Kerry Allen

WL: There were a couple of “whee!” moments this week. No Major Events to report, but I glimpsed a couple of those elusive creatures from a distance, through a haze, in silhouette. They may have been pointing my way and laughing, but little do they know about the snares and pits I’ve laid out for them…

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IWS: I became aware of some similarity between blind fangboy’s story and vampire thief’s story. Adopted a “what the hell” philosophy. Maybe I’ll be inspired with a change before I post them. If not, I’ll add “copycat bloodsuckers—don’t read both” to the warning label when I regain Photoshop access.

General: My fondness for man names beginning with R (Rev, Ryder, Rhan, Rinc, etc.) has been usurped by fondness for man names beginning with N (Nate, Nick, and Noah so far). Maybe I should write for Sesame Street. “Today’s heroes are brought to you by the letter J…”

Sherrilyn Kenyon wrote the first paranormal romance I ever read, the one that brought me back to romance after a years-long hiatus, the one that made me say, “Holy crap, I didn’t know you could do that in a romance novel, but now that I do, I know what I should be writing.” While a couple of the Dark-Hunter books and associated spinoffs haven’t rung my bell that resoundingly, she’s created a cast of characters with an ongoing epic that are autobuys for me.

For lurve of Acheron, I’m going to renege upon my 20-year vow to never buy a hardcover romance novel.

In prep for the August 5 release of Acheron, St. Martin’s is offering up an e-version of Seize the Night for free (in a variety of formats—instructions can be found at the link). Offer valid through July 3, 2008.

You may have heard I’m just slightly herocentric.

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Nonetheless, Seize the Night has one of those rare heroines who demanded her share of my attention. I still crack up every time I hear “Tabby.” She kills vampires. She owns a naughty novelty shop. And she’s paired up with the prissiest, uptightest, and stuckupest of the red-headed cow’s minions, who spends a great deal of time flummoxed that he finds anything about this tacky broad to be appealing.

Oh, and it’s also the book in which everything went to shit with Nick (all that misdirected rage and refusal to listen to reason for the last six books or so? uncool, dude), which I imagine will warrant at least a line or two in Ash’s book…

So… another issue that has arisen with the dead computer situation…

In Office 2007 Microsoft introduced a new file format called the Microsoft Open Office XML Format (.docx). This format is not compatible with older versions of Microsoft Word or with alternative operating systems like Linux or Mac OS X. Nor is it compatible with other word processing applications like OpenOffice, Lotus 123, or NeoOffice.

I discovered this cute little feature months ago (”Sorry, we can’t open your submission”), had a nice rant (”Why the eff would they make a program INCOMPATIBLE WITH ITSELF? Oh, I suppose they didn’t want poor Word to feel inferior to Vista, which is INCOMPATIBLE WITH EFFING EVERYTHING!!!1!”), and didn’t think much else of it because I had that computer to deal with the .docx files if I absolutely had to.

So… yesterday I had need of one of my rescued files and, much to my everlasting joy, got heiroglyphics when I tried to open it on the laptop because the geniuses at Microsoft have made Word INCOMPATIBLE WITH ITSELF! Perusing the names of some of the .docx files I have (since, obviously, I couldn’t peek inside the files themselves), I realized this could be a rather serious problem.

All hail the mighty internet.

Docx-converter.com offers a portable solution for your compatability needs. It will convert a Microsoft Office .docx file into a simple html file. It strips out some of the formatting, but now supports bold, italic, and underlined text. Left, right, center, and justified alignment. Unicode characters. Tables. And more!

Voila! Worked like a charm on a plain old text document. My precious text is saved.

Now, to be fair, Microsoft has a “compatibility pack” you can install into your old, obsolete version of Word. If you trust Microsoft. If you want another piece of Microsoft garbage on your computer. If you don’t think Microsoft’s “hold the world’s data hostage to force them to UPGRADE—ka-ching!— to our buggy new products” policies are a disgrace.

But you can find that yourself, since I’m not sending traffic to those scumbags.

One of those standard “porn smut johnson trash viagra (two hundred random sex words with embedded porn links, basically)” comments snuck past the spam filter. It said this at the bottom:

Admin, if you read this, please do not mark as spam. Just move off topic, thanks.

Oh, he said “please” and “thank you.” I guess it’s not spam after all. I should leave it.

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Sorry, your spam is getting reported as spam so in the future the global spam filter will catch it as spam and spare others the hassle of marking your spam as spam.

But in light of your refined manners, I shall refrain from calling you a douchebag.

IWS: Snip, snip. I confess to a tendency to ramble, and with no word-count restriction, my bloodsucker was getting a little flabby in the middle. I gave myself some guidelines: 7,000-word opening, extra 15,000 words on the straight course for each guy, plus however many words it takes to transition when the course is not so straight. I’m thinking the whole thing will come in at around 50,000, which is why it’s taking so long—doesn’t quite qualify as a “short” story when it’s all accounted for.

Cooties: So. That MSNBC poll about whether you read romance novels and the respondents’ options to be a beach-only reader, appalled at the very notion, or a Fabio-crazed loon offended a whole lot of people with its ill-informed, out-of-date, and condescending nature. I’m mentally defective, so here were my reactions:

1. I kinda wanna work a ripped bodice into everything I write from now on. Not necessarily ripped in the throes of lust (”Bloody hell, my bodice is ripped. Whose brilliant idea was it to hide in the briar patch?”), but ripped nonetheless, and I want to use the word “bodice,” which I personally haven’t seen in a book for years and feel is woefully underused in contemporary fiction. My girls will have to start dressing better, though. I don’t think a T-shirt can rightfully be said to have a bodice.

2. I had a very clear vision of myself approaching one of those “Ew, no, I would never touch one of those books” people and poking her with the clinchiest, mantittiest book I can find and then shrieking, “It touched you! It touched you! Now you have romance cooties!” (My dear friend, Mr. Perfect, had a very clear vision of himself bailing me out of jail because I will so totally do this if presented the opportunity.)

As will come as no surprise to anyone at all familiar with me, I became enchanted by the idea of “romance cooties.” The term reflects a certain youthful, uninhibited enthusiasm while simultaneously mocking those who act like they’ll contract an incurable disease if they come in contact with a certain kind of book.

I want to do something that celebrates romance. Not mock it “with love.” Not talk about authors or publishers or booksellers or other industry business. Not analyze the sociopolitical ramifications of the genre.

Readers. Books. Stuff we like, nothing we don’t. No grading system required because if it’s there, we liked it enough to recommend it, and we’ll tell you why. New releases, old favorites, whatever. All romance novels, all the time.

I ended up with this huge list of things I don’t want to do (and scratching out a comic strip for the site header—”Scramble the Cootie Response Team, STAT!”—as well as subgenre-specific cooties), and I’m still pondering what, exactly, I do want to do. A cover focus—art and blurb that enticed you to take a longer look. Reviews—need a UCF (Universal Cootie Format) to keep them consistent, but I’d take submissions. I’d have to, actually, since I’m so paranormal biased and that hardly encompasses the whole glorious spectrum of romance, which deserves to be represented by readers who love it. Maybe new home for HOTM (ha! already have a UCF for that one) and some heroine love, too. “How I Became Infected with Cooties” stories from readers. (This is not to say you’re banned if you happen to write, but reader hats rather than self-pimpage, feel me?)

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I’m not loving Blogger (where I parked it for the time being, nothing but a description so far) or the free WordPress (where tinkering with the setup isn’t free and none of the standard themes ring my bell), so it will eventually be at its own domain. Putting it off until the concept solidifies a little, though. No point paying for hosting when there’s nothing to host yet.

(If you’re too sophisticated to be affiliated with anything with “Cooties” in the title, this probably isn’t the place for you. We wear our cooties with pride. There will be a web button that proudly proclaims “I HAVE COOTIES!” and for contributors perhaps “I’M A COOTIE!” If cooties really catch on—heh—mugs, hats, tote bags… Cooties everywhere!)

Gah, I have problems…

UPDATE: RomanceCooties.com is now hosted.

The transcript of the second and final episode of my short-lived matchmaker show that should have fit right in on the Bravo network (fickle corporate shills) is over at RTB today. (If you missed the first episode, check it out here.)

This time we see things from the perspective of the would-be heroines.

Fur pants and naked mole rats are mentioned.

‘Nuff said.

(In completely unrelated news, I encourage you to back up all your documents, pictures, music, game saves, etc. RIGHT NOW. Thumb drives are your friends. You never know when your computer will suddenly, for no apparent reason, decide to make terrible noises and die, but it’s statistically more likely to occur when you have a lot of files that exist nowhere else. Just so you know, the Geeks’ going rate for info retrieval from a dead hard drive is more than you’ll probably pay for a new computer, and if that doesn’t give you some incentive to worship at the obsessive backup altar, I don’t know what will.)

Why is it that when Blogger A ventures somewhere in Webland—like, oh I don’t know, a fan forum of a bestselling author, let’s say—and expresses an opinion that any thinking human being would realize is going to cause offense among the members of that particular community, Blogger A remains righteously adamant that she is exercising her First Amendment Right to Free Speech, and the members of that community who respond in a negative manner are a bunch of Rabid Bitches, and the author is Queen Evil Bitch for failing to control her minions, for whom, at some point, she has clearly assumed all moral and legal responsibility…

… but when Blogger B ventures to Blogger A’s territory and expresses an opinion that doesn’t harmonize with that community, Blogger B is a “troll” deserving of a slow, painful dismemberment?

Kneel, Blogger A. I hereby dub thee Cartman of Hypocriteshire. Rise and go forth, for without thy disingenuous stirring up of shite and subsequent bemoaning of the sewage that hath mysteriously been slopped upon thine shoes, the online romance community would not be what it is today.

On second thought, as long as I have this sword in my hand…