I finished a non-fiction book called The Survivor's Club. It was an ARC, so I'll be writing a review of it pretty soon. Good book.

I'm also reading Dead After Dark an anthology with Sherrilyn Kenyon, J.R. Ward, Susan Squires and Diana Love. I just finished the Squires story with just the Love to go. All three have rocked so far. Will finish soon.

I'm reading another book which I won't mention because it is train-wreck flawed for me. Don't know if I'll bother finishing.

Also reading Clown Girl by Monica Drake. This will be a slower read. It's literary and a bit slow to be about something. But some things are worth waiting for. We'll see if this one is.

I'll need to take two books to the gym tomorrow morning since I'll finish Dead after Dark pretty soon.

Have been thinking about the Dark Elf project a lot. I may start some basic plotting and brainstorming fairly soon.

Off to check the laundry then to bed.

Labels: reading, relaxing

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

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

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

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

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

The presents are wrapped. So, my evening is free.

This morning I notebooked Xia and went off on this tangent and after 40 minutes of that, I thought, yeah, this is great for some other book. And then I had this flash of insight, or maybe just relief because the warm down period was starting, at any rate, I worked out the backstory for my heroine. Sigh of Relief.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Labels: holidays, relaxing, Xia

Trying to get through the holidays here at Jewel HQ. It's not always easy. Sigh.

The good news is that I've started implementing my redesigned website. I have the bulk of the new pages up, but not all of them, and I've not tested much. The blog will be dead last. But I got a lot more done today than I thought I would.

You-all may know that I don't watch TV. Therefore, I don't care much about the hardware. But I have my complete set of Buffy The Vampire Slayer DVD's which, for various reasons having to do with the Wii, the Tivo, the DVD and a viper's nest of color-coded cables I am unable to match color for color, I've had to watch on the iMac. Wow. The iMac display is just effin awesome. Tonight I re-watched the 1st two episodes with my son. We made popcorn, turned the lights off in my room and lay back on my bed to watch. It was fun. I think it's great, too, for him to see a woman kicking some vampire ass and making friends with nice people. I'm looking forward to seeing the entire series.

Lastly, I think I'm going to be OK with Word Perfect in Parallels. I figured out my keyboarding issues and I believe all will be well. I had one issue with my new ftp client for the mac, and the first set of files I uploaded went up with the wrong permissions. My webserver is on a linux machine so I had to manually change permissions. The hosting software didn't seem to allow batch changes, and I have no idea what my ssh shell login and pw is anymore so I had to do it one at a time. Pain! Besides, I know about 5 'nix commands and it's scary when you have to Google first, though I've done it in the past. So it's just as well. Then I found the place in the ftp client that sets the default permissions and since I know what those should be I had no further trouble. Oh, that was too long. Sorry. Today was a geeky day.

No more shopping for me. I was weak today and spent non-xmas-wad funds on presents. It was fun regardless. Tomorrow, wrapping! Ilooove wrapping presents.

I'll be starting in full blast on Xia on 12/26.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve everyone!

Labels: relaxing, Xia

Here I am vacating and I feel like I'm getting behind. Is that even possible? I finished Brockmann's All Through The Night and started E. George's book but I think it's too dark and depressing for me right now. I'll probably pick it up again later. So now I'm going to go through the TBR and start looking for what I do feel like.

I started notebooking Xia's story today. Got some cool ideas. I need to go to bed now because I was up too late last night.

Labels: relaxing, Xia

Today I went out with my xmas money and got all my shopping done. I despise shopping, but I did OK. I bought a cookie press and made cool cookies tonight. They came out great!


In other news I think I've decided not to marry Vishous. Instead, I'm going to marry James Blunt. Wonder if he likes older women? In other silly news, I'm going to buy a lottery ticket tomorrow.

I'm reading Brockmann's All Through the Night. Enjoyable. Next up, What Happened After He Shot her.

Now I'm going to go work on the website.

Xia continues to percolate. I don't know how long I can relax with him knocking about in my head.

Labels: relaxing, Xia

Today is my mother's 80th birthday. Despite some forbidding omens, a wonderful time was had by all. All her children and grandchildren were there along with the spouses. Good friends came and we sat around and talked and told stories and ate good food. Every now and then I'd think Oh, geez, I need to get some work done... and then I'd remember that I didn't, and I'd relax. It was nice. And, everyone brought presents for her that were perfect and appreciated by all. Very nice.

Today I finished reading Jodi Picault's Plain Truth which was pretty good. Next is Elizabeth George's What happened After He Shot her but I'm itching for a really good romance. I have Brockmann's recent novella, maybe I'll pick that up first.

Adjustment to the Mac world continues. I had to find an html editor that works. My first choice, Amaya, was quickly abandoned because I couldn't figure out how to make it reveal source code. The help file didn't make sense: Check the line at the bottom but the only thing I could find was a toggle between text and XML neither of which showed me anything but the graphic view and I need to chop up the pages for the server side includes. So, forget that. I downloaded a trial of BBedit and got it to show me source code no problem (once I remembered where to look -- I'm still getting used to the Mac interface). I looked around a little for Word for the Mac. Ouch. Not cheap. But I have to have a professional word processor.

Tomorrow I have to do some Christmas Shopping. We don't have a tree up yet so it doesn't feel real. But shopping time is running out. Mostly stuff for the kids, of course. I've been saving all year and have about $700 to spend because every pay day I take all the cash out of my wallet and put it away for Christmas. It adds up.

Last night I dreamed about Xia. My bad boy for the next book. And while I was reading Plain Truth I had some flashes about interesting psychological states for my hero and heroine. I already knew that he hasn't had sex for a really long time -- not intercourse that he wanted to have. I may start working on Xia just because the ideas are there insistently burbling.

Labels: relaxing, Xia

The switcheroo continues. I'd be in happy heaven with this iMac except for one leetle thing... A decent word processing program. I have NeoOffice, which is Open Office for the Mac. And this other program, a demo, called Nisus Writer Pro. Think of that last program name as being highly ironic. Snort snuffle snark Um. I don't think any real writers (by which I mean writers who must turn in a properly formatted and paginated MS to a traditional publisher) use this program. NeoOffice has some promise. But I have a low tolerance for bad help files. I'll probably play with it some more. The thing is, I got comfortable with WordPerfect which, I still maintain, is a superior program. I had everything set up to do exactly what I needed with all the shortcuts I needed. The point being that WP is, in fact, able to do everything: automatically number my pages and chapters. Easily set the line spacing to something appropriate but non-standard (that is, not 2 or 1.5) among many other things.

Yeah, I understand that I need to invest some time in whatever program I end up using, but to be honest, despite my being On Vacation I don't have much time to invest. I have to get cracking on Xia's story damn soon. I'll have to play a bit more with Parallels, but it's not quite the same as a native program. But I'll play some more this weekend.

My mom turns 80 tomorrow and we're having a party for her. And by the way, she in no way acts or looks 80 - I should be so lucky myself when the time comes -- I hope. I have to get drinks and a present for her tomorrow morning. Here's a life tip: when people ask you what you'd like for your birthday or some holiday or whatever, please, for the love of dog! do not say Oh, I don't want anything... because that just makes the asker feel bad and useless. And possibly irritated. Particularly if you sigh and say this in such a way as to imply that the asker has not guessed what is desired and/or you just sound like you want to be a martyr to your own personal space. Sigh Not that my mother has ever done that. I'm just saying, you know, don't do that.

In other news, I finished The Reincarnationist and it was pretty good. I felt, in some odd way, that at times it lacked a certain emotional depth. But it was still a good story. Then I started Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union only to discover that it is written in the present tense. For me, the present tense is like fingernails down a chalkboard. I can't read it. So instead I'm reading Jodi Picault's Plain and so far it's really quite good.

Oh, one thing about The Reincarnationist that got me was a scene in which a character is able to easily and without any effort at all lower the bodice of an Edwardian gown and expose the woman's bare breasts. Um, no. Somebody didn't research.

Labels: reading, relaxing

Now that Scandal is done and off to editor-land, I don't know what to do with myself. OK, I have a few ideas:

• Christmas shopping


• Update my website


• Reading




1. My Sword Hand is Singing (will finish tonight, awesome so far)


2. The Reincarnationist by MJ Rose


3. Plain Truth, by Jodi Picault


4. A bunch of Lee Child


5. The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon


6. The Immortals series (I've got them all, I hope I can find them!)


7. What Came Before he Shot her, Elizabeth George


8. And lots more




• Sleeping


• Spending time with my family

But first I have to calm down. I'm totally still hyped up.

In two weeks, on to my bad boy Xia.

Labels: reading, relaxing, Scandal

At last! I got through the rest of Magellan's Witch. The read-back caught a lot of typos I probably never would have found on my own. I hit some boring patches and either deleted them or fixed them -- I hope. I deleted a chapter, split another in two and changed the POV (point of view) on one of them. This morning I added in the stuff to support my Fantastic Solution To A Nagging Issue. I have about 92,000 words. Which is about where I tend to up up no matter what, give or take a couple thousand. So, now this thing goes out to readers. My wonderful printer that does duplex (on my gosh, I am SO IN LOVE with this feature!!!) saved me a couple hundred sheets of paper when I printed it out for my neighbor who's a journalist. And how I'm going to get it into Word (can I just say YUCK! here?) and email it to my agent and a writer acquaintance. We'll see if I get feedback in time, since RWA is right in the middle of this. Rats.

OK, so what do I think about this book? I'm so close it's hard to say. I'm pretty sure the first 10 chapters totally rock and I'm hoping my work of the last two weeks has gotten the rest to match. I crossed some lines in this book, to which I say, so freaking what? That's just how this book had to be. My heroine has multiple encounters with characters who are not the hero and I'll also just put it out there that sometimes the hero is present during those encounters, and he's not just sitting around on his hands either. And, there's some inter species shape shifting stuff, too.

I have three more weeks to work on this. I'll start another read-through tomorrow sometime.

What else? I'm going to relax for what's left of the day. I've done the shopping and I'm going to read and surf the net and maybe play around on MySpace.

Labels: editing, Magellan's Witch, relaxing

So, I got home today with the darling child and the electricity was out. And stayed out for about an hour and a half at least. Let's see, no electricity means no water (the well has an electric pump) no laundry (aww) no washing dishes, no turning on the computer, no checking email, no answering email. For the DC, no TV, no wii. So we talked a bit, prepped for a school project he has due and then I read a book for the duration. Talk about roughing it.

You must have guessed by now that the electricity came back on. Would have been nice to read a little longer. I could have read hard pages or notebooked, but I didn't want to. I'm actually feeling kind of relaxed right now.

I had the MS with me at the gym this morning. Things are smoothing out a bit. But I'd like to get through it once in a short period of time without ripping things to shreds.

Labels: Magellan's Witch, relaxing, ripping to shreds

Today I went to my favorite place for breakfast and had my favorite breakfast, did the crossword, walked around and shopped, then got a massage (an hour and half of bliss). I picked up my son from school. He still loves me because I walked into the Game Store the other day to ask my usual question When do you think you'll get any wii's? (Usual Answer: we're not sure, come back tomorrow really early.) But this time they said, We have one. My son's birthday isn't for 6 weeks, but of course I got the wii for him. Early. Now I am the greatest Mom ever. I must say, the wii is pretty awesome. It was ridiculouly easy to set up. I think it took five minutes. And the motion sensing is wow. So, my son really loves me. (Awwww).

I messed around on MySpace for a bit, caught up on some emails for a bit, read for a bit. Now I'm doing this. The only thing is I can't find a book I'm eager to read. But, I did find out that Michael Chabon is going to be in Petaluma on May 19th! Since I bought his latest, I have a card to get me in and my books signed.

Maybe, I might take a look at paper copy for Magellan's Witch, but I might sort through my TBR for a book that really calls to me...

Labels: Magellan's Witch, reading, relaxing, writing