One Fine Blog Award

Fraser Sherman nominated me for the One Lovely Blog award. Thanks, Fraser!

This award requires:

a) thank the nominator;
b) volunteer seven things about the blogger readers don’t know;
c) nominate other blogs.

Seven things you don't know about me:

Pictured: not me.

1. I am not a velociraptor. I'm sorry. I lied. (I'm also not a muffin, but you probably guessed that one.)
2. I'm terrified of spiders, but I think snakes are cute. I took an animal science class in middle school and "adopted" a boa constrictor for the semester. She was pretty, and it was really neat holding her. Plus, one of the snakes had babies that year, and they twined around kids' fingers (when they got old enough to be held) like rings. So cute!
3. My first real, official job in high school was as a hostess at a restaurant. I sucked at seating people, but was pretty good at the pickup window and register, so they kept me in the back doing that.
4. I have a really cheerful voice on PA systems. I can't help it; I always sound happy. Especially when I'm grumpy or angry or tempted to hurt something.
5. I love sparkling water. I can't get enough of it, regardless of whether it's fancy Perrier or $.89 cent store-brand, so long as it's bottled but not canned. (The canned ones taste like aluminum.) It's my guilty indulgence.
6. I also love ginger. Ginger candy, crystallized ginger, ginger salad dressing, ginger soup, the pickled ginger served with sushi, ginger ale, ginger beer (which is like the ginger version of root beer), ginger mead... mmmmm!
7. When I was a girl, my favorite stuffed animals were a kangaroo puppet and a snail puppet. My dad would puppeteer for me to get me to go sleep--he's as tone deaf as I am, which may explain why he didn't sing me lullabies.

Pictured: also not
me. See? Stock photo.

Bonus (since some of you, despite my firm reassurances, may not believe #1): 

8. I have never dyed my hair. No particular reason; just never really wanted to. Although I did color a few locks in middle school with a blue highlighter, once.

Nominations:

1) Angela Quarles, Geek Girl Romance Writer

2) Lady Arite gune Akase and her Sarmatian in the SCA blog

3) Taylor Lavati and her author blog


Guess I should go out and tell them!

Good news and bad news

I read it--it's good!
(And historical romances
usually aren't my cup of tea!)

So, great news, and bad news. Great news: Congratulations to my fellow chapter members Jennifer Delamere and Sabrina Jeffries for finaling in the RITAs, the most prestigious of the romance writers' awards, presented each year by the RWA! We'll find out if they win or not later, but to have made it thus far, yay! This is Jennifer's debut novel, by the by, which just makes this twice the accomplishment. If you like historical romances, you can read up about Jennifer's book here, on her blog, and Sabrina's book here, on her site.

Not-so-great news: the (assumed) demise of another computer. I'll try to keep current on blog posts, but if posts are sporadic for a couple of weeks, that's why. Thank goodness it happened now, at least, so I can put my tax refund towards it (and yay for having filed taxes this past weekend, meaning the refund should be it on its way).

Also, remember to back up your work. Triple thank-goodness I'd just made a recent backup of my manuscript, and hadn't made any changes since sending it off for another beta! Phew! Lost some photos, but the manuscript's safe.

Okay, I haven't read this
one yet. TBR pile!

Cross your fingers and wish me luck in getting a good deal on a new computer?

Oh, and go make a backup copy of your manuscript on a thumb drive or something, right now. Trust me on this. You might be glad you did.

Edit: The computer is not so dead as assumed! Hurrah! We'll see if I can't clean it and get it back up to 100%. At the very least, I managed to transfer over the photos into the dropbox, and got the most recent editions of the WIPs extra-backed-up just in case. This is good, because it means I haven't lost about 10.5K of the rough draft of the fantasy romance (sounds like a lot, but the rough draft is very, very rough anywho and will need much editing/rewriting before seeing the light of day).

If the comp is salvageable, I can use the tax refund towards a professional edit and purchasing photos for my cover, or the RWA conference, as originally intended. Speaking of... Nah, I'll talk about that on Friday. ;)