Ray's Wandering Thoughts

Happy 2011!

This was taken last Christmas at Virginia Beach Town Center. I got a new camera for Christmas this year so no pictures yet.

I also got The Hemmingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed. And some shirts.

One really nice gift was a letter written by my granddaughter.

I can't forget the Swiss Chocolate ~ Pear Caramel flavored

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Ray

I signed up for www.picapp.com, a very cool site of stock pictures you can legally place in your blog.



I did a search for Nicole Ritchie. I had previously tried to pick a photo of her at a ceremony done yesterday, but had to register for the site. I love the site.

Ray

I can't believe I don't post more often to this blog. I am more into interacting with interesting people. I just became of follower of http://terryodell.blogspot.com/ Terry's Place, interesting always, useful most of the time and more than anything Thought Provoking.

I have followed other blogs for a few days or whenever reminded, but Terry's Place is a must read. There is always something for readers, authors and wanna be authors.

Picture is Thought For The Day from the newsletter of http://www.castlemountains.com/

I just got a comment from Terry about how book length is determined by the publishers for their own reasons. I prefer longer novels to allow for a more in depth look at the theme and the characters.

When browsing the book shelves I have a tendency to ignore the thinner books. I prefer 450 to 500 pages. Anything less than 350 has to really grab my attention to even get a second look. Many best selling authors I have recently started reading have captivated me to the point I have to read their entire back list. At Barnes & Noble if all of an authors books are displayed I tend to ignore the thinner novels until I have read everything else unless part of an ongoing series. Then of course the series is the last one I read.

Today I am starting Running Time by T. J. MacGregor. It is the second in a series beginning with Killing Time. The main characters Nora McKee and Alex Kincaid were introduced in the first book. The series is about time shifting with parts of Running Time taking place in 1695.

One of MacGregor's novels, Category Five, was so intense I couldn't start for nine months after I bought it. it was about a category five hurricane on a fictitious Florida Key. It was written prior to Hurricane Katrina, but came out almost as if she had predicted Katrina. Very scary. I had been in a scene about a volcano in Iceland in a novel by another author at the exact time I heard about Mt. St. Helens blowing its top. This was like, its happening again.

I have been reading novel written by MacGregor including all those by her two pseudonyms since 1986.

Ray
If everyone is thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking (George S. Patton)

Today has been a hot one. Some parts of the area were above 90. The sun is out. What a beautiful day. Here at home it was 89 degrees.

It is a good thing that I mowed the lawn yesterday. At least the humidity is low so there was a cool breeze.

I just added a link to my old blog Ray's Journal to my sidebar. Check it out. There are some interesting pictures. I guess I am going to have to add the link to this blog to my email and then I actually have to write something every day.

I just had to let my cat out. The Siamese - Chang. The other cat wandered off.

Ray

I've taken the first step toward writing a book. I am finding memory triggers for my private blog. Once I figure out exactly what I want to write I can home in on my target. Now if I can just take the next step and the next instead of giving up.

Funny thing, I started this blog a long time ago and I just now got back to it.

Wouldn't you know it. Everything I have already posted is no longer available to me. I can see it. I just can't make changes. So this is just a way of playing with my new laptop.