What a Weekend.

Well, I now have a new sister-in-law. My husband's brother got hitched this weekend, and I'd say "hitched" is the proper word here because they were married in boots and cowboy hats inside an indoor roping arena. Knowing nothing about horses and roping and all that, I found it to be quite an experience.

This was a second marriage, so they didn't make a big deal about it. In fact, my husband found out he was the best man a couple minutes before the I do's!! It was like, "here, stand up here with us, hold the ring for me, give it to the plaid-shirted preacher guy when he asks for it, then sign as witness when we're done."

It was lovely though. The hubby and I lost track of our daughter and she got into the arena with the galloping horses and riders only once, so that wasn't too bad. Okay, fine, it scared the bejesus out of me, and I didn't let her down the rest of the night...a fact which she did NOT appreciate.

What's worse, we found out that morning she had an ear infection, so she was kind of cranky to start with. This is her first ear infection, poor thing. The night before the wedding, she cried as I haven't seen her cry in a long time. She'd been sickly with a runny nose all week. But we didn't notice the wax draining out of her ear until the next morning, which was a Saturday, of course. So we had to take her to the hospital emergency room's urgent care. Ugh.

She's finally starting to feel a little better, even though I have to gag medicine down her for another eight days. I'm hoping she'll begin sleeping throughout the night again...real soon.

Those things kept me busy enough. But to top off that, my writing bud, Miranda received a bad review from RT Book Reviews. It wasn't just the worst review she ever received, I swear it's the worst review I've ever READ! The woman was inconsolable.

She was even too afraid to let her husband see it because she feared he'd think worse of her for writing such a story to horrify this reviewer the way she did. It was an erotic horror/romantic suspense story, so yes, it's supposed to disturb the reader to some extent, but she certainly didn't mean to disturb anyone this way.

I know what she was trying to accomplish. She wanted to show how the heroine went to extreme measures to heal herself after a harrowing event. I could see where she was going with the story, but it was shocking to see someone else interpret it in entirely a different, appalling way. The reviewer was totally grossed out.

Miranda was ready to give up writing altogether. She thought all her writing friends would dissociate themselves with her because she wrote such disturbing material. She actually went through the stages of grief: Sorrow, anger, denial. I think she's finally beginning to accept and move on, but whew, it was harsh there for a while.

Problem is, this is her first and only review on the book so far, so it's hard to say if everyone will see the story the way this one reviewer did, or if it was just one person construing her own way. The reviewer DID get a couple facts in the story wrong, though they were close enough I could see how she could make them if she'd been reading fast or skimming. Still...I'm crossing my fingers Miranda will get another more-favorable (even a two-star at this point) review to help boost her ego a little bit.

How do you all help a friend when they've hit such a low point? I tried to tell her that at least three other people had to have read the story before it was published and no one mentioned any of that bad stuff, so it really couldn't be THAT bad, but that didn't help her..at all.

Ideas??