You’ll notice there is no Dilemma Friday today, I did have a decent one to post, but I wanted to know if this is a feature that’s worth keeping.
If you want me to continue with the DFs, please let me know in the comments section.
If you don’t give a shit, then don’t bother posting a comment.
If I get enough yeses, then I’ll continue to post the DFs.
Simple yes?
I see Madris De Pasteur of New Concepts Publishing fame hasn’t lost her ability to make friends and influence people:
To roll or not to roll, this is the question—
We’re currently working on designing a new webpage for NCP to be launched early next year. Due to the fact that the unhappy have made a nuisance of themselves reminding us repeatedly to remove their books upon expiration, we’ve inadvertently removed some books by authors who wanted to roll over.That being the case and also because it could simplify things for us when designing the new page, we want to create a list of people who intend to remain with NCP. Please respond with your intentions to the author liaison address–NOT directly to me–so a list can be compiled and, hopefully, we can eliminate some of the confusion and focus on promoting the career authors and getting their books listed with the distributors, etc.
Due to the difficulty in removing books from listings with our distributors, books that will not be renewing will not be sent to distributors. Also, a reminder–the most effective promotion to build a fan base is frequent releases.
Thanks!
Madris
NCP
Lol, why am I not surprised that those idiots at NCP would mistakenly remove books of the few authors that they have, who are crazy enough to still want to stay with them?
Thanks to you-know-who for the heads up. *g*
Aint that the truth.
There’s a great column over at Dear Author about cultural appropriation in romance, go read and learn.
By the way, if anybody can figure out what the third commenter is talking about, I’ll give you an effing medal. Jesus H, that was some gobbledygook speak right there.
Anyway, I thought I’d highlight some of the more noteworthy comments: (more…)
Why do the heroines and heroes always have to resolve any familial issues before they can have their HEA? Seriously.
And those stories where the heroine has Daddy Issues and can’t find happiness with her hero until they’re resolved? Very effing annoying.
I’d love it if an author just let the heroine come to terms with her familial issues without having to have a big emotional scene, whereby she’s then able to finally have sex with her hero.
Is that too much to ask for?
Really?
They look so happy together don’t they? No doubt the vile Rush Limbaughs and the Sean Hannitys will try to put a negative spin on the photo. Bastards.
When I read this earlier today, it made me cry.
It starts:
I learned to read when I was 4, just as my 4-year-old best friend Danny became sick (he was dying of leukemia) and I was starting to be sexually abused by a next-door neighbor. I quickly discovered that when you open a book you could jump into a new world and escape the world that you are forced to live in.
Danny was the one who first made me realize the power of books. No matter how crappy he felt if you read him Put Me in the Zoo he would giggle and glow with enjoyment. I read him that book hundreds of times before he died when we were 6 and it never failed to make him feel better.
By the time I was 6 and raped for the first time by that neighbor, I was reading at a 6th grade level and the books I devoured were the likes of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Brothers, Trixie Belden, the Box Car Kids, Little Women and The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
This story belongs to a reader called Chloe, and I totally applaud her bravery.
For the rest of her story, pop over to Dear Author.
This fantastic Dilemma Friday comes courtesy of regular KKB reader Anon76, so thanks very much.
This week’s dilemma is as follows:
You and your husband have a beautiful little girl (let’s call her Megan). When she’s five years old, you discover that she’s developed Leukemia. You go to see all the specialists that you can, and they inform you that in order to keep her alive, she’s going to need constant blood transfusions, and various organs will have to be replaced throughout her probably short life.
You learn that one way of ensuring that Megan has a genetic match for the organs that she needs, is to have a another child.
What do you do? Do you engineer a child specially to save the child that you already have, or do you just keep up with the various treatments and pray for a miracle for Megan?
What would you do?
By the way, anybody interested in submitting a Dilemma Friday post, can do so by emailing me at hairylemony @ gmail. com (no spaces). I’ll be happy to post the decent ones on here over the next few Fridays.
So the other day, I read Lora Leigh’s Coyote’s Mate.
I’ve followed her Breed books for what seems like forever, and I have to admit, even when I think I couldn’t possibly read another LL, I give in to temptation, and purchase yet another one.
You know that scene in Brokeback Mountain when Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) turns to Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and says “You are too much for me Ennis, you sonofawhoreson bitch! I wish I knew how to quit you.”? That’s just how I feel about Lora Leigh books. Sometimes I too wish I could quit her.
I’ve been reading her since circa 2005, and I’ve had a love/hate relationship with her Breed books ever since. I’ll read one book, and it’ll blow me away, and then I’ll read another, and I’ll wonder at the brand of mushrooms Lora was smoking when she wrote said book.
Anyway, it’s been quite a while since I visited the world of the Breeds, so I picked up Coyote’s Mate and read it last weekend. (more…)
Having dealt with the public consistently for some four years, I readily understand how draining, unreasonable and aggressive people can be towards those of you who make your living as customer representatives.
Perhaps it would help everyone involved if you would internalize this trivial fact: by the time a customer seeks you out, he or she is already aggravated by a broken down system. He or she doesn’t have the emotional reserves to be kind, understanding and apologetic about interrupting your day with unreasonable demands to receive whatever services s/he is already paying for–the nerve!–and when you yourself are short, ungracious and rude, it only compounds the problem, unnecessarily prolonging an interaction that is, clearly, as repugnant to you as it is to the customer.
Therefore, perhaps it would behoove you, in a fit of self-interest, to be expedient in resolving whatever disagreement or complaint is coming your way, so that you may hang the phone all the sooner, turn around to your fellow customer service representatives, and make fun of/bitch about the latest imbecile to interrupt your working day with her trivial and stupid problems.
Thank you kindly,
a customer.
An excellent tutorial:
This week’s Dilemma Friday post comes courtesy of The Creole in DC blog:
You’re looking to shed some weight, so you start trying to eat more healthy foods, and you decide to hire a personal trainer. You look in the yellow pages, and find a guy who seems to be fairly popular.
You call this guy up, and he agrees to train you.
He comes to your house (let’s assume he isn’t an axe murderer) and you discover that he’s actually overweight, and doesn’t look particularly healthy.
What do you do?
Do you go ahead with his services, figuring that he’s obviously a ‘Do as I say not as I do’ kinda guy? Or do you dispense with his services, feeling that you need somebody who can at least visually inspire you?
What would you do?
By the way, anybody interested in submitting a Dilemma Friday post, can do so by emailing me at hairylemony @ gmail. com (no spaces). I’ll be happy to post the decent ones on here over the next few Fridays.
Scott Baio has been behaving like a Chachbag on his Twitter page.
So I’m helping to Googlebomb him. This action has been labelled as juvenile, but I do think that anybody who goes on the Glenn Beck show needs to have a rocket shoved up his arse.
Who’d have thought The Fonz’s nephew would have turned into such a wanker eh?
For the details, you can hop on over to Dear Author, and you can find the Googlebombing instructions, here.
This is in response to “Scott Baio’s behavior on Twitter wherein he threatened to sue a romance novelist because she unfollowed him on Twitter due to references he made about President Barack Obama being a “shitfuck” and other sundry remarks.”
On the FTC idiocy flap, from the brilliant Shannon Stacey:
Dear government: No amount of legislation can protect stupid people from themselves. Also, not your job.
On the horrible, terrible, no-good girl cooties all over insecure little boy’s science fiction, from Scalzi:
Verily I say unto thee that science fiction is founded on girl cooties, so anyone dumb enough to whine about those awful women ruining SF for boys really does need to STFU and take his ignorant ass back to his snug little wank hole
Stan Collymore is an assholic jealous wanker, and he’s not fit to lick David Beckham’s boots.
Stan you went to a big club and you couldn’t hack it, you went to Leicester and you couldn’t hack it. You were shit at Aston Villa, crap at Bradford City, and woeful at Real Oviedo, yes please, keep living off your performances at Southend and Nottingham Forest ten million years ago. Fuckwit.
Rant over.
Erm, this post really isn’t about inspirationals, so all the peeps looking for a cheap thrill may want to surf elsewhere. *g*
Anyway, one of my favourite biblical films of all times has always been Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. Mostly because Charlton Heston as a young Moses was hot, but also because of the many themes that are oh-so-familiar in the romance genre.
Let’s see, you have the unquestionably heroic lead, his Mary Jane virgin, a secret baby, the spurned seductress, and the over-the-top bad guy. The HEA might have left a lot to be desired, but for the love of God, the guy was old, he was bound to die at some point.
If you had to choose any story from the bible to recreate in a romance, which story would it be?
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I was mightily impressed by a blog post that author, Justine Larbalestier wrote a few days ago. The post was entitled, The Advantages of Being White.
First a disclaimer from Justine:
Disclaimer: I am writing about YA publishing in the USA. Although I’m Australian I know much more about the publishing industry in the US than I do about Australia. Or anywhere else for that matter.
She continues with the most refreshingingly honest post that I’ve read from a white author with regards to the Racism in Publishing issue, ever:
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This week’s dilemma is as follows:
You have a really popular blog where you review books. You get thousands of hits everyday, and readers flock to you for your no-nonsense take on newly released romance novels. You don’t get paid for the reviews, you just get free books from publishers and authors, which you of course appreciate.
One day, you get chatting to a newly published author, and out of the blue, she offers to give you $200 for you to post a ‘positive’ review on your blog.
As it happens, you’ve already read her book, and it sucked great big hairy donkey balls.
What do you do? Do you take the money, figuring that $200 is too much to refuse, or do you say thanks but no thanks, and stick to your reviewing principal of honesty always?
What would you do???
Michael Vick gets a tv series in BET.
Excuse me while I go puke.
Erm, so apparently, I haven’t yet mastered the art of brief reviews, so read on only if you have the time, cuz this goes on a bit.
I discovered Colette Gale when TTG and I were in the States last year. I think the first book of hers that I read was Master, the erotic re-telling of The Count of Monte Cristo (This originally read The C*nt Of Monte Cristo, heh) story. I have to say, I enjoyed it enormously, although I remember chatting with DA Jane and she mentioned that she wasn’t keen on it at all. Or perhaps she meant the Phantom book? Ahh crap, I forget.
Anyway, I then read Unmasqued, Gale’s Phantom of The Opera book. Whilst reading Unmasqued, I recall thinking that it would have been a great book for anybody contemplating suicide, who hadn’t quite worked up the courage to shoot themselves in the head yet. Jesus it was depressing.
Despite being rather underwhelmed by Gale’s bastardization of Phantom, when I discovered that she was due to release another classic retelling, Bound By Honor, I was very excited. This book was based on the story of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Yippee.
