Oct 31st 2009Karen HawkinsOn Writing!
Just for fun, let’s play NAME THAT HUNK:
Another clue:
And, for those of you who wonder what this FROS Hero would look like tied up and ready for a Halloween Feast:
Just for fun, NAME THAT FROS!
PS Handmaiden Kim can’t play as she suggested him. (Thanks, Kim!)
Oct 31st 2009Your Friendly GoddessesGoddess Grins
Its fun contest Saturday again! Go trick or treating to a few Goddess websites and you might win a fun treat!
1. What nobleman is pursuing Kate Bergeron in A Courtesan’s Scandal?
You can find a hint here.
2. In The Care and Taming of a Rogue, what is Phillipa’s nickname?
Find a hint here.
3. Lori Handeland includes some scary creatures in her Phoenix Chronicles novels. A varcolac is half human and half what legendary creature?
Find a hint here.
Do NOT post your answers in the comments. Email them to goddesscontest @ gmail.com (no spaces) with the subject line: Halloween Contest.
One lucky winner will win a signed book from each of our featured authors PLUS a box of my favorite Halloween candy!
One winner will be chosen at random. Contest ends at Midnight, Sunday, November 1.
Tell me ladies, how are you spending All Hallow’s Eve? Are you dressing up, going trick or treating, or just hiding out and waiting for all of the candy to go 50% off?
Oct 30th 2009Karen RoseKaren Rose
I just returned from NYC, where I spoke at the NJ RWA convention. (Waving to Donna and Elsie, who I saw on Saturday!) I had a very good time and the NJ chapter members were simply wonderful.
After the convention, I spent Sunday with my oldest daughter, who’d come with me. We walked around 5th Ave area on Sunday afternoon and then she asked to go to the American Girl Place. For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s a doll store. A freaking huge and cool doll store. We walked in and said, “Wow, it’s bigger than we thought.” Then we realized it has 4 stories!
Oldest told me that she’d fallen in love with American Girl when she was 11 years old. Unfortunately, that was right about the time I got laid off and we had very little money. She didn’t ask for a doll then. She knew things were tight. Now we could afford a doll, but the one she’d fallen in love with was discontinued 
. Nevertheless, we explored every square inch of that doll store. When we got to the top, we found a cafe, where you could have tea!
So we did. We were the only ones in the cafe without a little girl at our table, LOL, but we had a simply wonderful time. We ate the little sandwiches and my daughter told me the story about every one of the dolls in the place. She read the back of the menu to me – it was the story of the store founder, who’d started the store after spending a lovely day at the ballet with her own daughter.
I was so touched that the founder understood it’s not just a store – it’s a place where memories are made. We eked out every drop of wonderfulness out of the place and it was so very sweet.
Then later (sshh) I found the Samantha doll my daughter had wanted on Ebay. Samantha is on her way to FL and I can’t wait to see my daughter’s face when I give it to her! I’m eight years late, but better late than never!
Where were your fondest memories made? Did you ever go back and do something later that you had wanted to do before and couldn’t? Did you ever fall in love with a doll?
Oct 29th 2009Claudia DainOn Writing!
I suppose it’s no secret by now that I have a slight addiction to clothes. That means I shop. I’m really good at it. Hey, we all have our skill sets.
During my many shopping adventures over these many years I’ve learned that certain brands work for me and others don’t. I don’t even bother trying them on. I’ll spot something, check the tag, and if it’s on my Yuck List, I don’t even lift the hanger off the rack.
Why is that? Why do some designers work and others don’t? It’s the way it’s cut, I know that, but what’s going on? Is Ann Taylor making some sort of pronouncement at the company picnic to cut shirts narrow through the shoulders? It has to be something like that.
The brands that nearly always work for me are Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. Jones New York is a sometimes, but it depends. Those brands just work on my body. Levis for jeans. Levis always fit me perfectly. No other jean even comes close. Born for shoes, with Naturalizer and Clark as back-up. New Balance for sneakers. And that’s it! That’s my list. I can’t wear Anne Klein or Ann Taylor or Liz Claiborne at all.
What’s your list? Do you have one? Do you want one? I can promise you that having a list makes shopping so much easier!
Oct 27th 2009Rachel GibsonOn Writing!
I knew it. I knew that sometime, somewhere, someone was going to prove that the movie Men In Black wasn’t just fiction. So, I give you the following:
Before Arthur David Horn met his future bride Lynette (a “metaphysical healer”) in 1988, he was a tenured professor at Colorado State, with a Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale, teaching a mainstream course in human evolution. With Lynette’s guidance (after a revelatory week with her in California’s Trinity Mountains, searching for Bigfoot), Horn evolved, himself, resigning from Colorado State and seeking to remedy his inadequate Ivy League education. At a conference in Denver in September, Horn said he now realizes that humans come from an alien race of shape-shifting reptilians that continue to control civilization through the secretive leaders known as the Illuminati. Other panelists in Denver included enthusiasts describing their own experiences with various alien races.–Rocky Mountain Collegian, 9-28-09
I would have killed to be at that conference amongst all those aliens posing as humans. I know that I’ve met many posers in my life. I’m sure you have too. You know, those “people” who are just a bit off. They act like people. Talk like people. But there is just something freaky and alien about them. “People” like:
Lady GaGa
Nancy Pelosi
Jim Carrey
The Duggars
The freakish woman at my gym who "likes" to exercise.
Who makes your poser list?
Oct 27th 2009Suzanne EnochOn Writing! & Suzanne Enoch
Well, today’s the day. I’m sending my darling child off to kindergarten for the first time, hoping the other children like her and that no one calls her stupid or boring or poorly written. Ahem.
Yes, The Care and Taming of a Rogue hits the stores today. You’d think after 24 previous books and two anthologies that I’d be used to this. I’ve had more “babies” than octomom. But I still get nervous. I still check my rankings on Amazon every hour. I still want everyone to go out and get my little darling during the first week of release so I can finally have that #1 New York Times bestseller. Not that I love the sweetie any less when she doesn’t get the highest grade in the class. We all just want our kids to be their best.
Anyway, as I finished up the Notorious Gentlemen series, I started considering what I wanted to do next. I’d just done the trio of army buddies, and before that, the quadrilolology of siblings. And then I saw this quote from Denis Diderot (1713-1784): “All the long-range expeditions have reared a new generation of nomadic savages…men who visit so many countries that they end by belonging to none…Amphibians who live on the surface of the waters.”
That got me started thinking about what happens to these rough-and-tumble explorers, men who risk their lives in foreign, hostile lands, AFTER they return to London and polite Society. It seemed to me that the only thing more frightening than a charging rhino would be an angry Society mama.
Then I came up with the Adventurers’ Club, a place for those wild men to find refuge in the middle of Mayfair. My first adventurer is Captain Sir Bennett Wolfe, just returned from a three-year expedition up the Congo River in Africa. During his absence he’s had his journals stolen and published under someone else’s name, lost his reputation, and been declared dead. Not a good way to begin a Season.
Did you read adventure books when you were a kid? And are you going to keep an eye out for The Care and Taming of a Rogue?
Oct 26th 2009Karen HawkinsKaren Hawkins & On Writing!
Last week, Hot Cop and I went for a lovely trip to the mountains of Eastern Tennessee. We had a wonderful time; the woods were autumnal and crisp, the air was fresh and chilled, and the mountains were layered in snow. It was magical.
But then we went out to eat. We found a little cafe and went in and were rather surprised to discover that the owners were so fond of the phrase “Have you eat yet?” that they printed it on their menus. When our waitress wasn’t looking, Hot Cop and I took this lovely cell phone photo.
Yup, that’s right. “Have you eat yet?” is their slogan.
Of course, this sort of thing doesn’t just happen in the South. Let’s move on to Portland, Oregon, shall we?
Yeah, that’s s’ome s’ort of s’ignage! New’s paper’s, indeed!
Moving on, this is from a website for a business in Hayden Lake, Idaho:
I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to go back to the fucture. At least, not without some sort of counseling and a complete medical waiver.
Furthermore, I would want to go in a DecLocreacn.
How about this article headline which came from a fair Northern state:
Who knew they put the Want Ads on the front page? Or in this case, the Wanted Ads?
I have a few questions about this ad. How much WILL they pay in reward money for shooting a cop? And do they think Dog the Bounty Hunter might be interested in this particular venture?
Have you seen recent examples of bad grammar or poor sentence structure? Have you noticed that it seems to be happening more than ever, or is that just me? Last week I read that some high school English teachers are blaming instant messaging and texting for this ‘new’ turn of affairs. What do you think?
P.S. Suzanne Enoch’s newest book, The Care and Taming of a Rogue, comes out tomorrow! I’M SO EXCITED! EEEK!
