leave the apartment in the same condition we received it in. On July 15th, we would have celebrated our 22nd year here. There's been wear and tear. They offered us, I think three years ago, to replace the really worn and bedraggled wall-to-wall carpeting, but the chemicals used in today's synthetic carpeting triggers Kat's seizure...(we learned this when our doctor's office installed new carpet)...so of course we declined.

The refrigerator and

stove are the originals...and we don't really want to talk about them. If we'd stayed we would have been entitled to both of them being replaced. (I've never been able to use the right rear burner...but that's another story.)

So coming around now to

...My Slug wants me to kick back and get all jiggy-oozie with her, but I don't have any wayward elves willing to come in while we sleep or just laze and finish up what still needs to be done...Besides, what would I do with myself if I did?

Sluggery Marches to My Moving Beat

Lin's

slug lifts its head, looking this way and that. Moving, editing, reading, writing, shopping, mailing...what IS she thinking? She's going to give slugs a bad name if she doesn't stop, put her feet up and wallow in...well...sluggery.

"I am Lin's TRUE core...unfortunately I have a hard forcing our true purpose in life upon her. If she's not doing ten things at once, she starts to feel guilty.

I have tried, over the years to remind her she is entitled to...well...

sluggery. You'd think after having been technically...you know...

DEAD several times throughout her life...(dammit she drowned when she was four, for lassitude's sake...only to be resuscitated by the woman who literally swam into her bobbing body)...she'd take a break from acting like she's an

octopus with more arms than sense.

Packing for this move would be enough for most people to crash, weary and breathless,

to the closest chair, bed, or floor mat...but not my wayward Reluctant Slug. Nope, she packs, runs around taking things to the dumpster, cooking, editing her first full length novel

Echoes From The Past, preparing for the June release of her

Life's Journey, a sort of autobiographical tale, promoting her daughter's June release, Kat Holmes' debut of her Hekate's Web Vampire series

Hidden about some really powerful vampires caught in the Web of the

Goddess Hekate...and well I guess I should say...Oh My Goddess...Hekate...that woman is wicked in her plots and plans...She REALLY gives sluggery a bad name...Think that's where Lin learned it? Nah, she's been this way since long before Kat wrote Hidden.

Add to this monumentally NON-slug-like behavior, she's ALSO posting so many Ladybug Lin reviews of the books she crams INTO all of this I'M exhausted watching her!

For me, Lin's inner slug,

it's frustrating getting her to set a spell and let the world drift by a bit. It is like beating my slime against a

rain filled gully, it just washes away...so I'm looking for

suggestions...short of 

her to the white leather recliner that doesn't get anywhere NEAR the use it should...

How do I get Lin to embrace sluggery when all she chants is this?..."OMG there's only four more packing days before the move and I still have so much to do!"

Your suggestions and comments will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Kindly,

Lin's Slug.

WHEN THE ONE HUNDRED ROMANCES PROJECTS SPEAKS WE ALL LISTEN

Authors, by the very dynamics of being authors, are for the most part,

solitary creatures, so when the words we weave in the depths of our busy imaginations

make waves in the real world, we're shocked, speechless, and toddling around on the top of the world.

I only JUST learned The One Hundred Romances Project did an actual review of IN FROM THE COLD one my Muse It Up Releases...

That alone would have had me

circumnavigating the surface of our world, but to also be told I MADE the top 100 favorites for the entire 2011 year...


But there's more...I am only one of the authors

Muse It Up Publishing releases each year. Our publications took  a staggering ELEVEN of the top placements...with one of our authors claiming THREE and another claiming TWO.

I am beyond

proud to be a part of this gifted group...so it is an honor to share our winners here and with all of you.

Taking position # 8 is our soother of all nerves through her musical offerings to us while bestowing upon the the reading world Greece at it's most powerful

VIVIANE BRENTANOS, with her book

WRITTEN IN STONE, cover by Muse's Queen Cover Art Goddess, Delilah K. Stephans. Adult Content: What is a girl to do when dumped five days before her planned ‘wedding of the century?’ Go on her honeymoon, of course. 
 

But Viviane is far from done. Taking position #25  is

COLD, COLD, HEART, cover also by Queen Delilah K. Stephans. ADULT CONTENT:Who is Daniel Hayes? Why does a man who has everything - fame, fortune and the world at his feet feel so empty? What is his interest in Rachel Warner, a girl from a quiet Home Counties English town? 


Positon #34 is claimed by Jolie Pethel and her book

PAINTED JEZEBEL, cover by The Queen's right hand Cover Art Goddess Suzannah Safi.
Publicist Finn Mackenzie has always been lucky, until an ill-fated affair with a vindictive writer leaves him one chance for redemption: a spectacular public appearance by the elusive best-selling romance author, Jezebel Jinx.

Following closely at her footsteps is our illustrious champion

Christine London and the first of her THREE winners,

WHEN WE WERE AMAZING, cover by Queen Delilah
When tragedy nearly destroys Brian's family wine business, can this reluctant young heir forfeit his dreams and online love to save it? 


Placing her roots down in the 63rd position is

Karen Coté, (have you heard of our Coté Comet?...Well no surprise that here she is," with her debut Muse release

EROTIC DECEPTION, cover created by Suzannah Safi
ADULT CONTENT: Told she’d never have children…abracadabra, she’s pregnant. Would the man she loved disappear when he found out? 

The Queen takes position 72 for the book she WROTE, created the cover for, and sailed into the top spots all over the publishing world, Delilah K. Stephans and her

GHOSTLY PASSIONS.
ADULT CONTENT: Add one sexy ghost and a paranormal researcher together and sparks fly.

Back for her second trip into the top one hundred is our Christine London with

HOG WILD, cover by Her Majesty the Queen
ADULT CONTENT: Will the hard driving, salty tongued gorgeous mechanic Kyle Matthews relies upon to fix his Harley be able to mend his heart, as well? 

And now, sneaking in to the 75th spot, is me, L.J. Holmes, with my erotic tome

IN FROM THE COLD, cover by our Queen, Delilah K. Stephans, and co-starring, Timp the lovable imp of a cat.
ADULT CONTENT:Mari loves men who are intimately communicating with the Grim Reaper, like her only mountain neighbor, ninety-plus year old Hector. Twelve years and now she's enjoying her solitude, till Hector ups and dies.

Dragons, dragons claim the hot 77th placement spot with

Antonia Tiranth's

dragon epoch,

KELLAN'S DRAGON, cover by...yep The Queen.
No parents, No history, and Linked to a Dragon that hates me - Am I having fun yet?

Frank Scully is our master






of mystery and

RESURECTION GARDEN (winner of the 2010 P&E Readers Poll Awards) taking position 86 is no surprise to those of us following his masterful way of holding us in the grip of his prose while forcing us to wrongly unravel the mysteries he plots before us. Cover for this book...well can you guess who? Right again...the Queen.
Jake Turner, a man who travels alone with a reputation he would like to leave behind, is a target for ruthless killers who want to stop him from solving a murder. And that’s the least of his problems. 


And finally claiming her THIRD top 100 spot at #88 is Christine London again with the very powerful 2012 EPIC Ariana Award Finalist...

SHADOWS STEAL THE LIGHT, and yeah, her cover is by the Queen too.
It’s love at first sight for rock star Colin Dunlow when he runs into sultry jazz singer, Jenna Lindstrom, with a few complications. The woman of his dreams hates rockers and there’s someone who wants him dead.

So there you have it, and all of our books are available at the Muse It Up Bookstore as well as Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and wherever the best in print and e-books are available.

Before I happily send this out to the world with the pride of a Muse Author in such powerful company, I must also take note of Muse Author's that won placements for their NON-Muse releases at well.

Viviane Brentanos'

FRAGILE DREAMS took 6th Place.

At #87 by

Rochelle Weber,

ROCK BOUND


To the reviewers over at THE ONE HUNDRED ROMANCES PROJECT thank you for honoring our work with your recognition.

We have a motto here at Muse that we work very hard to adhere to...

BUILDING THE TEAM...TO ACHIEVE THE DREAM

The One Hundred Romances Project
http://onehundredromances.blogspot.com/
has helped us take eleven giant steps towards that dream.