Win a Print Book! Mayan Secrets

Want to win a copy of Mayan Secrets, signed, with a cool beaded bookmark? Sure you do! It’s easy to enter. Add a note below telling me what you think of my trailer, and I’ll put your name in a hat. TWO copies are up for grabs. If you already have a copy, I’ll substitute one of my ebooks. Contest closes Friday 12 pm EST.

Steampunk Watch Parts — coming soon

Finally got around to the next batches of watch parts. This is messy business. I’m glad my characters are the ones creating and making this stuff! Look here in the next few days for the buy links )

Romance Snopes

I’ve tried to cut back on my surfing time lately, as I’m playing beat the clock on a reworking of a manuscript. Plus work, plus family–you know.

Also, as a dutiful wannabe better author, trying to keep up with the things that matter or should matter to me. Promotion, goings on, electronic whatnots and publishing whosits.

I did get sucked into looking at twitter posts on the Romantic Times convention and the Princeton Romance convention (the latter I even visited). I’m sure regarding the former, there are a hundred rumors I’ll never hear. But I’m hearing a few.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a Romance Snopes site? At least once a week I have to point to Snopes for a coworker who thinks Al Quaeda operatives are going to blow up her car at the gas station or gangs are going to flash their car lights and surround her. She doesn’t drink Coke because she’s convinced it can cook a pork chop.

What would you ask a Romancesnopes to cover? My husband is convinced Nora Roberts is too prolific to have written all of her own books. I wouldn’t mind a list of authors who are also publishers or editors. I don’t think any of the current romance blogs is impartial enough to qualify.

What would you ask RomanceSnopes?

Fantasy? Romance? Urban whatnot?

What’s your genre? Simple question, and if you write, you should be able to answer it. So, help me. Tell me the differences between a romantic fantasy, an urban fantasy, a fantasy romance, an urban fantasy romance?

Cause, there are two type of agents, editors, and bookshelves. Those who want fantasy and those who want romance. And you gots to know which you’re writing. What are your definitions???

Left home

I hate conference season. This year everyone is twittering about the Romantic Times convention, as opposed to blogging about it. Net effect is the same–pouting. Here’s the odd part–I don’t really want to go. I don’t think it’s my style or time. I don’t drink, I go to bed ridiculously early, I don’t have anything I want to pitch (well, nothing I can talk about), and I surely don’t want to dress up like a fairy and pet male models.

Then why do I feel like the last kid picked for dodge ball? Anyone else feel that way? Every year, I’m happy when it all dies down. Maybe next year…when I’m famous. ;o)

God help me

Writing–if you didn’t start out odd, you will be by the time you finish a book. If someone told me years ago that I’d be 1) no longer an archaeologist 2) living in New Jersey 3) divorced and remarried 4) working as a bureaucrat and 5) writing romances… Not.

Now that I write, I’m not easily surprised by the things I do. Search the internet for snappy shoes? A lovely vacation spot? Nope. Looking for plans for a dirigible on my lunch hour. Because my characters are going to Egypt in one. Hell.

What’s selling?

I thought this post by Angie James was interesting about what sells well at Samhain specifically, and perhaps can be extrapolated to epublishing/small press publishing generally.

In light of the recent Amazon filtering-out-stuff debaucle, it kind of leaves me wondering (again again again) what the future of electronic publishing will bring? More big publishing houses producing digital product, but big vendors like Amazon going through a real angsty time over carrying the product.

Phew, I know all my Punks

I’m AWOL, in the writing cave, but just in case someday someone does want this book, Dear Diary, this is the day you really settled on your hero’s appearance. Sure, he’s moved on to smaller roles, leaving amazing George of the Jungle masterpieces behind, but still…me love him. With chocolate sauce. So he’s now the Man. I have everyone but Lieutenant, a Lesbian African American pro baller who wears a Union uniform. If anyone can find me an image for that, I’ll eat my shoes (a la Three Stooges).

Auction Win! While agents, writers were failing…

I’m really glad I didn’t read all the agent fail notes or the twitters and linked blogs to agentfail. It’s too much anger. I got a little something off my chest on a semiprivate forum (yes, there are no private forums), but stopped following that after it started going south. There is no place to rant, rave, or get anything off your chest except in the comfort of your living room with your spouse or friend, or perhaps on the phone with a crit partner… Agents can have it tough, writers, editors, publishers, the mailman–everyone can have it tough. I really liked J. Rappaport’s post because she writes and is an agent. And despite an earlier forum post in which I said I was tired of reading about how hard agents have it, the truth is, it’s none of my business if they want to vent. As someone pointed out to me, just don’t read it if you don’t want to hear about it. It got me thinking about how lucky I am to have a job, for now. I can’t be online during work without “stealing,” so my perception of working and working at home may be a little skewed. Most of us probably work hard and even harder now that times are tough. I hope that some positive comes out of all the vitriol online right now. Maybe folks will get sick of it and we’ll swing towards a more understanding interwebs. Or not. Time will tell.

But while that was going on, in this tiny place, something really wonderful happened. I want to thanks those who put their own troubles aside to help a truly kind and special lady. Writers bellied up some great prizes, and some of the same writers bid on those prizes. Romance Divas rock very, very hard. This is the sort of thing romance writers and editors are really good at. Helping one another. And while I wish the economy didn’t make things like this auction necessary, I’m so proud to be part of it.