Month: November 2016

5 Things: I’m Thankful For

This was actually a tough one.  It’s not that I don’t have anything to be thankful for, not at all.  The hard part was narrowing it down to 5 :).

Actually, the holidays are a hard time for me, but I am thankful for so many things.  And because I watched Pollyanna last night and learned about the “glad game”–right after watching the new Anne of Green Gables, which was okay, but will never take the place of the original <3–I’m going to focus on what makes me glad.

So here are 5 Things I’m Thankful For:

  1. Green bean casserole. Yummm!  It’s my favorite, made exactly as it says on the box. The green bean goodness cannot be beat.
  2. Fall weather.  I love blankets, warm socks, sweaters, and a nice chill in the air.  Living in the South, you’ve got to appreciate weather like that.  It’s just the best.  Ooh, and warm tea…sigh.
  3. Books, the writers who write them and the readers who read them.  My week has been filled with books, books and more books.  I just wish I read (and wrote) faster lol!  As a reader, I appreciate writers so much for putting their words and stories out there.  As an author, I cannot say it enough: ADORKABLE readers, you really are the best!  Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and encouragement!
  4. Dogs.  Puppies and full grown senior dogs, young or old, long or short haired, small or large, what can I say?  I love them.  God bless all the fur babies!
  5. Family and friends.  I don’t have a lot of either, but the ones I do have are tops.  They are the best of the best, the cream of the crop, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

And I gotta say, in keeping with the glad game, even though I don’t have Netflix and missed the revival of Gilmore Girls (ugggh), I’m happy I got to see the new Pollyanna.  There was no Rory.  Even worse, there was no Jess :(.  But there was also no Logan, who I disliked greatly, and I suppose that’s something to be glad about lol.  But seriously, that Pollyanna had so much spirit and endless cheer.  I happy cried, and I’m not even sorry about it.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Happy Thanksgiving & Congratulations!

I can’t believe it’s already the end of November!  How did that happen?  Seriously, I blinked and it’s Thanksgiving Day :).

Annnd now, we’ve reached the end of my first Goodreads Giveaway!

I’m honestly floored by the amount of people who requested ADORKABLE.

1308 people 0__0.

That’s just…wow.  Thank you to everyone who entered; the sheer amount of interest in the book floors and humbles me.  And I’m so happy to announce the names of the 2 winners:

Tiffany and Jennifer!!!

Congratulations to both of you, and thank you so much for entering the giveaway!  I will be sending your signed copies of ADORKABLE in the mail tomorrow.  Gah…I hope you love it :).

I’ll also be doing another post tomorrow about “5 things I’m Thankful For.”  I hope everyone has a very happy thanksgiving full of great food, friends and family and all the best things!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Never Give Up

Warning: This post may come off as a little kumbaya at times, jaded at others, but I always try to stay positive.  Here, I tried to keep it real.  You have been warned.

My favorite books are the ones where the hero wins in the end.

I mean, seriously, does that surprise you?  I wrote a book called ADORKABLE for crying out loud!

The girl gets her guy.  Good triumphs over evil.  The world is going to crap, crashing down all around us, but somehow…the dog lives in the end.

That is what I think makes a great story.

The difference between the younger books I read versus the adult books is that in YA and children’s books there is an innocence but, within that, a definitive sense of right and wrong.

Young adults read books like Harry Potter.  They grow up on these books.  They devour the pages and breathe the words in like oxygen.  Some may call it naive, but young people read books like Harry Potter, and they just know Voldemort will lose in the end.  They see someone who stands for hate and racism, a man who surrounds himself with deatheaters who want to get rid of all the “mudbloods” to keep the magical race “pure,” and they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that that.is.wrong.

They believe in the wisdom found inside HP’s magical pages like, “If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals,” and “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us.  What matters is the part we choose to act on.  That’s who we really are.”  Whether they remember the quote or not, young people absorb the meaning and truth of these words.

They see good people like Harry, Ron, and Hermione fighting back, doing all they can to keep us from returning to the dark ages, and they cheer them on.  They want the good guys to win.  They want the bad guys to lose.  It’s that simple.

Because really, how could we get to the end of book 7 of this best-series-in-the-entire-world only to find out that…Voldemort wins???

No.  Young people would never stand for it, readers would revolt, and a great author like J.K. Rowling would never let that happen.

This is one of the reasons I love YA and children’s books.  The worlds in these books, however bleak, are often full of hope.  Things may sometimes seem hopeless…but then you realize that you still have about 100 more pages left to read, and you know, you just know, that things will turn around.  The promise of a happy ending drives us to keep reading, keep hoping, to never give up.

I wish the world was more like the books I love so much.  (Although not The Hunger Games.  That would be pretty messed up.)

I think the world needs more hope and less hate.  More happy endings and less tragedies.  More heroines and less bad guys.

I’ve got to be honest with you.  Right now, I don’t see a whole lot of light.  There is darkness everywhere.  I’m not giving up, and I don’t think anyone who feels like I do should either.  But my faith in people has been shaken.  I do not know how people could dismiss a man’s despicable actions, hateful words and beliefs and support him anyway.  I just…don’t.

So that’s where I am.  To try and end on a positive, I’ll leave you with some words said by a smart man, created by the mind of an even smarter woman:

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”–J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The next blog post will be lighter, I promise.  Hope everyone has a great week.

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

 

Goodreads Giveaway!

I’m very excited to announce my first ever Goodreads Giveaway!

I’ve seen giveaways around for other books, always hoped I might get to do one.  And now that the paperback version of ADORKABLE is out, I can :).

FYI, for any first-time self-pubbing authors out there, you have to set the giveaway date 7 days before the actual day (who knew?). So I set it all up last week, and it just went live today.  Anyone with a Goodreads account can enter and it is open to users in the United States.

What can you win, you say?

If you enter, you can win one of two signed copies of ADORKABLE!  That means there will be 2 winners!!  Again, I can’t wait.  When I looked just now, I saw that 9 people had already requested, and I was like “yesss!”

Here is the widget for entries.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Adorkable by Cookie O'Gorman

Adorkable

by Cookie O’Gorman

Giveaway ends November 23, 2016.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

I hope you enter the giveaway and help me spread the word about ADORKABLE.  I hope the winners love the book–or maybe they’ll be winners who already loved the book ;).

Good luck, and may the Force be with you!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman