Holiday Hangover

Not the drinking kind. :-)

Four days off from the Evil Day Job (EDJ) meant too much time on the laptop for me. My eyes hurt, my neck and shoulders hurt, my back hurts, and even my butt hurts. I'm not excited to return to the EDJ, but on the other hand, at least there I can't spend all my time in one position.

I know, it's bad for me. I should be moving around more when I'm at home, but I start working on something and I don't want to move. Which is where the shoulders, neck, back, and butt come in. The eyes hurt because I don't blink enough while I'm on the computer. This is a problem at the EDJ, too, but there my job has me getting up to walk around and it doesn't seem to be as bad.

Thanksgiving ended up being nice. I didn't go out to any stores, but I did do a little shopping online. QVC was selling a pair of weather radios that were cranked for power as well as solar powered. Guess what my mom is getting for her birthday? LOL. My folks don't have a weather radio and if she wanted something different, she shouldn't have said "nothing." My mom is so hard to buy for.

I also picked up an iPod speaker system on an Amazon gold box special deal. This is for me because I've had no luck getting a system for my living room, and because the unit in my bedroom is plugged in behind my dresser, moving that isn't easy. Much simpler to move the iPod.

I'm also contemplating buying my laptop replacement now rather than in January. The plus side is that Best Buy has free shipping today and tomorrow (Monday). The down side is that I keep thinking, wow, what if something even better comes out in January? And something better always does come along in computers.

The Great Holiday Movie Struggle

One of my family's traditions is to watch movies at Thanksgiving and Christmas. You'd think this would be a simple thing to do, but you'd be wrong. Finding a movie we can agree on is a struggle and my holidays are just my parents and me.

We start out with one big strike--my folks don't enjoy action/adventure movies and these happen to be my favorite. I don't like "heartwarming" stories about animals, particularly if there's a chance the animal will die or suffer some other hardship. These are my mom's favorite movies. I'm not sure what my dad prefers because he'll go along wit anything, but my guess would be comedy, particularly older comedies where he won't feel uncomfortable about the language or situations.

Last year was a big fail. I tried a Jane Austen movie. I don't remember the name of it, but it starred Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Both my parents slept through it. I wished I could be lucky enough to drop unconscious. Talk about boring with a capital B.

The year before that we tried a Dean Martin celebrity roast. No one fell asleep, but the humor was very dated and some of it was like OMG, did someone really say that?

I could go back for years with similar stories. We just can't find something that we all are interested in watching that is actually good. So with this in mind, on Sunday I picked out this year's Thanksgiving Day movie. I figured the family section on Netflix was a good choice and from there selected comedies. Most of the movies were from the 60s and 70s which really says something about how many good family films are coming out of Hollywood now, but I digress.

I clicked through page after page of live-action Disney movies, many of which I'd already seen. I finally decided on The Boatniks even though I've seen that one, too, and I think my folks have as well. It's Disney, I remember it being funny, and my mom and dad should get a kick out of it. I hope. I'll find out later.

Happy American Thanksgiving!

Going Obsolete

In the past few weeks there's been discussions on one of my author loops about getting data off of those old 5 inch floppy disks. You know, the big ones that look like coasters for a beer stein? Of course, since no one has those ginormous floppy drives any longer, getting the data off takes time and money.

I was feeling pretty smug as I listened to these discussions. All my work is still on my laptop--I just keep transferring it. With one exception. I'd moved Ravyn's Flight to CD. This format discussion had me reloading all the files for my first book back on my computer.

And my smugness returned.

Until I started thinking about this new series idea and remembering a fragment of an idea I'd come up with years earlier. Of course, I couldn't remember enough of it for the thing to be useful, but I could just look at the file

Um, yeah. You see, all these idea fragments were saved *only* to one of the small floppy disks. (I console myself with the fact that I never used big floppy disks.) Problem is my laptop with the small floppy drive died. My old desktop can still be fired up...if I have half an hour to kill while it boots.

That sound you heard? That was my smugness balloon being popped.

I ordered an external floppy drive that plugs in via USB, and when it arrives, I will be transferring everything off the small floppy disks onto my hard drive. Then it will be backed up by Carbonite (an automatic, off-site backup service) and all will be good.

I'll also be slower to scoff at authors who don't have all their data in a readable format. If this discussion hadn't come up, in a few more years, it probably would be difficult to even find an external floppy drive and I'd be in the same position they're in now. Technology moves fast, but word processing files are small and hard drives are large. From now on, everything goes on the hard drive and moves from system to system with me.

Review: Saving Grace (the Movie)

This weekend, I watched a movie called Saving Grace. It's a British film starring Barbara Blethyn as Grace and Craig Ferguson as Matthew. It was released in 2000.

WARNING: There will be spoilers.

When Grace is widowed, she discovers her two-timing husband has mortgaged everything to the hilt, including her home. She has no skills to use on the job market except gardening, but that won't bring in enough money fast enough to prevent foreclosure. Faced with losing everything, Grace teams up with Matthew to help him grow marijuana in her greenhouse. She plans to use the money to save her home, he wants to earn money so he can marry his girlfriend.

Though they don't know it, the entire small town they live in (it's set in Great Britain) is aware of what they're doing, including the constable. Matthew's girlfriend is pregnant, but doesn't tell him and she's afraid he's going to wind up in prison for drugs. When Grace discovers this, she decides to go to London to sell the pot herself. It's her dead husband's mistress who has the connection to a drug dealer who knows a major player, a man high enough up the food chain who could afford to buy all their crop.

Matthew and his friend show up in the middle of the transaction, nearly blowing everything, but just when we think everything is okay and Grace and her friends have left, the big dealer orders his henchmen to follow them.

I'd heard good things about this movie which is why I put it in my Netflix queue. I thought it was okay enough to watch till the end, but I wasn't blown away. Until the ending, but that wasn't in a good way. More on that later.

My first complaint about the movie was I had difficulty understanding what everyone was saying. Some of the accents were pretty thick. I'd like to blame it on the fact that the washer and dryer were both going while I was watching, but that might not be totally to blame. I think in America we're used to a very specific kind of British accent and when we hear other ones, we have a hard time. Or at least I do. I heard a Cockney accent when I was in Europe and I literally didn't understand more than a couple of words the man said.

Second complaint is the pace of the movie. Yes, we need to understand how desperate Grace's situation is and see her try all other alternatives to solve it before resorting to growing pot, but it seemed to take a long time for things to really start happening. I did keep watching, but that was more to do with the fact I was doing other stuff at the same time than with the movie itself.

My biggest complaint, however, was the ending. It came so far out of left field, it was truly bizarre. After Grace accidentally starts the pot on fire, it seems as if things are beyond salvation for her. We see a scene of a yard full of high people dancing around or lying around or whatever. The next thing you know, Grace has written a "fictional" book called The Joint Venture and is up for a book of the year award in New York City. She's also married to the big drug boss who has apparently reformed.

First of all, we see no clue that Grace has even had a small dream about writing, let alone put in the time it would take to become good at it. That was my first, huh?

Secondly, Grace is at a big gala in NYC that is being televised live in Britain. Everyone in her hometown is watching and it's night in England, too! That was my second, huh? There's a time difference. Even if everyone in her town wanted to stay up and watch it, would British television really be airing the book awards in the middle of the night? Or how about would British television be airing book awards at all? Heaven knows they don't show them in America.

Third, the drug lord reformed. Huh? Because he fell in love with Grace? Or had he wanted to go straight before he met her and just didn't have enough willpower to do it? They don't outright say he reformed, but it sure came across that way. Apparently, after being on the bestseller list for a year, Grace is making enough to support him lavishly.

There were some bright spots in the mostly dull movie. The funniest part was Grace with a tube of marijuana trying to find someone to sell it to. She's dressed in a white pantsuit with a white hat and is anything but unobtrusive.

I also liked how she handled the big drug lord when she met him. She wasn't exactly cool under pressure, but she wasn't cowed either. Quite a feat for a woman who rarely travels to London.

Overall the movie was okay, but not great.

My rating: 2.5 stars

Guest Blogger: Rowan Larke

Today, I have a guest blogger--Rowan Larke.

Rowan and I had been online acquaintances for a while--I remember at least one chat room conversation I did that she was at--but it was when we had a chance to talk regularly on Twitter, that we became friends and writing buddies. She's one third of my plot group, and as well as being an awesome writer, Rowan is sweet, insightful, and incredibly nice.

Now for a more formal introduction: Rowan’s always wanted to be a writer. Always. She never thought she’d be lucky enough to make money doing it, though.

She never really planned on writing erotic romance – she thought she’d be writing epic fantasy. However, when her characters came to her and gave her the most unconventional happily ever after possible, she knew she had to write them. Like her children, her characters are full of surprises, and work almost autonomously – Rowan’s just happy to sit back and enjoy the ride.

* * *

Thanks, Patti, for letting me borrow your blog today!

And…Hi! To Patti’s readers.

I’m going to start off with my fangirl hat on tight. Once upon a time, a friend sent me a book. “You’ll love it,” she said. She was right. It was IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR by Patti O’Shea, and I LOVE that book, as well as everything else I’ve read by Patti since. So, I’m quite honoured to be here.

Somehow, in the time since I read that book, Patti and I have become friends. (yeah, I’m actually as surprised by that as anyone, and sometimes I see her books on my bookshelf and think “omg! I talked to her on the phone yesterday!” which makes me sound like a total nerd, but whatever.)

Even more surreal…Patti’s read some of my work.

Now, anyone who reads Patti’s blog is pretty aware, she’s a nice person. Very sweet, and she rarely swears. (tho she’s done it, I heard her!) So I sort of offered her this book tentatively, but I needed some advice, too...and frankly, writers are always hopeful that people will like their work. At the same time, we're always afraid people will hate us, personally, for what we've written. So I offered it up, and then...got scared.


“Patti…it’s dark.”
She said she’d read it.
“But no, really, Patti. It’s got a lot of sex in it.”
She still said she’d read it.
“Patti, it’s got angels who do really naughty things.”

By this point, I was actually a little desperate, because one thing you might not know about Patti from reading her blog - girl is stubborn.
She wasn’t giving in.

So I sent it, terrified she was going to realize I’m not such a nice girl after all.

I chewed my nails. I paced. I tried working on my next book (a much lighter book. A paranormal romantic suspense, more along the lines of what Patti writes.) and I waited. And I ate chocolate. And waited.

About three ‘o’ clock I got an email. “I’m almost done…. I had to print out the last ten pages to read!”

I think that’s good. I mean, I wanted to think that was good. I went back to pacing.

Finally, another email. “Oh, honey, that was awesome.”

I died a little with relief, and played it cool “you really and for-true liked it?!”

And because of all that, I’m here today, to invite you to read a book Patti liked, although I’m going to give you the same warnings I gave her:

It’s dark

There is a lot of sex - and not all of it sweet, or gentle.

There’s a lot of swearing. (*wince* I might have erased a few words while writing this post, even.)

There are BDSM themes.

So with those warnings in mind, here’s the blurb, and buy link for my book A Love Neverending, available now at Loose-Id (http://loose-id.com):

Death took Jason from Clarissa, and she blames herself. Night after night, she throws herself into the arms of other men—men who abuse and pleasure her, but never take her far enough. She is waiting for the one who will take her over the edge and into death, so she can be reunited with Jason.

Death didn’t take Jason far enough. Every night, Jason watches. His immortal self is trapped inside the club Clarissa owns, and he longs to be with her once more.

Death is a dark angel. A handsome man. The promise of violence in his eyes draws Clarissa to him. Will a single night in bed with Death be all it takes to destroy Jason and Clarissa’s love neverending, or will it be just the beginning?

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: BDSM theme and content, violence, voyeurism