Deborah Woehr

I told myself that I would never sign up for a MySpace account. As you may know from reading my prior posts, I find them clunky and cluttered. So, why did I sign up for a MySpace account?

Because my oldest son signed up for one when school started. I didn’t find out about this until my brother and his wife came down for a visit a couple of months ago. They were raving about their MySpace pages and trying to talk me into signing up when my son mentioned that he had one. Of course, they had to see it. So did I. After I discussed safety issues with him again, I signed up for an account so I could keep an eye on him.

Since then, my attitude about MySpace and Ning has changed a slight bit. I’ve gotten in touch with an old writer friend that I hadn’t talked to in about five years. I contacted Douglas Clegg (one of my favorite authors) about a sequel to his book, Mordred, Bastard Son. At this point, I’m still exploring and searching for people who like to write or read ghost stories.

Dorothy suggested that I sign up at a few social networking sites to help promote Prosperity. I’ve gotten a very nice reception at Book Place since I signed up last Wednesday. If you’re looking to promote your book online, start with this site first.

Another site Dorothy recommended was Book Marketing Network, which was created by John Kremer. I don’t have anything to report right now because I’ve barely touched this site since I signed up.

Right now, I don’t expect to make any book sales from these sites because I’m unknown. Once I establish a presence on those sites, I may see a few sales. I’ll post a Part II article in June and end with a Part III article in December, detailing my progress.

Stay tuned.

When I logged on to my email yesterday morning, I wasn’t prepared for the nasty surprises that waited for me. Someone from Indonesia had managed to get my PayPal password so they could buy a couple of cell phones on Ebay. They committed this crime a mere fifteen minutes before I woke up, robbing me of $357. So far, thanks to PayPal, I was able to get a refund on one of these illegal purchases. I’m still waiting for the resolution of the other.

While this is very upsetting, I consider myself lucky (although I’m still very nervous). To give you a little more of my background, I used to work in the records department of my local police department. Part of my job was to enter in the police reports as they came in. This one poor guy was dealing with an identity thief, who racked up close to $1M in credit card debt, buying all kinds of electronic equipment. I don’t know if this case was ever resolved, but it shocked me enough to where I’ll always remember it.

Technology has made it extremely easy for criminals to rob people blind and get away with it. I’m not just talking about the Internet either. I recently read a news article about how employees of grocery stores rig the ATM machines so they can lift the PIN number of your card as you pay for your groceries. There have been stories where someone breaks into a doctor’s office to steal the computers, specifically to get the social security numbers of the doctor’s patients.

I was thinking about all of these stories yesterday while I was at work, as well as the part in Revelations where it is predicted that people will be forced to have a microchip implanted in them that holds all of their financial and medical information. Twelve years ago, I sloughed this prediction off as paranoia. Today, I think this prediction has an excellent chance of becoming a reality.

Be careful.

Courtesy of my Aunt Mel

The very first ever Blonde GUY joke….. And well worth the wait !!!! An Irishman, a Mexican and a Blonde Guy were doing construction work on scaffolding on the 20th floor of a building. They were eating lunch and the Irishman said, “Corned beef and cabbage! If I get corned beef and cabbage one more time for lunch, I’m going to jump off this building.” The Mexican opened his lunch box and exclaimed, ”

Burritos again! If I get burritos! one more time I’m going to jump off, too.” The blond e opened his lunch and said, ” Bologna again! If I get a bologna sandwich one more time, I’m jumping too.” The next day, the Irishman opened his lunch box, saw corned beef and cabbage, and jumped to his death. The Mexican opened his lunch, saw a burrito, and jumped, too. The blonde guy opened his lunch, saw the bologna and jumped to his death as well. At the funeral, the Irishman’s wife was weeping. She said, “If I’d known how really tired he was of corned beef and cabbage, I never would have given it to him again!” The Mexican’s wife also wept and said, “I could have given him tacos or enchiladas! I didn’t realize he hated burritos so much.” (Oh this is GOOD!!)? Everyone turned and stared at the blonde’s wife. The blonde’s wife said, “Don’t look at me. He makes his own lunch”

These past couple of weeks have kept me busy writing interviews and articles for my upcoming blog tour next month. I can’t believe that February is around the corner already! Beginning February 1st, expect to find short posts about each tour stop. The tour will wrap up with a free book giveaway. Details are available on my blog tour page.

I discovered Mahjong some time after I had bought my first Mac and instantly fell in love with the game. However, when I bought my G4, my copy of Mahjong Dynasty wouldn’t work without freezing. Because of that and life, I haven’t played this game for the better part of seven years. That was, until I saw this game on Amazon and decided to try it out. It works great with my Intel and my son’s PC.

This weekend, I needed a mental health break. I’ve been very busy preparing for the book tour, and last week two of my colleagues brought the normally cheerful atmosphere down with their drama. For the majority of Saturday, I sat in front of my computer and played every game in the program while scenes for my next writing project flowed through my mind. I kept reminding myself that I needed to write articles for the blog tour. I needed to do laundry. I needed to nag my oldest to study for his finals, which began today. But I didn’t care about any of that for a while.

I just kept playing until I got tired of the game. Then I pumped out three or four articles Saturday night and one on Sunday morning. The preparation for this tour is almost finished. I’ve started writing an in-depth character back story for my next project. While I have a concept for this story, I don’t have anything remotely cohesive yet.

Tonight, I came home and wrote a couple more articles. Pizza is scheduled to arrive on my doorstep within the hour. I’m ignoring the Mahjong icon that is sitting on my desktop. Tonight is for reading or writing.

After reading Erica Jong’s Tears & Fears, I walked up to my colleagues and asked them how they felt about all the hoopla over Hillary Clinton’s tears. One of them scrunched her face at me and proclaimed that she didn’t like the Clinton’s. Another one merely shrugged her shoulders. I left the office, thinking about how put off the general public was with HRC’s emotions, whether they were real or not, and wondering how much of a chance she really has of winning the 2008 Presidential Election.

At this point in the political game, I think that Obama has a much greater chance of becoming president and not because of his ethic background. The sex barrier will play a huge role on who gets elected. I’ve quoted an excerpt from an excellent article by Gloria Steinem, who says:

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

While I agree with much of what Steinem said in this paragraph, I don’t share her opinion of HRC. So what if she has eight years of training? So what if she can organize committees? I consider this woman to be one of the most corrupt, immoral and dangerous people in the country. I’m amazed at how quickly people have forgotten about the crimes she and her husband committed while they were in office. Then again, I was amazed by my friends’ and neighbors’ cavalier attitudes about the scandals, which seemed to air on a weekly basis. No, I am not voting for Clinton, even if I was a Democrat.

Would I vote for any other woman if they were running for office? I’m not sure, to be quite honest. I picture an African American male sitting in the oval office before I see a woman. I’m sure there are women out there who are perfectly qualified to run for president, but I’m thinking that my reservation comes from the change factor. I’m so used to seeing middle-aged white men sitting behind that desk, it’s hard to imagine anyone else.

The following is a book excerpt that I will be submitting to various sites for my upcoming blog tour next month. So far, I’m slated for one interview, possibly my first podcast, and a character interview for a new character blog. The last has me scratching my head a bit, as to what angle I’m going to use to interview Amanda. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this excerpt.

Chapter One

“You’re dead.”

“I know. You put me here.”

Amanda Thorne gazed at her dead husband, who stood five feet in front of her, his head and face perfectly intact when they shouldn’t have been. She had gone to the funeral home to view his body. He had no business standing here, in front of his grave, accusing her of killing him.

“You’re not going to get away with this!” Joel’s eyes darkened as the familiar rage grew inside of him. “You should be here, not me.”

“I didn’t do this,” Amanda said in a tight whisper. “You did this to yourself!”

He punched her square in the chest, sending her sprawling across the wet grass. “You sent him after me, you lying, sneaking, conniving bitch.”

Joel stood over her. “I’m going to get you,” he promised her.

“Ma’am?”

Amanda stared at the overcast sky, Joel and his punch an instant memory. She pulled herself up, aware of her bare feet and her silk pajamas. A middle–aged police officer stood on the road that separated the section where Joel’s grave lay from another section of the cemetery.

“What are you doing here?” he said, as he appraised her with bloodshot eyes. He had caught her in here at least an hour before the cemetery opened to the public.

“I don’t know,” she said hazily. The last thing she remembered was going to bed, but her house was four miles away. “I don’t know how I got here.”

“You look familiar to me.”

Amanda shrugged her shoulders. She looked past him, and then to her left, towards the cemetery’s entrance.

“What’s your name?”

“Amanda Thorne.”

The officer turned to his side so he could see what she was looking at, and to keep an eye on her. “What are you looking for?”

“My car. I don’t see it.” She hugged herself against a sudden cold gust of wind. Did I walk all the way out here?
“Where do you live?”

“The Garden Apartments. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah. How did you get here, if you didn’t drive?” The officer was intrigued.

Amanda cleared her throat. “I think I walked. I woke up in here.”

“Ho! No, shit? That’s a pretty long way to sleepwalk, Mrs. Thorne.” He stared at her as though he were still trying to place her.

She didn’t recognize him, although she had had many interviews with the San Jose Police detectives, both before and after Joel had died. He was just another uniform, as far as she was concerned. “Will you take me to Valley Med? I think I’m having a reaction to my prescription.”

“I don’t think that’s the cause of this.” The cop walked past her and up to Joel’s grave.

Amanda let her gaze wander around the cemetery. Monterey Highway was visible from her vantage point, allowing her to watch the beginning of the morning commute.

“Amanda?”

“What?” She looked over her shoulder at the cop.

“Let’s go.”

“Are you taking me to the hospital or to jail?”

“I’m taking you home.”

Amanda walked with him to the entrance. The chapel sat on the left side of the gate. She couldn’t figure out if it was an English or Dutch style building. The walls were painted an ugly cream color, mottled with dark brown stones.

It had stained–glass windows and a stone chimney. The roof matched the stone insets, but it didn’t look like any roof she had seen in San Jose. It looked like someone had draped a wet, scaly skin over the top of the building, and left it there to dry. The eaves curled inward, giving the impression that she was looking at a fat toadstool.

She knew what it was, a chapel and a mortuary. Joel’s casket had sat inside that chapel. His father and sister were the only family who had attended the funeral. The rest of his family stood by his mother’s “deathbed,” making sure she didn’t OD on martinis and Valium. ‘I just couldn’t bear the thought of burying my Joely,’ she would later tell Amanda.

“You okay?” the cop said, shattering her reverie when he laid his hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” Amanda gave him an apologetic smile when she realized that she had stopped to stare at that awful building. The wind was picking up again, carrying the spray of the water fountain with it. She clutched at her pajama top in vain.

“You want my jacket?”

“No, thanks.”

The cruiser sat next to the curb, its yellow lights flashing. Amanda walked alongside the cop, grateful that she wasn’t wearing handcuffs for the world to see. It was bad enough to be walking around in her pajamas and bare feet.

“Do you have anybody you can talk to?” Moreno asked with sincerity.

“Yes,” Amanda lied. Joel had alienated her friends, but his murder had chased them away for good. She had no one but her psychiatrist, who was more interested in doping her up with Paxil than listening to her.

This experience was a fluke, she told herself. It won’t happen again.

Moreno sat her in the front seat of his cruiser as another cruiser pulled up behind him. Amanda turned around in her seat after he closed the door, and watched the two cops meet on the sidewalk. They began talking about her in hushed tones.

A lot of people had talked about her after the murder. Few had approached her with direct questions, or to ask her how she was “holding up.” As far as everyone was concerned, she had killed her husband. Five months later, the police were still watching her and waiting for her to confess to the killing.
Amanda turned away from the officers, who were laughing at some private joke. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed or smiled. It had been a long time.

Without warning, the radio belched out static. Then a female voice uttered some cop code, followed by plain English. A shooting had occurred in the Capitol and Quimby area, which was nothing new. Most likely, it was gang–related. Amanda tuned out the radio and looked at the cops through the side view mirror.
They were still talking.

“Open the glove box.”

Amanda’s eyes widened at the urgent whisper of a male voice. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a jean–clad leg. Someone was sitting next to her, and it wasn’t Moreno. It was a Mexican gang–banger, with a ragged bullet hole in the side of his neck.

“Come on, bitch! Open the fuckin’ glove box before he comes back! I don’t want him to see me like this.”

Amanda gaped at the kid’s neck. “What?”

Before he could answer, the driver’s side door opened. “You okay in there?” the cop said, hesitant about getting in the front seat with her.

“Could you take me to Valley Med, please? I’m hallucinating.”

About the Author
Deborah Woehr is a writer, designer, and problogger who lives in San Jose, California with her husband and two children. She earned her A.S. in Computer Graphics in 1993 and began writing in 1997, publishing one short story and several articles. Currently, she is a freelance writer for Syntagma Media. In 2006, she edited and published the 2006 Writer’s Blog Anthology, a collection of essays and poems written by bloggers. Her novel, Prosperity, will be available on Amazon in February. For more information about her books, please visit her website at http://www.deborahwoehr.com/blog/

I’ve had some memorable New Year’s Eve celebrations, like the time my friends and I were running around half-lit in the cold. I had a jacket on, but my cheap loafers got soaked from the wet grass we were running through. Drink and time has punched permanent holes in this memory, but I remember running through the grass. Then I remember lying on my mother’s sofa, cocooned in blankets, trying to get warm and go to sleep before we went on a long road trip to my aunt’s. That was New Year’s Eve of ‘87. I was 21 years old and months away from meeting the man that was to become my husband.

I don’t remember New Year’s Eve of ‘97, except to say that I had turned into a night owl, thanks to my youngest. Most nights I spent in front of the computer, writing and listening for his cries when he lost his pacifier. I had just shelved my very first manuscript and was working on the rough of the book that was to become Prosperity.

New Year’s Eve of ‘07. I’ve officially reached middle age, although I can hardly believe it. Prosperity is published. I’m working out the final details of my first virtual blog tour, which promises to be fun. I didn’t get much sleep the night before, so I turned in around 11 and was dead asleep when midnight struck. That was fine. My family and I celebrated on Friday, when we met our group of friends at the mall. We sent the boys upstairs to suffer through Alvin and the Chipmunks while we ate a nice dinner.

New Year’s Day has always signified the end of the “magic” that was the holidays. I remember fighting back the tears when my mother took down the Christmas tree. Santa Claus was long gone, and everything was returning back to normal, which wasn’t a good thing. As a young adult, I nursed mild hangovers and hoped for a better new year. As a mother, I prayed for a good night’s sleep.

Today, as I’m writing this post, I’m visualizing all these memories, which are now ghosts inside my head. New Year’s Day no longer depresses me. In fact, I feel invigorated.