Billie Williams Blog Tour

Hello Billie Williams, welcome to my site. It is nice of you to stop by on your Blog Tour.

Today is your day! Say Hi to Billie, everyone. I had the privilege of living in the same neighborhood as Billie for awhile and we used to have our daily stroll together. It always amazed me when I would stop over at her house that she was writing yet another book. There seems to be no end to the flow of ideas that drift through Billie’s mind.

When I had my newspaper, The Pike River Community News, Billie was one of my contributors. She wrote a column for me. I always looked forward to seeing what she would write about.

Each person who comments on my blog will have a chance to win either a $100 note pad, a $100 pen, or a $100 bookmark magnet. (They all incorporate the hundred dollar bills into their design). That is for today while Billie is here. So let Billie and I know you stopped by and ask her some questions or just say Hi.

Best Selling and Award winning Mystery/Suspense author Billie A Williams is a fiction, non-fiction and poetry author and has won numerous contests for her short/flash fiction stories, essays, and poetry with over two dozen works published. She is published in various magazines such as the literary magazine Thema; Guide, a Magazine for Children, Novel Advice.com, Writing Etc. WritingNow.com, and Women In The Arts newsletter as well as Sister’s in Crime, to list but a few.
Her articles, columns and features have appeared regularly in newspapers. Short stories, Flash fiction, poetry and book reviews have appeared in Mystery Time, True Love Magazine and various anthologies and on line e-zines and web sites. She writes a bi-monthly column titled “Whodunit?” for Mystery Fiction’s Voices in the Dark and is a contributing editor for Writingnow.com a Blueberry Press Newsletter. She also hosts her own writer’s group, Word Mage Writers and Readers as well as The Amberg Writers Group that meets at her home monthly. She is an active blogger; http://printedwords.blogspot.com and http://onewomansgarden.blogspot.com A website for writers is at http://writingwide.com where you can find plenty of tips, tricks and good reads, as well as a current novel in progress serialized in her newsletter, “Printed Words.”
Williams is currently a member of The Wisconsin Regional Writers Association (WRWA) Upper Peninsula Writers Association (UPWA)National Association of Women Writers (NAWW) Sister’s in Crime, Women in the Arts Program, Electronically Published Internet Connection (EPIC), Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. (SCBWI) and Children’s Book Insider, and the Children Writers Coaching Club. Her website www.billiewilliams.com
She lives with her husband and Lady Slipper the Maine Coon Cat she received the day she got her contract for The Pink Lady Slipper bed and breakfast murder mystery from Wings ePress so of course the kitten got the name. Amberg, is home, a small Northern Wisconsin community where the winters are cold and long, but the people are warm and friendly.


Here is a preview of one of Billie's new books, Money Isn't Everything.


Money Isn’t Everything – It isn’t love, it isn’t security, and it doesn’t buy loyalty. It can be a tool, -- OR-- a murder weapon.
Mary March is a CNA in a nursing home (Idle A While) when she discovers patient abuse, she investigates and that leads to Jayde Blarney being fired. Jayde goes to work as a fitness trainer in a local health club, (Rainbow’s End). Now, she is out for revenge against Mary for two things. Getting her fired and for encroaching on her, as she perceives it, Doctor Tanner Irish who she is head over heels in love with. Tanner can’t see Jayde for dust as he is infatuated with Mary.

Tanner Irish is almost the proverbial cliché in Mary’s mind. She thinks Tanner is a spoiled little rich boy used to having everything his way, handed to him on a silver platter. He is filthy rich. He thinks money talks, she insists Money Isn’t Everything and she won’t be one of his conquests.

Mary uncovers a connection to the missing funds that lead to Edith Erhoes (Director of Nursing) and Fern Fish (Head of the Accounting Department). Edith’s attitude is the rich can afford it. And they have always gotten the wheat while she has always gotten the chaff, she wants the heart of the wheat and is angry that the young whipper-snapper with money, Dr. Tanner Irish, gets more money catering to old ladies and old men who’ll be dead soon anyway. Life is unjust—and fate is fickle, she is out to change the odds.

Mary will try to find where the abuse stems from and who is taking the money from the coffers as well as how.

Within minutes security had the box of dead rats, Dolly and Ebony had their walking papers; Edith thought the abuse was now all cleared up. Mary wondered what Jayde might do next. Until they were all locked up there would be no peace for anyone at Idle A While Nursing Home.

Thanks again for visiting my site Billie. Here’s to all your writing endeavors.

The next stop in Billie’s Blog Tour is Elaine Cantrell. Elaine was born and raised in South Carolina. She holds a Master’s Degree in Personnel Services from Clemson University and is a member of Alpha Delta Kappa, an international honorary sorority
for women educators. She is also a member of Romance Writer’s of America and EPIC authors. Her first novel, A New Leaf, was the 2003 winner of the Timeless Love Contest and was published in 2004 by Oak Tree Books. At present she teaches high school social
studies.
Website: http://www.elainecantrell.com
Blog: http://www.elainepcantrell.blogspot.com

After Affects of a Stroke

After Affects of a Stroke
Learning to Cope

Isn’t it amazing how complex your brain is? What happens to that complex, well functioning brain, when you have a stroke? One person said it was like having an earthquake in your kitchen and all your dishes got messed up.
The funny thing about it is it affects everyone differently. Oh sure, there are the usual things people struggle with, like learning to walk again, swallow, talk, or getting use out of an arm or hand. But there are other things that are unexplainable.
Have you ever heard of anyone losing the letter “N” in their alphabet? According to one speech therapist, he had never come across that problem, nor had his professor in thirty years of practice. Yet it did happen.
Speech is affected in many people who come through a stroke. It is embarrassing to be working as a cashier and hand someone $4.00 and say “four o’clock.” Or trying to sell something and wanting to tell them that you have a good deal and what comes out is, “I’ve got a real good Marshall for you.” That’s not your normal speech problem, but that’s the unique way a stroke affects different individuals.
They say sex is like riding a bicycle. Once you learn it you’ll always remember how, even if you haven’t ridden one for a long time. Oh really? What if you forget how to ride a bike? That can become an impossible feat after you have a stroke. It is rather humbling to watch your three year old great niece riding her little bike all over and you fall over and crash into things every time you get on a bike, even if you can even succeed to figure out how to get on it. Now the sex part is questionable, but you get the drift.
Did you ever ask anyone for directions? They can be hard enough to follow as it is, but if you can’t decipher the difference between right and left it becomes almost impossible. You can overcome that by pointing left when they say left and pointing right when they say right but there is a delay time in there so by the time you point right he could already be telling you to go left. You kind of look like a policeman directing traffic. Just have them draw you a map.
What if you are a writer? What happens then? You have all kinds of challenges. Can you imagine revising a book where your “be” comes out the end of your fingertips as “me” and your “it” becomes “if” and on and on you go? The written voice in a writer can be affected more than the verbal voice. If you can’t speak it out properly and it doesn’t come out of your pen properly either, you have a problem.
There are lots of words in the English language that sound the same, like “ate” and “eight”, “night” and “knight”, “dear” and “deer”. When you say them out loud you can’t tell the difference, but if you can’t hear the difference when you write your brain doesn’t know the difference either and they come out all wrong. It becomes very difficult to figure out which one is right. Or is that write? Course it could be rite. The more you try to figure it out, the worse it gets, just like when you are speaking and can’t get the right word to come out. Sometimes you just have to let it go and let the other person figure it out.
Balancing your checkbook is a very important function. Knowing how to add and subtract properly is helpful. What happens when you know how to do both but when you write the numbers down they come out adding instead of subtracting? You better check with a trusted friend or your banker quite often. Whatever you do, try to stay away from credit cards or debit cards.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who talks a mile a minute? Sometimes we just say “yup” a lot, or nod our heads. The problem some have is by the time even a slow talker gets to the end of the third sentence, one can’t remember what the first sentence was. The whole conversation makes no sense whatsoever. What do you do then? Keep your mouth shut and they’ll think you’re a fool? Open it and they’ll believe you are. You can’t tell them they don’t make any sense. It is you that can’t make sense out of it.
Being on time to work is a good way to keep your job. But when you have to be to work at 10:30 am and you live a half hour away from work, you can’t get out of bed at 10:00 and think you’ll make it to work on time. The concept of time is very difficult for some and they come late to many functions. They aren’t lazy, they just don’t remember how much time it takes them to put on their underwear and brush their teeth.
Having a calendar is good to keep track of where you are supposed to be and when. But you have to remember to write it down, and you have to remember where the calendar is in the first place. You have to remember to read it, and if you read it you have to remember what it says. If you tie a string around your finger you’ll never remember what it is for. That definitely is a problem. Just keep looking.
There are probably a dozen other odd ball things that surface after you’ve had a stroke, you just can’t remember what they are. It takes time, determination, hard work, a willingness to get your ego out of the way, and a sense of humor to go on after a stroke. Become aware of difficulties that come up, find a way around them, and don’t take yourself so seriously. You just haven’t found all your dishes yet.