Blasts From The Past

We all know that blogs we like have great content but sometimes there are quite a few hidden gems in the archives. So starting now, today and then the first Saturday of every month I'm going to be posting
some 'Blasts From the Past' and link and post some older posts I've written. Enjoy!

So today's all about honing our writing craft, being in awe of Hermoine again, and exploring the crazy workings of a writer's mind. :D

3 Way to Hone Your Writing Craft & How I Did It (for like 0$)
- I really liked writing this one and there are lots of other authors out there like me who have next to nothing in their budget to learn more about writing

Why Hermione is Amazing!
- I'm the biggest fan of all things Harry Potter, but Hermione is someone I adore all on her own. She's fiesty, she's smart and she loves books!

The Strange Workings and Writings of a Mind that Skips Too Far Ahead of Itself
 - Enjoy the weird inner babblings of an author's mind

Check out today's post on Lasera: Discover Them Over Again

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And It's Makeover Day!

It's makeover day, and the blog's begun to look all shiny and new, like cinderella's shoe. :D

Hooray!

Over the course of the day I'll be adding new content and new design elements. I'll also be posting more often for the next little bit as well. Let me know what you think at the end of the day as I'm pretty excited for all the changes! :D

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Get A Designer and Brand Yourself

Readers want niche blogs. No one wants to read about every topic under the sun with no particular slant or theme. It'd be like slogging through a ball bit of all green balls to find the only purple one.

No not this kind of brand :P

Both bloggers and authors need to establish themselves as a brand. A brand can also be a name. In essence you establish your content whether its a blog or in your novels so that readers know what to expect when they read what you write. Jodi Picoult, Agatha Christie, Stephen King. When readers pick
up these authors' books they know what to expect. This is one reason why many authors use a pen name for when they write in a different genre from their usual.

For me, even before I hit publish on my first post for this blog, I knew I wanted a brand of some sort for it. And it took a while but I finally decided on Danielle. Wife. Author. Mother. And I'm really happy with it. Because in a few short words anyone can see what this blog is all about. Which is exactly what a brand should be. If you can't tell at a glance what a brand is, then that company/blog/author isn't marketing properly.

I've loved being able to establish my brand and really enjoyed learning along the way. For the blog makeover tomorrow I'm going to be going even further as I now have a logo to go with my blog and brand.

My superstar designer Gary Jensen created everything for me and I'm super happy with all of it. Feel free to check out his website here: www.sytheriousjones.com

As time's gone on I've realized what takes me hours and hours is much shorter and easier work for those who know what they're doing and are trained to do so. So hire someone! If you're on a budget try asking local first year university design students. I'm sure they'd be happy to expand their portfolio. So make sure you check back tomorrow and see all the changes that are gonna be happening! :D


Check out today's post on Lasera: Editing, One Weird and Hard Hat to Wear

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WAM Moment of the Week

Blog makeover day is tomorrow! Just saying :D

We all have times when something happens where you know that it's annoying and totally not funny, but the back of your brain is laughing at you cause you know it'll be funny later and that if it happened to anyone else you'd find it hilarious! Or there's times as a mommy where it's simply a situation that other moms can totally relate too. 

I've decide to share one of these moments with you each week. Hoping you laugh or chuckle along with me, or even have a smile and an "Oh my gosh, I so know the feeling" moment. It's the Wife. Author. Mother. Moment of the Week and it's starting right now! :P :D

WAM Moment of the Week:

Standing at the front of the line at the checkout in a gas station. I'm trying to buy a litre of oil for my van. Just as it's almost my turn I remember that payday isn't until tomorrow and this happened to be one of those weeks where we needed every dollar. So I'm frantically punching at my phone to check the mobile banking app. I don't have enough on the one debit card, or in the other debit account. (don't have credit cards right now cause we gotta pay down some debt) Oy vay! I have to use two separate debit cards, plus transfer a couple dollars into the chequing on the one of them just to make it work. What? Confirm transfer? Yes. Confirmed transfer for the third time already! Smashing the button again and again. Stupid touch pad. Meanwhile there's a pile up of six people behind me and feeling all their eyes on my back doesn't make it any easier to do the thing quickly. 2 debit cards and one money transfer on a mobile app later I walk out the door with oil in hand, hooray! I then proceed to walk right back in again as I've left my keys on the counter. Yeah, I am that person. But I really don't mean to be, don't even want to be! :| :S :D LOL 

Check out today's post on Lasera: 5 Ways Your Novel Can Stand Out in the Vast Sea of Fantasy

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My Rad Recipe Plan

So as many of you, my oh-so-wonderful readers, might have noticed my recipe tab above is pretty much empty, it just references the fact that I use allrecipes.com a whole lot. Well no more!

I'm actually going to start adding recipes to it now. I know, I know, should've been done a long time ago, but I'm finally getting to it. And there'll be recipes up and posted for when the blog makeover
happens THIS WEDNESDAY!
(Can you tell I'm excited for it?)

Plus, and here's the best news of all, I'm actually going to start consistently trying new recipes. Barring any major catastrophes (both with nature and my two kids), every Saturday I will be trying a new recipe for dinner and every Sunday I'll be trying a new recipe for dessert. I'm actually really looking forward to this. Should be pretty fun continuing to experiment and learn and taste new things.

What I'm hoping to do is find both recipes each week from a magazine/website so that way I can share the link with all of you. Each friday when I do my weekly post at the bottom there'll be a 'Recipes I'm Tackling' section where I'll tell you a little about what I'm going to try and make. And there'll also be a 'Recipe Recap' section where I'll explain how the cooking sessions went from the previous week and what the dishes actually tasted like.

Here's to trying new things! Watch for those recipes!

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Peacock Flock Review #23 - The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back 

Author: Sariah Wilson

Length: ~ 224 pages

Genre: Romance

Heat level: Clean  

Stars: 3 Enjoyable Purple Stars 

Book Summary:

Everyone knows how all those fairy tales go. The princess gets beautiful, nabs her prince, falls instantly in love, lives happily ever after and leaves her evil stepsisters in the dust.

But what happens when you’re the ugly stepsister and your obnoxiously perfect—read pretty, smart, and, worst of all, sickeningly nice—stepsister is dating the charming, tall, devastatingly handsome guy you’ve had a thing for since you were nine years old? Quirky, artistic and snarky Mattie Lowe does not lead a charmed life. Her mother is constantly belittling her on Skype. Mercedes, the school mean girl, has made it her personal mission to torment Mattie. But worst of all? Her stepsister Ella is the most beautiful, popular girl in school and is dating Mattie’s secret longtime crush, Jake Kingston. Tired of being left out and done with waiting for her own stupid fairy godmother to show up, Mattie decides to change her life. She’ll start by running for senior class president against wildly popular Jake. Ella can keep her Prince Annoying. Mattie’s going to rule the school. And no one, not even a cute and suddenly flirty Jake, is going to stop her.

Review:

We thought this was a good cozy up book. Albeit quite stereotypical, and nothing too particularly different from other chick flick type books of its kind. Mattie was a likable character most of the time and the dance scene at the end of the book was fun and with a little bit of a surprise too. However there was a significant amount of telling the reader exactly how the characters felt or using dialogue to give the reader information which felt off and not like a real scene. We liked some of Mattie's decisions and Jake's too, we also really liked the cultural references, especially the fact the Mattie likes John Hughes so much. The other thing that stood out as a little too run of the mill was how often cliched and common phrases were used to express feelings and emotions. Eg: ___ hit me like a tidal wave - etc. We wanted there to be more conflict within the plot that didn't feel contrived, as Mattie's continued stubbornness felt a little like conflict for the sake of conflict (instead of something the character would actually do.) But all in all a good book to read when you want something light and fun.

That's it from the flock! 

 

Mini-Makeover Finally Happening!

Yes a lot has been happening but I'm finally back on the writing bandwagon. And although it should've happened in August I'm happy to announce that a mini-makeover of this blog will be happening on September 18th! Hooray! So stay tuned as there'll be some great posts leading up to the new blog reveal and some more awesome posts after the reveal. 

Cheers!

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