A-Z Challenge ~ Reflections

I came upon the A-Z challenge quite by accident and at first decided I didn't have time to commit, then a few days later, I think with 24 hours to go before it started, I changed my mind.
I had no theme, my only goal to complete the challenge without posting 30 days' worth of drival.  Yeah!  I came close a time or two, but I finished the challenge, met some wonderful people, found some very interesting new topics to follow and people to keep in touch with.
Did I get many new followers, perhaps not as many as I hoped for, and yet... my FB friend list increases daily, perhaps some are from the Challenge?  I don't know, but I do know I have plenty of sites still to visit which I didn't manage to during the challenge.
I loved the commeraderie of the challenge, I'm chuffed I made it through to the end, and vastly relieved I didn't consider doing a themed challenge, as this was my first year.
Will I do it again?  Oh yes!
Will it be themed this time? Oh no! :-)

I'd just like to add my thanks to those who organised the challenge and to everyone I met during April.

A-Z Challenge - Day 22 - V & W

V & W

are for variation...

It doesn't matter what the subject is, no one will look as the same thing in the same way.

Few people will do things the same way although they reach the same end result.

Take writing.

Beneath every genre of wiriting there are sub divisions. Some, no, almosy all crossover from genre to genre, but within the main genre these crossovers will be approached differently.
They have to be.  You can't approach mystery iin a romance, the same way you will in a horror story.  While the mystery is the common denominator, they setting and characters within the horror story will act and react completely differently to those characters dealing sith a mystery within a romance.
That is just one example of varitation, but all you have to do is look around you.  Colour and the various shades of each. Flowers, animlas, buildings... nedd I go on?
Varioation in life is eessential, it is both our security and our challenge.

...and wonder

comes in a baby's first smile, the sound of your favourite song, your lover's touch. 

If you are open to them Wonder is all around us, whether it is in the seeking or  enjoying, it is a gift we can embrace or discard.  The power is in what you do with it.

There are around 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 19 - S

S is for Selenite

While strickly speaking selenite is not a crystal, looing in any book about crystals and you will find it included.

It's not a hard crystal therefore relatively easy to work.  Working with selenite is one of my hobbies, and I love every minute of it.

http://wand-a-lustre.yolasite.com/

What is Selenite?
Selenite is a crystallized form of gypsum. The name Selenite comes from the Greek word for moon and means “moon glow." The grain of the Selenite gives a lustrous shine that goes down the length of the wand to create a beautiful visual effect.

Selenite clears negativity from all other crystals, and is a powerful tool for learing negativity and mis-balance from people and pets. It is also happy when working in with their partners to help restore balance to the natural environment.

Selenite Wands glow with a shimmery, pearl-like luster, and when partnered with aditional crystals, the selenite amplifies their properties.

I am also an author of contempory romance with a smigeon of mystery, and you may often hear authors talk about how their characters 'talk' to them.  So it is when I work with selenite.  It seems to have a mind of its own, and rarely does it end up they way I anticipated.

There are around 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 18 - R

R is for Reason and...

We all experience dark moments in our lives, and it was during such a patch in my life that I came across this 'poem' below.
Now, it has become something I keep on me always when I am in need of regaining my prespective on life.

A Reason, A Season, or A Lifetime?

People always come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime.
When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty, or to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend to you, and they are. They are there for a reason,you need them to be.
Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die, Sometimes they just walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilleed; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn.
They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season. And like Spring turns to Summer and Summer to Fall, the season eventually ends.

LIFETIME, relationships teach you a lifetime of lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway);, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

Thank you for being part of my life.....

There are around 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 17 - Q

Q is fo Quotes

Today is another and obvious day for some more quotes, so without further ado, here we go...






If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.  Betty Reese

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.  Aristotle

Everybody is somebody, but nobody wants to be themselves. Gnarls Barkley

There ain’t no rules around here. We’re trying to accomplish something.  Thomas Edison

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.  Henry David Thoreau

Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.  Javier Pascual

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  Reinhold Niebuhr

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.  Albert Einstein

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.  JFK

Always forgive your enemies - Nothing annoys them so much.  Oscar Wilde

To an adolescent, there is nothing in the world more embarrassing than a parent.  Dave Barry

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare. Ed Asner

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.  Buddha

There are around 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE 

A-Z Challenge Day 16 P

P is for Paranormal

At the end of last year I joned a lovely group of writers who post a story each week to a given word prompt. In January this year the prompt word was LIES, and this story - a paranormal horror (and horror is SO NOT my thing) evolved.
So today my P is for my Paranormal horror story.  LIES.


Jenny skipped along the street, her pigtails flying, her eyes shining, and a permanent smile on her face. She carried her present for Shirley in the plastic carrier bag hanging from her arm, her Cinderella costume blowing in the breeze. Today her bestest friend was celebrating her ninth birthday with a fancy-dress party, and next week it would be her turn. Somehow, the figure nine seemed more grown-up than eight. Nearer double figures.

“You going to Shirley’s party?”

She’d seen the boy in the school playground. Always on the edge of a group, always watching, and, she shivered now, something about his eyes made her uneasy. Today was no different, and his costume didn’t help. His smile was inviting, warm and almost gleeful; yet, secretive, Shirley decided.

“What are you dressed up as?” She studied his cape and the scythe he carried, its blade gleaming in the sun.

“The Grim Reaper,” he said. “And my friend Herakles will be joining me in a moment.”

Damien, that was it! She’d never liked the name because it always made her think of demons; and demons, she knew, were scary. Lately they filled her dreams, turning them to nightmares.

She never quite saw their faces in her dreams, only heard their laughter, when it turned dark and evil and woke her up.

For the last couple of nights, she’d tried in vain to wake from the nightmares. The demon stood there watching her. Whatever she did, wherever she went in her dreams, the demon stood there watching in silent celebration.

Jenny looked at the boy walking beside her. Strange, she’d never noticed before, but if her demon had a face it would be like Damian’s.

“How old are you?” she asked in an effort to shake off her qualms. “Aren’t you too old to come to Shirley’s party?”

“Age, is in the head.” Damien smiled. “After all, you think nine as far more grown-up than eight, don’t you? When in reality it’s just the beginning of another day, another number you’ll hang on to for a year.

“If you’re lucky, that is.”

His eyes, dark as obsidian, gleamed in the sunshine, his hair reminded her of the huge raven that stole food off the bird table this morning, and cawed at her mother when she chased it away.

Sometimes, in a certain light, Damien reminded her of the old man who lived in the end house on the street. Rumour and gossip abounded about him, and the school children ran past his home; half hoping he’d come outside, and terrified he might!

“Never see a light on in that house, me dear,” old Mr. Hawkins, from two doors down, told her one day. “Best to stay clear of the place. That’s what I say.” And cackling he’d wandered off into the nearest shop.

Jenny stopped at the pedestrian road crossing and waited for the lights to change from red to green.

“It’s safe to cross now.” Damien told her.

She stepped into the road, thankful Damien hadn’t followed. Reflected in the shop window ahead of her she saw him standing on the pavement, watching her, his smile one of satisfaction this time.

She didn’t hear the car that ‘came from nowhere,’ didn’t hear the screams of horror that filled the air when the car never stopped, never saw Damien vanish into thin air, to reappear beside the driver of the car.

“Promise me she didn’t suffer,” he demanded of Herakles. “I didn’t like lying to her, she was a sweet kid.”

“She didn’t suffer,” his companion assured him.

There are around 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE 

A-Z Challenge Day 15 - O

 O - is for Options

so today I am choosing the OPTION to share the blurbs and excerpts from Books one and two of The Gasquet Princes four book series:-
Book 1 - From Now Until Forever
and
Book 2 - His Chosen Bride
And Amazon.com

From Now Until Forever

Blurb:-

For Prince Liam, families meant bad news, unwanted commitments, and the loss of his personal freedom. Love spawned white picket fences, slippers at the hearth with a wife and kids making demands, so why did those images disappear when he met Melanie Babcot?

Melanie Babcot fought hard to escape the horrors of her youth and vowed to remain single and free, so when paid to protect Prince Liam from insurgents why did her personal pledge fly out the window?

EXCERPT:

Liam Fitzwilliam Gasquet stared in amazement at the blooming patch of red milliseconds before the pain exploded in his arm. Some trigger-happy idiot had fired in his direction. Indignation didn’t have time to take root before another bullet kicked the dust at his feet.

Not ‘trigger-happy’.

Intentional.

The rebels had found the fourth and youngest son of Jean-Phillipe Gasquet, ruler of the tiny kingdom adjacent to the Swiss border. When had they discovered his whereabouts?

With a reluctant sigh, he faced the truth of it. They hadn’t ‘found’ him at all. They’d followed him.

What people are saying about From Now Until Forever:-
03-12-11  J. Gunnar Grey "the mystery writer"
This is a taut romantic suspense thriller, well written and edited. If you enjoy a fast-paced, sweet suspense story, then I strongly recommend it....Author Sherry Gloag allows no fluff in this novella, nor does she pander to lazy readers: if you want to keep up with her fast pace, then pay attention and keep up.

Sizzlinghotbooks Review 08-01-12 From Now Until Forever received 4 hearts.
www.sizzlinghotbooks.net
Assassinations, dangerous safe houses and royalty abound in From Now Until Forever! The fast paced story will leave you breathless while the romance takes your heart away!
~ ~ ~

His Chosen Bride - Blurb:
Prince Henri Gasquet is happy to let his father, the king, choose his bride for him until he meets Monica Latimer.

Monica Latimer is not prepared to risk letting any man close enough to learn about her Gift. A gift that normally has men running for the hills when they find out about it.

Excerpt:
She lost track of time until the flames caught her attention once more. They flickered from orange to gold, to silver, to white.

A flurry of snowflakes masked the flames and for a second Monica watched the most beautiful, pristine snow-scene she’d ever seen. Her lips curved in longing. How she’d love to get a toboggan and slide down that slope. She knew where it was, and had done just that many times in her childhood, first with her parents and then, in clandestine manner, with her brother. Sneaking an old tin tray from the back of her mother’s walk-in pantry, she’d then grabbed Billy’s hand and they’d rushed out the back gate, heading for the lakeside track that led up into the hills.

Darkness, dense and thick with grief dropped over the scene. Startled and disconcerted by the strength of emotion emanating from the vision Monica shifted to her knees, ready to stand, when a voice, a deep male voice, sharp with fear called out her name.

“Monica!”

She knew she’d never heard the voice before, and yet—it was as familiar to her as the image she saw in her mirror each morning.

"Help me, Monica.”

Desperate for more clues, she searched the darkness within the flames until it sputtered and faded. With a curse she jumped up and ran for the phone. With her outstretched hand hovering over it she halted and let her hand drop to her side once more. What could she say? What would the police or rescue team think of her if she called them and told them she’d seen a vision of a man in distress?

They’d laugh in her face and classify her as a lunatic. Well, maybe not. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d contacted them with positive information but something—an instinctive gut reaction told her what she’d seen this time hadn’t happened yet.

What people are saying about His Chosen Bride:-
...Sherry Gloag’s story is one that picked me up and did not put me down until I finished it. Definitely a breath of fresh air.  I give this story 4 ¾ Sunflowers.

http://reviewsrmine.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/his-chosen-bride-by-sherry-gloag/

**
Tiffany rated it 4 stars 

I really like Monica and her Gift she has to help others! How cool is that? I think pretty cool. I also like Henri and understand him having a hard time being force to take a break and wanting to blame someone. I liked the tension between Henri and Monica. I did feel that Henri was a bit fickle with his feelings. But he seemed to work that out in the end. I sure hope that Ms. Gloag has plans to write the Henri's younger twins stories. I felt she did a great job of setting that up toward the end. This is a sweet romance so it does not have any swearing or sex. This was a fun read and I read it in one sitting. If you love romance and don't have tons of time then this may be the read for you.http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13519040-his-chosen-bride#other_reviews

and finally

http://www.greatmindsthinkaloud.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=romance&action=display&thread=1230 
...The characters: Henri, Liam, Melanie, Monica, Simeon, and Sacha were simply wonderful. I enjoyed how the author was able to get this story all together quickly and very smoothly. In the end will Henri and Monica  be able to get together? What does the future hold for them?

I found "His Chosen Bride" a very delightful read and if you are in for a  good romance this read is for you. This novel was one that I could not put down until I was finished.

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE 

A-Z Challenge Day 14 - N



N is for Nonsense

Thanks to everyone who comes by, I hope you enjoy today's offerings :-)





The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.   Roald Dahl

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

 

All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.   Samuel Butler

 

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Always remember, money isn't everything - but also remember to make a lot of it before talking such fool nonsense.  Earl Wilson

Children: You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 years telling them to sit down and shut-up.

Common sense, in so far as it exists, is all for the bourgeoisie. Nonsense is the privilege of the aristocracy. The worries of the world are for the common people.   George Jean Nathan

Don't talk to me about a man's being able to talk sense; everyone can talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?   William Pitt

Laugh at your problems, everybody else does.

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense. Robert Frost

You're never too old to learn something stupid.

Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.   Max Beerbohm

Some people hear voices.. Some see invisible people.. Others have no imagination whatsoever.

I look upon another's insistence on the merits of his or her life - duties, intellect, accomplishment - and see that most of it is nonsense.  Harold Brodkey

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 13 - M

 

M is for

Motivation and ... Muddleheadedness!

Debra Dixon's book GMC came to my notice long after I'd started writing.  In it the author creates--no, I'll share the blurb, it says it better than I can..
"Goal, Motivation & Conflict will show you how to use these three key elements to give dimension to your characters and direction to your plot. It will help you plan a road map to keep your story on track, discover why your scenes aren't working and how to fix them, create characters that editors and readers will care about, be confident your idea will work before you write 200 pages, end sagging middles and much more. Clear and concise with many helpful examples."

I doesn't matter how long or short your story, nor does genre make any difference, every piece of writing offered for public reading must have these ingrediant.  (Even, to some degree, the most dusty piece of technical or informational writing offered.)

Goals are where you want to go, the direction your plot and characters will take to achieve their dreams.
Motivation is the incentive that drives both forward.
Conflict, as the word implies, is what the author keeps dropping into the story to bring the characters alive.

And the author must have all three clearly set out in their head when they start writing!

You would think os, wouldn't you, but what about authors, such as myself?  those who call themselves 'pansters'.  Do they have neat lists of how what when and where pasted to their timesheet on the wall in front of them.  certainly, I don't, which comes to my 2nd 'M'!

Muddleheadedness!

How can a pantser possibly use Goal, Motivation and Conflict if they have no forward planning?  Like most things, 'practice makes perfect.'  Well perhaps not, but you know what I mean.

They become three more tools that eventually become such an integral part of writing the pantser instinctively knows when their story is running off the rails.
That doesn' mean they won't persever on their original course, but it does mean that eventually they will probably have to backtrack and restart from where they deviated from the 'right' path.

While every plotter reading this will sigh in exasperation and pity the 'poor deluded pantser,'who if only they could organise themselves better they wouldn't keep derailing themselves;'  the pantser considers it the breath of life (admittedly ,annoying at times,) that often reveals the mssing spark in their GMC up to that point.

There are many routes to the same destination, and it is the result that matters.

So bring on Motivation -and- Muddleheadedness!

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 12 'L'

L is for... emotion!!!

as in Love, Lust, Loneliness, & Laughter








LOVE
Take away love, and our earth is a tomb."  Robert Browning

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
Louis de Bernieres

"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly."   Sam Keen

"You know you are in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."  Dr. Seuss

If we can't love ourselves, why should anyone else? Anonymous

LUST“sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love”   Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Love is about giving and lust is only focused on taking.  Anonymous 

Lust is wanting to sleep with someone. Love is wanting to wake up next to them in the morning.  Anonymous"Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust."
Marquis De Sade

LONELINESS
"Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One's relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain." Elizabeth Bowen



"A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind." John Cheever

"In our extreme youth, in our most humiliating sorrow, we think we are alone. When we are older we find that others have suffered too." Suzanne Moarny

"To most people loneliness is a doom. Yet loneliness is the very thing which God has chosen to be one of the schools of training for His very own. It is the fire that sheds the dross and reveals the gold." Bernard M. Martin

LAUGHTER
"The sound of laughter has always seemed to me the most civilized music in the universe." Peter Ustinov

"Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable." Ambrose Gwinett Bierce


"Close friends contribute to our personal growth. They also contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound sweeter, the wine taste richer, the laughter ring louder because they are there." Judith Viorst

"People who laugh actually live longer than those who don't laugh. Few persons realize that health actually varies according to the amount of laughter." Dr. James Walsh.

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 11 - K

K is for Know, Knot, and Kernal

or are they all the same thing?






I often use the expression 'A sort of Knowing' when I 'know' something I've never known before, never heard of, never read, never researched.  I mean how could I if I never knew about it?  And yet, suddenly, that 'knowing' is there, fully formed and in an unexplicable way, totally logical and practical.
It may be I meet someone, and I get that kind of 'I know you, from somewhere,' and yet at the same time I know I've never physically met them in my life before.

Story plots can be a little bit like that.  At least for me, they are.  They often turn up out of the blue, fully formed, but that doesn't mean I'm a plotter!  Oh no! If I try to go down that route the idea evaporates into a mist of disallusions and confusion.

And what about my characters? They, too, usually turn up full of their own importance and determined to have their own way.  I can almost see them approaching, huddled together in a knot of goals, plots and subterfuge.  Oh, and don't forget about love.  After all I am an author of romance!

With the third choice, I cheat, oh yes, I'm becoming more like my characters every day.  They turn up and say one thing and turn out to mean something else entirely!
So for 'Kernal' read 'seed'.  The 'seed' of an idea, given to me by my characters who then delight in turning everything upside down when I start following the seed they've planted in my mind!

Are you a 'plotter' or a 'panster' kind of author?
Who controls the sory, you or your characters?
Do you deviate from the original 'design' of your story and if so, what are the consequences?

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 10 - J

 I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date.... Sorry folks, but better late than never, so here is my offering for today.

J is for Jackass

And what is the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear that?




So - what is a 'jackass?'

When refering to animals, it is donkey, an ass, and a burro, as all are the same name for the same beast. Jackass, is merely the name for a male ass, while jennett, not jillass, is the name for a female ass.

Of course when not refering to the animal variety you may fist think of! 

And before I offend every male visitor, please be assured I am not being 'general' today when I mention of Jackasses!

J is also for JOY

For the last wo years I have been working on an experimental Regency story.  Why 'experimental?'  Well, I truly did not know whether I had what it took to get the atmosphere of the time right, or whether the characters would come across convincingly.

Today I learned it has been accepted by Secret Cravings Publishing. So--- I am happy dancing all over the house.

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 9 - I

Day 9 of the A-Z Challenge is for Insprational

So today I have gathered a collectional of inspirational quotes to share with you.
I hope you enjoy them.


Put all excuses aside and remember this: YOU are capable.
Zig Ziglar

If you would create something, you must be something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.
Albert Einstein

Don’t ever wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.
Cale Yarborough

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 8 - H

H - is for Hunk

so sit back and enjoy, and perhaps tell me chich is your favourite and why. :-)

So there you have it for today :-)

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge - Day 7 'G'

Is the brainchild of Arlee Bird, at Tossing it Out. The A to Z Challenges to post the letter of the alphabet every day during the month of April, with Sundays off for good behavior. Since April 1 falls on a Sunday, that will be the day we start with A. Whether you go with a theme or freestyle, your post must match the letter of the alphabet for that day. And this year nearly 1900 signed up for the challenge.

Today's letter is 'G'

so I decided - probably like hundreds of others to start with Google.

Did you know Google was chosen because  the word Google is a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros?

Did you know that Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are reported to have disagree about almost everything during this first meeting in 1995?

Did you know that one year later these two began collaborating on a search engine called BackRub?

Did you know it took them another year to come up with the Google name that is a part of everyday life in most internet users' lives today?

Did you know that in August 1998 Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 to an entity that did not exist... a company called Google Inc. and that a month later this company began its life in Susan Wojcicki’s garage? 

The rest, as they say 'is history'.

If you look up the word 'google' at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google?s=t you will find it has become not only a household word, but a way of life.

This is what is said at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google?s=t

Word Story

Founded in 1998, the Web site Google.com has become such an institution that in its short existence, it has changed not only the way we process the endless data found on the information superhighway, but also the way we think and talk about the Internet.


The term google itself is a creative spelling of googol, a number equal to 10 to the 100th power, or more colloquially, an unfathomable number. Googol was coined in the 1930s and is attributed to the nine-year-old nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner.


Soon after Google was created, the trademarked company name became a popular verb. People were “googling” all sorts of information, including their own names. When users google themselves, unless their names are absurdly rare, they may find their “googlegangers” (a portmanteau word combining “google” and “doppelgänger”), or their namesakes, listed in the Google search results.


A whole new industry has sprung up around Google, including the new field of search-engine optimization, or SEO, which works to boost the ranking of a name or term in Google and other search-engine results. In 2005, the newly-minted term Google bomb became popular, to describe the intentional skewing of Google search results by creating links to misleading Web pages. Whether we like it or not, we now live in a Google-centric world.

Citations

“Google has come to represent all our hopes, dreams, and fears about the disruptive promise and dangers of the Internet.”

  —Rob Hof, “Is Google Too Powerful?,” Bloomberg Businessweek  (April 9, 2007) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_15/b4029001.htm

“Google's uncorporate slogan—‘Don't be evil’—appeals to Americans who embrace underdogs.”
  —Ken Auletta, Googled: The End of the World As We Know It  (2009) http://books.google.com/books?id=-oZY9GJW7YgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

“Show us a man or woman who’s never Googled an ex, and we’ll show you someone without an Internet connection.”
  —Em & Lo, “You, Again: Reconnecting with the ex is a dicey proposition,” New York  (September 24, 2006) http://nymag.com/relationships/mating/21634/

“I know nothing about this man, except for what I Googled.”


  —Irene Zutell, Pieces of Happily Ever After  (2009) http://books.google.com/books?id=FqhWm4GYHxMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false 
 

There are nearly 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE



A-Z Challenge - Day 6 F

 

F is for Funny

So I went looking for some of the funnier quotes out there online.

Do you have a favourite quote you'd like to share?

 

The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.

(http://www.coolfunnyquotes.com/)

"Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the world together."
(http://www.coolfunnyquotes.com/)



The road to success is always under construction.
((http://www.coolfunnyquotes.com/)




A selection from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_funny.html

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

Groucho Marx

Be obscure clearly.
E. B. White

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry A. Kissinger

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Anton Chekhov

Every man dies. Not every man really lives.
William Wallace

Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.

~~~

You'll find more information about the following books at http://www.sherrygloag.com/

    




There are nearly 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE