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Monthly Archives: August 2008

We have a new look!

What better way to kick off our anniversary week than to launch our newly designed blog? Our new design is by the lovely and talented Haven Rich, with considerable input from the Riskies and even some polling of our readers.

This is the result.

The image in our logo is from Pierce Egan’s Life in London: “Tom, Jerry and Logic Making the Most of an Evening at Vauxhall” by Robert and George Cruikshank. If you received a Risky Regengy button at RWA, you’ll notice the two dancing figures are from that image. Clever were we not?

So…..What do you think?

Change is hard, even welcome changes. As a result, I’m not entirely certain how I feel about the new design, but only because I miss what is familiar. We human beings tend to stick to the familiar, the secure, but we also sometimes gain the courage to change.

That’s what each of us Riskies did when we first decided to write a book. We mustered up the courage to do something different than we’d ever done before, to change from a person who didn’t write a book into a person who does write a book. I’m glad I did, because it has given me this happy life where I can spend my days in Regency England or hang out with my fellow Riskies and all our friends.

In honor of change and growth–and our anniversary–I’m going to give away a copy of The Vanishing Viscountess, the special Mills & Boon Centenary edition, which includes a bonus story, The Mysterious Miss M–and a Risky Regency Button!

There will be more prizes announced each day this week. All our winners will be randomly selected at the end of the week from all the comments this Anniversary Week. So comment often to increase your chances to win.

And, today, tell us what you think of our new look!

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“Friday On My Mind” by the Easybeats:

Tonight….I spend my bread,
Tonight…I lose my head,
Tonight…I got to get tonight
Monday I have Friday on my mind.

This week was my first full week after National and Family-Visiting. And an eventful one! My new agent sent pitches out on That Subtle Knot, my Regency-set historical. I’ve been writing “Fortune’s Lady,” my super-sexy novella, and a writing friend (known as The Delightful Phone Friend at my blog) just told me my writing’s getting better and better (good thing, too, or else this post would have been a lot more dour. Now I am happy.)

Question to more-published authors: What is a reasonable waiting period before I start deluging my agent with anxious emails?

The whole family has been getting Olympics fever, so much so that the could-not-sleep Spouse ended up watching women’s gymnastics last night. Bet I’ll never be able to say that last clause ever again in my entire life. My son, an enthusiastic swimmer, has taken to calling Michael Phelps “Phelpy” which is so cute I can not stand it. And track and field is still to come!

By the way, I have long been a fan of director Zhang Yimou, who has got to be the most amazing visionary in terms of color and scenery ever. He is the Chief Creative Director of the opening and closing Olympics ceremony, and my goodness, he did not disappoint. For more of his work, check out Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower.

Next week is my 44th birthday, which I like ’cause 4 is one of my two favorite numbers (19 is the other one; guess what day my birthday is on?). I am looking forward to sushi and gelato that evening, having lunch with a girlfriend sans Son that day.

And then the whole family goes to the Jersey Shore for a week. Yay! The VERY Hard-Working Spouse needs a break.

And then? AND THEN? School starts September 2!

The bad news is that my shift key is being a PITA. But that is minor, right?

I am not accustomed to being optimistic and forward-looking. My brain is frantically trying to find stuff to worry about, and it is succeeding. But still. Things are good.

Are you happy about anything? What are you doing for the last few weeks of summer? Are you watching the Olympics? Which is your favorite event thus far? Which athlete are you crushing on (mine is Ryan Lochte)?

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If only…

Ideally this is how I’d like to spend my summer (add catering and it would be perfect). As it is, if we open windows mosquitoes come in (although they get in anyway; the opportunistic little critters zoom in as soon as a door is opened, knowing that I, ripe, juicy and desirable, will be their dinner). If I put flowers in a vase I’d have to clean off the table first. Heck, I’d have to clean off the sofa first.

I don’t know if I could live with that wallpaper, though.

So how am I spending my summer?

Job hunting. Yes, my job fell apart in July and I really, really need work–I just don’t function well without it. It’s not as though I have set myself up a rigid routine (exercise! write! read! do good works!) although I probably should. My routine generally goes like this: get up early because I’m used to it, fiddle around reading email, run errands if there are any to run, write a bit, apply for some jobs, avoid the siren call of the tv and the hundreds of cable channels that still don’t provide anything to watch.

I also do odd bits of housework but god knows I don’t want anyone (spouse) to take this sort of thing for granted or, worse, that I start to think this sort of thing is essential. It’s a fine line.

So what are you doing this summer?

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Sorry this post is so late.

I just got back from attending the World Science Fiction Convention (a.k.a. Worldcon) yesterday.

I woke up this morning with a headache….and my new headache medicine apparently makes me woozy.

(Hmm…I wonder what the derivation of “woozy” is? If I weren’t so woozy, I’d go look it up in a dictionary. After all, I have three within reach right now. But that would take effort….)

So here are a few random pics for you…which will hopefully make more sense than I do right now!

I’ll talk more about Worldcon later…

But just a few tidbits for now:

The Guest of Honor was the amazing Lois McMaster Bujold.

And I got to ask her questions.

And hear her talk.

And listen to her read the first two chapters of her upcoming new Vorkosigan book!!!!!!!

I also got to hear Todd, who was on three panels, tell folks how to build a time machine in the basement. (Half of that sentence isn’t exactly true, by the way, but I’m too woozy to remember which half.)

Speaking of wooziness…(hey, that’s a cool word…wooziness…wooziness…if you say it three times fast, then it begins to describe your state of mind…)…I just attended two conferences back to back.

Does that make me an expert on hotel shower curtains?

Or finding cool restaurants? (I had Singaporean food with Elena in San Francisco, and German food with Todd in Denver…)

Hey, wait — wasn’t the Woozy one of those L Frank Baum magical creatures? (My woozy brain is coming up with a picture that seems to be a bendable doglike creature made of silvery metal… Does this make sense?)

Google, and ye shall find.

Here’s a picture of the Woozy (the fellow clinging to the tree) as illustrated by John R. Neill, in Baum’s THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ.

Yep.

That’s my brain.

Clinging to a tree.

S-N-O-O-Z-I-N-G.

Cara the woozy (though not Cara The Woozy)