Bloggers Block

Hey there. Ever heard of bloggers block? I just made it up...or if I didn't, someone else had the same clever idea before I did. At any rate, it's that horrendous moment when you know you have to blog, but you can't come up with a single idea. I had that a few moments ago. But just as with writer's block, there are ways to deal with it that do not include giving up.

I actually found an article on ways to get ideas for blogs about your topic...whatever it may be. I won't share all of them, just the ones that made me say, "Ah ha! I can do that."


* Visit forums related to your niche. Spend 30 minutes a day in forums related to your niche. Write down common questions or inquiries and use those to craft articles.

* Visit the Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers. If one person has asked the question, chances are there are many more who have it but are afraid to ask. Answer the most common questions you see with a new article.

* Check the news. Being on top of the industry news will help you be able to write related articles as the news events take place. This can also be a great way to grab expanded exposure. By piggy backing off the hot topic you can grab way more readers then you would with a normal topic. And not just the big news stations either. Some of the smaller more local stations may have topics not covered by the larger ones and can be a potential goldmine for ideas.

* Set up a Google alert for your topic. This way you’ll be emailed however frequently you choose, with up to date blogs and posts and new stories related to your topic that you can get and gain ideas from.

* Spend 30 minutes brainstorming. Do not allow yourself to focus on anything but your topic. This will get easier the more times you do it. It can be difficult the first few times to get your mind to actually produce something, but once you’ve done it a few times your mind will know you mean business and will help you populate ideas quite quickly.

---Now, in all seriousness, I don't like blogging when it's just another commercial for my books. I don't like promo in general, but it's a necessary evil. The trick is to find promotion you enjoy doing. I finally came up with an idea for a regular blog that I'm having a ball with! I'm not mentioning my books at all. I'm simply showcasing my off the wall sense of humor.

You really must check it out! And if you enjoy it, please follow. I'll feel like less of a loser if I can get over half a dozen followers. http://ashlyn-chase.blogspot.com/
Oh...and by the way, please buy my books. (There. I snuck it in. Subtle, wasn't it?)

Mardi Gras Time!

By: Casey Crow

It's Mardi Gras in Mobile! Yeah, New Orleans throws a big ta-do, but since we Alabamians like to say Mobile had the first Mardi Gras, I'll be talking about how we do it up down here. Purple, gold and green everyone, even on my own front door. Parades with masked revelers throwing moonpies, beads, and huge stuffed animals. Balls with ladies in beautiful long dresses and guys in tails wearing so many beads they look like Mr. T. On Fat Tuesday, the Knights of Revelry ladies wear spring suits and fancy hats like you see at the Kentucky Derby. Most have on tennis shoes with those designer suits. Half the children running around wear French hand-sewn dresses and john-johns. The other half are raggamuffins with Walmart sacks filled with throws. The most serious parade goers have folding chairs, ice chests, and giant umbrellas they flip upside down. That's makes the aim easier for a drunk dude on a float to ring. Folks even have those trash picker upper things to pull beads from the branches of the crape mertles and enormous live oaks lining the streets. Campers fill the grassy area by the civic center.

I've been in the parades and watched them. Been sprayed with mace when some doofus near me got into a fight with his buddy. Once, when I was fifteen and riding in the Floral parade, this super cute guy ran up to my float and gave ME a rose. That's my favorite Mardi Gras memory.

So that's the first-hand account. Now here's the official explanation:

Mardi Gras is celebrated in Mobile, New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities.
This festive event was started in Mobile and according to some accounts, dates
back to 1703. The celebration was originally called Boef Gras (Fat Beef).

The well-known Mardi Gras in Mobile was begun by Michael Krafft. On New
Years's Eve, 1830, Krafft and his friends were reluctant to end a dinner party
at the customary time. They raided a nearby hardware store, took up rakes, hoes
and cowbells and proceeded to wake the town. They soon formed the Cowbellion de
Rakin Society, the first of Mobile's many modern mystic organizations. The
Cowbellions presented their first parade, complete with floats and theme, in
1840.

The Civil War brought revelry in Mobile to an abrupt halt. Joseph Stillwell
Cain, on Fat Tuesday of 1866, donned full Chickasaw Indian regalia, dubbed
himself Chief Slacabamorinico. Cain and six friends set out to raise the morale
of citizens in the defeated city. Dubbing themselves the "Tea Drinkers", and
fired up by drink much stronger than tea, they took to the streets in a
decorated coal wagon pulled by a mule. Cain was a founder in the Order of Myths,
the organization which today holds the final Carnival Season parade Mardi Gras
night. He also helped organize many more parading societies. Cain's role in
reviving Mardi Gras is observed each year on the Sunday before Mardi Gras Day,
"Joe Cain Day." On "Joe Cain Day" thousands of Mobilians in costume and on
individually designed floats parade through the streets of downtown Mobile.

The date of Mardi Gras is determined by the date of Easter. Mardi Gras Day,
or "Fat Tuesday," is the Tuesday before the Ash Wednesday which begins the 40
days Lenten season. Nighttime parades and other public festivities begin about
10 days before Mardi Gras Day. Carnival Season balls, receptions and other
private functions begin in the fall and continue through Mardi Gras Day.

Reference:

http://mobilemardigras.com/history/history.php

The One That Got Away

I know we all have our little stories about "the one that got away"...I even came up with a cool paranormal idea eons ago that has a very unique twist...but that's for another day. Hmmm, as far as my very own TOTGA  experience...I've had a few...but looking back now, the memories are most likely better than if I had ended up with any one of those men. I think that break ups and relationship ups and downs makes us all stronger. AND it makes for a great story. 

One memory that's stuck with me happened many many many years ago when I was just starting college. My girlfriends and I decided to have lunch at a very popular sushi bar in town. It had a rather hip vibe and drew in a younger crowd. It was also owned by a pseudo-friend of mine. As we were waiting for our lunch, the front door opened and in walks the most gorgeous man I'd ever laid eyes on. Seriously...it was a slow-mo moment in my head. He had on a black helmet, weathered leather jacket, dark denims, and boots...as soon as he stepped inside he pulled off the helmet and I melted. Tall, gorgeous blue eyes, sandy blond hair...he really did look like he had jumped out of a billboard ad...I kid you not. After I wiped the drool off my face, I made a bet that HE would be mine. Of course, my buddies laughed at me and rolled their eyes because he was now officially my target. 

Fast forward a few weeks, I learned: 1. he was my pseudo-friend's on again off again boyfriend—like forever 2. They had broken up—again (but for good this time) 3. He was temporarily helping her manage the restaurant for the summer while she visited family in Japan. WINNING! I think I ate at the restaurant every other day for a month. One crazy afternoon he finally spoke to me. I froze. Then while I was paying...it kind of happened like this... 

I signed my credit card slip and asked nonchalantly, "Aren't you going to ask me out?" 

He blinked. "Really? You want to go out with me?" Dumb-founded look.

"Yes." I scrawled my phone number on the front of the slip and slid it over to him.

He gave me a boyish smile. "You never seemed interested."

"Why else would I come here several times a week?" I smiled back. "I'm tired of waiting so I'm taking the initiative."

He laughed. "I like a woman who knows what she wants."

"Then you'll like me."

He picked up the slip and gave me a wide grin. "It's a date then."

I won that bet.

Two days later we went out. Two years later we moved in together. Six years later we broke up and I moved to Paris...to mend my broken heart. We had such a tumultuous relationship. Passionate. Intense. Painful...but those were the memories I never want to forget. I could say he was my first real—honest to goodness—"love". But what I learned from that experience is that sometimes that kind of love is best kept in your heart. I don't have any regrets and I simply know that we were never meant to be... These days we're still friends and the memories, the emotions, the craziness of youthful love is what I put into my writing...what I hope will be believable, raw emotions and has impact in my storytelling. 

Okay—where was I? Right. 

Do you have a "the one that got away" story? Do tell. I wanna know... :)

* * * *

P.S. I recently stumbled across this brilliant video below and I couldn't help laughing until tears flowed from my eyes. Maybe it's not that funny but it was to me. Sometimes you need a bit of humor to get you going. I'm sure Adele would have a good laugh at it herself. And I am a HUGE Adele fan...

Titanic and the Honeymoon Couple

© Gorgios | Dreamstime.com

Imagine you’re on your honeymoon and you’re sailing home on the Titanic.

Four days–and four passionate nights–at sea with your man.

Cozy afternoons in the lounge reading a book…slipping your hand in his. Knowing that later you’ll be in each other’s arms.

Long strolls at night on the deck, looking at the starry sky overhead.

Forget the bitter cold. He has his arms around you to keep you warm.

On a drizzly Sunday morning, you attend services with your man, then look forward to an informal dinner and another night of passion–

Until 11:40 p.m.

It’s the night of April 14th, 1912.

Your honeymoon comes to an abrupt end when the Titanic hits an iceberg.

According to Titanic Story, there were thirteen couples aboard the ship of dreams celebrating their honeymoon, though some sources report the number was twelve. The new young bride of Col. John Jacob Astor, pregnant with their child, was among them and escaped in lifeboat No. 4 (along with Katie O’Reilly, the heroine of my Titanic novel).

Here’s what went through her head when Katie, an Irish emigrant, found herself in the company of these women:

Katie held her head in her gloved hands. It wasn’t just that the fear of death was all around her or so shocking, but that she was here in the lifeboat and not the grand gentlemen married to the ladies in this boat.

First cabin ladies.

Wearing fur coats and teardrop diamond earrings and big, feathered hats with silver hatpins. Smelling of lavender and not the salty sweat of steerage. Dressed in the pink of fashion, they looked as out of place in the lifeboat as perfect plump prawns tossed into a fisherman’s dirty pail. Bickering among themselves about keeping their part of the boat for their kind only. Making comments about the sailor at the tiller smoking. And generally being what they were.

First cabin ladies.

Col. Astor did not survive and unfortunately, several honeymoon couples met the same fate.

A couple who did survive, John and Nelle Snyder, had left from Southampton and were returning home to Minneapolis,Minnesota.

According to a story in the Daily Mail, Mr. Snyder said he owed his life to his wife’s insistence that he get out of bed and check to see what happened when they felt a “bump” on that fateful night.

They were among the first to get into the lifeboats (they were in lifeboat No. 7 along with three other newlywed couples, according to one news source) and were later photographed in the clothes they wore that night. They were quite an elegant couple, according to the photo in the Daily Mail story referenced above.

They lived for many years afterward (Mr. Snyder was 71 when he died and Mrs. Snyder was 94), but their letters and photos have only now surfaced, engaging us with their wondrous escape.

The Titanic continues to fascinate us with its elegance and romance. It’s comforting to know that for the Snyders, their Titanic honeymoon had a happy ending.

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Here's my cover by Dar Albert
TITANIC RHAPSODY
coming soon from Ellora's Cave!!