I have settled on a title and cover for my YA fantasy/sci-fi novel that will come out in August.
Thanks to Allison Ingman who helped me come up with a title: Evolution. The second half of the two-part book will be Revolution.
This series was initially going to be a trilogy but I think the ideas I have are best said in two books. The first one is 82,000 words. I see the sequel being longer.
Evolution will be published in August. I need a couple of months to do some editing. This labor of love has been underway for more than five years.
I started it in 2008. I've changed the character names three times because I have not been satisfied with the names I've chosen.
The lead character in Cursed is Sasha and I like the name and have always felt comfortable with it.
In Evolution, some names have never felt right. I have finally settled on the name Dax for the male lead. I know everyone is going to think it's some trendy name but it's not. It's the name of one of the photographer's I work with and I have always loved his name.

A stranger read my book and liked it

I am so flattered. I haven't released Cursed officially yet because I'm still waiting to hear back from Beta readers and make some changes. To do that though I have to leave the book on Amazon so that my beta readers can download it with the gift links I sent them.

I did send it off to one reviewer.

Anyway I posted the book cover and a sample on Goodreads to start getting some publicity. And there a 25-year-old woman I don't know read and liked the book and wrote a short review. I am so flattered. It makes me feel awesome.
You can see the review here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17925344-cursed

Now I am agonizing over how pathetic I am. I really like it that someone read my book and liked it!!!
I am happy today.

AMC's The Killing and Walking Dead

So I finally broke down and watched these two shows. I can't say exactly why I was reluctant. I thought a show called The Killing was going to be too gory. How wrong I was.

I finished the first two seasons of The Killing last night and was very impressed. I think stretching a murder mystery out over two seasons is a bit of a slog but it was very well done.
I think by mid-second season I was getting a little tired. I like how the investigation came full circle.
I kind of knew the car had to be tied to the killing in some way either to frame the politician or well used by someone in his camp. I did think the mayor did it until they showed him on the phone seemingly talking to the Indian chief. That was much too set up and I knew it wasn't him.
In the big picture I'm still perplexed as to why the aunt shoved the car in the lake. I understand that she didn't know it was her niece. But her married lover and the politician guy were arguing and her boyfriend was saying that he was never going to leave his wife. So why would she do it? I didn't think that was resolved very well. I loved how dark and dreary the show was and I loved the two lead characters. They are great actors and had a certain depth you rarely see in police shows.
My only irk is that there was too much torrential rain. It rains in Seattle (or Vancouver where they film the show) a lot, but it's more drizzly, misty.
I am so glad to see that AMC is bringing the show back for a third season and will be setting my DVR.
Now on to the Walking Dead. This is the show that I should have feared as gory. I just couldn't understand a zombie show. These people are dead, what is there to happen?

There are two things that really bother me about the show. I think the hubby and I are having a hard time with the overt gore. Every episode has at least three situations where a zombie's head is dramatically smashed, slashed, dismembered, pommeled or gored. It's this part of the show that I find icky. My husband cringes while I hold up my hand in front of the screen. I  figured this part was meant for the 13-year-olds in the crowd. Everyone reminds me it's a horror show. I disagree. It's a survival show like The Stand mini-series.
While this show isn't overly predictable, it sort of is in the sense that you know there will be a scene in the hour that is what I call the dumbass moment. There is always an event where a character is in jeopardy of being zombie lunch because of a stupid risk. This is when I'm yelling at the TV and sometimes hoping the person will die because they are such a DUMBASS.
 What I do like about the show is it's making some characters unpredictable. I love Darrell. I was afraid of him at first but he has so grown on me. I love his redneck smarts.
The cop's friend, you know the one who was sleeping with his best friend's wife, I can' remember his name, but oh, is he going evil. This is a scary turn, almost as frightening as being a zombie snack.
I just wish they had some stronger female characters. The women have become a bit too predictable in the old fashioned I'll do the laundry and cook the meals kind of way. Seriously? There isn't a guy in the group that would prefer to wash some clothes than go out looking for that lost kid?
I'm only in mid-season two and hope to be caught up by the time the next season starts.

The TV analysis brings me to my summary. I am now watching three AMC shows because I also record Mad Men, which is a little dull this season (6) but they just had the merger so maybe it will pick up.

It's getting to the point where AMC is rival of Showtime and HBO in terms of quality shows because AMC also has Breaking Bad. Since AMC is not pay cable makes you wonder why it is that network television can't produce shows of the same caliber.

An even newer cover for CURSED

After the great feedback I got on the cover I had the designer make some adjustments and we changed the font because it was hard to read.
The designer has also made me two other covers for subsequent books and they are even better.

Cursed is done.... cover revealed!! Looking for beta readers.

My new YA novel Cursed is finished. I am rewriting it and looking for a couple of beta readers. If you are interested in reading an advance copy of the book contact me at monicawolfsonwrites@gmail.com.
I can supply a word doc or ebook file from Amazon. The files should be ready in the next couple of days.
All I ask for is for honest feedback and eventually for you to post a review on Goodreads or Amazon once it's published.

What I can do is post the cover. It was done by Sarah Dalton from the U.K. I found the cover at Book Cover Designer. I hope ya'll like it as much as I do.

Thanks,
Monica

Scandal is salacious

In catching up on television I've not been able to watch, so far I've nailed two seasons of Homeland, an assortment of movies like Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Transformers, Captain America, The Avengers
and two seasons of Scandal.
I like many of you have seen the promos for Scandal but never watched the show. One of my co-workers told me last year it was good but I didn't have time for it. Of course as the shows I love go off the air (Fringe), it creates openings (Vampire Diaries).
So, I watched the two seasons of Scandal over the past few days and I must say I'm torn. The first seven episodes were great. But this romance between the President and Olivia doesn't do it for me. It seems to be all about aggressive booty calls and not real emotion.
I'm probably one of the only people who was happy that the President found out about the voting scheme and was pissed off at everyone. Yeah. It was over between him and Olivia. I found the relationship stereotypical and old. The flashbacks to before the election were dull. I fast-forwarded through them.
WARNING SPOILER



I don't understand why the judge tried to assassinate the president. She thought he wasn't legitimate? Damn right. And it didn't bother her when the V.P. was trying to get her to resign. In fact she framed another man for the crime that she committed. It would have made more sense if the V.P. or someone who would have benefited from his death was the culprit. The attempted assassination was a great storyline and it was well done that it looked like it was the evil businessman and yet it wasn't. But picking the judge didn't make sense and was a weak ending. Ok, the president killed her (by pressing down on her abdomen?). I knew he was going to kill her but thought he'd smother her with a pillow.

It is interesting that the show runners have sustained a single story line for 29 episodes -- the affair between Olivia and the President. Considering I'm a fan of Gray's Anatomy, I am surprised by the clever twists and turns of the plots but the emotion and genuine friendship I feel on Gray's is not present on Scandal. It's like you have to trade emotion for smarts.
I'm also surprised by the series of speeches that they make on the show. It reminds me a lot of Coach's diatribes on Glee without the snarky-ness.

Anyway, I recently added the show to my DVR list. Since it's on ABC I probably don't even  need to record it because they make 5 episodes available.

Boston Bombers will not ruin community spirit

It's taken me a few days to process what's happened in Boston.
I know everyone in the country has been affected by the horror. I feel a particular attachment to the city chosen to terrorize and the event used as vehicle to kill people.
In the mid-1990s I lived on Hemenway Street in Boston, about 1.5 miles from the bombing site, when I went to graduate school. I also lived in Somerville, about 7 miles from Watertown. Boston is a metropolitan area of many small cities. It's interconnected by the T and was hard to distinguish between Boston and Brookline or Cambridge and Somerville.
In my first year there I covered the Boston Marathon for the Wellesley Townsman. My job was to interview folks as they got to the top of gigantic hill near Wellesley College.
I don't remember what I wrote but I do remember the experience. As a runner, I understood the value of the exercise but I had no desire to run a marathon. I didn't run my own marathon until 10 years later and I chose a course with very few hills.
I loved my time in Boston and made great friends. It's an amazing city full of intelligent and compassionate people.
It's particularly bothersome to me that the bombers chose a marathon event to target for mass casualties. My husband and I talked about it today. When we saw the carnage at the Boston Marathon finish line I immediately thought of my husband and daughter waiting for me at the top of the last hill at the Detroit Marathon finish line last fall. I ran the half and my family members were there to cheer me on as I ran the last few hundred feet. I gave my husband and my daughter a hug and my husband whispered for me to finish strong. Strangers standing nearby yelled encouragement to me and it lifted my spirit. It really does. It's like you are running this event and you want to do well for other people other than yourself. You feel like these people have faith me and you don't want to let them down.
I told my husband that I didn't want to stop running half or full marathons. I didn't want these bombers to scare us from accomplishing our running goals.
My husband told me he and my daughter would be at every finish line of every race I ran. He said he'd be looking around for suspicious activity and making sure he didn't stand near any abandoned bags.
That may sound silly but it did make me feel a bit relieved. Thousands of people  take part in running races every weekend. I'm sure the bombers didn't think about the terror they'd strike in the hearts of runners world wide but they did. They didn't just violate the city of Boston but also damaged a sport that many of us do to maintain fitness and good health.
I hope that marathons continue unimpeded and with the joy they give the runners and the community folks who come out to cheer us on and support us in our brutal pursuits. The best part of a marathon is running by people who are unrelated to you and yet are cheering you on toward your victory. It's one of those selfless acts and it's particularly upsetting that the three people who died, Martin Richards, Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu, were bystanders watching the runners and cheering them on.
They were there to support family or friends or just to enjoy a wonderful community event.