Today I woke up early, and it was raining. So I went out and got some pics which was fun. Then I made myself poached eggs on toast and finished reading John LeScoart's The Hunt Club which I totally loved. Then I read Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady which I liked a lot. I did not perhaps love it, but that has more to do with the kind of Romances I love and the kind of Romance this is. As everyone has said, beautiful writing. I can't wait to read more from her. She's a major talent.

I've read some reviews of this book and I have to say that I'm now utterly convinced that some of the big on-line reviewers (I do NOT mean Amazon) are reading so fast they really have no business reviewing. One review of this book took issue with the hero for calling the heroine by demeaning diminutives. Only it wasn't the hero. He never once did that. Not once. In fact, this particular reviewer got so many things wrong there's no way she read this book carefully enough to give a review that should guide anyone.

Since I'm on the subject, I have to rant a bit about the awful cover for The Spymaster's Lady.
First off, the guy is just baring his chest there for no discernible reason. Very dumb. Look closely and let's count off all the things wrong with this cover.

1. Shirt that appears to have buttons (OK, this is a detail the author also got wrong Edited to add: Acutally, Jo Bourne was cool enough to email and let me know she'd written he pulled the shirt over his head, and that she was writing about the kind of shirt that had buttons to about mid-sternum, which totally did exist.). Men's shirts in the Regency did not have buttons down the front.


2. No waistcoat


3. A short jacket. Excuse me? In what time period have men ever worn sissy short jackets like that?


4. A belt. With a buckle. Suspenders, dear Art Department. No belts.


5. His shirt has a collar. Was someone thinking that it would be okay if we thought the shirt had a French collar? Mais non! No collared shirts in the Regency. Not even on the French themselves.


6. No cravat. Instead, there are ruffles on the sides of his inaccurate button front shirt.


7. A mutant belly button.

All of this would be tolerable if the guy didn't look like he should have on blue tights and a big red S on his chest. Sorry. I love Bourne's writing, but boy, she got gypped with the cover art. There's a step back which is actually more accurate in that he's wearing a waistcoat and doesn't look like he's using his x-Ray vision to see under Lois Lane's panties. But if you own this book, look carefully at the hand on the heroine's thighs. He's got six fingers. Eww!!!

If I have time tomorrow, I'll see if I can add a pic of that.

In writing news, I had a great idea about how to add some complexity to The List. Tomorrow I may start writing. I can't put it off much longer anyway.

Labels: Book Covers, reading, The List

I worked on my outline today. I've ditched some silly ideas and replaced them with less silly ones. The story shifted a bit, which is good. I have 15-16 scenes blocked out, all fairly vague of course, and I added a new character. Lord Whatever. That's what I'm calling him for now because, well, this is an Historical Romance and besides I still haven't settled on a title for the hero, except that it probably starts with F.

At one point, all I knew was something had to happen in order to make my hero propose in the next chapter. So that's what I wrote in the outline. Something happens to make LS propose in the next chapter. LS stands for Lysander Something since I'm pretty sure his name is Lysander and clueless for now about his last name. And his title starting with F. I changed the heroine's last name from Harrison to Harris. Because Harrison was just all wrong.

And that is progress.

The scenes in my head are getting clearer. I believe Lord Whatever (LW!) is going to make them even clearer. Good Lord!

And with that awful joke, here's a picture.


If you like pictures of flowers, here's my Flickr Stream

Off to bed.

Labels: notebooking, outlines, plotting or the lack thereof

I believe I've mentioned before I have a tendency to reverse letters and mix up letters such as d p q g b. I am also directionally impaired. Right? Left? Wait which way?? Driving with me is no fun. Even with the GPS. My son handles it well, though. The little trouper.

Yesterday I was playing tic tac toe with him when we were waiting at the doctor's office (Hep C vaccination booster for him) and I suddenly realized I was using my left hand to write. I happen to be quite facile with my left hand even though I'm mostly right handed. So, this is not terribly unusual. See above, though on the dyslexia-like symptoms. All of which gets me to Capchas.

You know. Those stupid wigged out letters and numbers you're supposed to enter in the box to prove you're not a vile spam bot. You-all know capcha has been hacked, right? The evil spammers came up with the brilliant idea of airquotespayingairquotes people to solve capchas until they could figure out the hack. The payment was access to free porn. Solve these for free pr0n!! I would have failed miserably. And after all that torture they probably would have shown me boobs when I really wanted to see umm not boobs (just trying to keep the space clean here!) So it's been all over that the Google capcha is now hackable in under 3 minutes. MySpace too. That's the power of pr0n, people.

There's really no point to this post except that those stupid capcha's are all over the freaking place and I have the worst time with them. Do you effing know how similar A and 4 look when they're on acid like that? Now pretend you're trying to work out if you're seeing A-then-4 or 4-then-A. And, I've noticed, regardless of hackability -- or maybe because of it?? -- on MySpace in particular the first capcha practically never works. EVER! I've gotten to the point where I automatically refresh for a new one when one turns up. So what's going on under the hood on the submit when a correct answer isn't accepted as correct? Therein lies an interesting little problem for some hacker to work out.

What's that?

No.

Absolutely not.

Hey, I finished Stephanie Meyer's The Host. It was pretty good. And--

I am NOT procrastinating.

Labels: failure, Off Topic

First off, I'm Goofy! yes, I know. Not news to those who know me. It was a tie between Goofy and Cinderella and Goofy won. Just as well as I actually have a Goofy toy on my desk.

Which Disney Character is your Alter Ego? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Goofy Your alter ego is Goofy! You are fun and great to be around, and you are always willing to help others. You aren't worried about embarrassing yourself, so you are one who is more willing to try new things. Cinderella 100% Goofy 100% Ariel 81% The Beast 75% Peter Pan 69% Cruella De Ville 56% Snow White 44% Pinocchio 44% Donald Duck 38% Sleeping Beauty 31%

In other news, Amy Pierpont of my paranormal publisher Grand Central Publishing was over at Risky Regencies today and made mention of me. That was exciting!

Labels: Be Like Me, My Wicked Enemy

Let me first say in a thoroughly heartfelt manner Thank God it's the weekend. Can I have a big old Weekends Rock! to that?



I've started on the next historical. At the moment I'm calling it The List but that is admittedly kind of lame. It's all I've got so far.

Been reading:

Finished Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It was darn good. Now I'm reading Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist which is really quite good so far. The narrative voice is odd and very intimate. Kind of hard to describe. The narrator is having a conversation with another person, but you only get the narrator's words, interpretation and interpolation of the conversation. The other person is a total black box so far. It totally works even when, perhaps especially when, it slips into present tense which as some of you may recall is like fingers down a chalkboard for me. Very deft.

Taking the son to see the Narnia movie today. With luck he'll wake up before noon.

I'm going to the bookstore to get more Sherman Alexie and maybe pick up another prize or two for the Wicked Cool Contest which you should enter.

Also, just as a side note, if you email me with a question or request for a bookmark or both, make sure you provide a valid email address and that you've added me to your list of approved email senders. Because I absolutely reply to all my emails which you will not believe if you send me a bad email and it bounces. I always feel bad when that happens, and it does. Also, I can't mail you a bookmark without a complete address. Despite the astounding powers of my mind, I can't quess your city state or name, which helps when addressing an envelope. And, if you're requesting from outside the US it helps if the address is in English. Usually I can figure out that Italia is Italy, but that doesn't mean the USPS will be as clever.

Okay, off to work.

Labels: contest, reading, The List

Oh my good golly. It's been something the last few days.

Sigh.

Right. Monday is a total blur. Number one it was a Monday and that's hard enough. But I'm doing my grocery shopping on a Not-Sunday so as to preserve Sundays for non-drudgery stuff. That part of the plan worked brilliantly. So, I went shopping after work Monday and got 3 homework related calls while doing this. Got home, dealt with the homework situation and then someone says, Say, isn't today the [insert REALLY important meeting]? Long story short, yes. It was. In 30 minutes. So I cooked a pizza, sliced it up, left the kid to fend for himself and was at the meeting 15 minutes later. Got home fagged, but the Fudgester wanted to play and so we went out and I threw a stick for him. Blogger wouldn't post my blog, so I left it in draft.

Yesterday is a blur, too. Some stuff happened which I can't remember what it was only it was busy stuff. Then at 9:30 pm the darling child remembers important homework. I did get Monday's blog posted.

Today is becoming a blur. The DC calls me at 2:15 to tell me he'd forgotten he was getting a ride to soccer practice with someone else and was on the bus home instead and calling from a friend's phone because he'd left his at home EVEN THOUGH I called him at 7:00 am to remind him it was on the charger in my room.... I had to leave work early in order to get him to soccer practice 15 minutes late. Then we got home just in time to leave for his Jr. High Open house at which his French class sang a French song. They were very charming. Got home from that and now after a bit, I'm here doing this. It was so freaking hot today I took a shower when I finally got home.

In reading news, I finished Lisa Kleypas's Sugar Daddy which was fantastic except maybe the ending wasn't strong enough for how fantastic the rest of the book was. But still a big thumbs up. I also finished Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues which was brilliant and his fiction debut. I will buy more of his books soon. This weekend if I make it past Friday.

In writing news, I did officially start notebooking the next historical. The heroine's name is Camilla, I think. And the hero's name is Lysander, I think. Nobody has a last name or title yet. But the idea has fleshed itself out in my head over the last week or so of down time and now it's ready to get fleshed out on paper. I'm pretty sure what chapter one needs to be.

Labels: notebooking, reading, Regular life, writing

My Local Romance Writers of America chapter, the San Franscisco Bay Area RWA, (SFA-RWA) has a great contest. Check out the final judges; they're some of the best agents in the business. FYI, yours truly will be judging in this contest. If you enter, you could get lucky and have me as one of your first round judges! Or not. Depends on your point of view, I guess.

Here's the deets:

The 2008 Heart To Heart Contest sponsored by the San Francisco Area Romance
Writers is open for entries.

WHAT'S NEW for 2008

• This year, entries will be accepted electronically ONLY. Save on paper and
  postage!


• All entries will be judges by at least 2 published authors!


• Scoring based on 20 key areas guaranteed to make your entry shine!


• All entries will receive 4 scores. The lowest score will be dropped and the
  average of the remaining 3 scores will constitute the final score!


• Contest entry fees will be accepted by Paypal or check!

CONTEST CATEGORIES: Paranormal, Romantic Suspense, Single Title, and
Historical

WHAT TO ENTER:
The magical scene in which your hero and heroine meet for the first time,
maximum 15 pages (optional one-page set-up, unjudged)

ENTRY DEADLINE: June 6, 2008

FINAL ROUND JUDGES
Historical -- Jessica Faust
Single Title -- Jennifer Jackson
Paranormal -- Lucienne Diver
Romantic Suspense -- Kim Whalen
Tie Breaker -- Roberta Brown

FIRST ROUND JUDGES:
All first-round judges are trained, experienced critiquers and published
authors.

For contest overview, official rules, entry form, and score sheets go to:
http://www.sfarwa.com/

Questions?? -- Contact Regan Taylor, Contest Coordinator at:
Taylorheart2heart AT gmail.com (remove spaced and replace with the @ sign.)

Labels: contests for writers

Look, people. If you're on Twitter, it seems pointless and probably is until you're following a few people. Really. If you have a twitter profile go out and find people to follow. You can unfollow them if they're boring you. Look over over there to the right (unless you're reading this in a feed, in which case, click through to my blog and then look to the right) you'll see the link to my Twitter profile. Follow me (cuz I'm so charming and all) and then follow a few of my followers. Being a geekish sort, you might want to skip the tech tweeters. You can search twitter for people in your home town. That was fun and I'm glad I did that. I'm following a bunch of writers. Once you're following more than 10 people, the point becomes more obvious. So go do it.

In other news, it's Friday!!!! oh thank all the powers in the universe for that!

I finished Evermore. Now I'm reading Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs. But I may set it aside for Reservation Blues because as you may know, I am now a huge fan of Sherman Alexi.

Off to my local RWA chapter meeting tomorrow which means I should go to bed.

Thought A LOT about the next book today. I'm getting anxious to start. I'm thinking May 14 should be my official start date. That way I have this weekend for a last bit of massive reading.

Labels: reading, relaxing, the next book

NON-FICTION: MEMOIR
Recently named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor's originally self-published MY STROKE OF INSIGHT: A Brain Scientist's personal Journey, tracking her experiences after a blood vessel exploded in her brain and she watched her mind deteriorate -- losing the ability to walk, talk, read, write or remember -- and then fought her way to complete recovery, aided by her understanding of how the brain works as well as her mother, to Clare Ferraro at Viking, at auction, for publication in May 12, 2008, by Ellen Stiefler at Stiefler Law Group (world).

About a month ago, I posted a link to her speech on this subject in this post. The speech is riveting. I can't wait for the book.

I finished Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer. Fantastic. I gushed about it yesterday. Yup. Fan girl. I'll just say this now: If Sherman Alexie keeps writing books like this, I expect a Nobel one day. Don't laugh. I predicted Toni Morrison's Nobel. Sure, it was obvious from Beloved that she was a major writer. You're probably saying to yourself, Carolynn, any idiot could tell that about Morrison. I'm saying the same thing about Sherman Alexie. I have Reservation Blues on tap.

Now I'm reading Lynn Viehl's Evermore because it was on the top of the pile when I left the house this morning. Pretty darn good so far.

And NOW I'm going to bed to read some more.

Labels: books, great books, reading, relaxing

So, yeah. I'm not so sure how relaxing things have been. I've been trying to get all the stuff I've been ignoring for practically a year done and off the To-Do list. Today, I tackled a major one -- which is getting together the paperwork for submitting an extension course proposal to my alma mater. I'll refine it tomorrow and make a call to find out what I can email and what has to be snail-mailed.

Other than that, I've finally started in on the TBR pile. So far:

Mine to Possess By Nalini Singh. I've been meaning to read her forever, and at last I could. And am glad I did. Fun read!

The Short Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao By Junot Diaz (Still working on this one, but it's great!) Only, I've set it aside for:

Indian Killer By Sherman Alexie

I'm becoming a Sherman Alexie fangirl. His YA The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was so freaking good -- rush out and buy or borrow this book, people -- I went out the next week and bought two of his adult titles. Wow. Just wow. He's amazing.

I should be ashamed about setting aside Diaz, but you know what? It's my TBR and I can read in whatever order I want and I can be reading as many books as I want at the same time, too.

Today, I notebooked some of the next historical and I think I nailed the basic idea. Things began very badly. All confusing and none of the parts were fitting together. But then I realized I needed to change the location and ta dah! everybody was very happy.

OK, off to bed because I want to read some before it's too late.

Labels: Authors, brainstorming, plotting, reading

I tell you, lately, I've been trying to think of reasons to be at the computer. I'm like one of Pavlov's drooling dogs -- the computer is where my mind is most engaged -- with writing stories. Still, I haven't gotten everything done yet that I swore I would in between books, but I'm close. More on that later, first some stuff to check out:

I watched all the videos at Author Talk and they were all side-splittingly funny. You have to check them out. I'm a fan girl!!!

I also listened to Clay Shirky's talk about the Cognitive Surplus and I have to say, once I realized what he was getting at, I was riveted. You can Read the Transcript or Watch the Video. This is a speech that suggests we're on the brink of a massive social / cultural change as transformative as the Industrial Revolution. The choices other people are making right now about how to spend their time are transforming society. We're pulling away from the passive consumption of TV and that pulling away will change society. I think he's right. It's a brilliant notion and a brilliant speech.

Here's the money quote: Media that does not include you may not be worth sitting still for.

Think about that. Books are not as cognitively passive as, say, watching television, but they also don't (yet?) offer the interactivity he's getting at. Suppose Shirky is right. What does that say about where the novel might be headed and what publishers should be doing about that? I do think that fiction, and I am deliberately excluding non-fiction, offers a cognitive interactivity that's masked (hah!) by the physical passivity of reading.

We think today we have no spare time. But in fact, watching TV masks an enormous surplus of time we didn't have not so long ago. He's suggesting we're waking up from that now and some people are choosing to do things other than watch TV. Like, um, write? That's what I've been doing with my Surplus Time.

Writers, by and large, are already doing something else with the cognitive surplus he's talking about.

Speaking of which, today I nailed enough of the idea for my next historical that I'm not in a panic about what to write.

So, what did you do with your cognitive surplus today?

Labels: Clay Shirky, cognitive surplus, relaxing, writing time