Author: Cindy

I'm irritated because my posts won't publish.

Only 2 Days Left…

…to enter to win an autographed copy of BORROWING ALEX. I’ll pick a winner out of a hat at noon PST Friday, April 18th and contact the winner by email. You know what this means, don’t you? You have to enter by email. But only emails with a specific subject line qualify to enter the contest. If you haven’t already entered, it’s not hard. Just visit my home page. Details are there.

Good luck, everyone, and if you don’t win, please visit again on Monday. I’ll announce the winner on my blog then, plus…I have another giveaway to announce featuring not only my book, but several more. Tut-tut, no further details until Monday.

 

Tell Me Tuesday–The Lories!

Yippee, I’m having an excellent Tuesday. Last night I found out that BORROWING ALEX WON the Contemporary category of the From the Heart Romance Writers’ The Lories Best Published contest. The winners of each category now go to a bookseller for ranking, and the ultimate overall winner will receive a conference fee to RWA National or Romantic Times or a similar conference. How cool is that?

Other than that, I need to do page proofs (also called galleys or author’s alterations, depending on the publisher) for my Alter Ego’s December ’08 release. I want to finish writing a scene in my cindypk WIP first. But after that I better get hopping on the page proofs, because My Liege was very, very sick beginning Sunday night. He spent all yesterday in bed and bagged out in front of the TV. I’m hoping I don’t catch it. I have too much to do. Egad, can you imagine if I were going to Romantic Times this year? Where would I fit in the page proofs? I just learned about them on the weekend. If I were going to RT, I’d have been extremely busy these last couple of days. As it is, I don’t need to have them back to my editor until Saturday, which is very do-able, whether I get sick or not.

How’s everyone else? Good news to report? Yucky news? What are you working on?

Talk About Strange, Uh, Fun Promo

If you haven’t seen Jill Monroe’s and Gena Showalter’s Author Talk series of interviews yet, you have to check out this one. Featuring author Kresley Cole, it kept me in stitches. I don’t know how to insert a UTube video into my blog yet, so I’ll direct you to Jill’s blog. And keep an eye out for Gena’s “interpretive dance” number. Great stuff!

http://jillmonroe.blogspot.com/2008/04/kresley-cole-author-talk.html

His Future’s So Bright…

Was anyone as surprised as I was to see Michael Johns voted off American Idol last night? I picked him as one of my personal front-runners, along with David Cook, from early on in the series. Out of the two, however, I’d rather have seen Michael go for the simple reason that David seems much more certain of his direction as an artist. But I would have expected Kristi Lee Cook, Syesha Mercado, and Carly Smithson to leave before Michael.

It might be a good thing for him. It was for Chris Daughtry, another of my past favs. Of course, Bo Bice and Taylor Hicks were favs of mine, too. I bought the post-Idol CDs of all three, and only Daughtry’s didn’t disappoint me, yet he didn’t make it to the Final Two like Bice and Hicks. Both Bice’s and Hicks’s CDs sounded to me like some record producer’s idea of what they should sound like to appeal to the broadest spectrum of buyers. I understand Hicks has been dropped from the post-Idol record label, and I caught a recent interview with Bice where he mentioned getting back to his own style of Southern rock with his second album. I might have to give him another chance, because the first album didn’t “sound” like the Bo Bice I’d come to know on American Idol at all.

This is where I confess I’m not a fan of the American Idol voting format. I much preferred the format in the Rock Star series, where the public narrowed the choice to the bottom three every week and then the judges decided who got the boot. How about you? Do you prefer the Idol voting system, where it’s the calling-in public’s choice? Has your favorite been given the boot yet? Who do you think should go next?

Editor Interviews Up the Whazoo

I hadn’t visited Isabel Swift’s blog in ages, so yesterday, while waiting for my latest pages to print out, I hopped on over there. She’s started a series of interviews of Harlequin and Silhouette editors. I confess I only skimmed the interviews for content (very, very quickly–my printer is fast), but I counted at least five recent Q&As. The latest interview features Silhouette Executive Editor Mary-Theresa Hussey. Editors Emily Rodmell, Elizabeth Mazer, Joan Marlow Golan, and Natashya Wilson round out the others. So far, three of the five interviewed edit for Steeple Hill. However, hopefully soon Isabel will move on to other departments (not that I have anything against Steeple Hill, mind you). What an excellent resource! If you’re interested in writing for Harlequin/Silhouette, check them out.

Writer Therapy

I’m addicted to massage therapy. I go to massage every other week and to the chiropractor once a month. Like clockwork. It all started as a result of a major car accident the family survived when Youngest Son wasn’t even a year old. Well, first I was sent to physiotherapy (I think it’s called physical therapy in the States), but my physio guy did a combo of physiotherapy and chiropractic moves on me, because my neck and upper back were so screwed up by the accident. And still are. To some degree. I think it’s safe to say it’s writing that bunches me up now.

I once stopped going to physio for over a year. However, the more I got into writing, the worse my condition grew. My physio guy moved (he was great!) and the next physio had horrendous waiting times, so off to the chiropractor I went. And I haven’t looked back. I’ve also done Intra-Muscular Stimulation, which I like to call “painful acupuncture,” because it consists of having the needles shoved directly into the muscles giving you trouble. As much as I don’t like going to IMS, it was the therapy that finally got rid of a knot in my back that I’d had for fourteen years (since the car accident). Since then, the massage suffices. I consider myself very lucky that My Liege has an excellent medical benefits plan through his work (mind you, he gives up other benefits to have such a great plan), because without this plan I could not afford my twice-monthly MT appts. And they are a godsend. I think they should be tax deductible for writers, because I consider massage therapy as vital to my occupation as a writer as I do my computer. In fact, it’s because of my computer that I need to go to massage therapy! It’s a vicious circle.

How about you? Is there a “luxury” that you consider a necessity for life as a writer? In your dream tax world, what would you write off as a justifiable expense (if you could)?