My Google Reader has been out of control of late, and I’ve been pretending that the posts on there will just read themselves. Not happening. Anyway here are some of the more noteworthy blog posts.

First off, Stacy has a really touching post on her blog entitled: We Are Our Own Worst Enemy:

She starts:

I have to rant a little here, about how frustrating it is to see beautiful, successful women like Kate Hudson having plastic surgery. Kate is a little bit of the kind of woman I wish I was (only a little, mind you). I was always envious of her vivacious personality, her cute looks, her ability to attract people to her. I’m so the opposite, so people who are so alive and full of energy intrigue me. I was disappointed when I saw these pictures because I really thought she was happier with herself. I guess that’s what Hollywood can do to you. Give the most well-adjusted person low self-esteem.

The part that really touched me was this bit:

I do understand what it’s like to look in the mirror and find myself severely lacking. In fact having seen recent pictures of myself I have to wonder just how much I’d have to save up to get some work done, and I admit the thought has crossed my mind more than once. I’m a realist and I know I’m not that pretty, and I’ve decided to accept that reality because the alternative is rather depressing, but some days it’s really hard.

That’s when I force myself to look away from the imperfections and go find a friend and hang out, go to a movie, or do anything other than obsess over what I don’t got. Because what I do have is a small yet dear circle of friends that I can count on, as well as an online community of romance readers who I treasure more and more everyday. I have a decent job that pays fairly well and allows me to feed my book habit and occasionally lets me travel. I live just outside of a great city that I’m just starting to explore.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more brave, and find that there are many things I can do on my own. I’ve driven several times by myself to the Lori Foster event every year, which is about a 5-hour drive. I took a cruise by myself. I’m not going to sit at home and let life pass me by.

I know that Stacy isn’t alone when it comes to the pressure that we put on ourselves to look a certain way. I’m a healthy weight, but I must admit, I do worry about every single bad thing that I eat. I live in fear of putting on excessive weight, so I’m constantly watching what I eat. Most of the time, I don’t even realise how much I calorie-count.

I have a friend who weighs about 100lbs soaking wet, yet she is ridiculously obsessive about dieting and exercising. She’s a beautiful woman who doesn’t know her own worth, and I find that very, very sad.

In other news Sharon Cullars reports that her book Gold Mountain hasn’t sold as well as she would have liked and she is feeling very discouraged. Who’d be an author eh? Piracy sites haven’t helped her plight either.

Helen’s post over at Helen and Margaret’s blog entitled We Survived Bush, You’ll Survive Obama is very amusing:

A few years back, millions of people across this nation and across the globe marched for peace. George Bush ignored us and we had to endure his lazy ass being in the White House for eight years.

So now a black man named Barack Obama, elected by the will of the people, has decided to fight for the poor, and work for world peace… and a bunch of white guys who think Fox really is News just can’t stand it.

Well, they can kiss my ass because I am tired of their belly aching.
This is exactly how our political system works. Sometimes your party is in and sometimes it is out. Your party is currently out. So shut the hell up and deal with it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for a group of disgruntled citizens banding together to form a third political party because they don’t feel represented by the other two. But let’s be honest – this bunch of idiots doesn’t like that a black man is the most powerful man on the globe. I wonder if they know that, while 78% of the world is not white, only 13% of the United States is black. So they can relax. Barack and Michelle most likely will not be buying the house next door.

Tea Party members should listen up. As long as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are your torchbearers, you don’t have much credibility with me. One echoes between the ears and the other is 12 shy of a dozen.

Hilarious. To read the rest, pop over to their blog.

Jane attended the Romantic Times convention this year, and her wrap-up post is up at Dear Author.

This bit made me laugh out loud:

Mr. Romance 2009, Charles Paz?, got up on stage and began lamenting the mean girl bloggers of 2009 who posted his picture and made comments about his person suggesting that perhaps he was not their vision of a cover model for romance books. Apparently this affected Charles so adversely that he was unable to get out of bed.

Fortunately, the facebook fans were wholly encouraging and gave him a reason to rise in the morning. Charles then broke down and started crying, sobbing almost. In fact, there were more tears shed on stage of Mr. Romance 2010 than at the last Miss America pageant (more cogent answers at the Miss America pageant as well). You mean girl bloggers, ruining everything. (As an aside, no one I talked to even remembered seeing posts about the winner from 2009. All I could remember was that he was short in 2009 and he is still short today)

…Everyone agreed that RT has become more subdued and less sexualized. I attribute that to the fact that the Ellora’s Cavemen no longer roam the halls, barechested and eager.
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Updated to add:

It seems that one of the cover models has found Jane’s post, and is in a snit over what she wrote. Grab some popcorn, it’s fascinating.

Katiebabs has a really interesting interview with Lisa Valdez on her blog:

On addressing all those rumours about why Patience took so long to complete, Valdez writes:

As for the actual why, there is really no one reason. I mean, there was serious illness, accident and death in my family—I spent a lot of time second-guessing and re-writing the book—once I got over that, I found that I had written the poor book to death—I had to re-write again—then I got to the end and realized there was something wrong—whenever I can’t move forward, it’s because something behind me isn’t right—and then finally (with my wonderful critique partner’s help), I figured out what was wrong, fixed it (it was a major fix) and finished the book at last.

So, there you are. The rumors are far more exciting, I know. But here’s the thing, for as frustrated and annoyed as some readers were/are with me, I was far more frustrated and annoyed with myself. And I really beat myself up about it. So, for what it’s worth, I wasn’t just shrugging and nonchalantly sighing, “Oh well… Whatever.” That having been said, I’ve forgiven myself. Because it’s way passed the time to move on.

Which brings me to one other thing. I understand and empathize with readers’ frustrations over my delays. I mean, that frustration stems from a measure of enthusiasm and desire, which is a wonderful thing. I just want to say for your aspiring authors, that the process of writing is unique to every writer. And the process of writing can also be unique to every book. There seems to be some notion out there that every writer and every book is supposed to be processed in the same/similar time frame.

You know—so and so writes two or more books a year—what’s Valdez’ problem? It ‘aint like she’s writing Shakespeare. Well, it’s true I’m not writing Shakespeare. But I’m not writing Nora, or Elizabeth, or Emma or Judith either. I’m writing Lisa Valdez and it takes me as long as it takes me. So I guess I just want to offer that if you write two books a year, or two books a decade, it doesn’t mean you’re not as good as someone else, and it doesn’t mean your better than someone else. It simply means you’re you—and that, above all things, you’re entitled to be.

Interesting right?

Another interesting interview, is the one with Charlaine Harris up at the All About Romance blog:

AAR: Charlaine, Dead in the Family is the tenth in your Sookie Stackhouse series. How many more books do you think you’ll do before wrapping things up?

CH – I have a contract that runs up through book 13. We’ll see, definitely before I start 13, if I think I have more to say about Sookie.

So three more Sookie Stackhouse books then. Bloody hell.

In other news, Jezebel.com has a timeline of Scott Baio’s departure from sanity. It’s funny as hell.

He and his wife Renee are friends with real lesbians and black people you know. Well that’s what they said when firstly Scott posted a photograph of Michelle Obama on his Twitter page, writing “Wow, he wakes up to this every morning?” Then his wife took a pot-shot at the Jezebel ladies by writing on her Facebook page:

“Fuck you Jezebel.com web rag!! You bunch of FAR LEFT lesbian shitasses!!! No wonder you’re all lesbos, because what man in his right mind could put up with your cuntness? Scott Baio has more class in his piss than all of you all!!!!

Like most far right wingers, Scott Baio and his wife are batshit crazy loons. Surely it’s no accident that some of the most crazy people around seem to be those who have far right leanings?

OK, that’s it for now, I seriously can’t be arsed writing anymore, I need to get back to John Matthews and Xhex, and Blay and Qhuinn’s will they?/wont they? bromance.