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Author: Mary Anne

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Grey's is turning 200?  And Patrick Dempsey is still McDreamy?  Nah, Grey's is turning 10 tonight with episode 200 - but , P Demp is still mighty fine.

It does make me think though -- other than for a wedding (which is different) - the last time the cast got all fancied up was for the prom Chief Webber had at the hospital for his dying niece, who missed her prom.   That was THE episode - Denny died and Der's dreamy looks sent Mer running away from the vet.  Der chased her down a hallway and into an exam room, ending his marriage and Mer's romance with the vet.

April says "He accepts me for what I am, but that's enough, that's everything."  Arizona asks:  "Are you talking about Matthew or Jesus?"  And April gets that wild-eyed, what am I doing look.

And Webber punches Bailey while she is trying to help.  He's in a hospital.  There are drugs everywhere.  He's a doctor.  If he really wants to die - he can make that happen.  So he doesn't want to die -- he just wants to punish everyone who still loves him.

This ball, though, is much different.  Jackson was thinking rich and conservative and he got Vegas, complete with c clowns, gymnasts, magicians, waiters on unicycles and one very charming juggler - Dr. McDreamy.  It seems that Mer and Der both want to win the prize for raising the most money for the hospital at the gala -- and, like Callie says, both of 'em are bored silly at home.  (How they could be bored with a newborn and a toddler to care for is beyond me.  Maybe they need to write some romance novels.  Then they'd be tickled tangerine to have all that time at home to write -- I know I'd be. )

Fancy party - and McDreamy, he was charming a group of well-heeled ladies moments ago, is jealous of Mer flirting.  I guess he remembers that Mer can be a little easier to catch on formal evenings.

And while the attendings are away, the interns are owning the ER.  "Locked and loaded" indeed.

Der fetched the baby from the hospital day care and brought little Bailey to the party.  Is there a better hook for charming money from folks than a McDreamy man with a newborn?

Dear Duck.  Callie is raising money by telling peeps that her wife is dead; April overheard; and now April is sharing champagne with Arizona in the supply room.  Is there any chance April won't spill the beans?

Uhh ohh, the baby spit up on Mer and now she's wearing a hoodie over her fancy gown.  (Was that McDreamy's plan?)

Dear Duck, the sequel - a gymnast just fell in the middle of Jackson's big speech.  It looks like a broken bone and Callie's on the spot. All the doctors head out - and Derek misses Meredith.  He tracks her down in the OR where she tells him he's better at charming donors - and then she offers him a surgical instrument and a spot at the table.

And the old junkie Cristina has to do heart surgery on?  Alex thinks he might be his father.  Karev hasn't seen his Dad in 20 years.  Jo walks in to find Karev trying to draw his own blood for a test.  What a way to find your father!

And Jackson brings the formerly fleeing rich folks to the OR gallery to take them behind the scenes of the circus.  And they ask - "How much do you need?"  That's the sweetest question since the jury in "The Verdict" returns with the question - "Is our award limited to the amount the Plaintiff asked for?"

And there are Mer and Der in the exam room........talking about the prom I started off this post by discussing -- and then they do more than talk.  Still wicked in the best ways.......

Bailey moves her lonely, racist patient in with the Chief!  That'll be interesting.

And Jackson walks in on Shane kissing his woman - the one he didn't ask to the party. But she goes after Jackson.  Look how far they've come on Grey's boys and girls!  Der and Mer had to hide because he was an attending and she was an intern.  Now the Chief of the Board can kiss an intern right in the open, in the remains of his big party.

And Bailey's gambit makes the Chief try -- Cristina finally pushes Owen away hard enough to make him try - and Mer/Der give getting back to work a try (why?  I guess medicine is their writing)

The show ends with a quote from "on with the show."  Because it must go on - and we must try - even though trying is the hardest thing of all.....

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Published on 1 Comment on Liveblogging Grey’s Anatomy: “Everybody’s Crying Mercy”

Boy does the title of this epi hit home with me.  Too many deadlines and tasks at work.  Too much work for too long without an end - or a carefree vaca in sight.  Too many bills and too little money.  And now - the Gremlin's have struck.  Last night, Mr. Duck had to play HVAC repairman b/c our AC died.  Thankfully, he fixed it.  (Mr. Duck's my hero!)

Tonight a pothole - big enough to swallow a bunch of big ole pots - opened in our concrete driveway.  Both my trusty PT and Mr. Duck's minivan - ancient vehicles that have long deserved the retirement they won't get - have developed issues. Hey, maybe the pothole is the work of our vehicles - a suicide pact of sorts......  Or maybe, the Graham vehicles think that if the hole gets big enough they can hide and enjoy a nice long vaca themselves.

Yep, I'm crying Mercy.  So, I'm right there with Grey's greatest on this one!

Cristina and Karev bonding.  That feels way strange.  Remember all the ways she insulted him during their internship?

Webber doesn't want a feeding tube.  Bailey's still fighting his battles.

Owen tells Arizona and Cristina that he needs them to be board members and doctors.  They're not buying it.  I understand.  People can only stretch so far.

A woman impaled through the chest with a half a baseball bat makes Jo promise to tell her husband something if she dies -- that she cheated on him with his brother.  Why?  That must be the thing stretching her to her breaking point.

April's waiting on the results of the board exams she had to repeat.  And yeah, that's tugging her towards her breaking point.   And Calzona?  They're tugging each other towards the cliff.

And Jackson is going to do free miracle surgery to repair a teacher's face - but Owen says no pro bono surgery until the ER is fully repaired.  What does Jackson do?  He throws a "I own this hospital tantrum" and gets his way - the teacher will get her surgery.  So Jackson did a bad thing for a good reason.   Does that make it okay?

And Mer/Der are fighting over naps.  Der took an hour and a half nap in the parking lot of the grocery store when he went for milk.  Mer gets jealous and snaps to Cristina - her phone a friend - that she is entitled to a nap too.  Mer passes out, dead asleep, in mid conversation, curled up on the bathroom floor. Yep, I remember those newborn days well.  It feels like you'll never again get to sleep for a full night.  You think you're destined to be a living zombie. Why did you do this?  Why?  And then the baby coos or moves his little hand and you know exactly why you did it.

But Owen has the teacher transferred so Jackson doesn't get to play superdoctor.  Owen's stressed about the hospital needing money -- I can relate.  Maybe the hospital's under Gremlin attack too.

Webber won't take a feeding tube & Bailey won't force him.  When he asks for soup she Orders the intern to bring some and he does.  But the intern pokes his head around the corner and sees Webber choke with pain when he tries to swallow a single spoon of soup.

Impaled baseball bat woman is bleeding out during surgery.  They call Callie who tells them not to cut the clavical but Callie arrives just as April puts down the saw.  A stretch too far? The patient or Callie?

Jackson's still having an ego tantrum and it's not so cute anymore.  He's doing liposuction because Hunt needed him making money.  Poor little rich boy.

Mer's so worried about Webber that when Der passes out, she takes the baby and heads to the hospital.  Yeah, Webber did good picking her as his "person."

Baseball bat woman dies.  Will Jo tell the husband her secret?  April says no but Callie says Jo made a promise and the husband deserves the truth.

Mer and Bailey fight over the feeding tube.  They go off to see another doctor and the intern goes in and tells Webber that Mer hauled her baby out to come and force him to accept a feeding tube.  Intern asks Webber if he's going to make Mer do that or will Webber man up and accept it.  The intern is planning to put in the tube.

April passes her board.  Jackson's with her.  But she wants to give him a hug and he holds out his hand for a shake instead.  But they both have secret smiles on their faces as they walk away from each other.

And baseball bat woman - Jo goes to tell her hubby about her death.  He's devastated. Jo starts to tell him the truth and Callie stops her.  She says only that his wife said she loved him.

And the intern does put the tube in and Richard accepts it.

Owen pages all the docs to the ER - with the big hole in it - and tells them they're going to have a big fundraising party.  200th episode anyone?

Karev takes Cristina's advice and plays caveman with Jo who hasn't been wanting sex.  Yep,  she wants it.

And Cristina and Owen have an intense confrontation in the elevator.  Where else?  If those elevators could talk...

And Callie goes to see Arizona.  Callie says Arizona cheated because she was unhappy.   But Callie leaves.  She's stretched too far.

Webber tells Mer that he picked her because she wasn't his family.  He thought he could trust her to be logical, not to bring him back to life when he was all but dead.  He tells Mer he was wrong to pick her.  He says he chose the wrong person.

Mer was already stretched too far.......  but Webber just stretched her further.

Life stretches us all, I guess.  How much can we take?  The "too much" may be the smallest thing, in the oddest place.  What will we do when we reach it?  Go mad?  Break permanently?

Maybe we'll retreat into a romance novel where a happy ending is guaranteed - like one of the Quackingalone romances by yours truly --- come on, help me battle the Gremlins.  Pick up a QA romance today!

 

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It's a new season of Grey's -- but it's Cristina's LAST one.  There's got to be some smashing Cristina Time before Sandra Oh leaves the hospital for the last time.  Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey) promises that this will be Oh's "best acting season." Now I'm wondering how many tissues Shonda Sunshine will make me go through to START Cristina's last season.

Opening with the storm - seems a lot like my life lately.  Webber has the voice over talking about the intern's white coat ceremony and about life flashing before your eyes right before you die.  Webber is saying that it's fitting that the white coat  should be on him at the end.

Okay, Yang's first words - about Mer - "She had a baby. She doesn't know things."  And Callie's first line; an answer to Yang's question "Who is Dr. Boswell."  Callie says "She's the woman Arizona slept with last night."

Ambulances in the bay right after Owen says the ER can't open today --- a mudslide. And Webber is still missing, since last night, lying on the flooded floor with sparks flying.  Oh, Richard -- no.  Just no.

Yang tells Mer that she and Owen ended it - for real this time.

The interns are brushing off the command to find Webber.  That tells you they don't know his as well as the others.  Webber is not family to them.  Wait, one of them goes looking - Webber's eyes are open but the intern steps right into the charged water and falls over.  It's sad that I can't ID this one by name right away.  We all know what that means, right?  Yep, that Grey's Anatomy is the originals and the originals are Grey's -- but we're losing Cristina this year.

Funny, Webber and the intern are both lying on the floor near the generator but I keep imagining Cristina lying there....

...continue reading "Liveblogging Grey’s Anatomy – “Seal Our Fate; I Want You With Me”"

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Published on 2 Comments on Amazon Shifts Goodreads Focus Back to Books

There has been a spate of abusive, bullying tactics at Goodreads, about which I blogged very recently HERE. This has been spawned by bad behavior by authors and reviewers/GR users.  As to the authors, they have erred mainly by entering discussions to randomly toss up marketing for their books - something which (justifiably) annoys readers no end and by wading, uninvited, into discussions about their books.  As to the reviewers/GR users, the bad acts go from small - labeling their shelves in a manner designed to insult authors personally -  to large - ganging up to harass and threaten authors on GR and by leaving bad reviews on Amazon.

Frankly, I suspect that my prior blog post led to my receiving a dose of the bad Amazon reviews.  It may or may not have led to bad reviews or insulting shelves on Goodreads.  Like most writers, while the readers have been in a "posse" or "follow the bully" mentality, I've stayed off GR.  Now, thanks to a move by GR owner Amazon, I may return - along with many other writers who love reading and discussing books as readers.

Sheriff Amazon finally waded into the fray, enforcing a couple of important, basic rules and announcing them at the same time.  What are they?   (1)  Reviews must be about the book; and (2) Members can't harass or threaten others.  They're such basic rules, one wonders how they weren't always the standard at the site.  However, Amazon's announcement led to a mass backlash at GR, with users crying the expected charge of "censorship."

...continue reading "Amazon Shifts Goodreads Focus Back to Books"

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Yet another writer has penned an anti-"Fifty Shades of Grey" rant.  This one is in Pajiba and is entitled:  "Women Who Have Never Had Decent Sex Outraged By Warped Fantasy Movie Casting."

Like most such rants, it says more about the writer than the subject.  This piece makes the writer appear to be bitter and brittle, too snobbish to appreciate the appeal of a good romance novel.  It paints a portrait of someone too insecure to consider that the books' readers could simply be smarter, more emotionally grounded, and far more secure in their acceptance of humanity's infinite variations than the writer could ever understand.   You know what?  That makes this writer, again, like most of them.

Them?  Yes, them - meaning, those who consider themselves superior to others.  Such superior beings imagine that they are very open-minded when in reality their view of the world is so narrow that it cannot encompass the possibility that they are wrong.  This particular writer, Courtney Enlow, a/k/a Courtney Enlow Hall, has the egotism to imagine herself as far more gifted, even, than the author of "Fifty Shades of Grey", Erika Leonard, a/k/a E.L. James.  Of Ms. James, and all of her readers, Ms. Enlow says:

" ...some simp of a drooling moron with her hand firmly clenched between her thighs as though she can will Edward into being through masturbatory efforts alone but cannot say the proper names of the body parts because that would be naughty WOULD go on to write the most popular book among fellow drooling morons, no longer satisfied by rubbing against their sparkly body pillows until the funny feelings go boom."

...continue reading "Fifty Shades Fans Don’t Have Good Sex? Yes, It’s Yet Another Anti-Fifty Shades Rant"

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One of the present trends is to scoff at books that don't portray people, places, things or eras "realistically."  I get those reviews for my historicals all the time - "this isn't how things went during the Regency" or "this behavior would never have been tolerated during the Regency."  That really disturbs my ducks.

Whether it's Regency England, the American West, Highland Scotland, Myrtle Beach, SC - or some imaginary modern day town (coming soon, perhaps) - I DON'T WANT TO PORTRAY IT REALISTICALLY.  You know what?  Reality really sucks.

If readers were overjoyed with their reality, they'd have no reason to ever pick up a book.  If television viewers were tickled twitless with their lives and their worlds, TV would no longer exist.  YouTube would go away and there would be no gaming industry because people would have every bit of the fun and danger they could ever want in their everyday lives.  In the real world, people aren't going to balls every night, surgeons find their jobs more tedious than titillating and people don't get paid to travel to exotic locales to spy or kill people.   All of that - every last bit of it - is not realistic.   Yet people spend beaucoup bucks on books, movies, and games and then they spend hours reading, watching or playing.

Why?  Why do that if what they are seeking in their entertainment is a "realistic" experience? Do people have so much money that we need to toss it away for something we'll despise experiencing?

We - unfortunately - presently live in a world where too many talented, hardworking people are unemployed or underemployed.  Simply to survive, to hold on a little longer, more people have to lower themselves and destroy their souls daily by taking welfare and food stamps from the government.  People still lose their homes in droves and bankruptcy and judgments are facts of life most of us never wanted to face.  That's reality and - like I said - it sucks.

Let's have LESS reality.

People who spend money they really need for food, bills or utility payments on books are -  for the love of all ducks - not looking to get more reality in their lives.  They're looking to escape from whatever wolf is presently lurking just outside their door.  If people want more reality, they can turn on a 24-hour news channel and be depressed and enraged constantly and it's probably part of their basic cable package.   People buying books or spending entertainment dollars are looking to bring fun and excitement into their lives.  They desperately need some time away in order to give them fuel to work at surviving for a few more days.

The LAST thing writers, artists, actors, producers or directors owe people is "a slice of life."  Real life slices people into slivers of themselves just fine in today's world without their paying to get sliced and diced a little faster.  We owe people something more, something different, something BETTER.

Don't buy my books if you're looking for a realistic portrayal of anything.  I'd never shortchange my readers by giving them reality.  If you're looking for reality -- open a window, answer your creditors' calls, and turn on a 24-hour news channel.  If you're looking to escape to a place that looks and feels nothing like your everyday world - pick up a Quacking Alone romance where a happy ending is guaranteed.

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Published on 3 Comments on Bullying on Goodreads Leads to User Exodus

Authors expect bad reviews after a book is published.   Great Ducks Of The Universe - how authors should expect bad reviews.  Good reviews come as well, of course, and they make a writer's world a better place but the bad ones can really play some mind tricks on a writer who actually reads reviews.  I've learned to screen them - one quick glance through and then no more.  No hair shirts will be employed.  There will be no weeping or gnashing of teeth.

Opinions are like personality quirks and pet peeves - everyone has them, they are often vastly different, and the only opinion you should follow is your own.  Often people will play follow-the-leader with opinions, snap judgments or bad behavior.  I don't do that because I think PC stands for Petty Crap and that followers will NEVER arrive at any destination of their choosing.  I have my own opinions.  You're not required to like them, agree with them or follow them.  You're only required to respect my right to have them.  For example,  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE me some old school romance - yes, bodice ripping and all.  I'm actually bright enough to separate what I read from what I believe or how I'll act in real life.  I read to get away from real life.

In real life, I wouldn't put up with a bodice-ripping guy no matter how hunky he appeared.  I'd also NOT leave a shoe and wait for a handsome Prince to show up and rescue me - but I still love Cinderella.

Yes, we expect bad reviews AFTER a book is published, but no one expects to be tormented, bullied or threatened over a book, specially not BEFORE it's published.  Yet that's what occurred this week and it has caused one author to pull a book she was about to publish and to give up on writing altogether.  That's sad and it's sadder still that it occurred on Amazon's Goodreads community.  It was - or was intended to be - a site where readers discovered books and sometimes had a chance to interact with other readers who were also authors.  (Every writer is a reader.)

Lauren Howard, a/k/a Lauren Pippa, fell victim to a campaign of abuse and bullying on Goodreads and cancelled the release of her debut novel, "Learning To Love."  Here's how Lauren described events:

...continue reading "Bullying on Goodreads Leads to User Exodus"

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My last post mentioned romance author Marie Force's killer survey in the context of my deciding that I needed to do more marketing through Facebook.  I haven't yet changed the format of QA's Facebook page (click the link and like it -- I'll wait).  However, thanks to Marie's saavy tips, I have started doing more linking of my books complete with hashtags.  And it has helped so Marie was right about that - people do find books through Facebook.  This post is because I promised a follow up to delve into more of Marie's marvy info.

Now, my question is about the survey's finding that contemporary romance has become more popular than historical romance - 27.55% of responding readers preferred contemporary to 23.15% preferring historical.  Why do I find that interesting?  Because my numbers don't bear that out at all.  My historicals sell far, far better than my contemporaries although I think the contemporaries are great books.  My personal sales ratio is about 85% to 15% in favor of the historicals.

I'd LOVE, LOVE, LOVE for the contemporaries to catch up to the historicals in sales.  Heck, I'd cheer if they passed the historicals.  My historicals are composed entirely of my wicked, wacky and way warped imagination.  They're over the top tales where the heroes tend to be bad boys who fall in love as hard as they fell into risky, risque behavior.  My contemporary heroes share the over-the-top personna to a point, but those books also call upon knowledge I've gleaned from my "day job" - as a lawyer. My contemporaries all take place at that precarious point where love and the law meet.  It's a dangerous spot, which is why those books are my "Dangerous Relations" series.

None of my contemporaries takes the reader inside the courtroom as much as Dangerous Relations:  Seducing the Billionaire. That book starts in the Family Courtroom where the hero is divorcing his "belle bitch" wife.  It's a tricky endeavor because he doesn't want a separation from his soon-to-be ex's half sister, Rachel.  She's only 17, but the hero fell in love with her about a year earlier, when he rescued her from an abusive foster home.  She's been too young to allow her any idea of his real feelings, even if he hadn't been too married to show her.  But, at the beginning of the book, everything is about to change.  When it does, the hero finds himself in a Courtroom, where his only defense against felony charges is to show the jury his helpless adoration for the girl who vanished just when she could have saved him.  If you like love stories, trial stories or romantic suspense, you'll love Dangerous Relations:  Seducing The Billionaire.  Pick it up and give it a read today - you'll be glad you did!

My other two (2) contemporaries are also at the juncture of love and the law - at different stages. Dangerous Relations: Griffin's Law is about a law student who commits the serious offense of falling in love with one of her professors.  And the professor?  He's hiding more than she could've ever imagined.   Dangerous Relations:  The Office Ink is about a young associate targeted by the law firm partner who hired her.  Too bad for her that she was also targeted by the partners brother.  And when Cupid's passing out flaming arrows, someone could die.  Did the young associate's boss kill the competition, brother or not?

This post is my test marketing of my contemporaries.  Marie Force's survey says contemporaries are outselling historicals.  Like I said earlier, my experience has been the opposite.  Will my numbers from this test prove Marie right or wrong?

Published on

Via a piece in Forbes, I ran across some fascinating survey numbers from bestselling author Marie Force.   In case you've spent the last few years imprisoned in the Big Brother House and aren't familiar with her work, I can tell you one thing that will tell you that she's a great author.  Ready?  Her current book, "Lethal Attraction:  Against The Rules\Fatal Affair" is a collaboration with LINDA HOWARD, no less, put together by Harlequin's HQN.  If your writing can keep up in that company, then it's pretty danged fabulous.  Marie's most recent solo effort is "Time for Love" and since that one's self-pubbed - (all Marie and nothing but Marie/ like mine are all Mary Anne and nothing but Mary Anne), I bet she'd appreciate your checking it out as well.

But I digressed - as usual.  Okay, I'm boogling back to the point now.  The point is an oh-so-interesting survey that Marie conducted recently via Survey Monkey with about 2,951 people replying to questions put together by Marie and "about a dozen other authors." The questions covered a number of areas, including preferred genre, preferred reading format, shopping preferences, and discovery tools.   The Forbes article is  "Reader Surveys Provide Insight, But How Much?" The title tells us that Forbes is going to disagree with Marie's numbers - and it does.  It compares and contrasts them with a 2012 survey done by RWA (Romance Writers of America).

The first thing that caught my eye was the big ole' important place where the two survey numbers agree - although Forbes wishes to quibble.  Both surveys agree that romance is the "King of Kings" - it dominates other genres in terms of sales.  In Marie's poll, 81% of readers listed romance as their favorite genre with mystery coming in second, with only 5%of reader preferences.  That jives with the RWA numbers which showed that romance was the best-performing genre on bestseller lists in 2012 and generated $1.438 billion in sales in 2012 alone.   To me, those numbers mean that far more people prefer to read about love and desire than fear and pain.  It also proves that readers want more from a book's ending than a "resolution" or a "solution" - they want a happy ending.

...continue reading "Force of Course: What Do Marie’s Numbers Mean?"

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Published on 2 Comments on Think Chicken Instead of Duck

I figured out why I haven't made enough money from romance novels to quit my day job (practicing law) yet. I even know why I haven't made enough dough to support myself writing full time and pay cash to buy a new house. One of my tweeps steered me towards the secret, and I wanted to share it here on the blog.

Even the duck lady is bright enough to know that what I need is a bestseller - or better yet, several. And yes, even I who am more quackers than the average quacker know that the secret to launching a book to the bestseller stratosphere is one word -- PUBLICITY. I also know what publicity is - you know what it is? EXPENSIVE.

And because I'm a strange duck lady who communicates best in writing, I'm one of those things that most people think is as real as the proverbial Magic Genie. Yes, Virginia, because I'm a lawyer who practices research and writing (a scrivener) I'm something else that far too many of you can understand. You know what that is? POOR. Yes, a poor lawyer. Go figure.

So I can't afford all that publicity, which leaves me hanging around here, on Twitter (@quackingalone) and on Facebook. I shuffle my feet a lot and try to think of pithy, not totally insane things to say that might interest readers into checking out my books. ("Hey, Ethel, this one might be good for a laugh. The writer's a complete nutcase.") But I thought that was pretty much the limit of the options my non-existent publicity budget could afford. Then, one of my gang tweeted the link to an article.

...continue reading "Think Chicken Instead of Duck"