Apr 22, 2009 | Uncategorized |
I'm feeling the pressure to have something interesting and fun on the blog! It's so pretty now, and there's that snippet which appears on the home page, set off in a lovely pale gold, that just begs you to read. But what if I don't write something interesting?
Alas, I can't be interesting all the time. (Or maybe not ever, depending on your outlook.) Instead, I'll tell you what I did yesterday. My writerly schedule, as it were. Let's do this list style, because it's easier. 🙂
1. Made coffee.
2. Ate cereal.
3. Went to office with coffee.
4. Opened up Firefox.
5. Wasted entirely too much time doing online things.
6. Finally realized nothing was getting done in the WIP unless I left the house, and therefore my internet.
7. Starbucks. Ah, what is this orange mango smoothie thing they have now? Yum!
8. Write.
9. Curse.
10. Check email on iPhone.
11. Twitter.
12. Write some more.
13. Curse.
14. Peek at iPhone.
15. Curse.
16. Reluctantly cut some stuff from the WIP. Realize it's better without all that mess. Feel happier.
17. Write some more, think maybe I can do it after all.
18. Eventually, leave and pick up a sub for dinner. Stop at grocery store.
19. Eat dinner, send rotten chapters to lovely friend.
20. Work out.
21. Crash.
Yep, the glamorous day of a writer. What's on your schedule today?
Be sure to check out my guest blog over at Romance Magicians. It's about behaving professionally as a writer.
Tuesday's winner: Nicole S. Contact me with your address for your copy of Heaven, Texas!!
More giveaways next week! I hereby designate Monday and Tuesday as prize day. For now. 🙂
Apr 21, 2009 | Uncategorized |
Yes they are! I promised a funny (not literally) story about the roses in my header and at the bottom of the page. See, when I contacted Croco Designs last winter (December, I think) and asked if they could build a site for me, Frauke said sure and sent me a questionnaire. One of the questions was about color. I said I wanted red. And I wanted dark words on a light background.
She asked if I wanted her to use photos or a graphic design. I said I was fine with photos. See, I'd done my homework and clicked over to many, many of her sites. And I loved the moody sensuality in each of them. Many of them had photos of hunky men. And I kind of assumed I would get something with a glamorous couple — maybe a ritzy car, a city background, champagne, diamonds. I had no idea, really!
So when Frauke revealed the design to me recently, I was surprised to see roses. And very pleased — because I hadn't thought about that at all! But here's the funny thing — in my office I have a framed poster. This poster:
What a coincidence, huh? I figured it was meant to be. And she's ever so much smarter than I am, because the hunky men and gorgeous women are already on my book covers. They won't ever compete with people in my header.
What's your favorite flower? Favorite color? Did something ever work out in ways you didn't expect, but turned out to be perfect?
Winner from Monday: Colleen. Email me through my contact page with your address and I'll get the $5 Starbucks card and a book from my stash out to you ASAP!
Stay tuned for more prizes!!
Apr 20, 2009 | Uncategorized, Blogging, Contests, Video, Websites |
Hopefully, you found your way here easily enough today. Things have changed a bit, as you can see. 🙂 My website and blog went to the salon rather frumpy and out of date and came back sleek and gorgeous. Oh if only it were that easy to do the same for me! 😉
Reminds me of another rather frumpy person who today, one week after she became a YouTube sensation, is a global star. Not that my website — or I — can claim to be mega-stars.
The web is abuzz, of course, with many many articles about Susan Boyle. About her appearance, our expectations, the hope and triumph, etc. I won't bother adding links because unless you've been in a cave, you've seen this stuff out there. I do like the articles that take us to task as a society, however, for not expecting this kind of pure beauty in such a rather ordinary, even — alas — mockable, appearance.
With that in mind, I offer this song of Susan's that is the only recorded song she's ever done. Made for a charity CD, of which only 1000 copies were made. Click the link, close your eyes, and tell me this isn't the voice of a sultry chanteuse. Gorgeous, gorgeous. I will most definitely be buying this woman's first album when it comes out.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8r9lRJ6yHY]
Sometimes, getting a makeover is about perception. In Susan's case, it was the judges, the audience, and now the world who got the makeover.
And now back to MY makeover. Well, my site makeover. 😉 Leave a comment to win a copy of one of my absolute favorite makeover romances of all time: Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
Apr 17, 2009 | Blogging, Websites |
Here I am posting to my new website for the first time. Hope I don't screw it up! Thanks to Frauke Spanuth at Croco Designs for the gorgeous site!
Now, just as soon as I figure out my way around here, etc, I'll be holding those celebratory giveaways I was talking about at the old blog. This has been a while in the making, but I've certainly learned that web design is no simple or quick matter. It takes time to build all this fabulosity — which makes my previous little homemade versions look like the small potatoes they were (because I know next to nothing about web design).
This site will grow over time, of course. There will be more content, more fun stuff as I think of things I want. For now, I have much to learn about this site.
I do hope you'll have a look around. Let me know what you think! Leave a comment below and I'll launch my first giveaway. Everyone who comments will be entered to win a $5 Starbucks card and a book from my stash. I'll announce a winner next week. 🙂
More to come in the next few days….
Apr 10, 2009 | News |
This certainly isn't news to die-hard romance readers, but it seems as if people like happy endings when times are bad. Duh.
At a time when booksellers are struggling to lure readers, sales of romance novels are outstripping most other categories of books and giving some buoyancy to an otherwise sluggish market.
Harlequin Enterprises, the queen of the romance world, reported that fourth-quarter earnings were up 32 percent over the same period a year earlier, and Donna Hayes, Harlequin’s chief executive, said that sales in the first quarter of this year remained very strong. While sales of adult fiction overall were basically flat last year, according to Nielsen Bookscan, which tracks about 70 percent of retail sales, the romance category was up 7 percent after holding fairly steady for the previous four years.
I'm not surprised. Are you? I pretty much always want a feel-good read, but maybe I was inoculated to human suffering and angst-ridden unhappy endings during my years spent getting first a BA and then an MA — years in which I read tons of “classic literature.” Been there, done that. I still like a good literary story, don't get me wrong. Ann Patchett and Audrey Niffenegger amaze me, for instance. Wonderful writers.
By and large, give me that happy ending though. You can read the full article here. For once, the NYT wasn't in the least snooty — unlike the LA Times columnist this week who reported on this phenomenon, put down romance, and then admitted she'd never read one. Ludicrous. Would you let someone tell you what your opinion should be, and then espouse it as your own? I wouldn't, but she sure doesn't have a problem with it. Someone told her romance was dumb at some point — so she jumped on the snotty bandwagon and starting beating the drums. Thank God for individuality, right?
