Sooooooooo, the other day while I was exploring my web host in search of stats, I came across the top 16 search strings for the month of November (so far) that would lead to my website.

What’s a search string, you ask? For the sake of those who don’t know, it’s the words or phrase that a person might type into the search window of their favorite search engine (like Google, for example). Then you get a list of clickable websites.

Every so often I visit another author’s blog where she lists the hilarious search results leading to her website. Mine ain’t so hilarious. But I’m glad to see that the—ta-da—number 1 phrase in my Top 16 Search Strings is…”muse interrupted blog.” Which means the majority of my visitors are looking for me via my blog name. In fact, 26.67% of browsers, to be exact.

Here’s the Top 16:

1. muse interrupted blog (26.67% – excellent!)
2. site:cindyprocter-king.com (16.67% – excellent. And Procter is spelled correctly—bonus!)
3. muse interrupted (13.33% – excellent again!)
4. ada marie finkel (say what? I don’t know this person. Also, note, from this point on every search string drops to 3.33% of searches)
5. author of war with grampa (I am an author, my dead grampa—and that’s how I spell it—was in WWI, so this search string makes sense)
6. be there or not be there movie (????)
7. cindy procter king (yay, Procter is spelled correctly again! Although the hyphen is missing.)
8. cindy proctor king blog donna russo morin (Procter is spelled wrong—booooooo!—but I do have a blog and I have hosted author Donna Russo Morin as a guest)
9. danielle chiotti romantic suspense (Danielle is an agent I must have mentioned in a blog post at some point)
10. golden heart contest (makes sense, seeing as I’ve finaled in the Golden Heart, I have a group blog with other GH finalists, and I have an article about entering the GH in my site archives)
11. how to remove mal occhio (I have no freaking idea why this search string would lead to my website! I don’t even know what mal occhio is, although it sure doesn’t sound good)
12. if i final in the golden heart will i have a chance to revise m (I’m assuming the rest of the word is manuscript, and my answer to the question is…it seems to vary from year to year. The year I finaled, 2007, no, we were not given the chance to fiddle with our fulls. I do believe it’s a rare year that you are given the opportunity to submit an updated version of your full, if, in fact, it EVER occurs)
13. kates new cover (we all know how obsessive I am about posting news for Kate St. James, although we can’t figure out why)
14. kelly fitzpatrick author (no idea why Kelly’s name leads to my blog)
15. old wallboard (I’ve used this phrase in an article or post about my office)
16. yip yap yahooey (a “Cindyism,” so this last one makes sense, too.)

There you have it.

If you have a hankering to dig up your own search strings, let me know about it and I’ll pop over to your blog and take a look. I’m pretty sure the fact that my top 3 searches are variations on my author name or blog name is because I posted to one of my loops recently asking people to see if they could reach my blog (see Monday’s post for why). I provided the link within the email, but maybe they found it easier to plug the blog name into a search engine.

Or maybe I really am a promo whiz!

I couldn’t resist posting this:

Eldest Son is coming home for Thanksgiving tomorrow morning, and My Liege is taking Friday off work, so you won’t find me around the blog until Tuesday or so. Monday is a holiday, and Sunday is our Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’.

An American on one of my writing lists asked about the differences between Canadian and American Thanksgiving a few weeks ago. Sorry to disappoint, but the holiday is pretty much the same as it is in the U.S….except it’s celebrated several weeks earlier. Why? I dunno, it’s a holiday, let’s eat!

We’ll be having ham, roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts and no doubt another casserole or two. And pumpkin pie for dessert.

Yum. Aren’t you sad you have to wait?

Woo-hoo, it’s National Punctuation Day! Okay, it’s celebrated in the States, but I’m confiscating it. Ever needed a quick introduction to the semi-colon? How about the hyphen? (I especially like the bit about compound modifiers. I’ve always called them “adjectival phrases,” but what do I know?). You can even download a recipe for Punctuation Meat Loaf. Oh, joy.

My life will never be the same.

Saw this video on Facebook the other day. Didn’t take much digging to find it again on YouTube. And here I thought The Evil Entity was weird. She’ll run into the bathroom and sit on the edge of the tub until I come in and run the water—and scoop it over her. I start with her head and then under her chin. At that point, she puts her paws on the tap, and I water-pet her belly, back and even sometimes her tail. When she’s had enough, she runs off and has a cat-bath. The lazy feline. I’m doing half the work!

This cat, Snookers, takes the cake. Watch all the way to the end. It gets funnier and funnier.

Are You Like Betty Cooper or Veronica Lodge?

You are Like Betty Cooper Like Betty, you are friendly, helpful and compassionate. You want your boyfriend to appreciate you for your qualities more than for your beauty. You may not be high on material riches, but your real wealth is your friendships, which you have created and maintained with great care.

Well, naturally, I am like Betty! For one thing, I’m not rich. Sure, I can get…testy, but I usually recover.

As a kid, I loved the Archie comics. My best friend was a redhead and my older sister a blonde, so a time or two we even played “Archie.” Being the brunette, I was usually cast as Veronica. And she was fun to play. 

Recently, I read on the ‘Net that Archie is proposing to Veronica in a 5-issue post-college story arc. Say what??? Okay, I admit, I can see him proposing. Let’s face it, Archie’s appeal is that he’s a bit of a noob. A dough-brain. A bean-bag-head. What else would he do? Veronica is rich and hot. She doesn’t pant after him like a cocker spaniel. She’s a challenge.

Here’s what I can’t figure out, though—Veronica says yes? Why, why, why would she want to marry Archie? To stick it to Betty? To control him? I’m not sure I understand her motivation.

So, who are you, Betty or Veronica? Would you marry Archie? If you were Betty in this scenario, how would you plot his demise?

The winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, “Where WWW Means ‘Wretched Writers Welcome’” are up. If you haven’t heard of this contest, it celebrates Victorian novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who, with the audacity of those inclined toward hyphens, penned the famous opening line, “It was a dark and stormy night.” (Snoopy of Peanuts fame often begins his literary epistles with this sentence).

Ever wondered how the rest of the paragraph goes? Here it is, according to the website:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

The contest is all in fun, the goal being to enter the worst opening lines possible, to imaginary novels. 

Here is the Romance Winner:

Melinda woke up suddenly to the sound of her trailer being pounded with wind and hail, and she couldn’t help thinking that if she had only put her prized hog up for adoption last May, none of this would be happening, no one would have gotten hurt, and she wouldn’t be left with only nine toes, or be living in a mobile home park in Nebraska with a second-rate trapeze artist named Fred. Ada Marie Finkel Boston, MA

Runner-Up:

The first time I saw her she took my breath away with her long blonde hair that flowed over her shoulders like cheese sauce on a bed of nachos, making my stomach grumble as she stepped into the room, her red knit dress locking in curves better than a Ferrari at a Grand Prix. Harol Hoffman-Meisner Greensboro, NC

Dishonorable Mention:

As she slowly drove up the long, winding driveway, Lady Alicia peeked out the window of her shiny blue Mercedes and spied Rodrigo the new gardener standing on a grassy mound with his long black hair flowing in the wind, his brown eyes piercing into her very soul, and his white shirt open to the waist, revealing his beautifully rippling muscular chest, and she thought to herself, “I must tell that lazy idiot to trim the hedges by the gate.” Kathryn Minicozzi Bronx, NY

Personally, of the three, I like the Dishonorable Mention the best. Love the “lazy idiot” line.

Which is your favorite?

There are entries from several other genres on the website.

Because it’s April Fools Day, I’m posting something foolish. Filched from Avery Beck…

1. YOUR REAL NAME: Cynthia Cindy Lee Lou Procter-King (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but it sure drove SEW nuts when we were kids, so it’s worth it).

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME (mother and fathers middle names): Jean Andrew (Yawwwwwwn).

3. NASCAR NAME (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad): Archibald Duke (okay, so Duke was my paternal grandfather’s nickname, but NO ONE called him William, and Archibald Duke sounds cool!)

4. STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name): Proci (Sounds like the name of a drug!)

5. DETECTIVE NAME (favorite color, favorite animal): Wedgewood Blue Kitty-Pooch. (She runs a high class agency, I assure you).

6. SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, county where you were born): What’s a county? I think that’s more an American thing. We have counties, but we don’t go around remembering them. I’ve decided this means I’m much too cultured to have a Soap Opera Name.

7. SUPERHERO NAME (2nd fav color, fav drink, add “THE” to the beginning):  The Plum Sneaky Pete (Not that I drink them often, and there’s a good reason for that!). Do I have a cool Superhero name or what?

8. FLY NAME (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name): Cing :::calling Jeff Goldlum::: :::Jeffy, can you hear me?:::

9. ROCK STAR NAME (current pet’s name, current street name): Allie Paranoid (as in I won’t give out my current street name on my blog). Do I have a cool Rock Star Name or what?

10. PORN NAME (1st pet, street you grew up on): Bootsey Paranoid II

11. YOUR GANGSTA NAME (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle): Cinizzle

12.YOUR IRAQI NAME (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, first two letters of your middle name, last two letters of your first name then last three letters of your last name): Agh, I have to think? Okay…Ioledying. Sounds like I Lay Dying. Hmmm.

13.YOUR GOTH NAME (black, and the name of one of your pets): Black Keisha. Yeah, I rumble.

14. STRIPPER NAME (name of your fav perfume, fav candy): Summer Cups.  (It’s really CK One Summer, but that doesn’t sound very stripperish). (And, I must point out, the full name of the candy is really Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, however, again, it’s a mouthful, so I cheated).

There you have it! Mock me at will.

Thanks to Kandy Shepherd for pointing me to this catchy tune on YouTube. For cat lovers everywhere!