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Month: September 2010

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Just wanted to notify you guys that we have a few more links and buttons in the sidebar, mainly related to a new venture that Mary Anne is exploring. Marianne Stephens, a romance author in her own right, is starting a new blog in October called All Day, All Night Divas. Its hook is that it features blog entries exclusively from romance authors with the name of Marianne, Mary Ann, or Mary Anne. And guess who here qualifies to blog there? Hmm? Hmm? Anybody you know? Anybody?

Anyways, that's the big news so far. The other news is that I'm going to try and get a new Kindle feature working on this blog - a "Read the First Chapter Free!" button.

Keep your eyes peeled for that and for Mary Anne's first blog entry on All Day, All Night Divas. Until then, kiddies, keep it realz0rs.

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Published on 2 Comments on A Romance Novel By Any Other Name Would Still Read As Sweet

Earlier this week I read a piece about Danielle Steel's interview with CBS News in which she denies being a romance author.  I found the statement so shocking that I emailed a link to the story to Mr. Quack.  From trolling the blogosphere since that time, I understand that Ms. Steel's statement surprised a bunch of folks. 

It also reminded me of a USA today piece about a novelist who lives right down the road a piece from me, Nicholas Sparks. Mr. Sparks was pretty vehement about not being a romance novelist too. 

What do Danielle and Nicholas have in common?  They're both laughing all the way to the bank. 

You know what else they have in common?  People read their books for the love stories.  Instead of sneering about the romance genre, Steel and Sparks should be thanking romance readers for supporting their work and buying their books.  See, romance is the not-so-little genre that could.  In these down and out times when everybody is cutting back on everything, people are still buying romance.  Today more readers than ever before need something that will take them out of reality and sweep them away on an emotional joy ride.

...continue reading "A Romance Novel By Any Other Name Would Still Read As Sweet"

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Your favorite nasty fat fellow here. Things on the blog front are much better since last week.

If you haven't noticed, down below each post there are now a series of tiny buttons that will allow you to print, e-mail, or save a post to your Favorites folder, as well as pass it on via Facebook, Twitter, or Digg.

This is courtesy of the Sociable plugin. I am enormously grateful to the author of this plugin. He made it so that it just dammit works, unlike the ShareThis plugin that I'll never use again.

The buttons you see at the bottom of each post and on each page aren't the only services available; the new plugin allows for at least 50 more, like del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, etc. If there's a button you want added, please e-mail Mary Anne (use the Contact box in the sidebar) and she'll get word to me and hopefully I'll be able to add it for you.

Hasta luego, muchachos.

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Published on 1 Comment on Season 7: The Aftermath of Grey’s 9/11

Last season the halls of Seattle Grace Hospital got too crowded.  The merger with Mercy West brought in a herd of new folks.  All of the Mercy Westers seemed to be in a continual hunt for patients - and for screen time.  The fans of Grey's didn't know or care about the new faces.  They were invaders stealing screen time from the cast that now seems like family.   A bunch of 'em needed to go.

The problem with that was that Derek was running SG and in typical McDreamy fashion he didn't want to hurt anyone.  He'd been trying his best to integrate them into the hospital and had even taken one on (April) as his assistant.  Besides, in the economic tsunami of the current economy, most viewers had a downsized somebody right in their household and we wouldn't view any administrator who downsized a bunch of workers as McDreamy.  (Not even the Mercy Westers who by and large aren't liked much). 

There were also some story lines that needed to be turned upside down to move characters to another emotional place.  And now that the writers were gonna have time to coddle and confound our favorite characters again, the writers needed them to be ready to make some big changes.  I guess what I'm saying is that SG and its team had driven into a rut and couldn't get out even though they were headed in the wrong direction. 

One event, one man with a gun, solved the overcrowded staffing and the rut entrenched storylines.  I think of it as Grey's 9/11.  It blasted away the old SG and forces the staff to start over and build something new.  Just as 9/11 did, the explosion made heroes of folks who didn't set out to do anything extraordinary.  It made some of them make choices and sacrifices at the point of a gun that they'd never have made after cool reflection.  We'll watch our heroes who endured so much and lost so much do the most heroic thing of all - get up, start over and move on.

But they're moving on from a different place.  They're moving on from the place they picked in the heat of battle.  It's like I tell my kids all the time - and I had to tell myself very recently - you have to pick the hill you want to die on.  A bunch of the doctors at SG had to pick that hill at the point of a gun.  This season is about dealing with the consequences of those choices.

...continue reading "Season 7: The Aftermath of Grey’s 9/11"

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I am declaring jihad on ShareThis. May Allah roast their stomachs in Hell.

We are having severe technical difficulties. The first one we had was with Yahoo Small Business Webhosting. Their computers somehow forgot how to find other websites, thus breaking our website to the point that it looked like a squirrel murdered with a motorboat propeller.

I went into a panic because I didn't know if it was something I did, since it happened shortly after I got the e-mail subscription thing working. I began uninstalling and reinstalling things, reconfiguring other things, and beating my meaty face on the desk in desperation. Finally I gave up, cursed and blasphemed myself into a fitful sleep.

The next day Yahoo had their junk fixed. Allahu snackbar! But then when I went to this blog I kept getting an error message saying ShareThis needed a Publisher's key. I then remembered in my fury the night before that I had updated ShareThis to the latest version. So I went to the configuration page and you know what I saw? The Publisher key, sitting there as pretty as a naked Kansas City whore in Italian stiletto heels.

The cursing began anew. I pounded the desk in rage. After I cooled down a bit I uninstalled the fresh version of ShareThis and put an older version that worked back in. I went over the blog pages, expecting to see the tiny, yet functional, ShareThis button I had grown accustomed to for the past couple of years.

Nope. Oh HELL no. No button. Nothing. Tried a couple of tricks, still got nothing.

I don't know how many clumps of hair I've yanked out in frustration or how much screaming and cursing I've done, but this is why I now wish death upon the infidels.

May each one of them have a thousand palaces in the afterlife, and may each of those palaces have a thousand bedrooms, and may each of those bedrooms have a thousand beds, and may they forever roll from bed to bed, burning with an agonizing fever. Inshallah.

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Quick little update from The Angry One. Because of a thoughtful e-mail sent to us by a wonderful lady, I was compelled to add e-mail subscription capabilities to the blog.

The easiest way to subscribe to e-mail updates, notifications, etc., is to click the appropriate links in either the Contact Us box or the Site box in the righthand sidebar. Or if you'd rather, you could click here, but this post isn't going to be here forever. Just sayin'.

The other way is to go ahead and fully register to the site via the Site box in the righthand sidebar. It should give you an option or two to fill in about e-mail subscriptions along with the usual stuff. The added benefit there is that you can post comments without needing to go through further rigamarole or wait for me to spot your comment in the spam filter, pick it up, wipe it off, and insert it into its proper place.

So do it now while supplies last!

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After a fairly lengthy absence, I'm finally on the road to recovery. 

No, I haven't had the flu or been diagnosed with some dread disease. It wasn't really me who was MIA.  I could deal with little ole' me being down and out.  This was much, much worse.  This was every writer's worst nightmare.  Yeah, that's right - my Muse bolted. 

Too much stress at work, too much stress at home and WAY too much of a very bad reality everywhere sent Muse on the lam.  Reality kidnapped my Muse.  As days stretched into weeks and the long Labor Day weekend passed without my fingers touching a keyboard, I started fearing the worst.  Maybe Muse wasn't just on vacation.  Maybe she'd taken up residence elsewhere.  She might even be ... dead. 

It took several things to bring her back, and that's what this blog post is about.  There's more than one way to lure your muse to return.  

...continue reading "All Day, All Night With Zombies & Old Dogs"