Dahlia DeWinters – Author – Page 42 – Quirky Heroines, Happy Endings

Hello world!

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…and the rest will follow. September is a busy time for those with families. School shopping in August is stressful enough, but when that is followed with the new routines and rituals of the opening days of school, you may find yourself and your family stressed and exahausted. Sleep schedules are changed, meal times have changed and, ach, homework, becomes an issue once again.

The best way to deal with the stress is not to yell and scream and push. This is the best way, however, to send those stress levels through the roof! No. Relate, relax and release the tension with a few easy steps.

Ever wonder why the teacher gets an apple on the first day (or any day) of school? I don’t know how that tradition started, but I’m sure you can run a search for it. 😉 However, I do know inhaling the scent of a fresh green apple may help to take away the stress headache threatening to sideline you. Lavender essential oil is always good to soothe the soul and will help those keyed-up children wind down and go to sleep with a smile on their faces.

Are you one of the ones that eats while stressed, then stress over the added pounds? Eat and stress no more. Inhaling the smell of peppermint essential oil or crushed mint leaves might curb that stress induced appetite and cut those cravings. Try mint flavored water or peppermint gum/mints such as Altoids. (Be careful of high sugar content though.)

Ah, chocolate. It does help! Nibbling on dark chocolate can assist in reducing levels of cortisol (the stress hormone). However, be sure the chocolate is dark(70% cacao and up) and keep intake low because chocolate does have lots of calories. I stick to 85% cacao.

Of course, deep breathing, meditation and yoga are all great for reducing stress, but when you only have a second to spare, hopefully these tips will help!

Dahlia

Dog Transformation – It's Magic!!

With all the “transformation videos going around, along with the joke transformations (did you see the one where the guy turns himself into Idris Elba?), I decided to give my dog her little shot at stardom and transform her into a Disney star.

Left-Handers Day – A Sinister Celebration

International Left-Handers day was yesterday, but since I couldn’t visit with you all then, I’m going to talk about it now. My father, while not famous, was left-handed, and I thought he had the coolest handwriting ever. He also used to tell me stories how the teachers used to tie his left hand to the desk to make him write with his right hand, until his mother came to the school and gave them what-for! Nowadays, being left handed doesn’t hold the “stigma” it once did, and students are not forced to follow the mold set by the right handed world. Still, left-handers still face issues trying to adjust to a right-handed world.

I am not left-handed. There was a moment when, however, I thought my youngest was left-handed and I had to make a conscious decision to not favor either side when I handed him things. Usually, I would simply put a toy or whatever, on the table and allow him to use whatever hand he desired. Now, he’s pretty much right-handed.

Being left handed has advantages and disadvantages. For example, lefties have the upper hand in a fist fight. When you’re looking for that right, the punch comes literally out of left field. ß—-see what I did there? On the other “hand”, lefties are also more likely to be geniuses, but spiral notebooks are Kryptonite to lefties.

The left hand in Latin is…wait for it….sinister. Take from that what you will.

From Time Magazine, here are some famous lefties
For a fuller list, click here: http://lefthand.wikia.com/wiki/Famous_left_handers

Bill Gates

Oprah Winfrey

Whoopi Goldberg

The Sultan of Swat – Babe Ruth

Wil Wheaton

Leonardo da Vinci

Marie Curie

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Jimi Hendrix

Barack Obama

George H.W. Bush

Judy Garland

Morgan Freeman

Dahlia

Extra! Extra! Romance Writers Bust Genres!

Or how I just learned I wrote horror.

While sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes a romance is not just a romance.

If anyone on the street asked me what I did (besides wait for football season and tinker with computer equipment) I would say I was a romance writer. Which is true. I write about people finding each other, falling in love and living happily ever after. I enjoy writing those happy endings.

With the release of Loving Among the Dead, my post-apocalyptic romance set in a zombie wasteland, a friend of mine told me my book “scared” her. I laughed. How could the love story between Sky and Jude be scary?

Because of the zombies.

A light bulb (the incandescent one, not those terrible twisty tube ones) came on in my head. Zombies=horror/science fiction. Sky and Jude= romance.

Did I just write romance with a huge side of horror?

Seems like I did.

Blame the comic books…ahem, graphic novels. They bump up the imagination…a lot.

But the fact still remains that among the many romance writers out there, especially the totally awesome ones with which I am personally acquainted, bust genre on a regular basis. A love story is not just a love story in these writer’s hands.

It’s an adventure. It can be a visit to planet in another time or an alternate universe. It could be a murder mystery. It could be a family drama. It could be a western. Space opera anyone?

It could contain zombies.

Readers – remember, you’re romance may not be ‘just a romance’.

Cheers!