The server is undergoing some kind of ”upgrade” starting Friday night at 10. (Time zone? Don’t know. Duration? Could be negative 11 hours. You should see the email I got explaining it. Clear communication isn’t this company’s strong point.)
“Upgrades” generally result in a stinking knot of problems that takes days to straighten out, so if it comes to pass that you can’t find me here after Friday, I haven’t gotten all emo and pouty and closed up shop—just experiencing technical difficulties and will return to the regularly scheduled program as soon as my “upgrade” allows.
The only kind of celebrity news you’re likely to find me passing around.
Actress Christina Applegate is being treated for breast cancer. She’s 36.
Please, please, please have your doctor show you how to correctly perform a breast self-exam and discuss the best time in your menstrual cycle to do it. (Hormonal fluctuations can cause totally benign lumpiness and needless panic, so some times are better than others.) You are NOT too young to worry about it, and your yearly checkup is NOT often enough to catch a malignancy in its earliest stage, when treatment has the greatest chance of success.
Personal vigilance is your health’s absolute best defense. Do it for yourself. Do it for the people who love you. Do it for a 5-gallon bucket of green M&Ms, for all I care, but DO IT.
Eight days until my RTB post, and I have nothing. I do NOT want to do the rant. (Although I did get about halfway through a comparison with Coke’s disastrous tampering with its formula before my tantrum exhausted me. I’ll save it, but I’m no longer in the mood to use it.) I don’t want to be controversial (tacky). I don’t want to butt heads with people who have differing opinions (pointless). I’d rather do funny or fun or at the very least upbeat. I’m in the right frame of mind, but the mind in the frame is completely blank. Guidance?
2008 Golden Heart Winner Best Contemporary Series Romance
Under a Harvest Moon by Joleen Wieser
2008 Golden Heart Winner Best Contemporary Series Romance: Suspense Adventure
The Midnight Effect by Pamela Fryer
2008 Golden Heart Winner for Best Young Adult Romance
The Cinderella Society by Kay Cassidy
2008 GH Winner Best Contemporary Single Title Romance
Money, Honey by Susan Seyfarth
(I judged this entry in the preliminary round and can personally vouch for its awesomeness.)
2008 Golden Heart Winner for Best Novel with Strong Romantic Elements
The Devil You Know by Christa Selnick
2008 Golden Heart Winner Best Romantic Suspense
Sweet Deceit by Julie Stevens
2008 Golden Heart Winner Best Paranormal Romance
Soul Provider by Annette McCleave
2008 Golden Heart Winner Best Inspirational Romance
Running From Trouble by Kit Wilkinson
2008 Golden Heart Winner for Best Regency Historical Romance
Mistaken by Moonlight by Susan Gee Heino
2008 Golden Heart Winner for Best Historical Romance
Wanting Finian by Kris Kennedy
Well done, ladies!
The Magic 8 Ball was correct 9 out of 10 times. (And will henceforth be guiding my purchase of Lotto tickets.)
Bumpity bump bump.
I hear tell RWA will be posting the RITA and Golden Heart winners as they’re announced at the awards ceremony in San Fran on August 2. Since 8 p.m. on the west coast is past my bedtime way over here on the east coast, I won’t be glued to my monitor in anticipation (also, since the Magic 8 Ball has already divulged all the winners, it’s old news to me), but if’n y’all wanna have a shindig in honor of the occasion and follow along as the drama unfolds, you should be able to find it on the RWA site.
Edit: Heh. This was a little premature, seein’ as I thought this week was next week. (Brain. Fried. Remember?) If it gets buried (unlikely, given my present hermit-like state of mind), I’ll bump it up to the top a little closer to the Big Day because I KNOW everybody here would be devastated if they had to wait until the day after for the results.
Da Big Boss looks surprised to see me (evidently the first time he’s seen me out of the hundred times he’s seen me today) and sez, “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at your award thing?”
To which I respond, “No, because unless I’m incarcerated or hospitalized, you believe I should be working.”
He sez, “Hell, there’re probably lots of things you could do from jail or the hospital. Go ahead and take tomorrow off to go to your thing.”
Because I’m so magical, I can go back in time to arrange conference registration, cross-country travel, and hotel accommodations.
.
Lord, deliver me from cluelessness.
I will be taking the day off, though, since it might be the only such opportunity I get for the rest of the decade.
My next RTB post might be a rant rather than a laugh riot.
If you don’t like formula, don’t read genre fiction, which is defined by formula.
Green Eggs and Ham has a happy ending. That’s not enough to make it a frickin’ romance.
I really don’t give a damn what “outsiders” have to say, but I am really getting sick of the romance genre being treated with contempt ON ROMANCE SITES.
Pissed offedness just might get me off my ass on the Cooties issue. We will not tolerate any of this crap over there, where romance will be celebrated as a wonderful thing.
9/30
11/4
11/4
11/25