MySpace for Your Characters?

I’m getting into a bad habit of titling blog posts with question marks, but if I can suck it up, so can you. Ain’t I a peach?

My friend (other than in the MySpace sense) and Young Adult author, Shelley Adina, has MySpace pages for each of the characters in her All About Us book series. Check out Lissa’s MySpace page (Gillian’s, Carly’s, Shani’s and Mac’s pages can all be accessed from Lissa’s Friends Space.) I do believe you or your teenager of choice can friend Shelley’s characters, too.

You know what the coolest thing is? Shelley didn’t have to create these pages, not does she have to update them. Her publisher did and does it for her. Sounds like they’re behind her, huh? And check out those gorgeous covers. You go, Shelley!

What do you think about the MySpace promotion? Personally, I think it’s very clever. I don’t think I would create MySpace pages for my own characters, but then I don’t write Young Adult novels. If I did write Young Adult novels, then I think it’s a wonderful idea. MySpace drives me crazy enough with the two sites I maintain for myself and Penny without adding pages for my characters into the mix.

By the way, I tried putting an accent grave (to the left) over the e in tres, but the instructions someone gave me aren’t working.

Plus, the instructions are for accent aigu (to the right), anyway. From now on, when I write tres, just take it for granted that you should pronounce it “tray.” With a little roll of the R, if you please, and a touch of Pepe Le Peux flair. Thank you.

Nobody Writes it Better

Have I mentioned that several/many/more than half of the members of the 2007 group of Golden Heart finalists (the ‘007s) are opening a group blog? It revolves around a bit of a Bond theme, so we’ve dubbed it Nobody Writes it Better (I won’t blab who offered that title when we were brainstorming, but let me just say it was someone very smart, initials of M.E.)

Okay, it can be argued that Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jennifer Crusie et. al. might write it better, but we have the URL, so there.

Right now we’re waiting for quotes from designers, so no word on the launch date, but we have a placeholder page on-line, if you want to bookmark the site. And if the graphic on the placeholder site looks remarkably similar to a business card you picked up at National, that’s because it is the business card, which accounts for the “Check Site” after “Launch Date.” That said, we’re targeting the blog to readers as well as reader/writers.

We’re all very excited. Watch this space for more information, doled out as sanity permits.

Tropic Blunder?

I haven’t found a book to recommend here lately. Oh, I’ve been reading…sort of…but nothing’s holding my attention. I can recommend a movie, depending on how you like your comedy—this one’s heavily dosed with satire. Tropic Thunder, starring Ben Stiller and Robert Downey, Jr. (whose acting I adore). It’s the story of a group of actors starring in a Vietnam war movie who are dropped into some real action in the jungle (drug trade related), but Stiller still thinks the movie is being shot (hidden cameras, yada). Yes, there is a running joke partway through that plays with political incorrectness, but overall the movie works (you know, I have to wonder if Stiller included the Sean Penn/Tom Hanks bits to detract from the potential controversy of Downey, Jr.’s character). (That’s Downey on the right).

The best performances? Robert Downey, Jr., naturally (yes, I’m a rabid fan, even during his drought), and Tom Cruise. Cruise has a small part in the film, but it’s definitely memorable and he plays it to the max. My Liege and I went to see the movie Wednesday night. That was my morning for the long dog walk (like today—I’m late getting going, and my dog is staring at me with huge brown eyes right now). After walking the dog Wednesday, I was stretching to Regis & Kelly (The View was over by the time I returned to the house), and Stiller was on. Regis blabbed which character in the movie is played by Cruise, so I was on the lookout. I told My Liege that Cruise was in the movie, and I thought he would recognize him, but the end of the movie arrived and he hadn’t picked him out. So now I’m cheesed that the ONE day of the week I catch ten minutes of Regis & Kelly post-dog walk is the day the news is blabbed. It would have been a lot more fun to watch the movie not knowing.

Anyone here seen the movie? Do you think Stiller went too far with the satire?

You know, I can’t believe I actually saw a movie on opening night. This is what happens when your children grow up. 🙂 And your husband has to miss his standing golf night due to a tournament. We actually had some couple time. Imagine that.

As for movies now opening on Wednesdays instead of Thursdays to “get a start” on the box office—what’s next, opening on Tuesday? Monday? Don’t they have to toss out all previous “opening weekend” box office counts now and start over?

When did the weekend ever begin on Thursday, anyway?

These and other questions will continue to go unanswered As Cindy’s Mind Churns.

National Sex Day?

Only in Canada, eh?

And I quote:

Jonathan Yaniv, a computer science student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, B.C., wants to make Aug. 21 a day devoted to the art of love.

The 21-year-old is trying to get at least one million Canadians to join the Facebook event “National Sex Day 2008.” If he’s successful, it will likely be the biggest organized sex event ever.

 The Facebook group already has over 130,000 people getting ready to unzip and unwind.

Trust that Facebook. (I’m kidding. I don’t belong to Facebook, and I’ve never explored the same—before anyone goes bananas on me).

Brittany, a 19-year-old student in St. Catharines, Ont. – who requested her last name not be used – said she can’t wait to “make the best” of the informal holiday. But she added that participants should be careful.

“If you’re silly enough to find a partner just for the day, don’t be upset when you get a sexually transmitted disease,” she said.

Yes, we Canadians are socially responsible and horny.

What do you think? Should we take National Sex Day to Parliament Hill? (That’s like taking it to Congress—I think—if you’re American. Taking it somewhere in D.C., at any rate). (I knew I should have paid more attention when I was there).

Impressions of Conference

Better late than never?

I really enjoyed National this year. Aside from getting sick, that is. I couldn’t find anything about the hotel to complain about. Excellent location, the elevators didn’t get clogged up, and I had an excellent roomie. The only thing I found weird about the hotel itself was how some workshops were held on the fifth floor, was it? I wasn’t paying that much attention due to the illness, but I seem to remember a hall of hotel rooms as well as the meeting rooms. I couldn’t help feeling like I was infringing on the guests of those rooms. Or did I get that wrong? Were there guest rooms on level 5?

I’m used to seeing a lot of signage at National. Bulletin boards with announcements, placards pointing the way. We didn’t get that this year. I kind of liked not having the placards and bulletin boards, but it did make the first day or so of conference a bit confusing.

My favorite workshop? That’s a tough one, because I attended very few workshops this year. I didn’t attend any on Thursday because of meetings and other functions, and then Friday I had editor/agent appointments, plus by then my sickness had invaded full force. I’m not even sure I attended a workshop on Friday! Crazy, huh? Well, not so much. The more conferences I attend, the more the conference becomes, for me, a networking and business meeting environment. I can only attend so many workshops on similar themes. I understand the Eric Maisel Creativity workshop and the Save the Cat workshop were divine. However, both were two hours, and I didn’t have the energy to sit there that long. (Yes, I’m pathetic.) I must seriously consider ordering the podcasts for these two workshops, however. 

Attended a lot of Spotlights, including the Sourcebooks Spotlight. I also had an opportunity to meet the Sourcebooks editor one-on-one Thursday before lunch. I just love putting a face to a name.

Thursday afternoon revolved around meetings with Penny’s Red Sage editor and publisher, then the Red Sage Coffee Mixer, which was packed!

Friday, more appointments. Met with two agents, one outside of the official RWA appointments. Both meetings went well, however, I was quite dizzy during the official appointment, and I’m not sure how I came across. Like a ditzy brunette? I warned the agent that I wasn’t feeling well and for that same reason I decided not to shake her hand. We hit it off on a personal level (well, I did—maybe she thought I was nuts!), but, as they say, it’s in the writing.

My second agent appointment went swimmingly, if you don’t count that I had a hard time figuring out the message she left on my cell phone about where to meet her, both because there were voices in the background and because my ears were blocked. I scampered up two or three escalators while re-playing the message until I figured out that she was waiting for me at the top of the escalator for the Terrace Something restaurant. Again explained about the illness.

With all these explanations about the illness, I’m now realizing I didn’t actually pitch to any of the agents. We talked about my and Penny’s careers and what single titles I had going for both personas, but only in general terms (ie., erotic romance single title and contemporary romance with a mystery sub-plot). The editor, however, did ask me to read the pitch for the contemporary romance. And read it I had to do. I’d had it memorized, but no way was I relying on my memory with my brain so befuddled by the cold, so I read from my index card, lifting my head every few seconds to make eye contact. The result was the editor asked me to re-send the full of the erotic, which she saw last fall pre-revisions when it was a very hot contemporary, and she asked me to send as much as I have polished of the contemporary with mystery subplot. That’s about half the book. I need to finish a chapter, and then I’ll send her both books in the same package.

Fulfilling the editor and agent requests is my goal for this week. All in all, I received a request for one full and one extended partial from an editor, and requests for 5 partials from 3 agents (two wanted partials of both the erotic and non-erotic story while one agent wanted a partial only from the finished book, which is the erotic). Looking back, I can’t complain.

How about you? Any gripes or raves about conference? How did your editor/agent appointments go? I had grandiose plans to haunt the appointment desk Friday and Saturday and snatch up any skipped or cancelled appointments, however I felt bad enough putting the scheduled agent and editor through my disastrous “pitches” without exposing more industry professionals to my germ-laden self.