Is it just me, or is Facebook getting exponentially more daunting?
I got tagged a while ago to tell 8 interesting things about myself – that alone sounded difficult. So I put it off…and then put it off some more. Then someone else tagged me, and it had become 16 interesting things! A week later…25! Now I’ve been tagged by a few different friends for a survey–and the number of questions is up to 48! Egads. And I really was going to take a stab at it (before I got tagged for the 96-question round, you know), but then I looked at the questions and so many of them are variations on “What is your favorite_____?”
I don’t know what it is, but I can’t choose favorites. Ice cream flavor, music, color, movie…heaven forfend, book! If you ask me what my favorite ____ is, I just squirm. Inside I’m thinking, Well, I love X…but then I love Y, for entirely different reasons…which do I love more?…I don’t know!…And then there’s Z!…What about Z??….Why must I choose?…I can’t handle this much cognitive dissonance within my fragile psyche! *tessa implodes*
So if you have been sweet enough to tag me lately, and I have not responded…this may be why. Sorry! It’s not you, it’s me.
They’re calling me to the bookstore today. I’m so excited about these three releases, all debuts of some fashion:
My local RWA chaptermate and fellow Ballantine author, Jennifer Lyon, is debuting a hot new paranormal series with Blood Magic. The book got a TOP PICK from Romantic Times, so I can’t wait to read it! Plus, the cover is gorgeous.
Beaumonde chaptermate Miranda Neville (who happened to have all the right information about opera house lighting just when I needed it, bless her!) debuts with a sexy, sophisticated Regency-set historical today, Never Resist Temptation. ETA: Courtney Milan is giving away a copy on her blog. Enter by February 27 for a chance to win!
And bestselling, RITA-winning Tracy Anne Warren is making her Avon debut with Tempted By His Kiss! Hooray! It’s the start of a brand new series, “The Byrons of Braebourne”.
I suppose it’s only natural that right now I’m drawn to debuts. I mean, I’m like that 16-year-old Regency miss just on the cusp of her introduction to society, watching all the older girls to see just how they handle the quadrille or carry their reticules, or… Okay, that analogy has run its course. You get the point. I’m reading, and watching, and learning…and just hoping that when it’s my turn, I manage to carry it off with as much grace as they do. I found myself wondering today, just what I would do the night before my first book releases. I mean, sleep would be out of the question. As would anything that required a great deal of focus, like reading. Laundry, perhaps? A marathon of John Hughes movies? As I write this, it’s very late (or very early, depending on your frame of reference), and I wonder what these three ladies are doing right now…
What would you be doing, the night before your debut?
Also ETA: If you had suscribed to my posts on the old Wordpress blog, you’ll have to subscribe again, apparently. Of course, those of you who really need to see this notice won’t, because this post won’t appear in your reader… hm.
Wow! Look, here I am on my new site! I’m still figuring out how this works, so this is basically a test post.
Isn’t the diary page cool? See the “Styles” feature at the left? If you choose the different couples, the colors of the site change to match the respective book covers! How cool is that? Courtesy of CrocoDesigns, folks. Frauke, you’re amazing!
If you visit the blog or my website this weekend, you may find it temporarily offline. The fabulous Frauke at CrocoDesigns is helping me sharpen up my Wordpress template and make the whole site a little easier to use (for both me and others). I’ve decided to convert the non-blog part of my site to Wordpress, too, so the conversion is going to take place this weekend. See you next week, all spiffy and updated!
Okay, it hasn’t been raining quite that long, but it sure feels like we’re going to float away. Southern California is having what’s being called “our biggest storm of the year”, which to someone who grew up in the Midwest feels odd, because I think of a storm as a quick, crashing downpour accompanied by lightning and scary winds, and a California “storm” is more like…rain. And more rain. And a bit of a break, and then more rain.
Rain is good! (Unless you live in one of those areas where the brushfires were burning a few months ago, so now you’re in danger of mudslides. We don’t.) We always need water here. And once upon a time, I loved a rainy day. Rainy days meant cozying up with my favorite sweatshirt and blankets and tea and a good book. Mmmmm, nice.
At this stage in my life, however, rainy days mean two darelings literally bouncing off the walls with pent-up energy. In recent days, we’ve made cupcakes, done craft projects, used up every last piece of construction paper, and played lots of board and card games the darelings are really too young to understand. (My eldest’s idea of playing crazy eights is to spend ten minutes divvying up the cards so that she gets all the eights. Unsurprisingly, it’s a no-fail strategy!)
So here we are facing yet another rainy day with no school… Um, help? Please? What do I do with these kids?
One of the best things about being a romance writer is that I often feel like I’m living Valentine’s Day all year round. So setting aside one separate day to celebrate romance seems a little odd, given my profession. Maybe kinda like being the presidential biographer on Presidents’ Day? Everyone else is suddenly paying attention to your field, but for you, it’s just another day of business as usual.
But there are all kinds of love stories in the world. Especially after I’ve become a mother, true stories like this one touch my heart in ways no Regency-era courtship can.
Okay, I promised this post a few weeks ago now. I’d been holding off, hoping I could get the blurb of my soon-to-be-epubbed novella together, but it’s still in the works. Darn if that isn’t proving to be the hardest book ever to blurb.
Anyhow, I posted a few weeks ago about my belief that e-publishing is good for the romance genre. And today I’m posting about why I think it’s a good move for me. I have a NY print contract and three books coming out this year. In terms of royalties and readership, realistically speaking, my e-pub novella is not going to come anywhere close to my print figures. So what’s in it for me?
It’s Tuesday, and I try to always blog on Tuesdays. And usually I blog about something related to writing, because…uh, because I really have no life. Seriously. I write, I take care of my kids, I work at the library from time to time, I spend some time with Mr. Dare, and I try to keep the laundry pile from growing large enough to develop sentience. That’s about it.
But wow – this week, I had a social life! I went to a movie. I went to a wine-tasting party on Saturday, and then a Super Bowl party on Sunday. Whee!!
The movie I saw was Slumdog Millionaire. And if you only see one movie this year (says the girl who only sees one movie a year), I suggest you make it this one. Wow. So gutwrenching and so heartwarming, so awful and wonderful, all at once. It reminded me of that oft-repeated writing advice: Make your characters suffer. (Oops, I’m blogging about writing after all. Oh, well.) The protagonist, a Mumbai orphan named Jamal, has to go through so much crap (literally and figuratively) in this movie, by the last half-hour I just wanted to find director Danny Boyle and wring his guts until they felt as knotted as mine did. But oh, how deeply it made me care. And ah, how sweet the ending was, after all that pain. As I left the theater, I felt resolved to put my characters through hell in this next book–and I immediately had this sinking feeling, because I knew just what I’d have to do… *sob* I don’t wanna! But I know I should…
‘Tis the season for award-winning, thought-provoking movies! Any recommendations? If I see two movies this year, which should I make my next one?
Author Lauren Dane (both e-pubbed and traditionally print-pubbed) has an excellent article on her blog about the differences between the two. Note: not the superiority of one or the other, just the differences.
I’ll be back tomorrow with an actual blog of my own.
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