I Cried When I Watched This

This. Is damn amazing. And I hope they gave the doggies a good home. ;-(

This is true friendship. Maybe even love. Oh Lord, I cried again rewatching it.

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If They Put A Bib On, What Would You Do?

Introducing C*ck Bibs. I kid you not. And no, you don't wear it around your neck, sweeties. It is "designed to make clean up after oral sex a breeze!”

The Washington City Paper wrote a funny article about it, mentioning the five most inappropriate c*ck bib phrases. The inventor said that he came up with the idea after being victim to yet "another sloppy blow-job." Umm. He also mentioned that he was happily married.

Umm.

Dude. You just critiqued your wife's performance to a million net readers. I'm trying to imagine how she feels about that.

Also, can I add that, if I happened to chance upon an alpha male dangling his member through that peep-hole, I'm probably likely to take away his Alpha Male membership for life. And will tell all my girlfriends about the bib.

What 'bout you, dear readers? If you happened to find yourself staring at the bib, would you have a smart...ahem...comeback?

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Winner of Books and Calendar

CONGRATULATIONS

DEBORAH BLAKE DEMPSEY!

Please drop me an email so I can snailmail you some books and calendar from the RT convention.

Thank you, everyone, for such lovely "letters" to my editor. I'll make sure to forward the post to her if she hadn't seen it ;-).

We're still talking contract stuff so no fixed date about Virtually Hers yet. As soon as I hear anything, I'll post it here and on the Yahoogroup!

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What Do You Think?

More OASIS-22 Convention fun.

The clinch cover for my next romance ;-)!



The cover for my Urban Fantasy! :-D

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Oh Gennita No!

I finally got to meet John Ringo, great military SF writer. I've enjoyed his books. John Ringo is also famous on the Internetz for the phrase "OH JOHN RINGO NO!" because of A SERIES OF SEAL BOOKS he wrote, in which the protagonist did a lot of horribly sexist and offensive things. Definitely NOT a romance hero, 'kay?

This link is a short summary from FANLORE of how the phrase started. For those who want the whole darn thing in stereo, here is the whole livejournal review (VERY DETAILED) by the reader, hradzka, who coined this phrase and made it so famous. Here is the intro:

GHOST is Ringo's own admitted Lord King Badfic, his id run wild. By his own account, he was trying to write several books he was actually contracted for, but GHOST kept nudging at him, and finally he just wrote the damn thing to *make it go away* so he could get back to fulfilling his contracts. Ringo locked the spewings of his id away on his hard drive, until he mentioned in passing on an online forum that yeah, he'd written another book, but it was *awful* and would never see the light of day. Naturally, folks were curious, and when Ringo posted a sample, nobody was more surprised than him to find that the response was, more often than not, "Hey, man, I'd buy this."

So his publisher put it out, and the books are now doing pretty well for them. I'm sure this is a pleasant surprise if you're Ringo or his publisher, but it's also got to be a little embarrassing; he's committed the literary equivalent of charging money for folks to watch him roll naked in a pile of dead and smelly fish. And then being begged for encores.

This entry was so popular that John Ringo replied to give it the thumbs-up.

Anyway, OH JOHN RINGO NO! is on teeshirts and cups these days, used by those to express dismay at any boneheaded acts or books. I met the rascally John Ringo yesterday and told him to ravage me like Mike Harmon (the SEAL in this series). Here is the pic:

And then, after I* ravaged him, he signed his book:


Heehee. Loved it.

Just another OASIS-22 Convention encounter to remember. Anyway, I do recommend John Ringo's books but this particular series of SEAL, ahem, adventures are over-the-top crazy, so Buyers Beware and Be Ready to yell out OH JOHN RINGO NO! a lot.

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Visiting Other Worlds

Had a wonderful time last night. It's good to meet new people who write and read our kind of books. My panel was outstanding--Linda S. Cowden, Kimberly Raiser, Yyvonne Wisdom were great, giving lots of insight about the urban fantasy heroine (specifically, Anita Blake, Sookie, Bella) and whether they were role models or good girls gone bad.

I think I was probably the only author on board who didn't write vampires, LOL, but hey, I'm definitely a fan of the genre and have read my share of vampire romances, so I didn't mind having a little discussion fun. I played devil's advocate and went for "good girls gone bad" against the girl empowerment standard. It was fun because I got to talk about enlightening topics such as "the reduction of the female role to being a magic hoohah," which drew some laughter from the mostly male audience.

It was fun precisely because of the male readers in the audience. They were attentive and some of them had insightful observations about the series they read, mostly the Anita Blake one. Do you hear that, writers? They have INSIGHT, which means they read the books and continued reading them even as the romantic elements are expanded. I loved it. I mentioned some series that they might want to try--not necc. vampire series but since we were talking about tough chicks who could be either role models or bad girls--such as Saintcrow's Danny Valentine series, Iona Andrews' Magic series, and even J.R. Ward's bad ass Brothuhs ;-) as the extreme example of "protected" females.

At the end of the panel, a male reviewer came forward to ask for my book. A radio station wants to do an interview. Several male readers came up to ask me whether I was at RT because they were there during the Book Fair and now they've found a new author--me--because they like spy/thriller romances. That's what I was talking about, folks. A chance to get new readers who don't necessarily classify themselves as romance readers. A chance to network with reviewers and talk radio interviewers who I'd never meet if I hadn't gone outside the box and promote at different CONs. A few of these readers have even read Virtually His because of John Scalzi's recommendation last year. I was totally wowed by this. And gratified. This is what I want, to bring my stories to all kinds of readers who aren't necessarily "romance" readers but are just after a good story.

Now...I'm off to check out the panel about military SF and how to write great battle scenes. Then I want to meet John Ringo. And where else could a writer get to ask questions face-to-face with a scientist from NASA on one side and a Star Trek writer on the other? I'm just so psyched!

Later, dudes, may the force stop the rain.

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Wish Me Luck

I'm tempting fate by taking my car through the water (they pumped the streets a little) so I can go to my panel at OASIS 22, the Sci-Fi Con I went to last year to see John Scalzi and C. L. Wilson. They asked me to host two panels this year! Unfortunately, it's been raining cats, frogs, dogs, and water buffalos, so I wasn't even sure I could make it up my poor river/street without my car getting drowned.

Since the water level is SLIGHTLY lower, I'm going now, and hopefully--fingers-crossed--won't hit any flooded streets on the way to the highway. See how responsibly I take my commitments? So, please do come check out the CONVENTION if you are nearby and wanting some place to go that's inside, away from the rain. It offers some interesting panels, including two of mine: "Kickass heroines: new role models or good girls gone bad?" and "Writing Sex."

So, wish me luck getting there?

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Bad Puppy Chases Happy Swimming Ducks

Our food supply is running low. They told us not to flush our toilets or take showers. Some of us have no electricity. My subdivision is isolated from others because of the waters and the inhabitants are behaving like they're living in Old West--the braver men walking the perimeter at night; the women handwashing; the children flocking around.

News arrive from the outside world in the form of the fire trucksheriff at the entrance and everyone gathered to look at LEAFLETS telling us which roads were underwater. We heard about cars driving into canals while going to work yesterday. GOING TO WORK???! We were told to stay home because of flood and possible tornado! Maybe these people were lying; they went out to use McDonald's bathroom.

We shook our rain-soaked heads when we were warned not to go SURFING because the waves were rough. SURFING???! Umm. See here, sheriff, are you making fun of us? We're simple folks here, just needing food and a bath. We don't take kindly to no surfer punks here in our tiny enclave, hidden from civilization. In fact, we ban surfing because it's a sin. The gosh-darned water-rats caused the rain and the rising waters, yes they sh'ore did.

By the way, some of our cell phones died and we don't have no landlines these days, so can you make a trip over to check on Aunt Bee and Uncle Luis down the dirt road? They live all alone in the woods and we're worried since it's been since Sunday since we last seen 'em and they hadn't called us at'all. Thankee kindly.

20 inches of rain, people. And more still pouring.

There are ducks swimming down my river/street and Bad Puppy is determined to catch us lunch because we're stuck in our house and have to now live off the land. Yesterday we netted some fish that had ESCAPED from the pond and were joyriding the river/street. Tomorrow, I'm sure we'll be hunting down a water buffalo. Or wrassling an aligator or two.

That is, if my house hasn't floated away by then.

The rain, it's still coming down and the waters, it keeps creeping up that driveway.

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OK Now I'm Starting To Worry

It's been raining here since Sunday and they're forecasting another 24 hours of the liquid stuff. View from my front door.


A tree has fallen over and I can't really walk outside to check on it:


The worrisome part: the street is flooded and you can see here that the water has reached the end of my driveway and there is still another day or two of rain coming:

I really hope the water level is going to recede some. I don't want my house flooded. Argh. It's so wet even my furbabies won't go out to do their business.

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Never Donate Fake Books, Bad UberAuthor

I know I've been boring lately, sort of like the weather here, which is rain, rain, and more rain. I've to read Virtually His and Virtually Hers back-to-back and so I'm doing this with pen and paper by my side because, you know, I'm trying to get VHers out by October and I want it to be as good as possible, without any wrong timeline and weird leaps of plot logic.

While it rains, I make no money. While it rains, I get to sit and read my own books and this task is not the same as sitting and reading other people's books. Oh, by the way, last week's contest ended on Friday and I'll be choosing the winner for the box of books and calendar from RT in the next few days.

One other piece of trivial news. I forgot that Big Bad Wolf, being a self-pubbed project, isn't recognized by RWA as a Real Book, and so, it won't be available for the public during the Literacy Signing at RWA in DC this coming July. I find this kind of amusing, since all proceeds from the signing goes to charity, so my ten or so DONATED self-pubbed books would have been sold for a GOOD CAUSE and when it's a donation, who cares whether the book's publisher is on the approved list, right? LOL. But, anyway, mea culpa for the mistake of telling you guys BBW would be available. I'll still be at the signing, but with...uh...Real Books, heh.

You can still get your copy of BBW, don't worry--you just have to catch me outside the RWA event to get the book. I have been known to pull up a chair and table with a stack of books, so watch out ;-). For those of you who are interested in getting together as a group, please let me know. I'd be delighted to meet with you and chitchat about books. I'll also have copies of BBW for you then, of course.

So. Tell me big spoilers in books you're reading. I know some of you are full of news about the new Ward "Brothers" book, bedecked in leather and all. Opinions? Any new books for my evergrowing list?

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Monday Rah Rah

Just wanted to say thank you:

Big Bad Wolf sold #500 last night! And it doesn't have any exploding zombie heads or suicidal rats!

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Clearly Zombie Ants Are Attacking Me

Because I'm getting more and more paranoid, that's why.

See, now I find that they're creating SUICIDAL RATS with another kind of parasite. These rats, they think teasing cats and thumbing their noses at them are cool. These rats, they stand in front of cats and dare them with "EAT ME!" signs. These rats, they go all emo.

Clearly, zombie ants with exploding heads aren't enough to amuse the scientists. According to another article, these parasites are present in our brains and can be activated when our immune system is compromised. Oh, such great fodder for my Virtual series. You know it's all going to be there--taunting, suicidal zombies--in Virtually One. It's all in the serum, you know. ;-P

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Marjorie Liu And I Are Leftovers

Read this. And here I thought she was a such a young thang. Just take a look at her. Such an old lady.

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One Of Those Days When Zombies Sounded Good

I'm in a horrible mood, so pardon the sulky post. The week has finally descended into my coming home at 8.30pm to find my air-conditioner flooding my garage floor. I almost wept from the frustration.

Gah. I foresee a hot sticky night ahead since the repairman can't come till morning, and I'm still wondering how to let him do his job when I need to be off to my job by 6am. Double Gah.

I promised my editor to read Virtually His and Hers back-to-back so I can answer a few of her concerns and I haven't been able to carve out a block of time to do this. Computer problems. Working overtime at the roof from hell. Bills and unexpected home improvement projects kept interrupting. A frustrated woman here.

I did hear something on the radio that gave me a grin, though. Did you know they've found a parasite that can infect the fire ant and make them into ZOMBIES? They basically forget to look for food, march around like zombies till their heads fall off. And you think zombies invading our urban fantasies/paranormals were just weird things popping up in an author's imagination.

Of course, this particular author starts to think up about how this parasitic can be changed into a chemical idea to be used in the super soldier-spy series. Can you imagine, an army of zombies created specifically for one thing, and then their heads fall off. A little gruesome, I know, but it's been that kind of week. I deserve to kill people in my head. Bunches, in fact.

The idea does have a fascinating hold on me, though, because the more cynical of us know the government likes to experiment on people, even their soldiers, don't we? Hmm. Virtually Zombie. Hmm.

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It Makes Me Wonder

REMINDER: DON'T FORGET FREE BOOK AND CALENDAR CONTEST ENDS FRIDAY (ck out last weekend's post)

*****************************

A reader wrote me an email and asked whether I wrote The Hunter with Don Henley's song, All She Wanna Do Is Dance, in mind because that song was so like my story. I was, like, Huh? I only remembered the beat to that song from the eighties, with the refrain, "All she wanna do is dance, and make romance." Do you remember it? It was very danceable.

Anyway, I googled the lyrics and for the first time read the whole song. It's pretty interesting:

Don Henley All She Wants To Do Is Dance lyrics Don Henley All She Wants To Do Is Dance lyrics


They're pickin' up the prisoners and puttin'
'em in the pen
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
Rebels been rebels since I don't know when
And all she wants to do is dance
Molotov cocktail-the local drink
And all she wants to do is dance, dance, dance
They mix 'em up right in the kitchen sink
And all she wants to do is dance
Crazy people walkin' round
with blood in their eyes
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
Wild-eyed pistol wavers
who ain't afraid to die
And all she wants to do is-
And all she wants to do is dance
and make romance
She can't feel the heat comin' off the street
She wants to party (oooo)
She wants to get down (oooo)
And all she wants to do is-
And all she wants to do is dance
Well, the government bugged the men's
room in the local disco lounge
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
To keep the boys from sellin'
all the weapons they could scrounge
And all she wants to do is dance
But that don't keep the boys
from makin' a buck or two
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
They still can sell the army
all the drugs that they can do
And all she wants to do is-
All she wants to do is dance
and make romance
Well, we barely made the airport
for the last plane out
As we taxied down the runway
I could hear the people shout
They said, Don't come back here Yankee!
But if I ever do-
I'll bring more money
'Cause all she wants to do is dance
and make romance
Never mind the hear comin' off the street
She wants to party (oooo)
She wants to get down (oooo)
All she wants to do is-
All she wants to do is dance
All she wants to do is dance
and make romance
All she wants to do is dance

****

Never knew that about the song but interesting how readers connect things while they read, huh? And uh, also tells me that I should listen to the songs I danced to.

Do you connect songs to the books you read? I know I write my stories with a specific song in my head sometimes to set the mood/character's journey.

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A Beautiful Mother's Day Song

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

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Contest: Free Books & Calendar

Do you remember, a week before RT, I had a contest to give away a copy of Virtually Hers because I was going to make it available at RT Con?

Well, that contest couldn't continue because Angela James, executive editor from Samhaim, wanted to read the manuscript. So anyway, now that I'm back in town and almost caught up with daily life, I'm reopening that contest but with a different prize.

I had these wonderful books and a calendar from RT to give away all ready for photographing. Notice the word HAD. The Bad Puppy aka Alpha Male In The Doghouse chewed three of them up. As in gnawed. And viciously mangled. The pretty covers, especially. The calendar had gotten his special marking technique--a dollop of puppy hate.

Sigh.

Anyway, I do have another copy (or two), thank goodness, of the calendar and as you can see below, Bad Puppy just hates nice pics ;-). Because that's the page he left his marking on in the destroyed calendar.


I haven't decided which new books (unfortunately, they wouldn't be the first bunch of books) will be included with the calendar but they will be just-as-fantastic books I've gotten from the conference--paranormal, suspense, contemporary--every genre to suit your mood!

So, here's my replacement contest for the original Virtually Hers one. VHers, as you know, has been accepted by Samhaim, but the contract stuff isn't done, so I have no news about publication dates, etc. All I know is what Ms. James told me: probably Fall 09 for e-book format and print format next year.

Interested in calendar and books? Here's what you need to do:

1) Write a post here to Angela James, my new editor.
2) Tell her why you love Jed and are looking forward to Virtually Hers and Virtually One.

Why? Because I want my editor to know how much readers want the books, that's why ;-). And because it's simpler than showing her all your hundreds of emails that I've kept, asking for the Virtual series. I can just ask her to look at this post! ;-)

You have till this coming Friday. I promise to hang the calendar on the wall far, far away from the reach of a certain Alpha Male in the Doghouse.

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Planning Ahead

Remember, I'll be a guest at the SF convention in Orlando, held by Oasis 22, at the Sheraton Downtown on May 22-24. I'll be on two panels.

This is another reason I wanted to continue my virtual series. It opens new worlds for me--the high tech stuff in the books expand nicely into alternative genres that SF/fantasy readers enjoy. It also gives me a chance to talk to male readers ;-).

Please try to come to the con if you're nearby. From my experience last year, it's low-key but fun. Lots of interesting things to see. Last year, I bought a Trekkie tribble.

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RT: Yes, I Mushed A Spartan's Package

This is the infamous party hosted by Deidre Knight, who was promoting her Midnight Warriors series. She had a very memorable way of making us remember her heros ;-).

First, the Spartan Warriors gathered, proclaiming their need for maidens to break a long-awaited curse. Or something like that. I don't know, many of us were just staring at the skirts.

The game began. The warriors sat in their chairs as the maidens started to dance around them, sizing their warrior strength ;-).

Everyone jumped onto the warriors as the music stopped. One maiden is left without a warrior and is sacrificed to the dragon (I made that up). Then one Spartan warrior became free from his captivity and he ran off with his maiden.

Below, I became overzealous in my quest to win the game and literally squashed on top of a Spartan. He went, "Oooooooofffphfff." I turned to him and said, "I'm sorry, did I mush your package?" "No," he replied, but his voice was a bit higher than usual, I thought.

As you can see, my new editor was a bit more lady-like in her warrior seat.

I did quite well, samplingsaving many warrior seats.

I didn't win, but I thought it was quite a fun game ;-). Sometimes it's fun to have no shame. Hey, I'm an old lady. Cute young seats are hard to find! Heh. The above young Warrior went on to become Mr. Romance 2009.

This one below--I don't know--Alpha Male thinks I was smiling a bit too cheekily because my hand was too near the guy's thigh or something. Tsk. He has such a overworked imagination! *eg*

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Another Reason To Entice You To RT

I finished tweeking my proposal for Virtually One! Yay.

Now...something to turn you greeeeen. Yes, my RT Loot ;-).

Sigh. Lotsa good reading ahead. And yes, I'm going to make a box for a free contest giveaway for this blog in the near future.

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RT Convention: Comicula/Vampire Ball

"So, see you at the Vampire Ball tonight, right?"

When do we ever get a chance to say that to anyone but at RT? And when do we get to roam a hotel in capes and black lace, with fake teeth and blood, frightening and fascinating all the hotel help?

As usual, Heather Graham Pozzessere and co. threw a marvelous bash for RT. Below is part of the cast for this year's Comicula, which featured everything, from vampires to comic heros (Hulk, V., Wonder Woman, Batman, Hellboy, you name it, they made an appearance). I can't tell you what the plot was but in the end, if one guessed the correct killer, one wins a trip to the New Orleans convention that Heather puts together every year. Sadly, I didn't win. I had the correct answer (the maid) but allowed Robert Gregory Browne (who specializes in mystery thrillers) to convince me that it was the sleeping Nina. Yes, it's all his fault.



Heather's daughter, Chynna, was Poison Ivy, and she sang "She's No Good."

Heather did "House of the Rising Sun" to rousing cheers from the audience:

Here's Heather and me late, late, late after the party. There's a bar by the pool where everyone hangs out after midnight. I love sitting down with Heather's family--they are always fun and funny. My teeshirt said: "I'm blogging this."

Someone showed me this awesome sauce to go with your barbeque:

At the ball, my Aussies friends and I struck a pose in front of the stage scenery. That's Cherie on the left and Claire on the right. For some reason everyone kept calling us Chickie Babes, so for the rest of the convention, we were Chickie Babe 1, 2 and 3.

Kayla Perrin, another good friend, chatted with Stefan, one of the Mr. Romance contestants.

Below, I caught up with my friends Sly and Bill Freda.

I danced with Lauren Dane, Megan Hart, Anya Bast, Arianna Hart, Beth Ciotta, and so many, many more. They all took pictures and never sent me any ;-) (or at least, not yet), so you'll have to be patient a little longer. It's great to see everyone let loose and have fun, talking and exchanging news.

Later today, I hope to pose pics of screaming Spartans. Bound tightly, they were at the mercy of maidens who were determined to play an unusual game of musical chairs.

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