"Polar Bear" is running free!

I'd promised to release my first free novel, "Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo" by the end of the year. This counts, right? :)

Now that I have moved on to other books, I have decided to make "Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo" available for free download. The files themselves contain a brief licensing note, but basically, there are only two things you cannot do with this book: print it in a way that makes it look like a book or make money from it.

On my web site, you can see an excerpt and get the entire book for free. It's available in PDF format as well as Mobipocket/Kindle format, and also available to read or download at Scribd. If there's another format you'd like to see, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Please feel free to spread the word about this free commercial women's fiction novel - I'd love to have lots of people download and read it! And of course, I'd love your comments after you've read it!

If you'd like, you're welcome to 'steal' the following description for your posting.

When Candice's in-laws were killed eight months ago buying a huge faux polar bear rug for her Christmas present, she lost more than just two of her favorite people: she lost her husband Ian as well. After only two years of marriage, their guilt and pain have left them living together but apart, unable to really talk for fear of what they'll say to each other.

Ian leaves for a month-long contract overseas, and Candice plans to use the time apart to decide whether her marriage can be saved. When her ex walks back into her life as the new client at work, ten years more attractive yet saddened by his own recent loss, she's left wondering what she really wants from life and love.

I hope you enjoy the book!

Heather

A few bloggers who've mentioned the book:

• "Rent This Space"
  
• Nathan Bransford
  
• SpinKnitUp
  
• Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog
  
• West of Mars -- Win a Book! (must also say, this is a NEAT blog - lots of information on ways to win/get books for free)
  
• Kindle Reader blog - lots of great links to Kindle books, free and otherwise
  
• Kin.di.licious
  
  

Calendar Widget

I've had several requests for the little diet and exercise calendars I've posted on the left-hand side of the blog. They are basically just HTML tables, but for those less nerdy that's not much help.

It turns out to be pretty easy to make them available for one-click addition to Blogger blogs. Once I'm sure they're working right, I will post calendars for the rest of 2009, but for now the first three months are available below. (I do NOT know anything about any other blog platform. If you send me an email I will send you the HTML code for the calendar, but I can't do anything more than that to help you get the calendar onto your blog. Sorry!)

To get the calendar, click the button for the one you want. Blogger will ask you to log in if you're not logged in already and will then add the calendar to your blog. You can edit it as you see fit, but I do ask that you leave some link to this page (I've got one there already) so that other people can find the calendar if they want one.

I made the default title of the widget to be the rather unexciting "My Calendar". The month and year are embedded into the calendar itself, so you can change "My Calendar" to something that describes why you're using the calendar without needing to include the month name there. You can also have more than one calendar if you want: just add another one!

Within the HTML code of the calendar, there are a few things you might want to edit.

• I've set each square of the table to be white. If you don't like that, or if you want to colour the days as I do on my diet/exercise calendars, you're looking for the part that says bgcolor="white". Change the colour to whatever colour you want, either by just putting the word (red, teal, silver, etc.) or using the hexadecimal equivalent. (No idea what I mean? Put a colour name. :)
  
• The days that are not part of the current month have a font colour of silver. The same colour words can be used to make them a different colour if you want to.
  

I hope this helps! I am unfortunately not able to provide any sort of detailed technical support for these, but if you have a problem, leave a comment here and I will see whether there's something I can fix to make them work better.

Heather

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="white"><tr><th bgcolor="white" colspan="7" align="center">January 2009</th></tr><tr><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>S</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>M</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>T</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>W</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>T</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>F</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>S</th></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white"><font color=silver>28</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color=silver>29</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color=silver>30</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color=silver>31</font></td><td bgcolor="white">1</td><td bgcolor="white">2</td><td bgcolor="white">3</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">4</td><td bgcolor="white">5</td><td bgcolor="white">6</td><td bgcolor="white">7</td><td bgcolor="white">8</td><td bgcolor="white">9</td><td bgcolor="white">10</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">11</td><td bgcolor="white">12</td><td bgcolor="white">13</td><td bgcolor="white">14</td><td bgcolor="white">15</td><td bgcolor="white">16</td><td bgcolor="white">17</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">18</td><td bgcolor="white">19</td><td bgcolor="white">20</td><td bgcolor="white">21</td><td bgcolor="white">22</td><td bgcolor="white">23</td><td bgcolor="white">24</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">25</td><td bgcolor="white">26</td><td bgcolor="white">27</td><td bgcolor="white">28</td><td bgcolor="white">29</td><td bgcolor="white">30</td><td bgcolor="white">31</td></tr></table><a href=http://heatherwardell.blogspot.com/2008/12/calendar-widget.html>Want this calendar?</A>

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="white"><tr><th bgcolor="white" colspan="7" align="center">February 2009</th></tr><tr><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>S</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>M</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>T</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>W</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>T</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>F</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>S</th></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">1</td><td bgcolor="white">2</td><td bgcolor="white">3</td><td bgcolor="white">4</td><td bgcolor="white">5</td><td bgcolor="white">6</td><td bgcolor="white">7</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">8</td><td bgcolor="white">9</td><td bgcolor="white">10</td><td bgcolor="white">11</td><td bgcolor="white">12</td><td bgcolor="white">13</td><td bgcolor="white">14</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">15</td><td bgcolor="white">16</td><td bgcolor="white">17</td><td bgcolor="white">18</td><td bgcolor="white">19</td><td bgcolor="white">20</td><td bgcolor="white">21</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">22</td><td bgcolor="white">23</td><td bgcolor="white">24</td><td bgcolor="white">25</td><td bgcolor="white">26</td><td bgcolor="white">27</td><td bgcolor="white">28</td></tr></table><a href=http://heatherwardell.blogspot.com/2008/12/calendar-widget.html>Want this calendar?</A>

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="white"><tr><th bgcolor="white" colspan="7" align="center">March 2009</th></tr><tr><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>S</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>M</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>T</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>W</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>T</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>F</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>S</th></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">1</td><td bgcolor="white">2</td><td bgcolor="white">3</td><td bgcolor="white">4</td><td bgcolor="white">5</td><td bgcolor="white">6</td><td bgcolor="white">7</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">8</td><td bgcolor="white">9</td><td bgcolor="white">10</td><td bgcolor="white">11</td><td bgcolor="white">12</td><td bgcolor="white">13</td><td bgcolor="white">14</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">15</td><td bgcolor="white">16</td><td bgcolor="white">17</td><td bgcolor="white">18</td><td bgcolor="white">19</td><td bgcolor="white">20</td><td bgcolor="white">21</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">22</td><td bgcolor="white">23</td><td bgcolor="white">24</td><td bgcolor="white">25</td><td bgcolor="white">26</td><td bgcolor="white">27</td><td bgcolor="white">28</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">29</td><td bgcolor="white">30</td><td bgcolor="white">31</td><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">1</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">2</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">3</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">4</font></td></tr></table><a href=http://heatherwardell.blogspot.com/2008/12/calendar-widget.html>Want this calendar?</A>

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="white"><tr><th bgcolor="white" colspan="7" align="center">April 2009</th></tr><tr><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>S</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>M</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>T</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>W</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>T</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>F</th><th bgcolor="white"><font color=black>S</th></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">29</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">30</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">31</font></td><td bgcolor="white">1</td><td bgcolor="white">2</td><td bgcolor="white">3</td><td bgcolor="white">4</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">5</td><td bgcolor="white">6</td><td bgcolor="white">7</td><td bgcolor="white">8</td><td bgcolor="white">9</td><td bgcolor="white">10</td><td bgcolor="white">11</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">12</td><td bgcolor="white">13</td><td bgcolor="white">14</td><td bgcolor="white">15</td><td bgcolor="white">16</td><td bgcolor="white">17</td><td bgcolor="white">18</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">19</td><td bgcolor="white">20</td><td bgcolor="white">21</td><td bgcolor="white">22</td><td bgcolor="white">23</td><td bgcolor="white">24</td><td bgcolor="white">25</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="white">26</td><td bgcolor="white">27</td><td bgcolor="white">28</td><td bgcolor="white">29</td><td bgcolor="white">30</td><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">1</font></td><td bgcolor="white"><font color="silver">2</font></td></tr></table><a href=http://heatherwardell.blogspot.com/2008/12/calendar-widget.html>Want this? Click here!</A>