Monday Morning Musings

First, let me join the thousands of others who HATE Daylight Saving's Time. I struggle to wake up every day at a reasonable hour so I can get my chores done outside and get to work in my office before noon.

I used to think that adjusting was just a matter of convenience, but apparently the difficulty we have in adjusting has some other risks. I came across this article by Doctor Joseph Mercola who outlined some of the specific health issues caused by our observance of Daylight Saving's Time. He noted some results of scientific research:  

• Heart Attacks: A 2012 University of Alabama study found that heart attacks increased by 10 percent on the Monday and Tuesday following the time change to DST. Heart attacks decreased by 10 percent on the first Monday and Tuesday after clocks are switched back in the fall.

• Heart Attacks: A 2008 Swedish study found your chances of having a heart attack increase in the first three weekdays after the switch to DST, and decrease after you set your clock back to standard time in the fall. Heart attacks increase by five percent the first Monday after the time change, and 10 percent on Tuesday.

• Suicides: Suicide rates for males rise in the weeks following the start of DST.

• Automobile Accidents: Traffic accidents increase by eight percent on the Monday following the changeover to DST. And fatal alcohol-related traffic accidents increase for the first week after setting the clocks ahead. Workplace accidents and injuries increase by 5.7 percent, and 67.6 percent more workdays are lost as a result of injuries following the change to DST.

• Productivity and Quality of Life: People are less productive once DST is implemented. Till Roenneberg, a Russian chronobiologist, reports that most people show “drastically decreased productivity,” decreased quality of life, increased illness, and are “just plain tired.”

When told the reason for daylight savings time the Old Indian said, “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”

 Let's hear it for the Indian.

Last week was exciting for Read an E-Book Week, and there were lots of contests and free books offered by a number of authors. I was pleased that so many people were able to get my short story, The Visitor, and my new historical mystery, Boxes for Beds, free. I look forward to hearing from some of those readers after they finish the stories.

Friday's Odds and Ends

Here's some recent news regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline. Twenty-eight Vermont towns added their voices this week to the chorus of national and international; opposition to tar sands expansion by passing “tar sands free” and related tar sands resolutions in the past two days. This recent batch of local resolutions brings the total number to 33 in the region, and 49 when including resolutions in Québec. The U.S. resolutions state concerns about the environmental and public health hazards of tar sands or explicitly oppose sending tar sands through ExxonMobil’s Portland-Montreal Pipeline.

Tar sands oil is a particularly dirty form of oil that utilizes a carbon-intensive process to transform the tar into usable oil. The State Department just reported that the tar sands in Keystone XL will release up to 19 percent more greenhouse gases than conventional oil. Tar sands spills are particularly risky and difficult to clean-up given the oil’s unique properties that cause the oil to sink in water.

If you are interested in adding your voice to the opposition, you can sign a pledge with CREDO Action. The oil companies have their voices in Washington, we have to add ours. 

Protect the Earth

Now just for fun, some comics:

This one is from B. C. - one of Wiley's proverbs - "Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll drink beer and pass out with a pole in his hand."

Another from Pearls Before Swine last Sunday. Pig is complaining to goat about his sister who is always borrowing something every time she comes over.  Goat tells pig to just tell her how he feels, and pig says he has tried but she doesn't listen.

So goat tells pig to draw it out for her. "Say, look sis, we're like planets, ech moving in our own ellipse, but sometimes outr orbits intersect and during that time you always want things."

Goat draws the intersecting planets and then Pig's sister walks in, asking to borrow a tack. Pig says no, and the sister pushes until Pig says, "Read my ellipse, no new tacks, sis."

In the last panel, goat goes to Stephen Pastis and says, "You ruin my entire Sunday."

This has been an exciting week, celebrating Read An E-Book Week. I have run two specials and am so happy that people were able to get my stories free for a few days. My historical mystery,  Boxes For Beds will still be free through Saturday, so grab a copy if you have not already. And if you are so inclined, leave a review on Amazon. That is always so helpful to other readers who may be considering the book for purchase later.

Pardon me while I experiment with embedding a Tweet. I am trying to learn how to embed videos and other things.

Boxes For Beds now #3 in mystery/historical for #Kindle. Thanks to all who got a copy. tiny.cc/pdxktw
— Maryann Miller (@maryannwrites) March 8, 2013

 Hey! It worked. What do you know. (smile)

Monday Morning Musings

Does anyone but me hate daylight savings time? I woke up this morning at my usual time according to my internal clock, but it was an hour later according the clock on my nightstand. My watch agreed with the clock on the nightstand.

Getting out of bed at 7 in the morning and starting a day that includes an hour or so of outside chores and exercise, then breakfast, usually gets me into my office to start writing by 9:30. As I type this it is 10:50, and other than a quick check of e-mail, I haven't accomplished one writing-related task, let alone written a word on a new book. All too soon it will be time for noon chores and lunch. That'll put  me back in my office by 1, and I'll be wondering where the heck the day went.

Thinking about this difficulty I have adjusting, made me wonder if anyone has ever let a character deal with this in a story. Might be an interesting bit of characterization. Would one bear it stoically, because that is the right and proper thing to do? Or would one rant and rail against it the way I do?

Leave the #*&@^% time alone, would you!

Whew. Now that I have that off my chest, I want to thank everyone who ordered my book, One Small Victory, during the special celebration of Read An E-Book Week last week. The book made the best-seller list in suspense and thriller at Smashwords, going as high as number 3 and settling at the end in the number 10 spot. It also made the best-seller list on Kindle in the free books category, hitting number 2 for one day, then settling in at # 4.

It may take a while for those folks who ordered the book to get around to reading it. I know I ordered a number of books, some for free and some at deep discounts, and it will take time for me to read them all. But I will read them and leave a quick review and rating on Amazon and Smashwords if I like them. I hope other readers will, too. One of the things we writers are learning is that buzz about a title can make all the difference, and the buzz starts with readers liking a book and rating it on the online markets. So do your part. Support your favorite authors.

That's it for now. Hope everyone has a wonderful day and a productive week, and adjusts quickly to this stupid time change.

More Book Deals

This special celebration for the anniversary of the first e-book has created quite an interest on the Internet with authors and publishers offering great deals on e-books.

I posted yesterday with some links to the official Read An eBook site where some authors are listed. You can also go directly to Smashwords and see which authors there are participating in the special sales. I have my suspense novel, One Small Victory, as a free download at Smashwords - a coupon is prominently displayed in the upper right corner. I also have it on my Web site for download. I've heard from readers today that the Smashwords site is sometimes overloaded, so you can do a quick free download from my Web site.

Books We Love Publishing Partners, my new publisher for Friends Forever and the paperback version of One Small Victory, is also celebrating Read an eBook Week by offering special deals. All BWLPP titles regularly priced $2.99 or higher are on sale for half price at Smashwords! Find the coupon code on each book page, and have fun shopping!

Free Books

This was posted on one of the groups I belong to, and I thought, who doesn't like free books? So let's all see what treasures we can find this coming week.

Just to let you know that we'll be helping to celebrate Read an eBook Week next week by having some eBooks available to download for free. The week starts on Sunday, so if you could spread the word, that would be great.

To celebrate Read an eBook Week, March 8th – 14th, BeWrite Books will be giving away a selection of eBooks to download for free. Please follow this link to download your free copies. Each day will have a different genre of books to chose from including Crime, Adventure, Fantasy etc.
More details on Read an eBook Week can be found here:
http://www.ebookweek.com/index.html

To download your copies visit BeWrite Books:
http://www.bewrite.net/bookshop/download.htm