Alison Kent's Blah Blog

I’m going to complain about a review. Yes, I am. I’ve said repeatedly that I never do UNLESS the review is factually wrong. In this case, the review is factually wrong. It’s a review of THE PERFECT STRANGER from a monthly romance review print magazine, ahem.

Kent’s newest installment in her SG-5 series lacks the intensity and drive of the other books. The suspense unfolds late in the story and there’s so much mystery surrounding the circumstances of the plot that it’s easy to lose interest. Kent’s detailed sexual scenes range from making love under a waterfall to risque anal sex in the jungle to a drug-induced rape.

Uh, well, no. There is no drug-induced rape.

Mini-spoilers . . .

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Electroretinography is an eye test used to detect abnormal function of the retina (the light-detecting portion of the eye). During the test, an electrode is placed on the cornea (at the front of the eye) to measure the electrical responses to light of the cells that sense light in the retina at the back of the eye.

That’s the explanation from Answers.com as to what a basic electroretinography is. The multifocal technique is done a bit differently. It doesn’t take an hour. It takes 7 minutes per eye.

But I’m getting ahead of myself . . .

The husband, bless his heart, found himself forced to drive me to the Texas Medical Center, which “with more than five million patient visits annually and one of the highest densities of clinical facilities and basic science and translational research of any location, is the largest medical district in the world.” (I just like throwing that out there since Houston is often thought of as nothing but the home of cowboys and Enron, heh.)

After arriving at 1:30 or so yesterday, we wound our way through the maze that is Hermann Hospital, found our floor and pavilion, and checked in. A few minutes later, a doctor (I have so forgotten her name) called us over to talk to the other doctor who would be doing the test:

Dr. Prager is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science and Director of the Electrodiagnostic Unit at the Hermann Eye Center. Dr. Prager has been instrumental in outcome studies and has published extensively on this topic and on the use of electrophysiology in ophthalmology.

He explains the test, then tells me it’s likely my insurance won’t pay for it, sigh. He then brings in the woman from the claims department, we go over all sorts of alternatives, and I’m reminded again what’s wrong with this country’s health care system. (I got out of there for $200.)

Dr. I-Can’t-Remember (but she was SO fun) numbs and dilates my eyes and attaches an electrode to my forehead. Twenty or so minutes later, the husband and I go into a small office with her and Dr. P. where she then numbs my eyes again (as in, I can’t even feel the skin on my cheeks) and then inserts a “contact lens”, uh-huh, into my eye.

This contact lens is the size of a rubber suction cup, is filled with slimy goo for conductivity, and has wires coming out the center of it. Once it’s settled in place and my other eye is patched up like Captain Jack Sparrow, oh, and I’m wearing some electronic box around my neck with all the wires connected, I settle my face in the headrest of the machine (like for a glaucoma or a visual field test) and stare at a red crosshairs.

For seven minutes. While black and white sections of a big honeycomb flash. I’m surprised I didn’t seize out right there. Switch eyes. New gooey suction cup. Seven more minutes. And then comes the eye wash that’s supposed to clear the mess. But doesn’t.

I left there wearing the fun little roll up sunglasses underneath my regular sunglasses and my eyes are still sore today. Tired sore, not painful. They burned all night which made watching Heroes with the one eye I could keep open pretty hard to do.

So now it’s back to the neuro-opthomologist, Dr. Woon, for the results, and then most likely back to the retina vitrous specialist, Dr. Ruiz. I hope not to ever do this again. But who knows.

This post is going to be full of spoilers, so if you haven’t seen THE DEPARTED and you plan to and you don’t want to be spoiled, then don’t read past the jump. The movie won last night’s Oscar for Best Picture and Martin Scorsese won for Best Director. I had heard so much good stuff about the twists and turns and surprises and finally watched the DVD Friday night. Bekke told me on Saturday that the movie was 2 1/2 hours long, which surprised me because it moved so fast.

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Since last weekend was a freebie bonanaza for everyone, this weekend’s is not. It’s a special promo giveaway, explanation to follow. Before I get to it, if you expressed interest in the Camel Book Drive, I’ll be contacting you in a day or two to get that together – and if you didn’t see the post and want to participate, go and read and do!

Via Lee Goldberg’s blog, here’s Steve Weber’s PLUG YOUR BOOK: ONLINE BOOK MARKETING FOR AUTHORS. Lee says:

(…) while it told me a lot I already knew, he provides plenty of good advice, many useful short-cuts, and lots of real-world examples drawn from all over the web.

The husband, seeing I had the page pulled up says, “You’d better not be buying that book because you could write it.” Which is a perfect segue into this weekend’s giveaway.

Since the THE PERFECT STRANGER copies I have arrived a month in advance of the book’s release, I feel a need to use them promotionally to get the word out. I’ve done the blogging thing in the past, giving copies to bloggers to read in exchange for their reaction to the book, good or bad.

In order to reach a broader readership, this time, I’m going to give bloggers a copy of the book to GIVE AWAY on their sites. I’ve got 30 books up for grabs, meaning 30 bloggers can participate. Reader bloggers, author bloggers, I don’t care.

Here’s the deal. You need to have an established blog with a regular readership. I’ll give you a .jpg of the cover to post, the code to either of the video trailers below if you’d like to use one (the server hosting them is rather slow at times, so you may have to refresh to see both), the back copy, and an exclusive excerpt found nowhere else on the web.

If you’d like, I can do a mini interview of one or two questions, or a short blog for you, but I don’t want to wear out my welcome around the web, and I don’t have tons of extra time!

All you have to do is post the info and offer up the book before the release date of March 27th, running whatever sort of giveaway you’d like to on your blog. That’s up to you.

I’m not asking anyone to pimp the book – unless you have already read it (and if you’d like to, I still have 6 ARCs which I’ll supply on a first come first served basis). This is just a giveaway for you to do aimed at reaching readers who don’t visit my site and might be interested in the book.

I’ll also offer up this quote from a bookseller to explain a bit of what I do:

“I’ve already recommended you to my customers, but I’ve just thought of some others who I’ve turned on to Cherry Adair, Suzanne Brockman, Amy Fetzer, Cindy Gerard…the women writers who construct great adventure novels with fierce romances attached…that I’ll have to turn them on to you, too.” — Lee Ann Daugherty, Romance “Mistress”, Waldenbooks #1393, Elizabethtown, KY

In return, I’ll give you your choice of anything from my backlist (subject to availability). If you’re interested, email me at tpsblogging@alisonkent.com – that’s the only place I’ll be checking for responses!

If you’re an international blogger, you can still participate, but instead of me sending you the book to mail out, I’ll mail it from here. Once I get my official author copies, I’ll be doing more giveaways, so if you’re not a blogger, don’t worry! Your time to win will come!

Thirteen Distractions To My Blogging Schedule

1. Pipeline explosion. Yes, that’s right. Saturday night I was busy writing and hear this rumble that kept on rumbling. A natural gas pipeline 8 miles away exploded. 8 miles from me, but less than a half from my son and d-i-l’s place. (They live off camera to the right in that pic that the husband took from a couple miles away.) The nursery assembly crew – who had been working there – headed to our house. #1 daughter arrived first with d-i-l’s younger brother, our dog, and their dog in tow. Next came one of my son’s best friends with a cat in a box. Then my son. Then my d-i-l with another cat (sans box). You can read more here at the husband’s blog. Can’t blog during disasters.

2. Allergies. One morning last week (or the week before?) it was 24 degrees. Today it’s supposed to hit 81. The trees are confused, and they in turn are confusing my head and my throat and my poor, poor nose with their pollen. Much better now, but I’ve sneezed and blown buckets of, well, allergy goo. Can’t blog through the goo.

3. Weather. That 80 degrees? Last weekend it wasn’t quite that warm, but it was sunny and in the high 60’s, so I sat out in the backyard with pen and notebook, writing on Simon’s book. Can’t blog when sunburned.

4. Work. That job where I’m supposed to be able to write? I’ve had to work. Two tasks for the accounting department (my old haunt) dumped on me this week. Can’t blog while accounting.

5. Writing. I’ve been having trouble with a major character in Simon’s book. I can’t find her voice. She keeps coming out as Fran Drescher, and HelenKay told me that just won’t do. I think I solved it last night when watching Jericho and realizing Alicia Coppola looks a lot like my character and her voice suits the visual I’m using. Can’t blog with Fran Drescher in my head.

6. Lay-offs. Yes, I am getting laid off. Again. Not till the end of July (company downsizing to skeleton crew for a possible close), and I don’t mind. I figure the year away from full-time writing will have been good for me, but it’s time to get back to it. However, the chatter at work – buzzbuzzbuzz – is distracting. And at the receptionist’s station, I’m in the perfect position for people to stop and talk to. Kinda like a bartender, lending an ear. Can’t blog when lending an ear.

7. Writing. I’m fighting a series of scenes, which are all just one big scene happening at the same time, different areas of the room, and trying to get all the who-says-what-when in the right order for the revelations and tension to work, and going round and round and round. Can’t blog when I feel like a spinning top or a dreidel.

8. The puppy. After the mast-cell tumors that stole away our beloved Smith last year, finding a big knot on the side of Snickers’ neck was not a good thing. Vet gave her a penicillin injection (and almost lost a finger) and a round of antibiotics, thinking it’s a lymph node or salivary gland that’s infected. Can’t blog through puppy worry.

9. The eyes. Dealing with the aforementioned eye issues and anticipating having electrodes attached to my corneas next week for the ERG is very distracting. Can’t blog when caught up in throes of dread.

10. Februrary sweeps. Lots of good television in the evenings lately and that’s a time slot I used to use to do a lot of my blogs. (Still haven’t watched a full episode of American Idol, heh!) Loving House and Heroes and NCIS and Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy. (And though I’ve never watched Dancing With The Stars? I may have to tune in a time or to just to see Apolo Anton Ohno!) Can’t blog when being a mindless boob.

11. Writing. Since I hope to be writing Finn McClain’s story following Simon’s, I’ve been doing prep work on that book, jotting notes, etc. I know what Finn does, and I know the setting and what I think will be the basic set-up, and now have to figure how much research is involved, and do what I can at this point to develop the additional characters. Can’t blog when story ideas take over.

12. Web work. Necessary updates to my own site and promo efforts (still not done, sigh) and been doing a lot of stuff for Access Romance (and DreamForge Media), adding features, fielding very interesting queries, brainstorming ideas to grow that community for the authors there. Can’t blog when brain cells are storming.

13. Author copies. I got a box of THE PERFECT STRANGER copies this week. Not my official author copies, but extra publicity copies. Can’t blog when don’t know what to do with TPS copies.

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

I forgot to post this last night. Joyce is the winner of KISS HER GOODBYE. Joyce, send me your mailing address and I’ll get that out to you.

There’s been conversation around the web for awhile about adopting authors and buying books new and who owes what to whom when it comes to the author / reader / book relationship. I’m not going to talk about any of that or search out the conversations to link to because I know we’ve all read / seen them. I’m going instead to talk about my book buying habits because I don’t for the life of me believe I’m the only one out there like me. And because of that, I don’t worry about adopting and buying and owing. I write my books. That’s all I have to do.

Why don’t I believe I’m the only book buyer like me? Because I live and work in the 4th most populated city in the States. I commute with others who also use that 45 minutes to read. I take breaks and eat lunch, reading through that time, and see others doing the same, books in hand, tucked in purses, caught under arms, in pockets. I have never seen anyone using an ebook reader, but I see an equal amount of hardcovers, trades, and mass market paperbacks.

I buy books in whatever format they’re offered in. I don’t think twice about the cost because reading (or at least having books available to read) is where I put my disposable income. And before you think, well, yeah. You’re an author. You have a lot to dispose of, think again. I don’t. It’s just that I don’t spend a lot on other things, living fairly simply. We have one car. We don’t have cable television. I am not a clothes / jewelry / shoe shopper. And my disposable income isn’t enough to spend it where I would like to, which is electronic gadgets!

I have lived on my writing income in the past, but I currently don’t because I made the choice to slow down. But my book buying habits have nothing to do with me writing or supporting writing friends – and haven’t changed with the shifts in my income. This is just me as a reader, one who grew up on Nancy Drew, and Walter R. Brooks’s Freddy the Pig.

Years ago, before I ever thought about writing, I belonged to the Literary Guild and Doubleday Bookclub so that I could get books in hardcover at a cheaper cost. Now Amazon and B&N offer them at nearly the same discount, and the books are first editions, not the smaller bookclub versions. Bigger books feel better to my hands. I have always hated holding a mm paperback, a hatred that has intensified along with my carpel tunnel and arthritis. And with my eyes giving me fits, reading hardcovers without having to deal with text buried in mm spines is easier.

Publishers don’t just decide to put out books in trade for fun. I can’t find it now, but I think it was Publisher’s Weekly that had an article describing trade editions as the new hardcovers, and the favored edition of choice by younger readers. Oprah’s bookclub had a lot to do with the rise in popularity of trades, and perhaps gave the format a bit of prestige.

I rarely go into brick and mortar stores, but when I do? I see readers like me walking out with hardcovers, trades, mass market – all of it. I see readers like me who buy what they want no matter the format in which the book is published. I see readers like me on the commute to work reading John Grisham and James Patterson in hardcover, Nora Roberts reprints in trade, Tess Gerritsen and Nicholas Sparks in mass market.

There may be readers who refuse to buy anything but mm and others who refuse to buy anything new. That’s their business, and I know no group effort by any writing organization is going to change things.

There are just as many readers who don’t think twice about buying new books in trade. I know because I get royalty statements showing how many readers buy mine. I know because *I* don’t think twice, and I don’t for a minute believe my book buying habits aren’t reflected by thousands of other readers. They don’t talk about price and format because it’s not an issue. Just like it’s not an issue for me.

I’ll give you an example. At the eye doctor this morning (the neuro opthamologist – told you I’m having weird trouble; next stop, Hermann Eye Center for an ERG) I read a review of Midnight Cactus in People Magazine, came home, found and read an “extract”, and ordered the book. I want to read a book? I buy it. It really is that simple.

And about authors being able to make a living at their craft, I totally believe it’s possible – as long as the author has done her homework and is writing in a genre and for a publisher that can make it happen, and lives the sort of lifestyle that income will sustain. I know, for example, that I can live on what I make writing for Brava and Blaze on a regular basis.

Could I have done that when I started out 14 years ago? No. I can now because of that backlist and the money it continues to generate, as well as the money I make from new contracts. From day one I expected to be able to live on my writing income because I write commerical fiction.

If I wrote for myself or wrote something more esoteric that didn’t appeal to such a broad audience, that expectation would not be the same. But I have purposely made choices based on income earning potential because I don’t do this for my health *g* or because of an inner drive spurring me on. I’m a commercialist, and I don’t apologize for being one!

A fellow handwriter, Susan Wiggs says:

When I’m working on a book, I tend to drag this notebook around with me everywhere. When it’s not with me, I try to keep it in a safe place, like in the freezer. So if there’s a fire, it’ll survive.

I haven’t done the freezer thing yet but that’s probably because I do carry the notebook everywhere. I lost a buttload of stuff with a hard drive crash in 2005, and love knowing that if something similar happened, backups or not, I’ve still got my original safely tucked away – whether in my backpack or maybe now in the freezer!

We all know how I feel about my pen, though my ink of choice is black, but I also share Susan’s love for Clairefontaine notebooks. Barbara Samuel told me about them earlier this year and I’m hooked. I was already writing the current book in my Mead Cambridge tablet, but have been using one for journaling.

Being able to dictate what I’ve written by hand using voice recognition software is next up. I’m going to give the program on Vista a shot before trying Dragon Naturally Speaking again.

As to why I handwrite, Susan sums it up perfectly:

(…) putting the words down is a meditation and a pleasure for whole minutes at a time (…)

Pen to paper is where I find my zone every time. No other way. Weird, huh? Or maybe not according to Angelo Beyerlen, “an engineer and founder of the first German typewriter business” in his “analysis of the difference between the typewriter and the writing hand”, quoted in Friedrich Kittler, Discourse Networks, 1800/1900 (from a paper given at the Modernism and the Technology of Writing in 1999):

“In writing by hand, the eye must constantly watch the written line and only that. It must attend to the creation of each written line, must measure, direct, and, in short, guide the hand through each movement. For this, the written line, particularly the line being written, must be visible.By contrast, after one presses down briefly on a key, the typewriter creates in the proper position on the paper a complete letter, which not only is untouched by the writer’s hand, but is also located in a space entirely apart from where the hands work.” (quoted in Kittler, p. 195)

A drug dealer’s murder forces ex-cop Dulcie Quinn to hide the reluctant murder witness — Cajun exotic dancer Julien Langlois, a man with more than a few secrets of his own — on her houseboat in the steamy Louisiana bayou. And from the moment she sets eyes on Julien, Dulcie knows he’s going to be nothing but absolute trouble…

“Sizzling!” ~ Publisher’s Weekly

Want to read a copy? I’ll just bet you do. So this is my Weekend Winnings post. I’m sending you to Michele Albert’s site where she is offering up ABSOLUTE TROUBLE (1998, Avon) as a free download. If you want to know why she’s doing it, click here.

Again from Buzz Balls & Hype. A moving post about the Camel Book Drive. Click here for author Masha Hamilton’s photos.

. . . the bush is hard on books and the traveling library needs more. The books they have are written in either English or Swahili, both of which are taught in school. (…) The librarians in the Northeast Province who travel with the camel bookmobile told me patrons especially love it when a book is inscribed with a note from the sender.

Susan Ito has compiled an Amazon wish list of what she would buy, and she says:

What kinds of books are good for a camel bookmobile? I tried to imagine. Obviously, books about technology and computers are less than useless. Ditto on home decorating. Or most cookbooks. But books about art? Math? Science? People doing things in the world. People doing things in other parts of Africa. Stories. Photographs.

Masha also says on her site:

The Camel Bookmobile books are primarily in English. The children are taught the language in outdoor “classrooms” under acacia trees for the younger students, indoor classrooms for the older students. They particularly like children’s storybooks, though all fiction is also sought-after, as well as books about math and astronomy, biology and other sciences. As you can imagine, the camel library always needs more books — the trip is hard on books and, as these are a semi-nomadic people known as pastoralists, not all volumes are returned.

Think we could get together a 25# box of maybe children’s books? Fiction as well as non? I’ll gather the books, box them up, and ship them out.

It wouldn’t take a lot of us to meet 25# I’m thinking, so post here if you’d like to participate by sending me one book, or one dollar to go toward postage. We’ll try that for now, so how far we get.

Be sure and leave an email addresss so I can contact you with instructions. (No one will see the email addy but me.) Don’t email me directly. Just post here and let me contact you!