Two days until release, and another solid review...

Thank you to CM Magazine for the following kind words about Definitely Not Camelot:

"Like Caitlyn from Peters' other books, Ashley is a very relatable teen...the author does a commendable job of portraying the wide range of emotions that a teen who is faced with a parent's serious illness might experience...she also adeptly captures the high school environment in which rumours and jealousies and misunderstandings can all lead to a situation in which a young person quickly feels like s/he is losing control. Whether readers have read the preceding book Posing as Ashley, or are meeting her for the first time, they will most certainly enjoy the experience."

MNMN on You Gotta Read Videos!

Okay - so again, I'm a bit behind...partly due to some surgery in the family that required my presence, and partly due to "the cold that wouldn't die", which I've been fighting since the first week of September. Started in my throat. Went to my sinuses. Sat there for three weeks. Hopped back down my throat, slid into my lungs...has basically left me a hacking, disgusting mess. And all I want to do is sleep.

But I musn't sleep, because there is so much great book news happening! For one thing, the trailer for Maybe Never, Maybe Now , is on You Gotta Read Videos this month. Visit! Vote for it! Watch some other trailers and find something else that's good to read! (but still vote for me!).

Happy Thanksgiving, my fellow Canadians!

Download a chapter for free! Yay!

Hi all - Maybe Never, Maybe Now and Definitely Not Camelot are out in less than two weeks! Yay!

Amazon is still listing their author as simply "Kimberly Peters", and therefore not cross-referencing with their award winning predecessors, Painting Caitlyn and Posing as Ashley. Boo!

Lobster Press is offering you the chance to download a free first chapter RIGHT NOW! Yay!

I'm still sick with a bad cold. Boo.

Maybe Never Maybe Now got some good reviews! Yay!

I just found out my website had a bad link, and wasn't directing everyone to all of my books. Boo.

It's fixed now. Yay!

Things that creep me out...

I'm not afraid of spiders. They don't bother me - although they can be kind of tickly on bare skin - and their webs are beautiful. Arachnaphobia is something I've never understood. Snakes don't bug me much, either. Bears? More scared of me than I of them. Likewise wolves. So what do I worry about when I'm out walking my dog? Finding a body. A dead, decaying, corpse. Or a fresh one. Either way, the idea freaks me out. And unlike the attack of the killer spider (seriously, how often have you heard of THAT happening in Canada?), dog walkers find dead bodies all the time. It's a disgusting fact of life, but a) dog walkers are out in the same kind of sideroad/brush/field/forested/watery areas that appeal to killers who need to dump bodies and b) dogs just love to roll in dead stuff.

Granted, I am a writer, and I do have an active imagination. Still, you can imagine where my mind went when I ran into this lovely find this afternoon....

Thank goodness I don't live in British Columbia where the shoes wash up with the feet still in them.

Some Things are Worth the Time...

I was back at school officially for seven work days, only four of which I had to teach, and already I have come down with a brutal head cold. Sore throat, plugged ears, painful sinuses (sini? what's the plural there?), the whole works.

I don't even feel like reading. Which, for me, means I'm pretty messed up. And I ended up watching more television this weekend than I normally would for this time of year, when the weather is still okay and I am busy with back to work stuff and the new shows aren't on yet anyway.

And over and over, I kept seeing this stupid commercial for mashed potatoes. Except they aren't actually mashed yet. They are just potatoes. And they have their own commercial.

Because, according to the ad, "who has time to make mashed potatoes?"

Umm, I would think pretty much anyone who can figure out that a ten pound bag of potatoes for $2.49 is a much better deal than one bowl of potatoes for $2.99 on sale with a coupon (yes, I just Googled a grocery store flyer to make sure my facts were correct).

I'm not naming the product, because I don't want to get in trouble for my disparaging attitude, but their name implies purity of product. And the ingredients list says potatoes and sodium phosphate (whose first definition FYI is "used as a laxative to cleanse the bowels"). Mmmm. Yummy.

The rationale for this product is that nobody has time for all the washing, peeling and cutting. By purchasing the new kind "home-made" potatoes and simply adding your own ingredients after you've steamed them in the microwave, you can mash them yourself.

Honestly, I thinkn it would slow down my dinner preparations MORE to find the bag in the freezer and microwave it than to rinse four potatoes, peel them, and drop them into a pot of water. but apparently I've been doing it wrong all these years, because I don't scrub vigorously when i know I'm peeling. And I don't do a bunch of cutting when i know I'm mashing. Silly me.

We all have places where we cut corners. I do love "no boil" lasagna noodles, because I can't detect a difference, and they save a couple of major steps. And pancake mix that just needs water probably has a lot of weird ingredients, but can be pretty awesome when you are camping and don't want to waste cooler space on milk, eggs, and oil.

Other things, to me, are worth spending extra time on. Like homemade macaroni and cheese. Or hanging my laundry outside: it smells better, the fabric lasts longer, I use less energy, and it gets me outside at least a couple of times, even on days when I'm doing housework. Still<> And maybe the real reason they are so pressed for time is that instead of putting a roast in the slowecooker or oven ahead of time (total prep time if you add a half cup of water: 2 minutes) and boiling their potatoes on the stove top, they're waiting for the microwave to finish one dish so they can put the second one in before running out to get a payday loan because their roast beef dinner cost $15.00 without leftovers instead of $9.99 with enough left over for another dinner and a couple of lunches.

it's almost enough to make me wish I was teaching math again. Someone has to.

(Sigh)

Summer's over and I've got Poison Ivy again.

Contemplation

There is a message on my answering machine from an internationally recognized radio and television personality. I won't say who, because I'd like to protect their privacy, but I will acknowledge that this person cottages just across the street from me, and that 9 out of 10 of my friends would immediately recognize the voice if I replayed the message for them.



The message is about the Georgina Arts Centre and Gallery's Dinah Christie Celebrity Challenge. The Celebrity Challenge is a fundraiser for children's art programs at the gallery, which raises money by auctioning off small paintings by celebrities.



I am not a celebrity. Certainly, not like my neighbour. But the gallery is nearby and a few years ago when they were initiating the idea, and my first book had just been published, a friend nominated me as a bit of a local celebrity. They were desperate, I got in.



Anyway, this year I asked my oh-so-much-more-famous neighbour to participate. And the response on my answering machine is "thank you, but no - I haven't got an artistic bone in my body and it would just cause me too much angst."



Angst? Angst??? How could this simple thing cause angst? I wondered. All you have to do is paint a picture...

(This is my 2010 submission. It's called "Contemplation," and you can buy it at the auction this Saturday night, August 21st, at the auction described above.)




All you have to do is paint a picture.


And yet. And yet if it was a celebrity softball tournament, I wouldn't consider it for a second. I can't catch flying objects, and I barely run fast enough to catch a cold! I don't do sports. My neighbour doesn't do art.


All of which got me thinking about a conversation I had with my aunt a few weeks ago. I was telling her about a friend of mine who, back in high school, had marks that averaged in the 90's, held a part time job, and still always made time for other people. (Later, she skipped her master's degree and went straight into a doctoral program, giving birth to her first child while preparing her doctoral thesis because - what the heck - she was off anyway!) "I think that's one of the things I really liked best about her," I explained. "She just does all these great things and makes it look easy, but I never have the sense that she's bragging or putting anyone else down," I said to my aunt.


"Although," I admitted, "sometimes I feel really pathetic in comparison. Like when I called to tell her I'd been accepted into teacher's college, and found out that she had just accepted a job as a univerity professor. I just don't personally feel that I can ever measure up to her."


"You know," my aunt said gently, "there are probably people who look at you, and the fact that you work full time and teach other teachers for the school board and write books, and think you're pretty accomplished, too."


She may be right, but I hadn't thought about it that way, because I -- like many people -- tend to compare myself to others who seem more accomplished, and focus on what I haven't yet achieved. It's probably okay to think that way if it keeps me humble or drives me try new things, but maybe we all need to believe in ourselves, and our abilities, a little more often.