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The Darkest Ice Cream of the Year by Dean Koontz

I once said writing a novel is sometimes like making love and sometimes like having a tooth pulled--and sometimes like making love while having a tooth pulled. I arrived at one of those joyful yet excruciating moments while working on The Darkest Evening of the Year.

Because I am obsessive about the revision of each page--the word fussbudget is embarrassingly apt when I am brooding over whether to use a comma or a semicolon--I have more than once held on to a manuscript until the drop-dead date for delivery. When that date rolled around for this book, I had written everything, but I was unwilling to send all of it to my editor. I withheld the last fifty pages for another four days, causing a quiet panic in those at my publishing house who are responsible for meeting production deadlines.

Although the book was done, I felt that something was wrong with Chapter 63. The action worked, the characters were in character, the mood was sustained...but something felt wrong with it, some fine point of the villain's motivation. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I worked 12-hour days, trying to identify the source of my doubt, but couldn't specify it to my satisfaction.

Nothing like this had ever happened to me. Previously, my worst struggles with a story had come in the first two-thirds, and the final third had been, if not a sweet swift toboggan run, at least a sleigh ride.

Sunday, I got up at 6:00 and set to work, revising, looking for the thorn I could feel but couldn't see--and ended up working 22 hours, eating at my desk, before tumbling to the problem at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning. "Eureka!" I cried, but I was so weary and my voice was so weak that my shout of jubilation came out as a squeak.

The revisions required to Chapter 63 were minor, but after working 58 hours in four days, after having passed a night without sleep, I was unable to focus sharply enough to get them done in the little time that remained before the production schedule would be derailed. In desperation, I turned to that source of creative energy and literary enlightenment that is without equal: ice cream.

I shuffled to the kitchen and snared a Dreyer's Slow-Churned Vanilla Almond Crunch bar from the freezer. I devoured this sweet-and-creamy muse, and felt the scales lift from my eyes; inspiration sparkled between my ears. I finished the revisions and e-mailed the final version of Chapter 63 to my editor with not a minute to spare. Although the American Heart Association will take issue with me, my advice to young writers stuck on a scene is to stop worrying about your arteries and give your wheel-spinning imagination what it needs to find traction: a tasty shot of fat and sugar.

--Dean Koontz, October 2007

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Price: $2.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Do you hate cramming all of your errands into the weekend?

Do you resent having to beg permission to watch your kid’s weekday soccer game?

Are you tired of seeing people who aren’t very good at their jobs get promoted because they arrive early and stay late?

There’s got to be a better way—and there is! Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson show that everyone benefits when we change the focus from hours to outcomes. It’s just that our traditional definition of work—Monday through Friday, nine to five—doesn’t make sense in the always-on global economy.

So, Ressler and Thompson created the Results-Only Work Environment. In a ROWE, you control when, where, and how long you work. As long as you meet your objectives, the way you spend your time is entirely up to you.

Suddenly, work isn’t a place you go, it’s a thing you do. In a ROWE, there are no mandatory meetings or fixed schedules. You stop doing any activity that wastes time, and no one criticizes you for “leaving early” or “coming in late.” If you do your best work at midnight or on Sundays, go for it!

ROWE sounds like a fantasy, but Ressler and Thompson have already made it a reality at Best Buy, a Fortune 100 company. They have proven that ROWE not only makes employees happier but also delivers better results. And now the authors are helping companies implement ROWE nationwide.

Infused with passion and common sense, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It will change the way you think about your job, your company, and your quality of life. Read it and join the revolution!.
Price: $13.83 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Made with the Best Quality Material with your child in mind.. Top Quality Children's Item..
Price: $5.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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More than 225 brand-new recipes by bestselling author Holly Clegg!

Holly Clegg wants food that is good for you to taste good, too.This seventh book in Holly Clegg’s Trim & Terrific series is her first diabetes cookbook—and her first cookbook published by the American Diabetes Association! With more than 225 recipes that cover everything from salads and soups to main courses and desserts, Holly Clegg shows people with diabetes how to forget the hassle of menu planning and enjoy great food again..
Price: $10.83 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The New Whole Grains Cookbook: Terrific Recipes Using Farro, Quinoa, Brown Rice, Barley, and Many Other Delicious and Nutritious Grains By Robin Asbell Photographs by Caren Alpert"From whole wheat, oats, and rice to farro, barley, and quinoa, no grain is.
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In Misery (1987), as in The Shining (1977), a writer is trapped in an evil house during a Colorado winter. Each novel bristles with claustrophobia, stinging insects, and the threat of a lethal explosion. Each is about a writer faced with the dominating monster of his unpredictable muse.

Paul Sheldon, the hero of Misery, sees himself as a caged parrot who must return to Africa in order to be free. Thus, in the novel within a novel, the romance novel that his mad captor-nurse, Annie Wilkes, forces him to write, he goes to Africa--a mysterious continent that evokes for him the frightening, implacable solidity of a woman's (Annie's) body. The manuscript fragments he produces tell of a great Bee Goddess, an African queen reminiscent of H. Rider Haggard's She.

He hates her, he fears her, he wants to kill her; but all the same he needs her power. Annie Wilkes literally breathes life into him.

Misery touches on several large themes: the state of possession by an evil being, the idea that art is an act in which the artist willingly becomes captive, the tortured condition of being a writer, and the fears attendant to becoming a "brand-name" bestselling author with legions of zealous fans. And yet it's a tight, highly resonant echo chamber of a book--one of King's shortest, and best novels ever. --Fiona Webster.
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