Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Ends and Odds
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
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Monday, September 17, 2007
In which Carolyn Has Palpitations
Somebody get me a vinaigrette!!
It's almost here! The PW review looks fabu, so check it out!
But Wait, there's more!!
Book 6,
Lover Enshrined is available for pre-order. Should be out in April. Yes, I ordered it, one day delivery. And laughed hysterically when Amazon said if I'd pony up for Amazon Prime they'd give me free 2 day shipping. As if!! Uh, no. Don't think so. I love Alpha males. I'm not waiting for this set.
The other funny thing when I was checking, just for the hell of it, when I might expect ::Vishous:: to arrive at my door, Amazon showed me a selection of books it thought I might want based on past buying. Not the usual If You Liked.... but a nearly artful display of images, and the thing is, I already owned way more than half the books they thought I might like. Some of which I bought from Amazon. But some I bought elsewhere.
Labels: Black Dagger Brotherhood, books
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007
I'm not In Dallas
No RWA conference for me this year. Nope. I have my nose to the grindstone, working hard on polishing Magellan's Witch. I'm up to chapter 14 and so far no disasters, rewrites or deletions. I've corrected a few continuity issues, caught another typo or two and am generally continuing to deepen and improve.
In Other Writing news, I was saddened to hear of the death of
Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. Her website hasn't been updated with the news yet, but take a minute to visit the site of a literary pioneer. Thank you, Ms. Woodiwiss. We'll miss you.
Other news includes upcoming books I'm itching to read. Harry Potter 7, of course. We had a lively discussion over dinner tonight about who we thought is the character mostly likely to die. My son said Snape or Hermione. I said, what if it's Hagrid? Others thought perhaps Harry. -- If it is, I can see the book flying to the wall right now.
But, the book I can hardly wait to read is
J.R. Ward's next Black Dagger Brotherhood book,
Lover Unbound. Michelle Buonfiglio over at
B(u)y The Book is reading an ARC right now. Waahhh! I want an ARC too! I have the email from Amazon assuring me my copy is coming. It better be here September 25th!
Sigh. Vishous.
Sigh.All righty. Back to work.
Labels: books, editing, Magellan's Witch, polishing
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Wednesday, June 27, 2007
My Hero!
My new hero is Jim McCarthy of
Dystel & Goderich for
this post on commercial vs. literary fiction.
It's nice to hear it put so passionately from someone who works with both.
Labels: agents, books, literature, romance genre, writing
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Sunday, March 11, 2007
Summer Day in Winter
It's winter here in California, but today, it's summer. It's now 72, and gorgeous out. A spectacular day when it should be overcast and foggy.
Just came back from seeing 300. Oh my gosh. Can it be that at long last a woman can go to the movies and expect to see naked and nearly naked men with awesome bodies? Apparently so. I don't know if Spartan men went around so scantily clad, but I am all for historical inaccuracy. Why, I hardly blinked when a Spartan hottie said "God Speed" except to briefly look around for Kenneth Brannaugh, and I just shrugged when someone else said the Persians, or someone, were going to hell. I have blogged before about the awesome hottness of
Rodrigo Santoro. He's a bit scary as Xerxes but I'm not sure I've ever seen a King so punked up and basically naked before.
In fact about the only thing I didn't enjoy in the movie were the painfully, horribly thin women. Oh my gosh. Even their knuckles stood out. I can't imagine what they look like in person if they looked that skeletal on screen. Who cares if they're scantily clad? They were skin and bones. This is just sick. Seriously sick and dangerous. It's time to speak out about this. Consider yourself motivated to start talking about this to everyone in every forum. This bears repeating: it's sick and dangerous to present skeletal women as sexually desirable.
Off to take the kid to soccer tryouts. I'll get some good work done at Starbucks while he's there.
Lastly, I bought an 1882 book
History of Fashion that still had very high quality color plates in it. Very nice. I'll try to add some pics later. And I was privileged enough to hold in my hand a 1640 (I think) geography book that contained fold out maps. It was $5,000 and belongs in a museum, imho. If I had that kind of money, it would be mine. Wow.
Labels: books, movies, writing
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Reporting in From the Land of Sleep Deprivation
Lover Revealed has been consumed. Now, here's the odd thing. Up until yesterday, I just knew I wanted to marry Zsadist. But no, in fact, it's Vishous. Go figure. I had no idea I was so fickle.
In writing news . . . Uhm. uh-oh. I've been reading. Sorry. No writing news. And tonight I have to go to bed early to make up for my sins. Fortunately, I think Vishous will be okay with that.
Since I'm anthropomorphizing here, I'll mention that I got an email the other day asking who fathered Claudia's baby (from
A Darker Crimson) Tiber or Lath? Good question. But, they may not know for sure until their child is much older. And besides, Tiber doesn't care. He loves the baby. And Claudia. No matter what. The way I love Vishous.
!Labels: books, reading
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Saturday, January 06, 2007
The Fritter Queen
Shards of Crimson is available for purchase. If you like to read, support 4 authors at once by buying the book. All the stories are terrific. You can purchase it at your local bookstore or via Amazon or B&N.
I managed to fritter away my entire day. I read
Darkly Devoted Dexter this morning. Then a friend came over and we drank tea and chatted for quite a while. Then I had to update my website and send out the Release Announcement for Shards, which I should have done a few days ago, and then start work on the February book signing announcement, and then make dinner and then watch Mission Impossible with my son.
Oh, my gosh. What a horrible, horrible movie. Beyond bad. How is it that I recall this movie got decent reviews? That just can't be right. If I hate a movie WHILE I'm watching it, it has to be bad, because, normally, I love every movie I see. It's not until the next day that I realize a movie was only mediocre. MI isn't even that. My son hated it too. At one point, he said, "Why are we watching this?" It's stupid and idiotic and confusing beyond words. If I'd known this movie would be agonizing, I would have spent the time writing, because at least then I wouldn't hate myself afterward.
I've started in on my Golden Heart entries. Ahem. OK. I'm having flashbacks to last semester, only without the snotty comments. I think there needs to be a hotline for the punctuation impaired. Commas are not fairy dust, to be sprinkled liberally and randomly througout one's writing in order to bring good luck. Such an approach only causes mayhem.
I have a huge TBR pile and I feel like I have nothing to read. Everything I pick up starts out stupid. Except the Dexter book from this morning. I'm in a funk. Whatever. I blame it on Mission Impossible.
Tomorrow I have to make up for today's frittering.
Labels: books, Fairy Dust, Golden Heart, writing
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Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Ratzafratz!
I have the day off work, but am not feeling well enough to enjoy it much.
The Cold is getting worse. Ick and ick again. It's raining cats and dogs and it's windy. I ate way too much chocolate yesterday and today. Further, I made the horrible error of ordering my Leonidas chocolate from other than my usual source. They sent the wrong selection and did not pack it appropriately such that most of the chocolates arrived broken. For future reference, the ONLY place to order your Leonidas chocolates is from
Leonidas-chocolate.com. Don't make my tragic mistake. Megan F can probably take the bus or something to get hers, they're at 487 Madison Avenue, New York. The wonderful folk at the Madison Avenue store pack their chocolates in foam blocks and they never send the wrong kind either. Sniff. I've now bookmarked the correct site and won't be making that mistake again.
I've been mulling over my hero for Magellan's Witch. I have a very specific mood in mind that I really want to pull off. Oh. Gee. My fogged brain is getting foggier. OK. I'll just muddle along here.
We had a wonderful Christmas here. My mom got me a sweatshirt that says
Careful, or you'll end up in my novel. My best friend got me typewriter bookends. My dog is asleep on my lap right now. The kids loved and appreciated their presents. Right now, my son is working on a large paint-by-numbers Panda that I got him. He's good at detail like that. I have errands to run, but don't feel well enough to run them. Oh, well. I've been reading
The Historian. Very good, but to be perfectly honest, there are genre vampire novels that get it much better. As I recall,
Dark Jewels was better.
I've been reading a lot. I re-read all my
Black Dagger Brotherhood books, and then I read over on
Romance : By the Blog that Michelle Buonfiglio managed to get her hands on #4,
Lover Revealed.
Arghh!!! I wanna read this book! Sorry, MB, I do hate you because you've read it. (OK, not really, but here I am sick and feeling sorry for myself and I just know I would feel much much better if I had this book to read. Now.) I also read Loretta Chase's
Mr. Impossible which I totally loved.
And I got my copy of Gina Trapani's
Lifehacker which I've been flipping through and really enjoying. When I'm feeling better, I'm going to implement several of the suggestions, which are mostly about how to use technology to actually improve your life. None of them are terribly complicated, some are common sense, and some I have already implemented for other uses. Like using Instiki, which is a personal wiki. But I use it for writing stuff, not life stuff. But now that my son has a real computer, I'm going to re-commandeer my old laptop, install Linux on it and turn it into a web server so I can set up a more robust wiki.
Personal note to Patti O'Shea: I never get lie, lay right either so I write around that, but my ninth grade English teacher gave us this sentence to remind us of the distinction between affect and effect:
The sound Effect Affected my ears. It helps to repeat this sentence with a deliberate emphasis on the opening vowel sound of the two buggers... er.. words. Therefore, when you are confronted with the effect/affect dilemma repeat that sentence to remind you of of the distinction. Thus:
The effect was fantastic. E word.
He was glad his whisper affected her. A-word.
I think that's it for now. I need to go lie down.
Labels: books, chocolate, pesky English, writing
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