Fall by Diane Burton

Fall is my favorite time of year. Not just because of I was born in the Fall. It’s the crispness in the air. The chilly nights and warm, sunny days. The vibrant colors of the trees as the leaves turn. The crunch underfoot when the leaves fall. The smell of wood smoke as people begin using their fireplaces again.

Most of all, Fall means baseball playoffs. I know, I know. Most people think of football when they think of Fall. Not me. Baseball is my favorite sport. Hubs thinks watching baseball on TV is like watching paint dry. Again, not me. Baseball reminds of me my grandmother. She took me to my first major league baseball game when I was fifteen. I was visiting her in St. Louis and we went to a Cardinals’ game. I was enthralled. She also taught me how to keep score. As an adult, I took my younger brothers and sister to Tiger Stadium many times. The few times the Tigers were in the World Series with the Cardinals, I had mixed feelings. My hometeam loyalty is always for the Detroit Tigers. But a part of me roots a little for the Cardinals because of my grandmother and my mom.

When I wrote my first science fiction, SWITCHED, I set it in the Fall. It was so easy to incorporate all the senses mentioned above.

Blurb:

Wise-cracking mechanic Jessie Wyndom gets the surprise of her life when she's accidentally transported aboard an Alliance of Planets starship. Then she learns an identical twin who was raised on an alien planet has taken her place on Earth. They are victims of a scientific experiment that separated Terran twins before birth. Jessie doesn't believe it. This is all a gag perpetrated by her brother and his nerdy friends.

Years of discipline enables Captain Marcus Viator to maintain the austere, emotionless persona prized on his planet, Serenia. Until he meets the bold, impertinent Jessie. She must go back to Earth before she disrupts his well-organized life. When he tries to return his unwilling visitor, he discovers the ship has left Earth's orbit--supposedly at his command. When more sabotage crops up, Marcus and Jessie must work together to protect the crew and themselves. As their attraction grows, treachery and violence force them into decisions that could separate them forever.

Do you enjoy books set in certain times of the year?

I blog here on the 8th and 30th of each month and Mondays on my own site http://dianeburton.blogspot.com

 

Success or Failure by Diane Burton

As I was watching a Detroit Tigers baseball game last week, I thought about our theme. How do you measure success or failure? If you succeed only four out of ten times, that means you fail 60% of the time. Yet, Miguel Cabrera, whose batting average is .350, is an 8-time All Star, was voted American League MVP in 2013 for the second consecutive season, and is considered one of the best hitters in baseball. On Friday, he hit his 2,000th career hit, the 7^th youngest in history. And that’s for a man who fails to get a hit more than six out of ten times.

What does that tell us? If baseball players who are paid big bucks to play for our entertainment, rarely (if ever) succeed half the time, who are we to give up when we occasionally fail? Players who strike out go back and try again.

With anything we try—sending manuscripts to agents or editors, losing weight, running a marathon—we’re probably going to fail part of the time. We could give up. (Been there, done that.) It all depends on how badly we want something. It can be depressing to fail. I remember a quote attributed to Thomas Edison (during the movie National Treasure) about inventing the light bulb. He didn’t fail, he found 2,000 ways how not to make a light bulb.

Let’s hope we don’t have to find 2,000 ways how not to get our book published or lose weight. We just need to find that one way that works. What works for some people might not work for us. We have to try and try again until we find success.

I blog here on the 8th and 30th of each month and Mondays on my own blogsite http://dianeburton.blogspot.com