My 'Reveal' By Diane Capri is Today!

Today I'm being featured on Diane Capri's blog, Licensed to Thrill. I'm stoked! She's a #1 Amazon best selling mystery and suspense author. Her weekly blog series, Diane Capri Reveals, has featured big name authors in her genre, such as Lee Child, Steve Barry, and James Rollins. 

I'm not in the same league as those awesome best selling authors, but I'm fortunate to be included in this current series where Diane is featuring new authors and new voices. So how cool is that? Please go to  Diane Capri Reveals to check it out.

Diane Capri

“Full of thrills and tension – but smart and human too.”
Lee Child, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author 

of Jack Reacher Thrillers

Diane Capri's books include: The Hunt For Reacher series, Jenny Lane series, and Judge Willa Carson series. 

Winners of CURSE OF THE DOUBLE DIGITS Announced

Who's feeling lucky today?

Photo by Roni Loren via WANA Commons 

Congratulations to the winners of the giveaway of my new children's book, Curse of the Double Digits!

Thank you to all those who entered the giveaway and helped celebrate the release of my chapter book.

Random drawings were held for anyone who left comments on the blog posts by Robyn Campbell, Maria Toth, C. Lee McKenzie, and yours truly.

I'm old school. 

At the Tuesday writers critique meeting, Cindy Green 

gave each member a plastic pumpkin filled with goodies. 

So I stashed the goodies and used the pumpkin for the drawings. 

Now I know why bloggers use those high-tech raffles!

Oh, well. The old fashioned way still works, so woo hoo!

First, we'll start with the winners from Robyn Campbell's 10-10-12 post on Putting Pen to Pencil:

Sharon Mayhew - Signed paperback
Susan Kaye Quinn - eBook

Next, the winners from Maria Toth's 10-10-12 post on A Writer's Life of Scraps & Scribbles:

Yvette Carol - Signed paperback
Melissa Bowersock - eBook

And now, the winners from C. Lee McKenzie's 10-29-12 post on The Write Game:

J.L. Campbell - eBook
Medeia Sarif - eBook
Rilla Jaggia - Signed paperback

(There are three winners because J.L. Campbell lives outside the U.S. and Medeia Sarif requested an eBook, so I drew a third name for the paperback.)

Last, the ten winners who left comments on my blog posts:

Ebook:
Julie Glover 

Marcy Kennedy 

C.M. Brown

Bish Denham

Stephen Tremp

                                    

Signed Paperback:

Tammy Theriault

Hobo Annie

Christina Farley

Jennette Marie Powell

Louise Behiel

I need the addresses of those who won paperbacks. If you're an eBook winner, please contact me at Lynkelwoohoo at Yahoo.com and I'll give you the info for your free copy. 

Again, thank you to all who participated and made my book launch so much fun. I wish everyone could have won, but, alas, that's the luck of the draw.

Are you lucky when it comes to random drawings or playing Bingo, dice games, board games, or gambling? 

“Dieting is the only game where you win when you lose!”

~Karl Lagerfeld

Costume Mishaps - Parenting Plights & Delights

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is a big favorite for kids. They get all hyper and drive their parents bananas. All the excitement of finding a costume and gathering a stash of free candy - woo hoo! 

I guess I never outgrew the crazy get-ups. 

Sometimes it's not all it's cracked up to be, like when something goes wrong with a costume. 

I have bad memories of Halloween when I was in kindergarten and dressed up as a witch. I wore one of those cheap masks with an elastic string to hold it on. Our class paraded single file down the school corridors and through other classrooms. Johnny, the kid behind me, kept pulling and twanging that elastic string so it hit the back of my head. Nonstop.

I cried and cried, but he wouldn't let up. If only I'd had a broom stick...

One Halloween when my son was seven or eight, he wore a California Raisin costume. They were a hit back in 1986 or '87. Here's a video of a big kid wearing one:

The costumes were popular because of this funny commercial: 

My son thought he had the best costume in the neighborhood, until he walked into a tree and was knocked flat on his back. It was hard to see out of those little eye holes, especially at night. 

A few years later the school banned masks for Halloween parties and parades because masks make it hard for kids to see where they're going!

I think my favorite costume mishap story is from my writer friend, Hobo Annie. She left this comment on my post on October 10th:

"Once a friend and I had to be witches in a play, so we put green food coloring in base makeup. Worked great for the show...but we had to go to school with green-stained faces for a week!"

This is Annie Howland nowadays.
 The green food coloring incident
happened back in high school.

Psst: Just in time for Halloween, she released a new Kindle book, 

Stirring Up Spiders,

a collection of dark tales for grown ups. 

You can find it here.   

Jerry Seinfeld reminisces about one of his childhood costumes: "Then, finally, the third year, begging the parents, I got the Superman Halloween costume... Remember the rubber band on the back of that mask? That was a quality item there, wasn't it? That was good for about 10 seconds before it snapped out of that cheap little staple they put it in there with."

Hmm, I wonder why that stupid rubber band on my witch mask held up so well. Figures. 

Do you have any costume-gone-wrong stories? Bad memories or disappointments from trick-or-treating, like poor Charlie Brown who always got a rock tossed into his bag instead of candy?

Do you have a parenting or grandparenting memory

or another story you'd like to share? 

If you're not a parent, memories from your own childhood count, too. 

Warning: I might feature your story in a future post. 

(Names can be changed to protect the guilty!)

I'd like to thank all those who have shared their stories. 

These posts wouldn't be the same without your input.

If you don't want to leave a comment but would rather contact me by email, 

you can reach me at: lynkelwoohoo at yahoo dot com.

Monster Jokes For Kids

I admit I deserve a time out in a creaky, rickety time out chair. I apologize for not commenting back to my followers. Just haven't been up to par this week, dealing with allergies and fatigue. And a toddler who runs faster than his Grammy's old bones can bend.  

Please know you're important to me, and I will be paying each of you a visit ASAP. 

Funny Bones is a bit rattled.

Bad Blogger's Time Out Chair? 

No, please! Not the dark and dreary, dreadful Time Out Chair! 

I ain't got the guts for that!

Please give me just one more chance to make it up to you.

It's your call, friends. I'll leave the punishment up to you.

Moving on, last Friday I promised you some monster laughs, so here you go.  Be sure to share some of these with your favorite trick-or-treaters.

Are you good at telling jokes, or are you like me and can't remember the punch lines anymore? 

"Cyclops Clyde" Told By Ma Cob

Ma Cob 

Halloween is creeping and crawling up on us. It's that time of year for fun, spooky stories. Back by popular demand, please welcome Ma Cob, who's here to tell the tale of Cyclops Clyde.

Do you remember him from last year? He's the creepster, freakster, cranky monster who haunts computers. Anyone's, anywhere, at any time. 

Break out the candy corn, turn off the lights, and sit a spell.

Cyclops Clyde

Cyclops Clyde is the first story in my eBook, Trio of Haunting Tales - Spooky Short Stories, for kids ages 8 and up. Details can be found in the right margin and on the Publication page of this blog. 

Night of the Howling Werewolf 

and 

Ghost Warrior 

are the other short stories in

Trio of Haunting Tales

Has your computer ever acted weird?

Do you think a monster like Cyclops Clyde haunted it?

Spooky Story Time - Parenting Plights & Delights

I'm a big scaredy cat when it comes to horror stories, but I can appreciate a good, mildly spooky story that gets my heart racing. 

When I was a kid, we'd invite friends over for snacks and a spooky tale, the story of "Joshua Brown," who one Halloween night disappeared from town. 

Don't forget the sweet treats!

Dad was a great storyteller, so we'd sit in a circle outside in the dark and listen to the tale of Joshua Brown. It was the same tale every year, but we never got tired of it. 

Unfortunately, we lost the story years ago. I looked for it online and found a similar story called "Poor Joe." The words are totally different, but the concept is the same. "Poor Joe" isn't as scary as my childhood 'Joshua Brown,' so this milder version might be better for some folks. 

Both 'Joshua Brown' and 'Poor Joe' use peeled grapes for the eyes, which are passed from one person to the next. Squishy, slimy, and shaped like eyeballs. Great effect! 

For the hand of 'Joshua Brown,' a latex glove filled with flour was used. The above 'Poor Joe' site states they used a glove filled with jigglers jello.

Boo! Don't forget to serve cookies! 

 A bowl of cooked, slightly wet spaghetti pasta was used for veins in both 'Joshua Brown' and 'Poor Joe.' A piece of liver served as the tongue for both stories. 

We used a peeled potato cut in the shape of a big toe for 'Joshua Brown.'

The 'Poor Joe' site used ten pieces of carrots for toes, a wig for hair, and a dried apricot for an ear. 

It sounds disgusting, doesn't it? We knew it wasn't real, and we thought it was great fun. 

If you want to do this type of story with friends and family this Halloween, go to the 'Poor Joe' site and use that version. It will make for a spooktacular party.

Don't forget the booberry punch...

and spider (black olives) deviled eggs!

Oh, how about making it a costume party, too? I love costumes. They're great ice breakers. 

What's the best Halloween costume you've ever worn? Have you ever had a wardrobe malfunction? Do you like spooky stories? 

More Ghostly Jokes

Hello trick or treaters! 

Today Funny Bones is the ghostest with the mostest. 

Get your giggle on with a little spooktacular fun.

That wasn't scary, was it? 

Tune in next Friday for monster laughs with Funny Bones. 

Psst! It's not too late to enter the giveaway, 

random drawing for a copy of my newly released children's book, 

Curse of the Double Digits. 

For ages 7 to 10

The giveaway runs through October 30th. 

If you missed the launch party, go here to enter 

by leaving a comment. 

10 copies will be given away, 

5 signed paperbacks and 5 eBooks.

Be sure to say whether you prefer a paperback or eBook.

Do you think ghosts are real or just silly nonsense?