Gone Blogging, Part II

I'm wrapping up my blog tour today over at Shelia Goss's blog, where I talk about sequels. Hope to see you over there! I also stopped in at Angela Benson's blog.

Here are the links. Have a great weekend, everybody!

Angela Benson's blog
Shelia Goss's blog

Gone Blogging

It's release week, which means I'm on the blogs of anyone who will have me.

Here's where I've been so far:

Sormag
Readin' and Writin' with Patricia
White Readers Meet Black Authors
Elaine P. English (my agent)

Stop in and say hello! It's a crazy life, but I love it! I wish you all good reading.

The Week From Hades

Wow. Has this been a killer week, or what? I barely recovered from getting the tax return done when I had to get my husband ready for a trip out of town from Sunday to Thursday (which he didn't tell me about until the previous Wednesday night), had to design, print, label, and mail an announcement postcard for Trouble Down The Road, had to finalize copy for my mini-blog tour (kicking off today at SORMAG), had to get that mainstream synopsis finished once and for all, and on top of that, I had a flat tire (why does this always happen when Bernard is out of town)?

Maybe we'll go to the movies tonight. I hear Death of a Funeral is supposed to be pretty funny. Chris Rock is one of my favorite comedians, but an actor he's not. Anybody seen it?

Right now I'm listening to some of my favorite un-cool music, like Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford and the them to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly by Hugo Montenegro (okay, so I personally think both of these are cool). What are some of your favorite un-cool songs?

A good weekend to all!

Gone Blogging

I've been busy with taxes, so forgot to mention that earlier this week I did a guest column on the blog of my agent, Elaine English. It's not too late to pop in over there, and feel free to leave a comment!

Husbands Behaving Badly


I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty tired of hearing about these cheating men who embarrass their wives with their infidelities. It's even worse when the wife has praised or defended him. I still wince when I think of Hillary Clinton's claims of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" in defense of Bill, who knew damn well what he was doing with that intern, but let her go out and stick up for him anyway. And, of course, the news has been following all the developments since John Edwards came clean about impregnating another woman while his wife was coping with a diagnosis of incurable cancer, and we all know that coverage of Tiger Woods's indiscretions practically reached saturation coverage, with his sex partners coming out of the woodwork like termites.


The latest to be embarrassed is Sandra Bullock, who credited her husband with changing her life for the better, teaching her so much about love, etc., in a widely seen Oscar night interview with Barbara Walters. Not two weeks after bringing home her statuette, it's revealed that her husband was sleeping with another woman while she was away on location. Presto bingo...she's now on the cover of every tabloid, the rumors are saying that she's pregnant (at age 45), and women are coming forward for their 15 minutes of fame by saying they fucked him.

No one knows what goes on inside a marriage, and some women, like Mrs. Woods and all those political wives, have never spoken to the press about their relationships with their husbands. I guess that does little to lessen their level of embarrassment, but Ms. Bullock is a celebrity in her own right, and it was a natural series of questions answered with sincere answers. It's not as though she was going around telling the world about her wonderful marriage, in that nauseating way Kathie Lee Gifford used to do on morning TV before it was revealed that Frank Gifford had an affair, a humiliation that finally made her shut up.

I'm sure Ms. Bullock will get through this. The way things are going, it will only be a matter of time before the next big cheating scandal breaks!

Welcome Guest Blogger Shelia Goss, author of Hollywood Deception

Today my friend Shelia M. Goss is stopping by with a guest blog. Shelia has a new book, Hollywood Deception, from Urban Soul Publishing, the official publication date of which is next Tuesday, April 6th (that means you might spot it on store shelves this weekend, folks!) I don't know about y'all, but I love a good Hollywood-themed novel, and I'm looking forward to reading it. I love the book's first sentence: 'Modesty and simplicity were rarely used to describe Hailey Barnes.' Already whets my appetite; I'm ready to get my read on!

Heeeeeeeere's Shelia!

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One thing Bettye and I have in common besides our love for the written word is our love for movies. I love her movie trivia during Oscar month. This year, I wasn't able to participate because I was under a deadline. Go check the archives because she has some good trivia questions for movie buffs. When I came up with the idea for the Hollywood Deception Red Carpet tour, Bettye's spot here on the web was one of the first places I thought about. I'm grateful she agreed.

I love everything "Hollywood." There's no coincidence that when I decided to be a writer that the very first book (Roses are Thorns) I completed was about a Hollywood starlet.
I didn't realize however until after my book Double Platinum that I had a new series on my hands. I cleverly titled it the Women in Hollywood Series. One of the characters from Double Platinum bugged me for her own story, so Hollywood Deception was born, and readers will get an exciting, unique and insightful look into the world of Hollywood through the eyes of ex-model/talk show host Hailey Barnes. Here are a few things readers are saying about Hollywood Deception:

“Hollywood Deception reads like a true life Hollywood story. I couldn’t stop turning the pages.” ~ Kay, a reader

“Glitz, Glamour & LOADS of Drama…Ms. Goss once AGAIN keeps me turning the pages with another ENTERTAINING, yet fictional glimpse into the fast-paced lifestyle of a celebrity.” ~ Sweet N Sassy, Book Reviewer

“With Hollywood Deception, Shelia Goss has done it again. Love, lies and delicious drama! Pick this book up and you won't be able to put it down. Be ready though - this fun novel is not a passive read. You'll be yelling at Hailey, relating to her, wanting to slap her and cry with her all at the same time. Hollywood Deception is an all around good read full of scandal, just the way we like it. Well done, Ms. Goss!” ~Abiola Abrams is an Author, Media Personality, Host of Kiss and Tell Live erotica in NYC, and Kiss & Tell TV. Viewers also know Abiola as the host of BET's short film show and Miss Picky of VH1's Tough Love. http://www.abiolatv.com/

Hollywood Deception is not just about the glamorous life of a celebrity, but it also deals with the downside of Hollywood fame and fortune. My editor says it best:

“Shelia addresses with understanding and clarity, the serious, and ever-growing crime of stalking (in fact, according to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, in 2005-2006 3.4 million people in this country reported being stalking victims). Readers will be engaged by her believable and fully developed characters.”

Hollywood Deception is available in stores or online from any of the online outlets such as Amazon.com, BlackExpressions.com, Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc.

Shelia M. Goss is the national best-selling author of six novels of women's fiction: Hollywood Deception (2010), His Invisible Wife, My Invisible Husband, Roses are Thorns, Paige’s Web, Double Platinum and and three young adult books: The Lip Gloss Chronicles series: The Ultimate Test, Splitsville, and Paper Thin. For more information, visit her website: http://www.sheliagoss.com/ or http://www.thelipglosschronicles.com./

From this post, I guess you can tell, I absolutely love and have a fascination with Hollywood and yes, I love writing about it too. As much as I hate to admit it, I do watch the entertainment shows to get the latest news on what's going on in Hollywood. Am I the only one?

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Thanks, Shelia! Much success with the new novel!

When the past is sharper than the present

My godmother passed away last week. Unfortunately, I was unable to travel to Florida for her homegoing services, but her family seems to be taking the loss well. She was less than two months away from her 93rd birthday and had been in failing health, and as so often happens, she just slipped into the next world.

My godmother and my mother, who will be 92 later this year, have been friends for over 60 years, at a time when they were both young mothers living next door to each other in Elmsford, a hamlet in Westchester County, New York. My mother was somewhat numbed by her friend's passing. I've been thinking a lot about both of them the past few days, as well as my mother's sister, herself looking at turning 94, and the subtle changes about them that I've noticed.

The major change is in their memories, which have shifted from present to past. My godmother told me how vividly she remembered the day she first laid eyes on the man whom she would eventually marry, who was 17 to her 12 and quite handsome. She always referred to him as "My Gordon," which was probably as much as an endearment as it was to distinguish him from his best friend, my father, who was also named Gordon. When looking at a picture of her two oldest daughters as children, she recalled the ruffled dresses they were wearing and how difficult they were to iron (this was before cotton blends or the steam iron had been introduced). But sometimes she had difficulty remembering much more recent events.

Similarly, my aunt can rattle off happenings dating back to her childhood, but often cannot remember things that happened five years ago.

My mother cannot remember where she was or what she was doing when word came through that President Kennedy had been assassinated back in 1963, but she can remember exactly where she was when she heard that President Roosevelt (Franklin, not Teddy...she's not that old) had died in 1945, 18 years earlier. (For the record, she was waiting tables at a Chock Full'O'Nuts restaurant in New York City, and she said how everyone cried and the restaurant promptly closed for the day. She even remembers how the other waitresses were unfriendly toward her - I think they were jealous of Mom's good looks.)

The last time Mom was visiting she was watching a classic Bette Davis film, The Little Foxes, and she remarked, "I always loved Herbert Marshall." (He was an actor, largely forgotten today, who played important, if not necessarily leading man, roles in the Thirties and Forties.) I was amazed that Mom remembered his name...I had coached her several times when friends visiting from England came to dinner on their names, and when she asked the husband to pass the butter she trailed off, unable to remember the simple name of Paul.

The next day we driving somewhere and I had one of my home-burned CDs of standards playing (you know, the type of music my parents used to listen to while we were growing up). When a duet between an icon performer and a young performer on her way to becoming an icon began to play, Mom said, "Oh, that's Judy Garland. I'd know that voice anywhere." When I asked her about who Judy was singing with, a singer still active today, she struggled to remember, snapping her fingers and saying, "Oh. Oh. Oh." Finally she said, "She's got a big nose." Yeah, it was Barbra Streisand.

I wonder, if I live that long and am fortunate enough to still be lucid, if I will remember the past more accurately than the present. I don't remember the JFK assassination at all, although most of my friends do (I was 6 when it happened). Will it come back to me? I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Have any of you noticed this in the elders you know?