What is it about this man?

I've developed a strange addiction for a very disturbing man. Hugh Laurie plays Doctor Gregory House on the self-titled show HOUSE. I've become a fanatic within the past few months.

I recall a few years ago having a conversation with my editor about alpha men. She cited House as one of her favs. At the time I'd probably checked out a few minutes of the show. I couldn't see what she meant about his appeal. The dude plays an arrogant asshole. The redeeming qualities about him are few. He doesn't like people. He lies to get his way. He objectifies women and seems to be a racist. All that and he's some kind of medical genius.

I've never actually seen the beginning of the show. Maybe. The syndicated episodes run almost every night, sometimes two or three or even four in a row. They don't play in any particular order that I can determine.  Proof being that Cameron's hair changes from blonde to brown, to reddish, from show to show.  Lately, if I sit down to watch one, I'll find myself still sitting there three hours later, absolutely absorbing this fascinating man. What? How can he fascinate so much?  It's not as if the shows actually alter the standard formula: crazy, mysterious illness is admitted, the diagnostic team nearly kills the patient by testing out their theories, House saves the day five minutes before the show is over.

My theory is that the character is played by an amazing actor. Hugh Laurie is so appealing, you can't help but love his f*@cked up character. He's a comic at heart. Though I've never seen his British stuff, I'm aware it is hilarious.

So can that be it? Can an actor make a character with little appeal...appealing?

Obviously so.

What about you? Do you watch the show? Love it? Hate it?  And did you all think the Amber's death shows jumped the shark?  I mean, come on House, let's probe into your brain to see what you were doing with Amber before she died, for no reason other than to calm Wilson's worries that you had an affair with her.  Hmm...  I do love Wilson too.  What a kind, sweet actor chosen to play a womanizer, and yet he does it so gently.  And his relationship with House is priceless.

And what night and time, and on what station, do new episodes of this show air?  I've only caught the re-runs, and would love to start watching the new stuff.  

M

Mice and....

First, you still have time to enter The Ultimate VampList contest, which runs to the end of April. Details are in the post just below this one.

Now, I haven't been posting because I've been busy. Finishing up a final read-through on a story due May 1st. And it still needs about 400 more words to make the 80K word requirement. Never have so few words been such a struggle! It's insane. But I forge onward.

Also got the galleys for my September book, which I worked on this weekend. This is the final check the author makes of the copyedits, before it goes into production. It's very important to catch any last minute changes. And if the author wants to make her own changes, they should be small and few. Some weird computer glitch ended up taking out all my ellipses! All of them. So that was an interesting two days this weekend. Not.

Also got the contract for my Nocturne Bites. And it came not snailmail, as usual, but via email. Very cool! I like this method of getting a contract. Less wait and it will be great for future reference to be able to open up a previous contract file to compare to the current contract. I hope H/S continues to do this. Haven't got my Nocturne contracts yet, so not sure how they'll arrive, but I do hope it is by email. Now, if I just had some kind of electronic signature pad I could send them all back through email. I actually looked at something of the sort in Best Buy yesterday. I would love to have a 'drawing pad' for the computer, but this one seemed very basic, only for line sketches and signatures. It may be something I'll have to invest in some day.

Heck, I'll just be happy when the mouse situation gets settled here. When I bought my new 'puter a few weeks ago, I also got the wireless Mighty Mouse. I do like a wireless mouse. But the one I got kept freezing on me, so I returned it—twice. Both times the mouse did the same thing. And Apple Care didn't have a clue. They think it's something with the actual computer and want me to haul it into their store to get looked at. Can't do that right now, dudes. Gotta book to finish! So, I broke down and went to Best Buy and actually looked at the non-Mac mouses. I know, I'm an incredible Mac snot. But I did find one I liked. It had to be both visually pleasing, and not too complicated to operate. The PC mouses all have both a left and right click button. Very confusing to me. I like the simple one button style of Mac mouses. Anyway, I found a Kensington mouse that is charcoal gray/black with sparkles (it matches the dashboard of my car!) and it was sleek and the track ball is an actual ball, so I think it'll work. Maybe. It's already having 'issues'. So maybe I seriously do have to take this computer in for a look-see.

So that's the post for this week. I hope I'll be celebrating 'having written' on Friday.

M

The Ultimate VampList stats and Contest!

Figured it was time to talk about the VampList, since I like to mention it every year or so, to let people know it's out there. Find it at vampire-books.com. I believe it's the oldest and largest listing of vampire books on the Interwebz. I've been posting it online since 1995, and it started with about 100 titles. Now, I think I'm over 4000 (though I haven't counted lately.) I started it, not as a means to become a thorough bibliography, but more as a list of all the vampire books I could find. A list vampire readers could use to print up, and mark off titles they'd read, and marvel over just how many titles they have yet to read. And do you think anyone could ever read them all?

I just include the basics: title, author, publisher, pub date. I decided early on to link as many of the titles as I could to Amazon. At the time, it was the major book retailer on the web, and I thought if a person wanted more info about the title, they could click and do further research themselves. I had once dallied with the idea of linking to the authors' website, but decided against that. I didn't want to link to a site that may eventually disappear, or feature questionable material. It was easiest to keep all the links to one place, more fair, even though that excludes some self-pubbed titles and small presses who aren't listed at Amazon.

Anyway! Every few years I like to go through the ROMANCE category of the VampList and count how many books were released each year. This is a terribly unscientific method. I know I don't have ALL the titles out there. Mostly US releases, and yes, I can't find all the small press stuff (Which is why I encourage authors to send me their title info.). But it's interesting to look at how the vampire romance genre has grown over the years with these simple numbers. I started counting in 1997 (the year Dark Rapture was published). Here's the number of vamp romances per year (2009 is to date): (This awesome chart was made by SciFi Guy)



Interesting, eh? Vampires have continually risen over the years, and show very little sign of slowly down. From 2001 to 2002 the increase was stunning. Used to be you could maybe find one vampire romance a month to read. Now, there's over 10 new titles per month. Good news for vampire lovers! Do you think the numbers will start falling anytime soon?

Now for the contest: I'll run this through the rest of April. What I'm looking for, simply, is a new title I don't list at the VampList.
Now here's the unsimple part. The title must not be listed anywhere at the Ultimate VampList. That means if you think Love's Bloody Desire by Crimson Tears is not listed because you checked the entire first HORROR page, but you didn't check ROMANCE or MYSTERY or CHILDREN's, then it actually could be listed elsewhere. So do a thorough check on all categories! Also, I may have a title listed in the wrong category (not purposely), so that would count as an entry if you told me what the right category is, and how you know that is the right category.
If you are the author of the book, you can enter with your title, if it isn't listed, as well. But again, make sure it's not already listed. (I will check, and usually recognize any title I do list.)

Confusing?

Just enter a title that isn't listed. Include: title, author, publisher, pub date, and if it's a part of a series, mention that too.

Send entries to toastfaery@gmail.com

Wait! I'm not done yet. So you don't want to sort through all those titles to see what's missing? Fine. I have another means to enter. Link to The Ultimate VampList at your blog or website (and make it permanent!) and send me the URL to the page with the link so I can verify, and you are entered. Here is the URL for VampList: http://www.vampire-books.com. Title it: The Ultimate VampList.

I found a bunch of vampire books to give away as prizes. So I'm going to pick a handful of winners, and they can pick and choose. These are some of the titles I will offer: THE MONSTER BOOK by Christopher Golden, an ARC of PRETTY LITTLE DEVILS by Nancy Holder, WONDROUS STRANGE by Livingston (faeries), BROKEN by Kelley Armstrong, I THIRST FOR YOU by Susan Sizemore, PALE IMMORTAL by Anne Frasier, and an ARC of KISSING MIDNIGHT by Emma Holly (Not out until June!)

M

Now this is a cool audio book

I've never been a fan of audio books. I can never sit still long enough to actually listen to one, or else I don't find myself driving long or far enough to enjoy more than five or ten minutes of the story at a time. Also, I don't like it when one voice narrates the whole story. When a woman does a man's voice, or vice versa, it pulls me out of the story.

But I've been very excited to finally listen to a copy of SWORDSMAN'S LEGACY by GraphicAudio. Their tag line is "A movie in your mind." And it's darn close. They have many different voices in the story, both male and female, and cool sound effects. It's actually exciting to listen to, heck, sorta like a movie in your mind. :-) I just started listening to SL, and it's fun. The Frenchman sounds like a Frenchman (ok, so exaggerated, but who's complaining?) and of the two Brit guys one is just hilarious.

So what I'm trying to say is, check out GraphicAudio. You can listen to a five minute sample of any of their books. Check out mine here. I think their prices are pretty reasonable too. I got the MP3 CD and put it on iTunes and then was able to burn onto a CD to play in my car. They have the entire Rogue Angel series, and many other series titles. They are all action/adventure and fantasy futuristic stuff.

Cool.
M

Today I'm at RIDING WITH THE TOP DOWN.

Not posting much because I have a May 1st deadline, and I will be burning the midnight oil to get to it.
M

Today I'm at Romance Buy The Book, along with the other Midnight Cravings authors.  Another chance to win the book!

M

MIDNIGHT CRAVINGS winner

The winner of my MIDNIGHT CRAVINGS drawing is...housemouse88!

Please email me with your snail mail address!
Thanks,
M

Happy Easter!

I'll post the Midnight Cravings contest winner later this afternoon. Have a happy day!
M

The early bunny gets the, er...chocolate.

If you don't see the Easter Bunny at your house on Sunday, that's because he's been hanging around in my yard all week. ;-)

M

Comment to be entered in the below contest!

Keep commenting to enter to win all week.

And another blog where you can win a copy of MIDNIGHT CRAVINGS is here: annavivian.blogspot.com

Lost stuff

So here's the deal... Because of the Great Computer Crash of '09, I completely lost all my email files. All email addresses. All my special files of saved emails, which include important stuff like VampList updates, fanmail addresses, research contacts, editors and agents stuff, Nocturne Author website updates, and more stuff that won't be apparent to me until I need it. I don't write down email addresses. I usually just type in the first few letters of a person's name and it pops up in my email window. Can't do that anymore. Sigh...

So if anyone is waiting to hear from me for something, it ain't gonna happen. Writers who have sent book title updates for the VampList (not sure why you'd be reading this blog, but just in case) you'll have to resend. If you won a contest within the past week or two, and haven't heard from me, email me. (I do believe, though, that I got all the contest stuff sent out; Midnight Cravings contest is still running.) It kills me to lose all that info, it really does.

I also was not able to retrieve all my family pictures that I had scanned years back. Over 4000 of them. But The Boy thinks he can take the hard drive out of old computer and get them off somehow. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, you can still comment to win for the MIDNIGHT CRAVINGS contest, through Saturday. So go for it!
M

A Week of Cravings

All week the authors included in the MIDNIGHT CRAVINGS anthology will be blogging and giving away stuff! Here's the schedule:

April 6 - Michele Hauf
April 7 - Bonnie Vanak
April 8 - Karen Whiddon
April 9 - Lori Devoti
April 10 - Anna Leonard
April 11 - Vivi Anna

Stop by their blogs all week, and every day. I'll be running a contest all week. Comment on any of my posts this week and you'll be included in a drawing to win a copy of MIDNIGHT CRAVINGS, chocolate (you can't have a prize without it) and my new favorite thing, a Coconut & Lime Lotion Stick from Bubble and Bee! How cool is that? You don't have to guess anything or go search the web (though I do have the first chapter of Racing The Moon at my website), all you have to do is comment. And do stop by the other author's sites all week for chances to win there!

M

I'm here!  And I'm on a new computer.  That's right, the darned old one kicked the bucket yesterday.  Oh, it still turns on.  But all heck breaks lose after that.  So I had no choice but to go buy a new one.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with getting a new computer.  I got the 24" iMac.  Man, is this sucker huge.  I keep moving my chair (ball) backward because it intimidates me.  There's just so much screen.  So I'm online, which is great, but that's about it.  I don't have any of my email addresses and saved files transferred, nor do I have any of my Word documents on this new 'puter (though, I did save them on a flash drive; finger crossed they all came through.)

With Macs you can 'migrate' all you old files and applications from your old computer just by connecting it to the new one.  Well, that works real snifty, in theory.  But if the old computer is just plain $%^&*, then that blows the whole process to heck.  I think I transferred most of my files last night after hours of struggle and constant rebooting of the old machine (it freezes every few minutes), but today will be spent discovering if that is so.  I seriously just need to get Word working so I can actually work.  I lost a whole day of writing yesterday, and can't afford it since the RA is due on May 1st.  So I've got my fingers crossed.  But if I need to get anything off the old one today, I think I may end up killing someone or thing, anything that is close.  The cats had better beware.  ;-)

M

Coolness

My proposed series, OF ANGELS AND DEMONS, is a go!