I guest blogged at Magical Musings. My post is Can Writing Be Taught And Why I Think That's the Wrong Question Check it out of articles about writing interest you.

The blog Nobody Asked Me had very nice things to say about My Wicked Enemy and My Forbidden Desire. Scroll down in her list of May Reading to find me. Among others things she opined:

My Forbidden Desire: It's edgy, irreverent and has ambiguous characters as the H/H. Can't wait for the next installment. My Grade = B+

MY WICKED ENEMY I'm looking for every Carolyn Jewel book I can find now. My Grade = B+

In other news, I'm working on The Next Paranormal and finishing the synopsis for what I hope will be The Next Historical

My son and a friend are out in the field digging holes. Very deep holes. Intense holes. They are working hard and don't know it. Too bad we don't actually need holes dug. The Border Collie is in heaven. She loves to dig holes, too. I believe they are sharing tips and advice.

I should be working. Will go do that now.

Labels: My Forbidden Desire, My Wicked Enemy, The Next Historical, The Next Paranormal

Saturday mornings are my absolute favorite, especially if I get to sleep through them. Alas, not this Saturday. I had a rather large day job implementation that required my early rising after working most of Friday evening. All things considered, the project went remarkably well.

Today my son goes to his cousin's birthday party and then in the evening leaves for a red-eye to Washington DC with his eighth grade class. I'll need to do some last minute shopping for that. And then what will I do with myself during an entire week with no youngling?

In between all that, I have to start seriously working on The Next Paranormal. The synopsis for The Next Historical is essentially done and out to readers so I don't have to stress about that anymore. Good news! And if you're reading between the lines, yes, I will be writing more paranormals even though I can't officially say so, it's unofficially official enough that I have to get cracking as of a couple of weeks ago.

In other good news, and pretty much all thanks to Twitter, I won two things in Brenda Novak's diabetes fund raiser; Lunch with Barry Eisler and Candy a Month from Hank Phillippi Ryan. (Twitter reminded me I should go bid on something, so I did.) Then I won a True Blood poster, coming to me directly from HBO's PR office and THEN I won a free ad from the Catanetwork folks! I also got an ARC of Lisa Unger's Die For You and an ARC of Jaci Burton's Taken by Sin.

If you're not on Twitter, how come? Because I also found out on Twitter that Dear Author has My Forbidden Desire as a Recommended Read for June. Woot! Also woot!, MFD made bookscan at 62, which means it's one of the top 100 romances.

If you all would go buy the book (please!) maybe I could move up the list and hit the top 50.

Name that Heroine!

The Next Paranormal will be about Durian, and his heroine needs a name. Everything is subject to change, but she's about 26 or so, scrappy, dresses on the punk side, short dark hair with with purple streaks. She might change colors to lime green or something just to tweak Durian. In the proposal, I called her Shelby because for some reason I thought that might work and when I realized it wasn't going to, it was too late to change it. In chapter one, which I am in the middle of completely rewriting, she is wearing orange high top sneakers.

Here's the short list of names:

• Piper


• Zoe


• Mischa


• Pilar


• Willa


• Antonia

Mischa is the front runner at the moment, but see below. And now, my request: Got any good ideas for a name? I keep a spreadsheet of cool names and note which ones I've used in which books, so here's an opportunity 1) vote on the list of candidate names and/or 2) help me add to my list and maybe even come up with the name I end up using (if you do, full credit in the acknowledgments) by suggesting your own character names.

A few parameters:

• Her name can't start with D since the hero's name already starts with D.


• Her name probably shouldn't start with M either since Maddy is a major secondary character who is likely to get some page time


• Other starting letters that probably won't work: K, A and X.


• ethnic names are completely welcome and probably privileged

Leave your suggestions and votes in the comments. Thank you.

Labels: My Forbidden Desire, Names, The Next Historical, The Next Paranormal

I'm over at Patti O'Shea's blog pimping My Forbidden Desire and giving away a copy of My Wicked Enemy. So check it out. Leave a comment.

The day before I was over at Riskey Regencies making my debut appearance as a member of the blog. I'll be blogging about all kinds of stuff, including things I learned about the Ottoman Empire.

In writing news, uh, I need to get on the stick. That dang synopsis for The Next Hisotorical needs to be done so I can start on The Next Paranormal.

So, off to it, peeps.

Sorry to be so boring. I'll try to do better next time.

Labels: My Forbidden Desire, pimping, The Next Historical, The Next Paranormal

I have today and tomorrow off the day job and since Monday is a holiday here in the USofA, that's five days off. Ahhhh.

And yet, so much to do.

• Finish implementing the new website


• Finish the proposal for The Next Historical


• Promo for My Forbidden Desire - many commitments made

Those are all really big complicated things, so I need to get cracking.

Also, opinions welcome on this one: would you be excited if I decided to give away an iPod Touch for a contest prize? Just a thought.

Off to work.

Labels: contests, My Forbidden Desire, The Next Historical

Have I mentioned before that I am not a hot weather person? 55 and overcast is my kind of day. Today it was 80+. Not good. Plus we went to Sebastopol (not the one in Russia) to play Ultimate Frisbee. I actually was expecting to watch my son and nephew. Two of my brothers and my sister in law came, too. So, I was not prepared with good footwear or a sports bra. For those who do not need a bra, let me just say that running without a sports bra requires reduced speed and/or strange posture. Plus it was too freaking hot. But it was also fun. There were a lot of people there, eventually, for the pickup game and they were very good about having complete beginners there. After that, my son and I went grocery shopping and when we got home from that, his friend called and so a bit later I was driving him out to his friend's house so they could set off dry ice bombs.

His friend lives even more in the boonies than us so the drive there is through country, mostly, which I am sad to say is now a combination of actual farms (which tend not to be neat or pretty) and McMansions built by people who move to the country and then complain about the smell of cow manure and the sound of frogs at night. They want the idea of living in the country without any of the reality. Anyway, his friend called as we were on our way wanting to know where we were. And my son says this:

Dude, we're on our way. We just passed the giant chicken.

And the funny this is, this was a completely true statement. Because, in fact, there is a giant chicken statue in one of the fields along the way. It's a Godzilla sized chicken statue, I kid you not. White with a red comb. It stands there facing the road in its poultry-tudinous majesty, in a rather large field. Unmissable since it is, well, a giant chicken.

I remember thinking that, on the face of it, that was just a very peculiar thing to hear someone say, and yet, I drove on, thinking, yes, we did just pass the giant chicken, so his friend should know we're not far away now. It's a landmark, I suppose, which come to think of it isn't too much of a surprise. A giant chicken kind of stands out wherever you are. Except maybe in the land of giant chickens which may or may not be someplace near us.

Then I came home and read Sookie Stackhouse until it was time to pick up my son. At home I fed him, read some more, took down the garbage and now I'm doing this.

But I did think about working. Tomorrow I actually will. I swear.

Labels: Giant Chickens, The Next Historical, writing

Wednesday. Midweek. And it feels like it. Sigh.

Work - the day job work - is stressful. The times are stressful.

I'm working on the synopsis for The Next Historical and for all who know me, you understand what that means. Yes.

Synopsis Hell

Mine are terrible. They make my agent cry. Though I think I'm getting better at faking them. As a panster, (seat of the pants writer) all I can do is fake it in a synopsis written before the book. NOTHING I put in the fake synopsis will happen. None of it. It's all fake because I have to write the book to find out what happens and what kind of story I'll have. Confession: I resent the time I spend thinking up stupid stuff that will never happen once I'm actually writing. Someday I hope to be at a point in my career when I won't need to sell with a synopsis.

It's going to be ugly while I work on it.

So far, the vague story is a couple who are friends and have been involved with others and never particularly aware of each other that way. I say never particularly aware because I think that everyone thinks about it in re the people they know of the opposite (or desired) gender. But not necessarily in a way that makes you think it could happen. But we all think about it. Or am I a freak that way?

Think good thoughts for me. But maybe don't mention if you're thinking that.

Labels: Synopsis, The Next Historical

Title Title, Who's Gotta Title?

First off, The Next Historical (or the book briefly known as Sinful) is now officially entitled Indiscreet. My editor emailed yesterday and said it turns out Berkley has a July 2009 release titled Sinful, and sales didn't like the second choice title which was A Reputation for Sin, so did we (my agent and I) have any other ideas? My agent, I do believe came up with Indiscreet. So there it is. It has the Sales seal of approval.

Reading Controversy!!

Apparently, Suzanne Brockmann has a prologue posted for her next Troubleshooters book, Dark of Night. The heroine is Sophia and as any fan of Brockmann knows, Sophia is in love with Decker. Well, readers are all atwitter (in the traditional sense) with the possibility that Sophia's hero will be Dave, not Decker. Some appear to be enraged. One woman opined that there should never be ambiguity about the hero, to which I must say au contraire!!

Personally, I think whoever the hero turns out to be, Brockmann will pull it off. We'll all be thinking we want to marry Dave or Decker or whoever it is and be glad that Sophia gets her hero.

I also think that the last Troubleshooter book laid some excellent groundwork for Dave or Decker. I think it could go either way, and I don't care which way (ok, I have a slight preference for Decker, who wouldn't?) but I know I'll be entertained and enthralled the entire time either way.

As to the no ambiguity about the hero? By the end of a Romance, there should indeed be no ambiguity over who the hero is. But in the beginning, I disagree with that statement wholeheartedly. In fact, I think a big part of the trouble with a lot of Romances is the very lack of ambiguity.

The only Rule for Romance is the HEA. (Just like the only Rule For Msytery is that there's a mystery to be solved) That's it. All the other stuff that gets you there can be anything at all. Anything. And that can mean a hero who isn't the best candidate for the job at the start.

Off to make sure I've pre-ordered my copy...

Carolyn's Reading List - Partial and in no particular order

• The Outlander by Gil Adams


• The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart


• Brain Rules by John Medina


• Clowngirl by Monica Drake


• The Crown Road by Ian Banks


• The Black Arts - a concise history of witchcraft, demonology, astrology, alchemy and other mystical practices throughout the ages by Richard Cavendish


• The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson


• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewksi


• Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer


• In Cod We Trust, Living the Norwegian Dream by Eric Dregni


• The truckload of books I brought back from RWA


• miscellanous other books lurking in the TBR

How about you? Leave a comment so I'm not so lonely here!

Labels: Heroes, Indiscreet, reading, relaxing, The Next Historical

Sinful AKA The Next Historical, is done. Emailed to my editor.

Huzzah!!

Tomorrow I'm going to get a pedicure and a massage.

I will resume more regular blogging soon.

Labels: Sinful, The Next Historical, writing freaking writing

Deleted 1500+ words today. Sigh. Still, progress is being made, seriously.

Pics to distract you:

Golden Iris

Even prettier in real life. This is from last May.

A purple Iris

From last April.

Back to work.

Labels: pretty pictures, The Next Historical, writing freaking writing

Still writing, freaking writing.

Also, The Next Historical will, I believe, officially be titled Sinful but that's not official yet. It is, however, more official than The Next Historical.

Here's another pic to look at while I'm busy:



Obviously, I have much more practice in order with respect to raindrops on roses. But still. It's pretty.

Back to work.

Labels: pretty pictures, The Next Historical, writing freaking writing

Just a quick update. The Next Historical is going along. I've reached a part where I need to do some fixes of chronology and/or geography or risk a ripping massive hole in the time-space continuum. I'm not quite sure what to do, but suspect a very simple solution is out there, just out of reach and if I push too hard, it will blow up. But if I don't push hard enough, well, there goes the universe! You see my dilemma.

If you-all were on Twitter you'd already know about the Regency Zombies storming Almack's and having tea.

No. I am NOT procrastinating. I think I need to make cinnamon rolls today. Back to saving the world!

Oh. I think I thought of the solution. And the crowd goes wild!! Yes, it was simple. I'm still going to make cinnamon rolls though.

Labels: editing, The Next Historical, writing freaking writing

The Next Historical which is going to need a title pretty darn soon, is inching along. Today I deleted a fair amount but managed to break 75K anyway. Yay for Carolyn! I still have to write the last chapter, but I'm pretty sure what that will be. I think. It's slotted for October 2009, by the way, pushed up from November. No pressure! Anyway, I will get something out to readers this weekend. ::shrug:: I'm going to have to take a week off from work the week prior to the due date, so here's praying I can get the time off. Will ask tomorrow.

Title ideas gladly accepted. Right now I'm calling it Ransomed cuz the hero at one point is going to pay one for the heroine. But the other day I thought of something better and then yesterday I forgot it.

If the post options work correctly this entry will post 11/21 at 1:00pm Pacific, at which time I will very likely be sitting in my car working on the dang book.

Friday, I am going to see Twilight. Sorry. But that's a must do, figured into my deadline calculations. I'll get two hours in the car on Saturday because Soccer Boy has a scrimmage. Hopefully it's not too cold. And then after that, more ignoring of laundry, kitchen child family dog and everything else too. I'd ignore the cats too, but they sit on my lap and I pet them from time to time.

Wish me luck.

Be prepared for Blog Silence.

Labels: The Next Historical, writing freaking writing

The Next Historical is picking up steam, which is awesomeness in the nick of time. I'm liking my hero a lot. League play for my son's soccer team is over (they won league!) which means I have my weekends free again. Less sitting in the car to write. I need them. Now it's just practices and the occasional scrimmage until the big tournament in January.

Scandal is officially on sale February 3, 2009. And I've seem some preliminary indications of good opinions. ARCs arrived Thursday and I've started reading through to make sure there's nothing terribly amiss with the copy. Wow. I was surprised by how strong the story seemed. Lord Ruin has a special place in my heart for being the book where I learned how important it is for me to write from a state of instinct. I am, I've come to realize, almost frighteningly analytical. (Stop laughing!!) But I cannot analyze myself into the kind of emotion a story requires. Lord Ruin was the book where I learned to let go.

Interestingly enough, there have been other times in my life when I have been under enormous pressure -- the kind where there was not time to analyze. I could only let go. The first time involved geometry. I needed under some rather dire circumstances to calculate an angle so as to end up with a precisely drawn triangle of a certain shape. And I stared at this bit poster board (this was for a court hearing the next day -- if I failed I'd probably be fired) and for a moment thought Carolyn, you got a D in geometry in High School. (The only grade I ever got below a B) How in heck are you going to get this triangle correctly drawn? I took a breath and had to let go of my fear and doubt and I swear that I suddenly knew EXACTLY how the formula worked. I got to work and holy heck if it didn't come out exactly and precisely the way Pythagoras said it did.

The second time also involved a court hearing, with the added bonus that the messenger was waiting for the exhibits which the copy service had just brought to the office incorrectly bound. Miss your filing and you notify the company's malpractice carrier, and of course we were right at the edge of maybe not enough time for the messenger to get to the courthouse. I looked at the copy guy and said, that's not how I asked for them to be bound. (All the exhibits had to be bound in one HUGE insanely thick stack, and they had divided them up according to the height of the two-hope top prongs.) And he says I didn't know how! Well heck, me neither because that was his job. A legal copy service is supposed to know all the tricks. So with my job and the company's future flashing before my eyes, I let go of the panic, looked at the exhibits and the little fasteners and just knew how to fix it. And did. In the nick of time.

The same thing happened with Lord Ruin I was sitting there knowing that the book currently had spots that were just dry and boring, and I was feeling kind of panicky about that. So I just let go. I just started writing, without caring about what was coming next. I fixed what I was looking at right then.

Oh, long digression there. I need to get cracking! Off to work.

Labels: inspiration, Scandal, The Next Historical, writing

I uploaded my first video to YouTube today. It's only 30 seconds and it's kind of lame but you'll find out what The Black Cat, aka, Nightmare, aka Insane Cat thinks of my son's kitten, Tiger.



In writing news, I have have been writing The Next Historical. Trying to write more than I delete. So, like if I write 2000 words today, I can delete 2000 words of crap. Works for me!

Also, at a gathering, my hero just discovered something kind of upsetting about the heroine. Ooooh.

By my friend on NaNoWriMo My user name is cjewel. Won't you be my buddy?

Labels: NaNoWriMo, The Next Historical, Video, writing

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Not because of the candy, which I shamelessly steal from my son, but because the kids have such a blast dressing up! Since we don't get any trick or treaters where we live, we go to my brother's where I adore adore adore!! giving out candy to the tykes.

My son and I finalized his ghost costume tonight. I'll try to get a picture tomorrow. And the pumpkins were carved and arranged in the vignette you see below.

Blogger is smooshing the original some so all I can say is the original is clearer that this. But at least you can see the handiwork of my son -- It was his idea to add the little dead pumpkin in the bowl. He and I agreed the big one looked nauseous and so needed the barf.

Have a safe and happy halloween!

P.S. The Next Historical is being knifed and shredded and the various bits reassembled, rejiggered and re-engineered to make a creature that is new and awesome to behold. I hope to soon be shouting to the belfry "it's alive!!" But right now, not so much. Right now, it's Frankenbook, frightening those who dare to look and sending the good Dr. Carolyn von FrankenNeuroticWriter into fits of chocolate overindulgence.

Labels: editing, Frankenbook, halloween, Revising, The Next Historical

Today I cut 15,524 words from The Next Historical which entailed deleting 5 chapters and moving 4 others. I actually thought I'd have to cut even more, but as I looked at the deadwood, I figured out where some would go instead of to the Valley of the Lost Chapters, which helped solidify the beginning a lot. I think. Hope.

Also, tomorrow I will have a guest blogger, fellow Grand Central Publishing author Jeff Rivera Be on the look out for that!

Labels: cutting room floor, editing, Revisions, The Next Historical

Good news! We got our Internet back Saturday night. Major kudos to Wildblue Satellite engineer Peter Pigeon, who arrived at 7:00pm and stayed until everything wrong was fixed. He said he'd come and he did. And he came with everything he needed to make things right. It's just too bad that the companies they outsource to were liars and incompetents and basically didn't care at all about Wildblue's actual customers.

Ah. You Tube, how I missed you. No new AuthorTalk vids but I watched the man-slave episode a few times, and then some others because I way needed the laughs. And then Jill Monroe actually friended me on Facebook. Squeeee!! And then she even messaged me! We are now BFF forever, I can feel it.

Anyway, yesterday, the page proofs for Scandal arrived and since there was no soccer, I was able to get through the entire book in a day and return the fixes.

Of course that meant I wasn't working on The Next Historical but I did get some stuff done last night. Today there was soccer so I didn't get as much done as I wanted to. And, as it happens, I ended up cutting more than I wrote. But the dreck needs to go and that's what happened. Tomorrow, I think I need to whack a whole chapter or else figure out where it needs to go. Right now it's totally in the wrong place. But I'm up to chapter 16 in this unbelievably slow process of fixing stuff. Painfully, painfully slow.

I'm anxious to get to the back half of the book which is good because I'm finally feeling my hero and heroine the way I need to. The emotional points are starting to pull together. And I know what I need to do. What I don't know is how many existing chapters need to bite the dust. I suspect a lot of them. Way a lot.

Anyhow, tomorrow I am doing the day job from home because they sprang for a wireless card with decent enough speed to actually work from home. Satellite is way not fast enough. So, we'll see. My son doesn't have school tomorrow, but he's catching up on 10 days of no World of Warcraft, so I don't expect he'll be out of bed much before noon. I will be getting up at the usual time but without the driving to work bit, I should be done with the EDJ by 2:00 or so.

We shall see. Wish me luck.

Labels: editing, Scandal, The Next Historical

Still stuck on dial up. I have concluded, definitively, that two of the companies involved in this Customer Service disaster are liars. L. I. A. R. S. Liars who don't care.

I'm reserving judgment on the third. But I am not a happy camper.

What else. Um. Still working away on The Next Historical.


Seemed like there was more stuff than that, but I'm so depressed (sob!) over all the stuff I cannot do because there's no real internet here, that I just can't think about it.

Sigh

Labels: stuff, The Next Historical

Just a quick post to warn you posting here may be infrequent for a bit. I'll post when I can since I don't want to cause the six of you Carolyn withdrawals or anything.

My Forbidden Desire needed some smoothing out of the edits and I've been doing those since Monday. I finished up today and sent it off for Megan F to read before I send it back. That means two and a half days without working on The Next Historical and a few more coming since I want to do a complete read-through of MFD just to make sure I didn't miss anything. So now I have to pick up the pace on TNH once this interlude is over.

Meanwhile, I have preliminary back cover copy for MFD which I will share when it's final. And I saw the cover today. My agent said, It's smoking hot! and when I showed it to my sister she said, ooh! in that kind of surprised and awed voice women get when they see a hot cover or, say, some hunky construction guy using a shovel right in front of you at Trader Joe's. (If you were following me on Twitter you would know all about the awesomely gorgeous Construction Guy. I think I need more Greek yogurt....)


Anyway, it's deadline heck around here. Wish me luck.

Labels: Book Covers, My Forbidden Desire, Reivsions, The Next Historical

That's one of my all time favorite cartoons. And I love xkcd

I'm not procrastinating by the way. Yesterday, I pulled out the chapter outline for The Next Historical and added in all the new stuff and then rearranged the new and the old so I'd know what the new chapter order should be and which ones needed to be deleted. Two of them. The others I think have enough to warrant staying for a total rewrite. Then I reordered my chapters. Then I read Travels in Turkey and Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt (1844) and got some really good background information. But I had to also do some quick side research on The Levant Company to confirm a suspicion of mine about the Consuls. Uh, yes, it's true. The British Consuls were appointed but apparently needed to be approved by the Levant Company which was kind of the Middle Eastern equivalent of the East India Company. Politics and commerce. Hand in hand.

Today, my son had a soccer game in a town about 35 minutes away after which we went to Art in the Park where he ate a lot of food and looked at art. I bought a couple of things that will go into the contest stash and a couple of things I liked for me. Then I went grocery shopping then we came home. I was at the computer for a bit and when I actually fell asleep sitting up for a minute, I figured I needed a nap which I did for 2 hours. Then dinner, then cleaning up and now blogging. And so, maybe I surfed the web a bit, maybe.

Anyhoo -- off to get SOME work done because I have two deleted chapters to make up...

Labels: art, research, stuff, The Next Historical, writing

In real life, I am only mostly right-handed. I do an awful lot of things with my left hand. I do sometimes write left-handed. Sometimes. Driving me with was nightmarish before I ponied up for a GPS. Now it's mostly amusing when I sometimes turn right even when the nice lady in the GPS says to turn left. (Recalculating is a frequently heard word...) Despite the big huge arrow on the screen.

It happens in my writing, too. I always have to be very very careful with my physical descriptions in case that left-right confusion sneaks in on me.

Today I had a bigger directional problem, related to my tendency to start out making things way too complicated. Example: The Next Historical opens in Syria. After first writing what I thought was the beginning (set in England) I realized I had to start in Syria, so I'm pretty sure the back half of the book is more or less written, subject to some massive revisions when I get back to it.

Anyway, I started everybody out in Aleppo, which is in Northern Syria near Turkey. Then, of course, it was still the Ottoman Empire and then I had my heroine and her father heading off to Iskenderun (Alexandretta) which is roughly 60 miles north-west-ish on the Mediterranean through, as it turns out, some mountains and the Syrian Gates where Alexander the Great defeated Darius and his Persian Army (hence the Alexandretta). Iskenderun is named after Alexander the Great.

So, as I was saying, my hero goes off to Maarat an Numan (spelling seems to be variable) and then goes to Iskenderun to meet up with the heroine after a fashion. Then they go back to Aleppo, and then some stuff happens and then they go back to Iskenderun because in order for my heroine to end up back in England with the rest of the book, she has to sail and Iskenderun is the only port in the province.

You see my issue. I have my characters going from Aleppo to Iskenderun to Aleppo and back to Iskenderun. Absolutely do NOT ask me why I didn't see how stupid this was before. Suffice it to say that today as I was sitting in the car at soccer practice the stupidity of all this back and forth finally smacked me.

So now I have to move everybody to Iskenderun at the start, then off to their various locations of castle ruins in Maarat An Numan and the suq in Aleppo, and THEN my hero goes to Aleppo and takes my heroine back to Iskenderun once and only once and puts her on a ship.

That should be an interesting fix not to mention a demonstration of my writerly super powers as I move entire houses 60 miles from their original locations. And then I will rename Aleppo to Fredericksburg or something, then rename Iskenderun to Aleppo and then rename Fredericksburg to Iskenderun. And move a bunch of descriptions from east to west.

Ta-dah! And the crowd goes wild!!!!

Labels: Revising, Superpowers, The Next Historical, writing

Milestone: Today the WIP reached 50,000 words. Whew! And yes, the story has a shape now. It's now more than just some scenes that are vaguely related.

Confession: Today, in between writing, for some stupid reason I checked the Amazon reviews for My Wicked Enemy and found the usual for me: some hate :: some love. Not too much in between. Probably because those readers couldn't be bothered. One review mentioned another paranormal book as being much better than my horribly boring one.

So I went off and read some reviews on the book that is soooo much better than mine. And guess what? There was some hate :: some love for that one, too.

Hey! Isn't that interesting? It's not that I suck and Author A does not. (I have her book in my TBR and continue to look forward to reading it.) It's that people have different tastes. And just because my writing didn't work for Reader X doesn't meant it won't work for Reader Y.

Because you know, blue is not everyone's favorite color. It's not mine¹ and yet I don't go around telling all the blue-lovers that they are plainly fools, though they may well be for any number of reasons. Or not.

I felt better after that. A bit petty for the schadenfreude over at Author A's book reviews, but oh well. I'm over it now.

So, please go buy My Wicked Enemy read it and then say what you think over at Amazon or B&N or wherever because it's awesome that readers get to share what they think. As an opinionated person myself I am aware that I loathe Madame Bovary and yet also know a lot of fine people disagree with my opinion. And I'm okay with that.

And you know what, major thank you's to all the people who have written to me either at my website or MySpace and even Twitter to tell me how much they enjoyed the book. It's wonderful when someone takes the time to let an author know. Trust me, we get all excited and warm inside. Keep those letters coming! It makes me very happy.

1. Here's another confession for you. Although I like green my favorite color is gray. I think that means there's something wrong with me.

Geek note: The hex code for gray is

#666666

which can be shortened to #666. Kind of scary, huh?

Labels: Book Reviews, My Wicked Enemy, reading, The Next Historical, writing

big test here. We shall see if the connection is up to blogger. This AM at the gym I had my first big plot refinement. Yay! I have abt 40k words now. Afternoon all!

Labels: iPhone, The Next Historical

I've been working on The Next Historical which has now so fundamentally changed from the days when I decided the working title should be The List, that every time I see that title I think What book is that?

So, from this day until I say different, The List is now officially The Next Historical (TNH)

The story now opens in Aleppo, Syria. I was toying with the notion of handling the story the way I did with the flashback chapters in Scandal but when I decided to write one to see if it worked, but mostly because I really really wanted to write the scene I had in mind, it turned out to be the real opening. We'll see how this holds up.

In other news, I'm up too late. OK, so that's not really news. But it's still true.

Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to email me about My Wicked Enemy. Lots of kind words make a writer feel good! Also, bookmarks are going out tomorrow. I have to buy more envelopes even after I found the missing box on the floor with a few envelopes left. I'll send the rest after I remember to buy more.

Oh, and don't forget! Time's running out to join my newsletter and be automatically entered in my Wicked Cool Contest. Go sign up!

What you get with the newsletter: automatic entry in contests, advance notice of releases, and a warm and fuzzy feeling for being so cool as to like my writing enough to be on my mailing list.

Off to bed.

Labels: bookmarks, Syria, The List, The Next Historical