Gulp. But thank you SciFi author John Scalzi. Really. This was good for me.

Bad reviews happen and well, I have to just suck it up. Going on to Amazon and looking at these reviews was actually a surprisingly uplifting experience. I know that seems odd, but it's true. I've taken to not looking at reviews at all. The bad ones depress me and the good ones don't seem to uplift me as much as the others depress me. So I don't look. Well, because of Mr. Scalzi, I did and I discovered a few things. One is that people seem to have strong reactions to my writing. I knew that. But A Darker Crimson was particularly polarized that way. (Although I can't help but note that two people gave two stars when they meant to give 4.) 'Nuff said.

Also, some people seem to have read a different book(s) as they refer to things that just didn't happen or wildly misstate what did happen, though, one imagines that if they hated the book(s) that much, at some point they stopped reading closely. OK, one last little whine -- there were also a lot of rave reviews. But I own these, too, dammit!

I own my one stars:

The Spare - historical romance

1.0 out of 5 stars Could the hero be any more unlikable????

I do love a great regency/historical book. That being said, I dislike more than I like. I guess I am particular. But one thing that has to be strong in any book is a desire to finish! And one needs to be interested in the characters. Sebastian Alexander is perhaps one of the most unlikable hero's (and I use that term loosely) I have ever read. Sure, handsome, but there was really not a facet of his personality that came across as likeable so unless our feisty spinster Olivia has a martyr complex, why be interested? And yes, Sebastian spent 12 years at sea but geeze, sorry, having zero manners does not make that much sense. I found him creepy is his coldness. And the murder mystery just did not hold my attention.

Warning Buy USED, not NEW !

By A Customer

I was so disappointed in this book! I had high hopes after reading the author's first work - Lord Ruin. It truly was a jewel. However, she falls so far off the mark with this one, that I cannot in good conscience even justify the expense of buying the novel new. I feel cheated out of a good story and six bucks! The book is 352 pages and the only sex scene occurres somewhere on page 330...that should give you a fair example of what you're getting...pages and pages of endless dialogue. The plot meanders so far off the path that by the end you are left reading in disbelief as the author tries to neatly solve the murder mystery and send the hero and heroine off to happy-ever-after land. It just doesn't work on so many levels. The heroine is likable but the hero is not - because readers never get to know him. And while switching the point of view from male to female is a trait of this author, this time around she did not use it to advantage. In all, I would say buy it used, you'll be less likely to be disappointed.

A Darker Crimson

1.0 out of 5 stars Not really crimson, more puce

What can I say about this book? It was a tragedy. I have enjoyed all of the other Crimson City books, but Jewel's addition left a bad taste in my mouth.

From the first pages of the book I found it to be choppy, and disjointed. This sensation was partly created by the author's overuse of simple sentences, which produce the choppy effect, as opposed to complex sentences which contain clauses and conjunctions and, when used occasionally, enhance the flow. The book also lacked any solid descriptive writing, which left the book with no sense of time or place to ground the reader. The plot was forced. Events either happened too quickly, with no foreshadowing, or they dragged on too long, further adding to the disorientation on the part of the reader.

The dialogue was quite bad. If the heroine had said, "Yeah right," as her snappy comeback one more time I think I might have actually torn that page from the book. Granted, the trite responses and complete lack of wit on the part of the heroine is more realistic in a crisis, however if I wanted to hear realistic dialogue, I would eavesdrop on teenagers in a mall, not purchase a romance novel.

The characters were shallow, and lacking in any discernable motivation. The heroine was motivated by the kidnapping of her daughter, but I could not quite feel that her emotions were real because she seemed so false, like a prop on a stage. The vampire was a stock character from a vast repertoire of vampire romances available today, the demon appeared out of nowhere too late in the book to actually make sense, the only truly frightening villain is killed too quickly, and the heroine's daughter has approximately one appearance.

This book was a waste of my money and my time.

1.0 out of 5 stars barf

This is quite possible the worst book I've ever read. The plot is horrible, the characters shallow and there is an icky feeling that you are actually reading a bad Jerry Springer episode. The only characters I liked were the daughter and her pet. The bad guy is hate her/love her and dies way to easy. The good guy doesn't care that it was less than a day and a half since she was forced in mind if not body to "mate" with the bad guy before he "mates" with her. The whole thing ends with guess who the daddy is for her new baby. The only thing missing to make this story any more tacky is a dna test and a chair throwing fight. I recommend this book if you need a door stop or perhaps some kindling. To bad zero stars isn't an option!

1.0 out of 5 stars Seeing Red!

I was so angry with this book! I didn't even finish it I was so disgusted. I took it back the day after I bought it. As much as I love this series, this book was a total stink. I loved the first three books but this one just made me beyond mad. Not to disrespect the writer's style in any way, but did Carolyn Jewel even contact the other writers or read the other books before she did this book? It had hardly nothing at all to do with the other books except that it had vampires and demons in it. Another thing, I couldn't keep up with her. It was like trying to keep up with a jackrabbit with a hawk on its tail. I know the writer has a love for detail. That much is apparent. I can understand giving the man and woman a conlift, but what in the name of Grimm was she trying to do? There was nothing romantic or appealing about this book, not even the vampire stud-muffin she falls for, much less her demon life mate that basically rapes her and leaves her for dead. Which I have to say was a mockery to the paranormal romance connisour. There is nothing romantic about rape in any form, be it mock rape, mind rape or other. I could see it in a S&M erotica novel, but not in a novel like this. Trust me, I wasn't plesantly surprised.

The characters were shallow, trite and dry with no life,(even with all the detail, which I felt was nothing but filler for a lifeless book) no virve or anything. The only thing interesting that happens in this book is that the daughter, Holly, gets kidnapped. Yeah, the main character is a cop, but after knowing Eve Dallas in J.D Robb's 'In Death' series, she's a still-wet-behind-the ears rookie.

Respectfully, better luck next time Carolyn.

Labels: Owning up, reviews

I recently finished two books by the same author, in different genres, and they were both fantastic. ohmygosh!!! I felt the fangirlishness descend upon me. How could I find out more? Will she let me on her newsletter so I'll know when I need to rush out to buy her books? Seriously. I am not kidding. I sat down at my iMac to summon the power of Google to me. Google did its work.

Answer to both those questions: Good Luck and Not Hardly.

I guess I should have known there was trouble when her website didn't come up anywhere near the top ten Google results of a search on her name. In fact, I got to her website by copying and pasting a link from another search result. Authors, when you Google your name, if your website isn't the Number One result you have a problem. If your website isn't even on the first page of results, your website sucks.

I was determined, so I did make it to her website. This author has a marginally attractive site; I've seen worse, believe me. But her website had exactly three pages. The Home Page. A page about her books (incomplete and completely different in look and feel from the home page) and a News page which was sort of a blog, maybe. That's it. No newsletter. There were no links to buy her books. The "links" on the home page which were her book covers went to larger images of the covers. Oh My Good god Of Author Website Badness!!! I was ready to buy all her books. All of them.

But I'm crying with frustration that she doesn't have a newsletter. I wanted to be on her newsletter list! Whah!!!

So tell me, if your author website sucked that bad, would you be offended by a polite letter explaining why you should have a better one? Because I'm seriously thinking of emailing her about it.

Labels: bad marketing, marketing, websites that suck

Carolyn's Days of Relaxation continue.

In no particular order - except maybe the obvious. Today, I read a lot. Two really good books. I'll have to blog about that later, however. I slept until I wanted to get up. I emailed someone who I'm really, really hoping I can afford to have fix the parts of my website I just don't have time to deal with anymore. I replied to some other emails that have been lingering in my email box. I daydreamed about the historical that's due in November. Took my son, nieces and nephews down to the neighbors to feed the horses apples and carrots while the sheep were being sheared. Wandered back to the house and made lunch. Made cookies for lunches this week. Took the Darling Child to the Antique Faire (it was way too hot for both of us) and bought these:





They are Tibetan demon masks meant to protect one's home. They are now on duty in my room. This particular dealer is from Santa Cruz and he's been coming to the Petaluma Antique Faire for the last couple of years and he always has the neatest stuff very reasonably priced. Those two masks were $60 for both. Reasonable for me. Now, for all I know he made them in his garage, but I don't think so. Besides, years ago I decided that when I buy stuff like antiques, I would never ever buy anything I wouldn't still like if I found out it was fake. That's been a good policy because it keeps me from buying stuff I will eventually dislike looking it. This works really well with furniture. I like my demon masks. I have three now.

I also bought a Himalayan bell which, if I can stand to part with it, I will include as one of the prizes in my Wicked Cool Stuff contest. It's brass and awesome. I'll be announcing the contest shortly.

Lastly, before I sign off for the night, tomorrow I have the day off and I'm getting a facial and a massage. And hour and a half massage. Oh, heaven. Yes. I will be imagining cabana boys.

Labels: relaxing, Tibetan Masks

Today I've been reading some and spending time doing stuff that's been piling up. Updating website content, answering emails. Sigh.


In Fun and Happy news, feast your peepers on this:

Delivery estimate: June 4, 2008

Lover Enshrined (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 6)

J.R. Ward; Mass Market Paperback



Delivery estimate: August 6, 2008

Acheron (Dark-Hunter, Book 12)

Sherrilyn Kenyon; Hardcover;

squeeee!!!

Labels: reading, writing only not

All righty!! I've emailed Xia, which I have titled His Wicked Witch, to my editor. We'll see if the title sticks. So, I got in some last minute changes and now it's done and I can't do anything to the story until I hear from my editor.

What an odd feeling. I have Monday the 28th off, which I had thought to be spending in last minute panic. I'll be getting a massage and maybe a facial that day. Mmmmmm.

Then I went outside and took some pictures with my spiffy new replacement camera. There were three black widow spiders under a vat. Never mind how I found out. Some of the pictures came out good. I got the chills looking at the spider pics. It looks like I was much closer to them than I was.

I'm in the Post-Book Glow period and feeling a bit at sea. What to do with myself? Go to bed and read.

TBR pile, here I come...

Labels: writing, Xia

Well, maybe not quite. I had a few tweaks for Xia, like thinking up a new name for a secondary character who will, I'm pretty sure, be a heroine eventually, if there is an eventually, and an issue with cleaning up a ruby ring that isn't what I originally thought it was. Both of which I did. Then I added in the glossary and I'm done for the night! I'm waiting to see if there's any feedback in re stuff that sucks or something. Then it's out the e-door.

What will I do with myself?

Read.

Get a LONG massage.

Fix some website stuff

Send out ARCs and bookmarks.

Entertain the Darling Child who may have decided My book is due May 1st!! is the only thing his mother can say. In a tense voice.

Labels: relaxing, Xia

Photo by
Amodiovalerio Verde

I have a few tweaks left, but I'm done. Xia rocks.

Tomorrow I'll be less giddy.

Labels: The fork is out, Xia

Somebody just twittered they were having a beer called Lucifer's Golden Ale. Well, naturally, I immediately Googled it. And I found the two greatest beer names ever. In case you can't click over, they're Lucifer's Golden Ale and La Guillotine Ale.

Oh my gosh. You should click the link because the labels are wonderful, by the way.

Which one should I have my bad boys drink? Asahi Black, move over. You've been replaced by Belgian beers.

Back to work.

Labels: beer, Xia

Xia is just over 93K, but I'm not getting out the fork yet. I've finished my read back and fixed a lot of typos and other general clunkiness. I've started searching through the MS for words ending in LY. Most of them meet my good friend Mr. Delete Key.



Since I wanted to blog tonight I ended that at Chapter 17. Will finish that tomorrow, I hope. Then I have at least one chapter that needs some work. Then I guess a read through on paper and then I'll be pretty much out of time.

Sigh

Today I got my State tax refund and a royalty statement for A Darker Crimson which had an unexpectedly large check in it. Nowhere near enough to buy a MacBook Air, but it will finish paying for my son's braces.

Labels: editing, word whacking, Xia

90,040 words now. Which for anyone who can do the arithmetic means I wrote 2040 words today. Considering how my day went, that's pretty amazing. I spent the morning finalizing some promotional material that's costing me a fair fortune. Got that sent off and I figured I had many hours in front of me to get through chapters 27-29 and fix the ending. Well, rats. The day job intervened and required that I drive into town for the wireless at Starbucks where I discovered that my favorite (least disliked?) local Starbucks had done something either very mean and nasty or very stupid:

They moved all the tables but one away from the power outlets. Yes, that's right. There was only one table and chair near a power outlet, and it was occupied. Along the wall where there used to be three tables by outlets were two big huge chairs and one tiny table too far away to reach the lonely outlets anyway (and occupied). On the other side of the place there were two big chairs by the windows with a little coffee table no one in their right mind would ever use a laptop on because you'd have to hunch over between your legs to reach the keyboard or else sit on the floor. Also occupied. The middle was wide open, but hey, no power! And my laptop for work gets about 45 minutes of battery life. So after realizing this, I left WITHOUT spending any money!! and drove to the Starbucks across town where they did have tables by the outlets. I spent money there. Fixed most of what was wrong at work (in the specific sense of SQL Servers) and then went grocery shopping.

I got home from that about 3:30 absolutely fagged because I am just not a person for heat, and it was 84 degrees. Yuck. I should have spent more time in the freezer section with the doors open. I bought a pineapple plus lot of strawberries because I told The Darling Child I'd make Strawberry shortcake and I've learned if I don't core the fruit right away by the time I get around to it, the fruit is in an advanced state of decay fit only for the compost or the chickens.

Then I had to shred my previous print out of the MS to make room in the binder for the new one I'll be printing out shortly, and that meant emptying the shredder before I could shred and since it's recycling day and the shredder was full again, I had to empty the shredder again.

So, then it was time to take down the garbage and the recycling and on the way back I stopped to talk to the neighbors for a bit, and the Border Collie came after me from the top of our driveway and then got all neurotic. She barks and growls at everybody until they throw a ball for her at which point she is their slave for life. Well, Ed had a frisbee in his garage and the only thing Patch likes better than a ball is a frisbee because she can flip a frisbee on her nose. This is hours of fun for her. She now loves Ed.

At which point it was 5:30 pm and time to start dinner. I called the DC several times only to be ignored so I started the strawberry shortcake without him. By the time he made it out to eat, the biscuits were cooking and he was very upset with me as it turned out he wanted to help make the dessert. Um, Darling Child, if you had come the first time I called you instead of 20 minutes later after the 3rd or 4th time, maybe the outcome would have been different.

So then I felt bad because he was upset enough to actually start crying (silently and trying to hide it) during dinner. Even though he should have come when I called him the first time to tell him I was starting the shortcake. Sigh.

So, I didn't sit down to write until nearly seven. But I doubled my minimum and got to my comfort zone of 90K words with time to spend on having the MS read back to me and some more serious editing.

Labels: words on the page, writing freaking writing, Xia

Not really. But I am reporting in. Tonight I'm up to exactly 88,000 words for Xia. I'll feel better when I've cracked 90. That's pretty much done for me, which in this case means ready for more massive editing. The strange thing is I have only 29 chapters, and usually at this point I have 30-33. So I started looking for chapters that were 14 or more pages since for me that's a chapter that's too long. But there weren't any. What I have is a lot of chapters with 11-12 pages. Not long enough to need to chop in half. So, maybe this book will end up with fewer chapters than usual.

What else? I have some writing related have-to-do stuff that I really have to get done tomorrow that isn't writing Xia.

Thursday, I got ZIP writing done. My son fell in P.E. and bloodied himself up enough that he had to come home. My dad went to get him so I didn't have to leave work. But I talked to him on the phone and once I was sure he was mostly OK, told him to work on his English project, which was due Friday. He needed to create a facsimile of a newspaper page containing articles about some short stories they read. When I got home, had he done any of that work? No, he had not. And he's a terrible speller and well, it was 9:30 before the project was done, assembled and mostly error free. Friday, I was going to give him a lecture about how disappointed I was that he hadn't had the time to do his best work. Only he starts telling me how when he turned it in the teacher said that if it didn't contain a lot of spelling errors, it looked like A work to her. Dang you, teacher! And that she would show his to all the students who complained about not getting an A on theirs. So, no lecture.

Any way it's my usual sign off tonight. I'm tired and going to bed.

Labels: writing freaking writing, Xia

Still working on Xia. Right now, it's going a bit slower than I'd like. Yesterday I cut some stuff, I think only temporarily, but I haven't found its new home yet, and then rearranged some chapters which worked out really well, actually. I'm always glad (even when I have to remind myself of that) when I cut words that don't pull their weight. I did some of that yesterday and tonight, but wrote a bunch of new ones.

And, let's see, yesterday I tried to buy one of Harlequin's Spice Briefs (sorry, no URL I'm too tired to find it) because my awesome friend Alice Gaines wrote one and I seriously wanted to read it. I couldn't. I had no idea their e-commerce site was so awful. Wow. They're really not doing themselves any favors. Not only do they not take all types of payments (No PayPal? No Discover?? Huh?) but it doesn't work. Limited formats, too. But the part that got me frosted was the DRM. No Printing. What?? If I'd been able to complete the transaction (which I was not) I wouldn't be able to print it, stick it in my binder of ebook goodness and read in bed. OK, so that's pretty dumb, but I don't think your average buyer is going to print it out and then copy it for all their friends. But I get that HQN is dumb about this. Most trad publishers out there are about this. But there's also no reading aloud. WTF!??

So, I assume what they mean is if you're vision impaired and want to have your text reader read it for you, no go. How stupid and anti-Americans With Disabilities is that? Isn't that limitation illegal? That also means I wouldn't be able to invite five friends over and read the story to them. Why not? I can invite those same five friends over to watch a movie. That's not illegal yet. If I want to read a freaking book out loud to my friends, I can. What if I want to read out loud to myself? Like they could stop me. What about people who move their lips when they read? What if they accidentally whisper? Are the HQM DRM police going to come over and put them in jail? Can't we outlaw annoying cell phone conversations first?

In short, HQN has stupid and probably illegal DRM on their ebooks. They only offer three formats. There's about 10 people with Mobi readers. Wouldn't it have been smarter to turn down the marketing bucks from the Mobi people and offer more formats? AND they have a shopping cart application that is flat out broken. AND they only accept two methods of payment.

Ellora's Cave takes PayPal. They offer I think 5-6 formats. No DRM that I've ever seen. I print them out in a two pages per sheet small font, duplex and save them to read in bed. I've probably spent something approaching $100.00 of EC hotness. I have spent $0 on HQN. Which publisher do you think is laughing all the way to the bank?

And worst of all, I couldn't read Alice's story.


I'm tired. off to bed.

Labels: Rant, writing freaking writing, Xia

Did more fixing of chapters 27 and 28. Mostly 28. Tomorrow, I think I'll print it out and start from the beginning.

Tired.

Going to bed.

Labels: writing freaking writing, Xia

Today I hit 80,383 words for Xia, after chopping much of the current last chapter and rewriting it completely. (My contract sets out a word count of 85-95K, but I'm never done until I'm between 90 and 95K) All the rest are brand spanking new words. Carolyn like shiny things! For the last four days I've been see-sawing between 78 and 79K. Cut some stuff, write some stuff. Cut more stuff, write more stuff. But tonight I have not only the ending roughed out, but a tentative title in place.

I also substantially redid chapter 27. Mostly it was total carnage. I think there's like 5 words left from the original chapter 28 and 10 left from chapter 27. But they're a really good Five and Dime. (Joke!! I made a joke -- does anybody get that?)

Right. What else?

Um, I signed up for a Twhirl account (what is it with these Web 2.0 names?) and got my twitter stuff on my desktop. And I learned that while I was writing and rewriting, a lot, and I do mean a lot, of people were watching TV. And twittering about it, obviously. Kind of blew my mind. So, right now, every aspiring writer should be swearing off TV. Because while you were doing that instead of writing, I was getting myself inches from meeting my deadline with time to spare.

What do you want? To write the book of your heart (because there's no point to writing any other kind) or know what happens on Battlestar Galactica tonight instead of later after you've hit your minimum? Just pointing that out there.

Of course if you are a writer who is procrastinating, that's a time honored method of building up the appropriate level of panic to get your butt stuck to the chair. By all means, watch TV. But if you don't have a deadline, TV is probably a bad thing for your writing.

Off to bed.

Labels: writing freaking writing, Xia

Working madly on Xia, of course. Have thought of a possibly lame title. I need to push on, so back to work. Just letting you-all know I'm still alive. Sort of.

Labels: writing freaking writing, Xia