Friday Fun

The end of another week, finally, eh?

Tooting my own horn again, briefly. Diana Castilleja, who is an author in her own right (go check her out!), and who is one of the founders of Sweeter Romantic Notions gave me a fantastic review on Stacking the Deck. Squee!

I fell for the first time during my ice skating lesson this week. As falls go, it was really very graceful (even my instructor said so!) and didn't hurt much. At the time. Now I'm sore and trying to remember if falling hurt when I was learning the first time around. :) But falling is like getting a rejection letter. Proof that you're progressing, that you've taken a chance and not quite made it, but you're on your way.

There will be a horse training lesson this weekend and probably more skating. Maybe a movie, if we're -really- having fun. And I hope to do some reading. These books are crying out for attention.

Hope your weekend goes well!

Seasons of Change!

First things first: I'm over at The Novelty Girls again, talking about cover models and what sort appeals. Swing by if you get the urge.

Which inspired me to go looking for the covers for the series four of us (Novelty Girls, that is) are doing for Cobblestone Press.

The series is called Seasons of Change, and it's centered around the Still Waters resort and the Lassiter family. They're all wereleopards and the resort is a shapeshifter's haven. There'll be one book a season out with this series, and if you haven't picked them up yet, well, what are you waiting for?

Shelli kicked the series off with the spring book, Dating Season. Jada is the only girl of the family and has to deal with three somewhat overprotective brothers. And I'm just going to show off covers, because I think they're cool.



Lori will be next, on June 1st, with the summer book, Hurricane Season. Quinn is the eldest son and sort of the black sheep, as he's left the resort and headed for Florida for a while.



Crystal Jordan has the fall book, Open Season, and no cover yet, but I'm sure it'll be awesome. Aidan's the second Lassiter son

And I have winter, Out of Season, also no cover yet. My hero's Cole, the head of security for the resort and the baby of the family.

They should be a lot of fun, though. If you liked the Vegas Magic series, you'll really like these books, I think. They don't take place on the same night, but you'll get to know the Lassiters.

Hollywood is scary.

I have, for the most part, gotten over my fear of performance, so to speak. I was a theatre major, I've done lots of stupid things in front of lots of people, and most of the time I don't get the jitters. Sometimes, though, they come roaring back.

I had a call with Fox today. Now, mind you, I've talked to Fox before. After the initial stunned phone call in October, I've probably spoken to them four times. Not so bad. No nerves.

Until today, when I jittered around like crazy until the phone rang.

It wasn't a bad phone call. It didn't last long, but my New Contact is a busy lady. A nice lady, but busy. We discussed shifting the focus a bit. We talked about the need to demonstrate what the weekly format would be and how the story would play out if we were looking at a 22-episode season (22! She really said 22. It's not anything even near a promise that I'd actually ever *get* a 22 episode season, but the very thought makes me dizzy!) and what to think about.

And then she said we'd talk again, which is the most important part.

Now I can breathe again. I'll try.

Busy busy busy

Apologies for going silent after stirring the pot on my own blog. Thank you thank you to those of you who chimed in. I truly do appreciate it.

Been writing (finally!) and being social with my chapter (always a good thing), so I haven't been thinking about the blog much lately.

Today, we're taking one of the horses to a new facility to get her trained, so that will be exciting. I also have a chapter meeting to head up, with a visiting agent from New York.

We got to talking about the agent-author relationship yesterday, by the way. And it was mentioned that this agent does not take her clients to lunch or dinner when they meet. They take her, because she is an employee of the author's not the other way around. Disappointing, perhaps, for those of us who want an agent to pick up the tab, but an interesting perspective from the other side on the business relationship, don't you think?

Topical

We all have our issues. The issue of racism is mine.

And there's another round of conversation going around the 'net about racism in publishing (which inevitably turns into racism in general).

As much as it fascinates and thrills me to see people talking about it, it frustrates and saddens me too, because I like to convince myself that people are more open-minded than they prove themselves to be. However, it's important stuff and that's why I keep bringing it up.

So, for those interested or wishing to peek at what's being said this time:

Karen Scott is posting the results of her Racism in publishing surveys. There are interesting things being said in the comments over there. There are clashes and conflicts too, but as stated above, that seems to go with the territory.

Kate Rothwell also broached the topic on her blog this weekend and got an interesting dialogue going. Not the same old argument that goes around and around.

Dear Author touched on the topic again with some angry results but also some decent conversation as well.

And Monica Jackson has commentary on her blog as well.

If I've missed someone that you know about, feel free to share a link and I'll add it here.

As for me, I'm curious about those of you who pass by my piece of internet real estate, as I don't think I've seen any of my "regulars" participating, at least.

Do you read African-American romance novels? Are you aware that they exist? If you don't, do you have a conscious reason for it? If you don't read them, but you're willing or uncertain, what would it take for you to pick an AA romance novel up?

Do your local bookstores have African-American sections? Do you know or notice whether AA romance novels are shelved with other romances or whether they're relegated to the AA section?

What about Latina romance or Latina lit? Do you see it, know what it is, have any idea where it might be shelved in your store? Would you read it?

Round 'em up!

Finally Friday! Woohoo!

On the off-chance that there's someone who hasn't seen this half a dozen times: Samhain Publishing is now an RWA-recognized epublisher. They follow hard on the heels of Loose Id. That makes four epublishers now. Go little guys!

You can now find Fortune's Fool on Fictionwise and Mobipocket, if you're curious or haven't gotten copies yet. It's on sale for 15% off at Fictionwise right now. Yay!

And that's about all the exciting news I have for the day. If you've got news to share, feel free. I like cheering folks on. :)

The things that amuse me.

Tessa announced that she'd found the autosummarize feature on Word. I didn't know it existed. Now I do, and I may never stop summarizing my books again. I can't stop laughing. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does make writing difficult, particularly if I'm not writing funny scenes.

This is probably one of my favorite ones, though. It comes from an epic gladiator fantasy I work on occasionally. Because it's epic. No, really.

A summary of the first chapter of Strike a Telling Blow, in ten sentences:

The sooner the better, if you ask the men.
No woman is condemned if she can't produce sons. happy, to a loving family.
Though both of us favored Papa, with dark hair and complexions, Matteus got hazel eyes that reminded Mama of her father, in turn.
Papa was well-known throughout the city. The Lirari threw grand parties. Everyone needed masks.
Papa called him the little Emperor.

Or how about the first chapter of my urban fantasy, Immortal Lies:

I've got testing anxiety. I'm not a thin-lipped, pasty-skinned pretty boy type. Violet. If you've never seen a faery have a bad hair day, count your lucky stars. I stared until my good eye started stinging. Powerful magic. "Promise. I smiled a little for her sake. Vi shook her head hard. One silver coil bobbled into her eyes.

I love this so much that I stole it and blogged about it over on The Novelty Girls. The feature is on the Tools menu under "word count". Give it a shot.

Got another great review from Mrs. Giggles today. Fortune's Fool got an 87!

The Weekend report

Yes, now I have Lion King songs stuck in my head. Why do I do this to myself?

Welcome to Monday! May it be anything but a "typical" Monday for you. Unless you like Mondays, in which case, I hope it's just a good day.

Let's get down to business: 300. We did in fact go see the movie on Saturday. Given that I've been bouncing in my chair about it for weeks, the Engineer handled my enthusiasm surprisingly well. They were showing it every hour at our local theatre, which reveals the sort of attendance they expected.

Now, the movie itself. Let me first say that I actually liked Sin City, which is another movie based on a Frank Miller graphic novel. I found the violence in Sin City over the top at times and unnecessary. So going in to 300, I expected violence. Lots of it.

And there was violence. It's a movie about a war. There were limbs flying and beheadings. But the violence was for the most part stylistic and so light on the fluid gore and for all the hacking and sword swinging, 300 was *much* less violent than Sin City. The Engineer agrees.

The main reason to see the movie is for the visuals. A huge amount of the film was shot against a blue screen and filled in with digital work and it shows, but it also works. The creatures of the movie are interesting to watch, the action scenes are entertaining and I thought that the touches of humor in the middle of the battles were, you know, funny. :)

And of course, there were a lot of half-naked, very buff men. I'm sure no one thinks that the Spartans *really* went to war wearing nothing but their boots, helmets, leather Speedos and flowing red cloaks, but they certainly looked impressive, which was the aim.

The plot isn't stellar. It won't go at the top of my list for best movie ever filmed, but as far as entertainment goes, I feel it was well-worth the money.

We went and practiced skating yesterday, which was fun. Exercise *should* be fun, says I. I have a brand new computer monitor to install.

And I'm one of the featured authors over at The Romance Studio this month. There's an interview, if you're interested.

That's enough for a Monday. :)

Weekly wrap up.

It's Friday. Yeee haw! As yesterday was my birthday, this weekend I intend to go and have some fun. The Engineer and I will probably go out to eat and see 300. I'm not expecting it to be high art, but the trailers look good, it's Frank Miller (and I actually enjoyed most of Sin City, oddly enough) and, you know, Gerard Butler spends most of the movie if not all of it only half dressed.

Never let it be said that I can't be as hungry for eye candy as the next girl. ;)

My new contact at Fox is apparently launching a new show on Monday, so there's been nothing from that front thus far. She's busy, it happens. I will continue to get my name in front of her and hope for a response soon.

I have not been writing lately. I finished a couple of editing rounds, but I haven't written anything new. The urge to create is building up again, so I forsee a burst in the very near future. I tell myself I'm going to write every day, but the truth of the matter is that sometimes, you just need to let things percolate. I get bottled up especially when there are issues elsewhere and I have to let things settle before the writing will flow again. Here's hoping I'm ready to go.

Rethinking

As I posted over on The Novelty Girls today, I think it's time to reconsider my webpage theme. It doesn't really suit what I write, does it? It worked at the time I designed it, but now I'm starting to feel like it doesn't represent me well. Back to the drawing board, I suppose.

I'd like something flashier, but I've also reached the point where I just don't feel like doing my own page anymore. It takes so long to get a look I like, and that's time that could and should be spent doing other things. Writing. Reading. Cleaning the house. (Ah, yes, anything to avoid doing what we should.)

In other news, I keep buying books and adding them to my TBR. This thing, if it fell over, would crush manlier men than I. By which I mean, it's huge and imposing and buying books is really a sickness.

Top of the Monday to ya!

I don't know. It's March. March means leprechauns and Ireland. Sue me. :)

Happy Monday, everyone. Hope your weekend was restful and fun. One or the other, at least. Or possibly productive. Okay, I just hope the weekend was good to you.

I don't particularly have anything exciting to relate. Still attempting to pick myself up. Still in Hollywood limbo. The usual, in other words. :)

But I felt a certain obligation to say hello, so here I am. It's both odd and comforting to think that people stop by hoping for new words to read. (Yes, yes, I know most readers will study the back of a cereal box rather than stare blankly into space. Hush.)

So here are some words. Take a few if you like. Leave some behind if you will.

Timing is everything.

CNN is running a story about failing tv shows that I find very interesting. I've stopped watching Lost after its hiatus this year.

Much as I love Jack and Kate and Sawyer, I'm tired of their story. I want to know what happened to the other characters. How is Hurley? Where are Jin and Sun? Is Desmond tormenting Locke? What about Charlie and Claire? It's possible that they're talking about the other characters again, but I've missed the last two weeks now, though I've been home to see it, and I don't really care.

I never watched Studio 60. I did, however, watch The Black Donnellys and I -really- enjoyed it. That's a show for a viewer like me, who has seen The Boondock Saints more than is possibly healthy. It'll be interesting to see if the "big" shows disappear. It's fascinating to me, seeing as I'm just getting started.

Got another -fantastic- review on Stacking the Deck, over at Bam's site. That's an up. Have to go to the dentist today. That's a down.

The teeter totter continues.