Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
July 16, 2012
Follow me to Tumblr!
You can still find me, cyberly speaking, at the venues listed here--Heroes and Heartbreakersm Goodreads, Amazon, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.--but I've taken to very short blog snippets on Tumblr. Please follow me there.
May 28, 2012
This blog is going on indefinite hiatus. Very few of you read it, and I'd rather reach a larger audience. If that mean spreading myself across multiple social media platforms, so be it. As a result I've provided handy-dandy buttons within two tables below for all the places you can follow me.
My tweets tend toward the political, and I'm progressive. Most of my library database is on Goodreads, and as it is becoming more and more the readers' social media outlet, I've just begun to post reviews there. Goodreads will more or less replace this blog, at least for now.
| Goodreads | Google+ | Huffington Post | My Jam | |||
My Facebook offers some personal nuggets and funny stuff. I try to keep my political stuff on a FB group I started earlier in the year. Google+ seems to be a more visual sort of social media outlet, so I try to post mostly photos, although when I post a review or a piece of writing somewhere, I'll link to it from g+. I pin at both Pinterest and Loveit, but since the latter is in beta, I didn't create a button. If you are a Loveit beta tester or would like to be, I'll be glad to share an invite and/or my home there. If you have a page on the Huffington Post, feel free to use the button below to link to mine. Finally, I post a weekly song to This Is My Jam. Nobody else uses it, but I try and curate my selections thoughtfully.
Though I've reviewed at Publishers Weekly since the late 1990s, other than a feature article I wrote last year, reviews remain without bylines. But it's a huge part of my work life, so feel free to link to PW, and if you are a subscriber, each week you can access upwards of 80 new reviews.
 Writer |  Blogger |  Member |  Reviewer |
After a substantial injury-related hiatus, I'm back on Heroes & Heartbreakers, with four posts in recent weeks. I've not written anything for some time at NBCC, but it's particularly interesting to those interested in literary fiction. Finally, the green leaf will [eventually] take you to my Amazon profile page, and the hundred plus reviews I've written.
And now I'm off to Goodreads to review Tiffany Reisz's The Siren.
January 30, 2012
Offline Again
Since my last post, I've exchanged one cast for another, larger cast. When my doctor removed the original cast, my hand still felt wrong, and my suspicions were confirmed when X-rays revealed a broken bone. He put ma in a larger cast, further delaying my recovery from shoulder surgery in December. Worse is that my finger--the break is in the area of my index finger, around where carpel meets metacarpal--feels better elevated, which, depending on where I'm sitting, causes pain in my shoulder to kick in. At times I need to lie down simply not to hurt. I'm spending a lot of time that way. It sucks.I see my shoulder surgeon tomorrow. I last saw him three days before hurting my hand, so it'll be interesting to see his reaction. As for me, having only the use of my thumb makes even the most rudimentary of skills almost impossible, but it's stretchy pants and camis with shelf bras for the foreseeable future...and as little time online as possible.
January 23, 2012
What's Going On?
I started having pain in my left arm this summer. I thought I had pulled a muscle, so I rested it for a couple of weeks. It didn't help, so I saw a shoulder specialist, who took X-rays and explained that it was referred pain from my shoulder. He gave me a shot of cortisone and sent me to physical therapy. Though the physical therapy worked to an extent, my second visit to that doctor showed me he didn't really understand what was going on with my shoulder.
My physical therapist recommended another specialist, whom I learned was in partnership with the shoulder specialist my husband saw a couple of years ago when he had trouble with his left shoulder. (He had had shoulder surgery shortly before we got married because his shoulder kept dislocating. Though his surgeon had long ago retired, he referred his patients to the specialist my husband saw a couple of years ago.)
Although I didn't know it at the time, it turns out it's my husband's doctor is the top shoulder specialist in the city. Luckily he saw me right away, looked at my older X-rays, and gave me a 2nd shot of cortisone, one which actually worked for a few days. Both my physical therapist and I noticed an immediate improvement in my shoulder, but a week later it had started to regress. So I went back to the doctor, who indicated that the shot had been as much for diagnostic purposes as it had been for pain. We talked about it, he sent me for an MRI, and after getting those results, scheduled surgery for a few days before Christmas.
Everyone in my side of the family has a very low threshold of pain, so after surgery when the doctor said my shoulder had been really messed up, I was actually relieved. Not only was there a tear in the rotator cuff, but the bone spur he had expected in my shoulder had actually broken off, leaving everything inflamed and disgusting. I had just started physical therapy again, a week after my surgery, when my husband, daughter and I went to see A Dangerous Method. I missed the last step going down a large flight of stairs and landed directly on my left wrist. After trying to ignore the pain through lunch, I noticed a huge blood clot had developed on my wrist, and we ended up at a nearby doc in the box. Two hours later I learned nothing had broken but that my left arm, hand, and fingers were badly sprained. They splinted my hand and wrist and sent me on my way.
When, a few days later I realized I kept re-injuring my hand, my husband suggested I see a specialist. He agreed that nothing was broken but I left his office with my wrist hand and fingers in a cast. I am supposed to have the cast removed this week, and I hope most of the swelling, pain, and general ickiness will be gone. I did take a break from PW duties for the last week in December, and have muddled through my last three reviews using DragonDictate, a voice recognition program I am using to write this very blog entry. I wish I had had Dragon Dictate back in November when I researched and wrote my 1st publishers weekly feature article, which required me to interview 20 authors, then writes eight hours a day for two days to complete the piece.
All of this explains why I've not blogged in months, but this weekend, when I went to look something up in my old blog, I discovered it was gone. Blog-city.com apparently went off line on December 31. I did not know they were going bye-bye, because all their e-mails to me must have been sent to my old AAR address, which has been defunct for 3 years.
This had a very disheartening effect on me; that's more than 6 1/2 years of writing, including probably 100 reviews. Even worse was discovering that I did not have complete archives for the blog. When I switched from PC to Mac this summer, I needed to jettison old files, all of which I had backed up. Unfortunately, the process of transferring files did not go entirely as planned, and not everything made it through the process. Among the lost files was a huge XML file containing the old blog in its entirety. I contacted blog-city.com's owners this weekend, and have requested they try to send me another backup. In the interim, I decided to upload here on blogger the files I did retain, which includes everything from the original blog's inception in 2002 to early 2007. There is simply too much good stuff for me to let go entirely, and it's a shame that all those links from AAR and Heroes and Heartbreakers are now useless. But by my uploading the blog here--each month is a single entry--I will feel better. I can only hope that those missing months can be accounted for. As for the password-protected portions of blog, I have no clue whether or not they were/are included in the archive files, but I'll soon find out. So far I've uploaded August, September, and October 2002.
As for my injuries, I plan to work through any remaining discomfort associated with my shoulder and arm in trying to get back into online writing. The hand may slow me down, but now that I know that anything I do to my shoulder cannot damage my shoulder, I'm going to grin and bear it.
See you here and there!
September 15, 2011
New at H&H: Fresh Meat: Theresa Weir's Orchard
***
My criticism of romances filled with darkness often goes something like this: “The book’s unrelenting darkness went entirely over the top and into melodrama, piling one bad thing onto another. Real people’s lives are not the Perils of Pauline.”
After reading Theresa Weir’s new memoir, The Orchard, I may be forced to revise that criticism. Apparently one bad thing after another can befall a person. The question is...do I want to read it?
Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Feel free to comment on The Orchard, Theresa Weir, or memoirs in general at H&H once you've read it.
July 26, 2011
Fresh Meat: Rhyannon Byrd's Rush of Pleasure
Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers
***
At the conclusion of my Fresh Meat on Rhyannon Byrd’s Rush of Darkness, the seventh in her Primal Instinct series, I wrote about my hope for the series' end sooner rather than later. Turns out that Rush of Pleasure, the eighth in the series, is also the last...and now I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s true that I missed the middle three books in the series, and that there were problems with Rush of Pleasure. But now that it’s over, I kinda wish for more, and am glad that on Byrd’s website she mentions Deadly Is the Kiss, an April 2012 release from HQN about Ashe Granger, a secondary character in the series. It’s somehow a stand-alone, even though Granger figured in at least three of the series’ installments. After eight books in a relatively short period of time, August through April seems a long time to wait, but I can do it.
Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Feel free to comment on Rush of Pleasure, Rhyannon Byrd, and/or the entire Primal Instinct series at H&H once you've read it.
Click the label for Rhyannon Byrd below for more entries at Toe in the Water, including my review of Touch of Seduction, fourth in the Primal Instinct series.
July 19, 2011
Fresh Meat: Janet Mullany's Tell Me More
Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers
***
Knowing there's a difference between fantasy and reality is one thing, but having reality shoved in your face, even in a fictional setting, is something else entirely. Janet Mullany's Tell Me More is hilarious at moments because Jo Hutchinson is brutally honest, about herself and the people and situations around her. Unfortunately, that honesty, and the absolute explicitness of the author's prose result in a schizophrenic kind of read. The book went from LOL funny in one moment to squickishness in the next.
Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Feel free to Tell Me More over at H&H once you've read it.
June 1, 2011
New at H&H: A Makeover of a Different Kind
I think that subconsciously, watching Will Farrell's hilarious appearance on Conan O'Brien's show in early May gave me the idea for my new article at Heroes & Heartbreakers. It reminded me of a joke I heard back in the day. The joke kicks off the article. Feel free to watch the clip below in its entirety, but it's between 1:20 and 1:55 minutes in that it all started to gel in my head.
Putting a piece out there of on a topic such as this (you'll see when you read it) was not something I took lightly. I mentioned last week that I had a blast writing it, but that it took a lot of effort on my part to get to and maintain just the right tone...to write about a delicate matter and keep it light so as to be funny yet not be prurient, and to be revelatory enough while not exposing myself too much in the text. Hopefully I succeeded.
Because of the subject matter's delicacy, I feel a little squirmy knowing that people will actually read the article. On the other hand, I'm kinda proud of myself for tackling the topic in a funny way. Did I succeed? Please let me know by posting a comment at H&H after you read it.
May 31, 2011
New at H&H: LKH's Merry Gentry FTW
My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog just went online this morning.
Gee, a new article online and a huge birthday all in the same day. As my daughter asked me not to work today, this'll be it from me, although I don't think reading possible comments and maybe responding counts. She's not here at the moment for me to ask. <g>
Before the new Anita Blake book came out, Megan asked those of us who read her if we would write about our LKH experience. Hence, Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry Series: Merry Gentry For the Win, which is self-explanatory. I know the series attracts far fewer readers than Anita does, but then, I'm a natural born contrarian.
Hop on over to H&H and read it, and consider posting a comment. Hope you'll enjoy the visit!
May 28, 2011
Fresh Meat: Kristina Douglas' Demon
Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers
* * *
I need to get this out of the way first: I think Anne Stuart, a.k.a. Kristina Douglas, is awesome. Four of her books sit on my all-time keeper shelf, and what I notice more and more is that as her heroes go farther in skirting the edge or going over it in terms of acceptable behavior, the more I seem to love it. She skirted the edge of it with her heroes in the four that I read of her five-book Ice series, and she took them over it in her 2010 historical House of Rohan series, culminating with possibly the biggest prick in my experience reading romance: Lucien De Malheur, the 'hero' in Breathless. So I had high expectations for Demon, the second in her Fallen series written under the pseudonym Kristina Douglas. Demon will not be joining Breathless, Ice Storm, A Rose at Midnight, and To Love a Dark Lord on my all-time keeper shelf because I'm stingy when it comes to annointing books and it's nowhere near her best work, but it offered plenty of nougaty goodness nonetheless. I'll focus on two nougats...
Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Would love for you to add a comment.
May 23, 2011
Busy Girl
This morning I turned in my latest PW review, saw that three of my previously written PW reviews made it into this week's PW (a new record), and learned that I have [at least] two pieces going online this week at Heroes and Heartbreakers. I've got assignments out the wazoo, and could not be any happier. These aren't lengthy articles, but the creativity seems to be flowing out of me.
My H&H piece for tomorrow was a blast to write, but achieving just the right tone for it proved a challenge. I worked and worked and worked on it, and because it was a spec piece was patient as it found a slot on the H&H schedule. Once you read it you'll understand that I feel proud of it yet while also feeling, in a non-ironic sense, exposed. That's as much of a teaser as you're getting from me.
May 21, 2011
Fresh Meat: Carolyn Jewel's My Dangerous Pleasure
Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers
* * *
What stands out most after reading My Dangerous Pleasure, fourth in Carolyn Jewel's Immortal series, is this: The hero, while totally the alpha male you'd expect a demon to be, is also incredibly sweet to the heroine, a human with latent magic being threatened by a mage.
The typical urban fantasy/urban fantasy romance hero is usually pretty slutty, with a bad-ass attitude to match. He's generally pulled into helping/saving/working with the heroine, often begrudgingly, and...yada, yada, you know the drill. Iskander, Jewel's hero, fulfills the slutty part of the equation, but even though he never planned any sort of involvement with Paisley Nichols, he brings no pissed off, sullen, or I'm-the-boss-of-you attitude into their relationship...
Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Would love for you to add a comment.
May 15, 2011
Web Work
I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon creating a blog for my husband's family. I did it here on blogger, using their new template designer interface. I enjoyed the design process more than I thought, because one of the reasons I ended up not being happy as publisher at AAR was the result of all the design work I did, particularly for advertisers in creating ads for authors. I think working on my Heroes and Heartbreakers pieces, laying them out and considering which images to suggest, made the difference. What had become a chore is once again an outlet for creativity.
Speaking of which, my piece on clubbing it in paranormals, posted at the deadly hour of five p.m. Friday afternoon, has died an ignominious death. But I hope you all will be more interested in my next piece, which is, shall we say, on a very titillating subject. All my creativity the day I wrote it went into not being prurient and maintaining a high level of humor throughout. I won't say more until it's posted, but consider your appetites whetted.
May 13, 2011
New at H&H: A Party to Die For
My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog just went online.
In A Party to Die For: Night-Clubbing in Paranormal Romance, write about various hot spots that appear in urban fantasy/urban fantasy romances, including Jean-Claude's Guilty Pleasures, the Blue Moon werewolf club in the Riley Jenson series, and the Rehv's ZeroSum.
Hop on over to H&H and read it, and consider posting a comment. Hope you'll enjoy the visit!
May 6, 2011
Fantastic Fiction Sidebar
 |
| ...I simply turned to my favorite backlist website, Fantastic Fiction. If fantasticfiction.com isn’t on your radar yet, it’s the best source I know for sussing out backlist and series order information. Just last week I learned that Rose Fox’s (one of my PW editors) mother wrote romance. I looked Jennifer Rose up on FF and sent Rose the link, which she promptly included in her Twitter feed. (from Order of Importance, my blog piece for H&H, online May 5th.) |
When I wrote the first draft of that blog entry, I took a "time out" smack dab in the middle of it for a sidebar about fantasticfiction.com. In my next draft I decided to pull it out as a full length companion piece, only it really didn't "fit" at H&H. So I talked about it with Megan, and decided to post it here.
For those who haven't used fantasticfiction.com before, it's well worth a detailed introduction. As talk of Christine Warren's new Others book kicks off my H&H piece, I captured a screenshot of her Fantastic Fiction page and broke it out into three more manageable images. If all of this is too elementary because you've used Fantastic Fiction forever, forgive me.
New and forthcoming books are broken out, with dates attached, and clicking a cover/title link brings you to a separate page for an individual book. All the individual book pages include, when possible, synopsis information, along with purchase and issue/reissue information. Click here for the page to Black Magic Woman and see what I mean.
Christine Warren's Fixed series (with each of the six titles and their dates of publication) is followed by her Novels of the Others. The 11 already published books—in order and with dates included—and other titles in the series set to be published this year are listed. Stand-Alone novels follow, then anthologies. All of the titles are links to individual pages, and wherever possible, linked covers are shown.
As with the individual book pages, Fantastic Fiction provides quick links to Amazon in the U.S. and U.K., and for those looking to find copies of perhaps hard to find books, those individual pages also provide direct links to various used copies.
Before signing off, I thought I'd also mention a site referred to in one of the first comments to my corresponding H&H piece: FictFact.com. While it's a free site, unlike Fantastic Fiction you need to register. Once registered, though, you click "follow" for the series you read, and it'll let you know when the next installment goes on sale. I registered and will be giving it a shot in upcoming weeks and months.
Let's see...I now use my personally designed database, honed and adjusted over the last six or so years to track my reading, goodreads, fantasticfiction, and now fictfact. How do I ever find the time to actually, you know, read?
May 5, 2011
Reading Series in Order (Or Not) at H&H
My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog went online an hour ago. I actually didn't know it was going to appear at all until I checked my twitter feed. What a nice Cinco de Mayo day surprise, and how exciting to see two comments already!
The article is all about reading series in order...when it's important, when it's less so, and what to do when you can't start at the start. I hope you'll swing by, read it, then talk about your own experience by adding to the comments.
May 2, 2011
"This Is the End"...now at H&H
My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog went online late this afternoon. I've been on sort of a writing frenzy the last several days, turning in two more spec pieces to the blog. This one, though, on why I won't be buying Dead Reckoning, Charlaine Harris' new Southern Vampire Mysteries release that goes on sale tomorrow, started forming in my head probably a month ago. Anyway, it goes from Sookie Stackhouse and Liz Phoenix to Eve Dallas, LOST, The Sopranos, and Mad Men, all in the space of about a dozen paragraphs.
I hope you'll swing by, read it, then post a comment. As for me, I'm still trying to take in the death of Osama Bin Laden...and yes, episode three of Game of Thrones.
April 26, 2011
New Fresh Meat at H&H: Anna Campbell's Midnight's Wild Passion
April 25, 2011
New at H&H: Fresh Meat: Rachel Gibson's Any Man of Mine
Fresh Meat: Rachel Gibson's Any Man of Mine
Wow, what a week! In the last seven days I've read and written about four books: one was literary fiction, another Steampunk, a third contemporary romance, and the fourth a European Historical romance. I have a reprieve for a few days as my next PW review isn't due until Monday of next week. I've got so many books that I'm dying to get to just for the fun of it that I don't know quite where to begin. Whatever I choose will wait until tomorrow as I need a break for the rest of today.
The online result of a portion of that reading and writing just started, with my new blogging at Heroes and Heartbreakers. Drop by and give it a read, then post a comment over there.
Look for another "Fresh Meat" from me, perhaps as early as tomorrow. I'll let you know.
April 13, 2011
New "You Are What You Like to Read" at H&H
You Are What You Like to Read: A Book-Selling Savant’s Recs, Pt. 2
Yesterday at Heroes and Heartbreakers, part one of Recommendations from a Book-Selling Savant went online. Just a few minutes ago part two was posted. Drop by and check it out, and if you can, post a comment. As for me, it's now day three of Whatever It Is That Ails Me.
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