Alison Kent's Blah Blog

#2 and the husband and Michelle R and Jean S and Ilona F and Ayla F and Claudia H and Amy K and Matt S and Kat M and Jayne H and Megan H and Lee H and Christina T and Sara W and Lauren D et al . . .

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Where’s he going?

Is he ever coming back?

Is that him?

(Got this press release from Harlequin, and thought I’d share with y’all.)

ETA from the official rules:

This contest is open to entrants who are 18 years of age or older and is void wherever prohibited by law; all applicable laws and regulations apply. Employees and immediate family members of Harlequin Enterprises Ltd and Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited, including contracted authors, their parents, affiliates, subsidiaries and all other agencies, entities and persons connected with the use, marketing or conduct of this Contest are not eligible to enter.

A brand new writing competition from the world’s best-selling romance series is about to hit the blogosphere!

It’s an exciting time for Harlequin Presents: from January 2008, there will be 12 of our intensely passionate romances available every month. And with this increase of titles comes a great opportunity for aspiring authors – we will be looking to buy more books for publication!

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I probably get more email about ROPED INTO ROMANCE than I do about any of my gIRL-gEAR books because no one is able to find it in stores. The reason for that is because it was never a print book. It was published online as a serial story at eHarlequin.com in early 2002 to coincide with the release of my first three gIRL-gEAR books. It was eventually put in the back of the Australian edition of GOES DOWN EASY, but that didn’t help anyone but Australian readers or those with access to that version of the book. (I’m not even sure I ever got a copy of that one. Must check on that some day.)

What’s scary is that this has been on sale since February of 2007, and I had no clue. Anyhow, I thought I’d give you all an excerpt, and tempt you into downloading the mini ebook version from eHarlequin for the whopping big price of EIGHTY-NINE CENTS, whoo-hoo! And since I don’t make even a micro-penny, this is all for you guys!

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The husband and I rarely fight. We do have heated discussions, ahem, but we’ve never gone to bed mad or carried an argument to the extreme of lasting for days. At the most, we yell and holler for five minutes. You know. Normal stuff. But one thing we ALWAYS fight about is the amount of food we cook at holidays.

Me? I love having enough food at Thanksgiving that I can eat leftovers for the four-day weekend. I LURVE Thanksgiving leftovers! I want to cook enough turkey, dressing, and gravy so that I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I want. (And, yeah. After four days, I’m done. *g*) The husband? Not so much. I want to cook enough to have food to send home with the kids. I LURVE taking home leftovers from family feasts. The husband? Not so much. I like fruity jello-y whipped creamy things. The husband? Not at all. But since he makes dinner rolls from scratch, I forgive him, and overlook his own weird tastes. He also makes an amazing squash casserole and a spinach artichoke dip to die for. Seriously. Everyone who comes over demands to find both on the table. We’ve all tried to convince him the dip is worth him going into his own little foodie business to share and sell. No luck yet. (#1 daughter, the pickier eater of the kids, even nagged him about it again yesterday!)

We’d originally planned to cook a turkey breast (which the husband brined) and a ham, neither one overly large, but enough for more than the one meal. Then the son brought us the Logan Farms smoked turkey he got from work, so we heated that instead of the ham. I never have cooked mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving (don’t ask me why, just never have), but definitely sweet potatoes – and never canned. Only fresh and mashed and lots of good stuff like brown sugar and pecans added, yum!

I also make a broccoli rice casserole (this batch was rather short on the broccoli – which the husband pointed out as I was assembling it). And, yes, this year was all husband. I did the broccoli and the stuffing. He did everything else, then flopped back when it was all done and let me clean up. (Better than following him around during the day, putting things back into the pantry, then having him ask what happened to them, heh.)

This year, I made no desserts (another fave part of the holiday)! I told the kids that I was handing off the sweet stuff to them. And they came through. #2 daughter baked a caramel cheesecake topped with toffee pieces, and pumpkin bars with cream cheese icing. The d-i-l made an apple walnut yummy gooey thing. #1 daughter made fudge and oatmeal scotchies and orange balls (which is a chocolate orange candy that I LURVE). I took lots of pictures, but today I have no idea where the camera is. Since there were three of them almost identical floating around, it’s possible mine went home with one of the other obsessive picture takers. Once I find it, I’ll post some of the fun. (Oh, just found out where the camera is. Now it’s time for a fight with the husband. *g*)

Watch the full movie at The Military Support Group website.

I am a very wordy writer. VERY wordy. I am redundant, repetitive, I’ve been known to tell what I’ve shown just to make sure it’s clear (something I find a LOT of writers doing, example: “Jake, I cannot for the life of me believe you would say such a thing,” Sandy said, disbelief that he would say such a thing coursing through her heavily. Ahem.) I’ve said over and over again that I edit as I go and get to the end with a finished book. That doesn’t mean I don’t revise. Or don’t make stupid errors like the one above, or ones even worse as I’m writing. It is Very Scary what starts out on my manuscript pages!

On the sidebar I have two word meters. One for the Sven book (and it’s obvious I’m not sweating much there, heh) and one for another project I’m trying to finalize for me. I’ve got time, and it’s something that I want to pull together now rather than later. The word count is just a guesstimate of how much I’m going to need to send this out. Only problem? I’m trying to tighten, and tightening means my meter is shrinking rather than expanding, LOL! Still, in the long run it’s a good thing. Blabbering never got anyone anywhere but rejected. *g*

What I’ve been doing to combat this, is playing a mental game. I choose a font that’s not appropriate for submissions (because it’s fun) and I make myself write only so many lines per paragraph. (Once converted to regular font, the final product doesn’t look like it was written by an anal retentive with OCD, heh.) Doing this makes me really read what I’ve written and look for all the crap keeping the necessary words from doing their job. I know it sounds strange, and it is, but strangely, it works!

When I was a newbie RWA member and a newbie wannabe author, I was a contest slut. Seriously. I entered everything I could, and I placed or won a LOT. Part of that was because I was writing decent stuff, but another part was that I picked and chose contests that it behooved me to enter. (Had to use the word behoove, heh: to be worthwhile to, as for personal profit or advantage.) Note, the personal profit or advantage part. What I didn’t do was enter contests that wouldn’t do me any good career-wise. Winning or placing just to say I was a winner or finalist didn’t seem to make much sense. I mean, it’s a nice ego stroke, but I wanted to sell, not to be a perpetual contest winner or finalist.

So how did I choose which contests to enter? I’m so glad you asked!

Since I was writing series contemporary romance, I made sure the contest had a series romance division. Entering a series contemporary piece in a single title division would’ve been a waste of time. If the scene were to final and the editor or agent judging wanted to see a complete to either consider buying or shopping as a single title, they would be sorely vexed, and not amused by the time they had wasted (maybe the excitement they had experienced) reading my entry. Sure, the scene I entered may have been worthy of winning, but editors don’t buy scenes, agents don’t shop scenes. See where I’m going with this?

Not only did I make sure there was a division where my writing fit (not the scene, the complete project), I made sure the judge was someone who could either buy or shop (an agent) my work. If I knew the editor judge was only buying suspense (when I was writing family drama), I would save my $20. Yes, she could pass it to another editor in house, but I would rather have spent the $20 on a contest where my dream editor (or at least an editor who could buy my work) was judging. No sense wasting an editor’s time – and perhaps having a black mark inked beside my name for doing so – should she request a complete and realize I was only a professional contest entrant, not a professional author.

Basically, I researched the market (professional author at work). Not only did I know which editors bought for what lines, I knew the LINES. I read them. I didn’t ask what the editors wanted. I KNEW what they wanted because I read the books they published. So it was quite the eye opener recently to see many of the things entered into the contest I judged because anyone READING the imprint would KNOW whether or not their project would be something the editor for the imprint would buy.

Think about this. Wouldn’t it make sense that an editor would be more impressed by an author who has done her homework and knows what will fit a line than by an author who has to ask? You want to write for a publishing house, you read what that publishing house publishes. You don’t short cut it. You don’t ask the editor if she likes this or that. You READ what she buys because those ARE the things she likes.

It seems so simple to me.

About the Writer’s Guild of America strike because he knows what a network TV addict I am, and that I’ve only got a few weeks (days?) left to enjoy the dark evenings in front of the television set. (Oh, and my vote? Journeyman, Reaper, and Life – best new shows this season!) Yes, I have Netflix, and all sorts of things recorded, not to mention old series favorites on DVD. But what would a week night evening be like without the husband flipping through channels at every commercial break? I am obviously going to have to find something to read instead.

When I left work at the end of July, one of my co-workers gave me a bookshelf. She wasn’t able to use it, and since I wanted to move all my books into one spot (instead of the dozen they’re in) it was perfect. Except I haven’t finished moving even a quarter of them. I’ve been inputting them into my library as I move them into the middle room that’s more catch-all than office, but I had to stop to get the September deadline writing done and haven’t got back to it yet.

The worst part? In all those books, or the dozens scattered everywhere else (including the ones that still show up in the mail several times a week) there’s nothing I want to read. Oh, I know there are a ton (probably literally) of good books in my personal library, but nothing is calling to me because for some reason I’ve yet to put a finger on, I am not in a reading mood!

I did just start Deborah Smith’s new one and am loving it, so I hope with the cool (relatively speaking) rainy weather we’re schedule to have this week, that I can curl up and disappear for a couple of days into her world. And after all the time I spent on the computer over the weekend doing work, I deserve a couple of days away inside of a book and away from the keyboard!