BLUE MOON MONTH

A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month, but other sources define it differently. The Farmer's Almanac defines blue moon as a fourth full moon in a season. If a season had four full moons, then the third full moon was named a blue moon. Odd, because that defines it in retrospect.

Curiously, often times the moon appears bluish, perhaps because of smoke (from volcanoes) or dust particles., or maybe people see blue because it's a blue moon.

Blue moon is also used colloquially to mean something that rarely happens, or, once in a blue moon.

Songwriters Rodgers and Hart gave it an additional meaning. In their song, Blue Moon, the protagonist of the song is relating a story of a stroke of luck so unlikely it must have taken place beneath a full moon, and since blue is also the color of sadness, this rare event is personified by a blue moon taking pity on a poor lonely, loveless singer.

Lyrics:
Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone, Without a dream in my heart, Without a love of my own, Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for, You heard me saying a prayer for, Someone I really could care for.

And then there suddenly appeared before me, Someone my arms could really hold, I heard you whisper "Darling please adore me," And when I looked to the moon it had turned to gold,
Blue moon, now I'm no longer alone, Without a dream in my heart, Without a love of my own.

Happy Blue Moon Month

Gerrie Ferris Finger

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com

KEEP WRITING FUN

I got a call from a writer friend; a midlister who worries from contract to contract. She has three books with an intermediate indie publisher and worries if they'll buy her next book in the series.
Did I say worries twice? You already know my friend. Miss Anxiety.
I tell her to recover that feeling she had when she wrote her first book, or the first book the publisher bought.
"I used to think writing was fun," she said.
"It still can be," I said.
"I feel like an athlete. Over the hill and off the playing field - if I don't come up with a big plot and marvelous characters."
"You have a series; you've done that."
"What if they get stale?"
What if, what if? Miss Anxiety has become a stuck disc.
I'm a writer; and I suffer an occasional bout of the doubts, but I still think writing is fun. Not every manuscript I produce is going to be a winner with readers, editors, publishers… But I know when I wrote it, it was fun.
I wish I had more encouraging words for my friend, an elixir for writing-is-fun work. I've known her for years and I think her anxiety comes through in her work, which is a plus, because she writes edgy noir fiction.
Now, for me, it's back to the playing field.
Gerrie Ferris Finger
THE END GAME

ME, BETSY AND BOOK CLUBS

I can't stress enough the power of book clubs. I appeared at the Rivermont Women's Book Club in Atlanta this week. The members were so excited to have a "real live author" talk about her book. Brunch and mimosas over, we settled down to a white glove grilling. These women, after all, are southerners.

Afterward, I signed copies of my book. At other clubs, members share books or get them from libraries, which is fine. As authors we're really looking to build our brand by word of mouth. But these women bought their own copies. If they had ebooks, I signed bookmarks for them. Such a great time.

Next day, the secretary of the club got in touch with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (a newspaper from which I retired) and they ran an item about me and the book club. The hits on my website went out the roof, just like when the AJC reviewed my book.

Libraries and book clubs - do them.

Gerrie Ferris Finger THE END GAME

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

ROMANTIC TIMES NOMINATIONS

In 1981, Kathryn Falk established the Romantic Times magazine for romance readers to get the scoop on the newest romances and authors in the genre. The Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards are awarded to the best books of the year by the staff of the magazine, as they express their readers’ preferences.


Romantic Times (RT) Reviewers’ Choice Award nominations for 2010: Good luck to all contestants and winners





*Best Contemporary Mystery:


212, by Alafair Burke (Harper)


Pray for Silence, by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)


Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, by Tom Franklin (Morrow)


On the Line, by S.J. Rozan (Minotaur)


Moonlight Mile, by Dennis Lehane (Morrow)





*Best Historical Mystery:


City of Dragons, by Kelli Stanley (Minotaur)


An Impartial Witness, by Charles Todd (Morrow)


Royal Blood, by Rhys Bowen (Prime Crime)


The Demon’s Parchment, by Jeri Westerson (Minotaur)


Dark Road to Darjeeling, by Deanna Raybourn (Mira)





*Best First Mystery:


Blacklands, by Belinda Bauer (Simon & Schuster)


The Ark, by Boyd Morrison (Touchstone)


Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s Press)


Murder at Mansfield Park, by Lynn Shepherd (St. Martin’s Griffin)


Devoured by D.E. Meredith (Minotaur)





*Best Suspense/Thriller Novel:


Eight Days to Live, by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s Press)


Broken, by Karin Slaughter (Delacorte)


Live to Tell, by Lisa Gardner (Bantam)


They’re Watching, by Gregg Hurwitz (St. Martin’s Press)


One Grave Less, by Beverly Connor (Obsidian)





*Best Amateur Sleuth Novel:


Ghouls Gone Wild, by Victoria Laurie (Obsidian)


Bone Appetit, by Carolyn Haines (Minotaur)


Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme, by Carole Nelson Douglas (Forge)


The Quick and the Thread, by Amanda Lee (Obsidian)


A Nose for Justice, by Rita Mae Brown (Ballantine)





Winners will be announced during the 2011 RT Book Lovers’ Convention, in Los Angeles, April 6-10.

A PENNY FOR THE GUY

November 5 begins festivities for Guy Fawkes Day in England. Also known as Bonfire Night, it celebrates the anniversary of the failed Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605 led by none other than Guy Fawkes. He and a group of English Catholics sought to blow up the king and members of Parliament for repressing Roman Catholics in England.

Bonfire and fireworks will light up the British sky and an effigy of Fawkes will be burnt because a bunch of English Catholics left a charge of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords to get Protestant King James I overthrown and replaced with a Catholic head of state. The king survived, Fawkes was arrested and children through the English ages have begged for a "penny for the guy", to buy fireworks.

Enjoy your day, your night, and your bangers and mash, Great Britain.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/