Kerry Allen

MC-1: Finished Chapter Two. A good, solid Chapter Two which follows a good, solid Chapter One, not my usual conceptually awful beginning that will have to be shredded and rewritten from scratch at least six times. A little anxious going into Chapter Three because it’s hero’s POV for the first time and I doubt he’ll behave. In fact, I know he won’t behave. *snerk* About every 800 words or so, I have an “AHA! This happens later” moment, and they all seem to be things that will arise naturally rather than requiring me to force the story to head in that direction.

This is kind of scary, actually, almost as if it’s going too well. I’m saving to the hard drive, a disk, and the zip drive after every paragraph and printing each chapter as it’s finished, just in case the price of all this ease is computer meltdown and loss of the whole kaboodle. That won’t be it, of course, because I’m prepared for it. I’ll never see it coming…

Miscellaneous office tasks: For future reference, next time rejections are coming in, sort them into “likes my voice but not this book” and “hates everything about me” categories as they arrive, because having to look at all of them again later to come up with first-round picks for the next submission cycle stings just a little. (And yes, I know rejection letters don’t mean “I hate you”—except that one, and the feeling is now entirely mutual, but I digress. I’m intentionally polarizing the more promising responses from the impersonal ones, that’s all.)

… this became my new desktop wallpaper about 20 seconds after I laid eyes on it.

"Forked" by DivineError

This size really does not do it justice. If you go here and click on the picture, it will expand to its full, glorious ludicrosity. (The chrome, it makes my feeble Photoshop skills weep with shame.)

For some reason, it makes me think of Jay and  Silent Bob.

Jay and Silent Bob

And being the freaky little platypus I am, that’s a good thing.

1.  Angelic daughter attended her second day of school yesterday after having the best first week of school ever (go the first day, get the rest of the week off) and was given lists of rules in all her classes to be taken home and signed by student and parent to indicate understanding. My understanding is that in every class the first and foremost rule is “Be happy at all times, or you will be punished.” I envision a school filled with children, their faces contorted with huge smiles, desperately forcing the words help us through their clenched teeth.

2.  There’s a TV commercial in these parts that says God doesn’t want children to play video games. This seems counterproductive to me. In my experience, everyone who plays video games has a very intimate relationship with God, chummy enough to chat about his Son and call on him to damn things on a regular basis…

3.  Choosing a web hosting company apparently makes use of the same brain sector as choosing a line to wait in. As I will choose the wrong line at the grocery store (where a single person ahead of me with two items will invariably be joined by a partner pulling 3 carts and want to write a check for part and pay cash for the rest, despite which she will not have enough money and will want to put things back) and the bank (where a single person ahead of me will invariably be conducting 37 transactions, each individually, none of which were prepared beforehand, and most of which involve payment in pennies), so will I choose a web host that itself completely vanishes from the internet on a regular basis, taking my site along for the ride. If you try to visit and get a “no such site” page, try again later. And if you yourself are ever in the market for web hosting, don’t sign up for a multi-year deal right off the bat. Yes, extended terms often offer cheaper rates, but if your host turns out to have more downtime than a newborn baby and you have to switch to another provider, it’s not such a value anymore.

I promised C.J. much graphical fanfare to commemorate my victory in the Swords and Stilettos Bloated Sentence Contest, but technical difficulties caused me to neglect all of my internet responsibilities for very nearly 48 whole hours. I know! I’m surprised I survived, too. So here is a photo collage of things that make me as happy as this win:

Swords. I am, after all, Little Miss Hacks With Sword.

Stilettos. I would snap my frickin' neck if I took a single step in this shoe, but I'd totally wear a pair of them with a leopard-print silk robe while draped over a chaise while a nicely put together fella fed me bonbons. Or Cheetos.

Cheetos. The crunchy kind, not those wussy puffed curl things. Note the "0 trans fat" on the package. Clearly, Cheetos are good for you.

A nicely put together fella. Eerie story. I have this character named Gabe. This is exactly what he looks like in my head. Exactly. I fell asleep one night in front of the television and woke up to see this guy in a commercial. I actually said (mumbled groggily) aloud, "Gabe, what are you doing on television?" The really eerie part: The dude's name is seriously... Gabe. It's obvious the Blue Fairy liked my vision so much, she turned him into a real boy. Halle Berry, you owe me big time.

Champagne strawberry cheesecake. I haven't had it (yet), but how could that possibly be anything short of orgasmically fabulous?

Books. I have nothing to add.

Wombats celebrating Wombat Day 2007 by eating a wombat-shaped cake that looks like it's made of wombat meat. Maybe it's not a cake at all. Maybe it's wombatloaf. Blow out the candles and eat, Uncle Fred! (Or, as the case may be, remove the comma after "eat.")

MOST RECENT NEWS FIRST

Two more deals last Friday!

Tracey O’Hara’s paranormal GH manuscript, Night’s Cold Kiss, sold in a 3-book deal to Avon/Eos! Release date November 2009!

Kay Cassidy’s GH YA winner, The Cinderella Society, sold in a 2-book deal to Egmont USA for hardcover release in Spring 2010!

Jennifer Satterfield, paranormal finalist, has a book out NOW with Ellora’s Cave, writing as Jennifer North—Party Vamps!

Beth Trissel, historical romance finalist, has a 4-book deal with Wild Rose Press! Her short story, Nighthawk, is available FREE! Somewhere My Love and Enemy of the King coming soon!

Susan Seyfarth’s 2008 Contemporary Single Title Golden Heart Winner Money, Honey sold in a 2-book deal to Berkley! (Super excited because I have been dying to read this since judging it in the prelims!)

Courtney Milan, historical finalist, has sold Proof By Seduction to HQN!

Susan Gee Heino, 2008 Golden Heart Winner for Best Regency Historical, has a 2-book deal with Berkley!

Annette McCleave, 2008 Golden Heart Winner for Best Paranormal Romance with Soul Provider has a 3-book deal with NAL!

Lynn Raye Harris, series suspense/adventure finalist, won the Harlequin Presents Instant Seduction contest back in March with The Spanish Magnate’s Revenge, which is in her editor’s hands as we speak!

Kelly Gay, DOUBLE finalist in paranormal and YA, has a 2-book deal from Pocket for her urban fantasy, The Better Part of Darkness, and its sequel, release date Summer 2009!

Tracey O’Hara, Tha Wunda from Down Unda and fellow paranormal finalist, has a double deal with Spice Briefs, the first release, Tonight My Love, scheduled for May 2009 under the pseudonym Tracie Sommers!

Lavinia Klein (no web site yet, since she anticipates a pseudonym in her future), regency historical finalist, has secured the coveted 2-book offer from Avon! The first will be released in August 2009!

Kris Kennedy, 2008 Golden Heart Winner for Best Historical Romance with Wanting Finian, just received the coveted 2-book offer from Kensington! Pub date for The Conqueror TBA!

Helen Scott Taylor’s paranormal, The Magic Knot, is the American Title IV winner, and Dorchester is putting her book out in February 2009! (Wow, did they move fast on that one!)

Way to go, ladies!

!!!!!!!!!

Come on, people, I got plenty more exclamation points where these came from! Keep the good news coming!

IWS: I’m going to be late. Trust me, you don’t want it in its current condition, which is “I did this. He did that. I said something. He said something. I did this. He did that.” It reads like a kindergarten primer in its simplicity. At one point, I succumbed to hysterics because it had an obvious “Hickory Dickory Dock” rhythm. This is not Poor Self-Esteem Kerry Having A Groundless Crisis. This is Kerry Has Forgotten How To Write More Than One Kind Of Boring Sentence. 

Okay, I’ll put on my Pollyanna hat. “Hey, at least I don’t write 43 kinds of boring sentences!”

Something New: Got an idea from watching a television show I hate, and lo and behold, it came into the world NOT part of a set! It’s a miracle! (Of course, within 24 hours, I came up with a series, based on secondary characters but on a common THEME. And I bought the domain name for said series because by another miracle it was available, and it will be KEWL… if you’re as hopelessly geeky as I am.) (And while it may seem like that’s jumping the gun, once I’ve invested my hard-earned money in a project, I’m approximately 400 gajillion times more likely to follow through, so there’s a method to my madness.)

A cursory Google search didn’t turn up any obvious evidence that it’s been done. (Probably has, but at least not in a way Google deems worthy of putting in the first 50 pages of results.)

The show I hate, by the way, is Monsterquest on the History Channel. The reason I hate it is that it pretends to offer a balance between believers and skeptics, but there’s a very snide, sensationalistic overlay sliming the whole thing up. Take the Sasquatch episode, for example. The voice-over repeatedly says things like “the townspeople are being stalked by a monster.” Is a slavering beast pursuing citizens in a predatory manner? Actually, there are no eyewitness accounts of slavering, and it seems to flee in terror any time it comes in contact with humans, so the only remotely accurate thing in that statement is “the townspeople.”

A billion years ago, there was a show on Fox (of course I don’t remember the name of it—I remember the network only because it aired right before X-Files) that actually did present a balanced perspective without trotting out the crackpots and adding bullshit editorial commentary. I still have a file full of notes I jotted down while watching that show.

And that is also why every time I see Stanton Friedman on the telly, I exclaim “Stanton!” like he’s my long-lost brother.

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Best search term: Tuesday was a record-breaking day for hits, one of which came from ”hanging mail sorter.” I can’t even begin to imagine. I might hang my mail and use it for archery practice, but I never, ever sort it.

I suspect most of the hits came from one person who stumbled into the quicksand that is this blog and hit all the permalinks in his or her struggle to get free. 

Silly reader! No one escapes this blog alive!

MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

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see more dog pictures

Like a ripped bodice, I want to include this in everything I write henceforth.