kate rothwell

My brain has turned into ten minute oatmeal. Not quite as mooshy as it gets at its worst, but we're not talking grey matter with oomph. Not clever oatmeal. I've read too much romantic suspense that I'm now trying to pump action/mystery into my own writing. Some people can manage it; I keep doing tangents. And mostly there's the plotting thing. Jeezuz, why can't the obvious person be the bad guy? Why does it have to be the earnest best friend who is a clever very-able-to-hide-his-true-nature psychopath? Or the quiet, dutiful mother who erupts into a foul long-winded speech at the end? Or the younger brother who seems like he doesn't mind the older inheriting it all but secretly resents his wealth? Or the butler who's really the father's ex-business partner who feels he was done wrong by the family? Or the random passing psychopath who saw the heroine, fell in his sick version love and is trying to wreck her life so she'll be helpless and at his mercy?...

The boy has spoken and the number he picked belongs to. JMC !!! C'mon down, JMC, and here's your big old bunch of flowers and the ermine cape. anyone got a Kleenex? I'm all sniffly here. Hey! JMC! You email me and give me your snailmail address and I'll send you the M&Ms, the Borders (or Barnes and Noble) gift card and a copy of Taken Unaware or some other book by Summer or Kate. Now the only thing left to nag you all about is the Unleash Your Story event.

a while back I decided not to print friendly letters from my email because eh, seems like an intrusion. (as a fan pointed out) I might print horrible ones, but friendly ones. Not so much The thing is, this letter is practically public already. An author on one of my loops asked, hey, anyone else get this? And, hey, wow, yes! At least seven other authors I know of got exactly this letter, with only the names changed. Same typos and everything---and we all got it in the last couple of weeks. Summer, Hello, my name is [name removed] and I am a huge fan of your books! They are so wonderful I could hardly put them down to go to bed at night!! I am patiently awaiting your next book because I know it will be just as wonderful as the others. I have recommended your books to several of my good friends and they are all in wow of them as well. I was wondering if it wasn’t too much trouble if you may have some autograph book plates and bookmarks that you may be able to send to me? I know you a...

also. There is still time to enter the contest. So do it. Next on my nagging list is Unleash Your Story.

I'm probably preaching to the choir or to people who will never agree. . .but it's important.

I better bring that contest up to the top again! Yes. There is still time to enter and win a gift certificate a book and M&Ms!!

Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts Caine's Reckoning Sarah McCarty and by Day of the Dead JA Jance what do these books have in common? 1. I've taken a crack at reading all three in the last few days 2. all three have young women or girls (one age 8) sexually attacked. Two out of three girls are murdered. The abuse and/or murder doesn't happen off-stage. Ugh. If I hadn't had picked these up, one after the other, randomly...I wouldn't have been offended. Standard plot device after all. And at least of the books is a freaking mystery so, duh, we got to have violent crime. But somehow it feels as if publishers are out to get young attractive (naturally) females. And actually I did find one kinda offensive. The woman who's chained to a bed and attacked and brutalized for about a year? Once she's rescued (and still afraid for her life) she decides the sexxxing she needs to get past the fear is the kind where her partner overcomes her. Yup. She wants her partner to pu...

erotic muses day and I was lazy so I put up a famous movie clip . When I first saw Tom Jones years ago (not in the theater. I'm not THAT old) I was "wooooo that scene is hot." Now it's mostly funny. The movie itself is entirely cheesy. But Albert Finney of all people? in that movie? Still hot.

alex and friends alex and friends squirrelized.

Listen. I'm middle-aged and I'm allowed to have some entrenched opinons. Here's what I believe and don't even bother trying to convince me otherwise. I think there are some things that do not work in a for-profit business environment. When you have an eye on the bottom line first and foremost in these areas, these businesses will eventually suffer. No wait, the BUSINESSES won't suffer but the product or people they serve? WILL SUFFER. So no more push polls, Phoenix University. Bottom line, yes, the bottom line has to exist, but it can't be the main goal of ANY OF THESE SERVICES. . Education. Medical care Scientific research (at least some of it can't be product driven) Defense Help for the poor Help for children at risk** Fire fighting Emergency services Consumer safety Crime fighting Well, well. Isn't that interesting. So many of these things are run by the government. Maybe because it makes freaking sense? No one else is going to run this crap as a n...

I decided I needed to get over my anti-famous best seller sneering. Reverse snobbiness is just silly; I should know that. So I raided the best seller lists at the library and got a Linda Howard and another Nora Roberts. I think I've finally developed a taste for the Nora. Her characters are prickly but worth it. She's still not my favoritest writer in the world, but I get the appeal more and more. The Linda Howard though. Huh? What? Cover of Night must not be her best. Am I right, Howard fans? There are some good things, I suppose. I like the villagers and the scenery. But I'm too hot and grouchy so I'll whine about it instead. The romance--what romance? The female lead, who's known and basically ignored the hero for years, only falls for him when he turns all killer-protective. And then that pattern repeats with the secondary romance between another hero macho guy and the woman he's admired for years and years and never said boo too. There is such a thing as...

Oops, even I forgot I'm still running a contest. Hey! You! you can win the M&Ms and the book and the GIFT CERTIFICATE. Come on and pimp me. The contest may be stale but I promise the M&Ms won't be. We ate the bag I bought as a prize. (I sprinkled a lot of them on the magic cookie bars we'll be selling today at a fund-raiser.) SPEAKING OF SWEEEET CONTESTS. Look at this one by Kris Starr. She's got a lot more Candy than I do. Her contest candy makes sense. Check out her latest cover:

Never mind a series of tubes, I think of this interwebby world as a big old ocean of drifting schools of fish that swim toward the most noise and zip! tack in another direction at some kind signal that no one outside the school can understand. Anyway. I swim along and go on my own small circles....wait, what are the fish doing here? I've lost track of this here dumb analogy. 0 0 0 0 0 I'm cutting line on that waste. o O O O O o Here's what I mean. People come and go in the internet world. Maybe I drift away from their blogs or their blogs go dark or they stop writing books. They come and go----and it's lovely when they come again. AND here's one I'm glad to see again and yay, hi!. I've always admired Monica Jackson and her energy and when she goes on a ranty rant? No one rips them better than her. Hi again, Monica. Write! Write! Publish, too. I mean, why not?

Santa Cruz Mango Organic Lemonade Citrus vodka (I know it's passe, the balsamic vinegar of liquors, but try this anyway) a squeeze of lemon juice (and if you're a wus, maybe some powdered sugar) I made mine, stuck it in the freezer and ate it like a slushy. The proportions? 1:1? 2:1? That part you have to figure out. Now we have to name it. I suppose it should be Tropic something. Tropic Thunder is so last year and anyway, it's some kind of energy drink. I want the name to be pithy, now, edgy. Tropic Organic Velvet? Tropic Neon? (that Santa Cruz Mango Lemonade is a very vibrant color, Almost scary) Tropic Health Care Reform? Suggestions?

Me: Hey there, blog, howya doing? Blog : Like you care. Me : Yeah, I know I don't write here as much as I used to. Blog : It's not that! It's that you've lost interest in the things that matter! That draw TRAFFIC. Dammit, do you remember the Good Old Days? NORA ROBERTS commented here SEVERAL TIMES. Smart bitches wandered past to say hello. Many many people entered your contests and they were FUN, dammit. I mean you had seventy five people making up great 55 word stories. Me: Yup, I remember. I do miss the Bosnian sock contests. Here, lemme make you feel better and put in a link for the latest contest. That make you feel better? Blog : Screw it. Hardly. That's a lame contest. Nothing creative about it. Me: I wanted to make it easy. Blog : Exactly. And still no one's entering. Aren't you worried that you're not getting the contest entries? Me: Hey, I got at least 14 people entering. And there's time. More people might still visit. And promote m...

Catty and ilona You've won a print copy or ebook copy of a Summer book Or Kate's latest ebook, Thank You, Mrs. M But don't forget the bigger contest. More prizes! M&Ms! Gift certificate! Books! Yay! It's still going on and you can enter until August 29. Just comment on my blog AND mention the contest or my books in your own blog/facebook/twitter or whatever account. (You'll have to point out the "I pimped you, Kate" entry via email or comment here. I stopped googling myself a while back and I'm trying to stay off the interwebs more these days. Yeah, right.)

The contest --- enter it. So very easy. Go on. And you should check out next month's big event, romance unleashed, UNLEASH YOUR STORY .

So in this long-winded blog post, I eventually tsk slightly (let's make it clear it was a mild tsk, minus a snarky eye roll) about an author's promo campaign . It'll backfire, I predicted. Maybe the tactic didn't sell more of that particular Kensington book, but here's what it also didn't do: hurt her career. In a recent twitter, Delilah Marvelle wrote: Looks like I've been outed by Publisher's weekly & my fabulous agent, Donald Maass! I sold 3 books in my How 2 Avoid A Scandal series to HQN Sometimes I'm wicked glad I'm wrong. Go, Delilah!

I did like the old design a lot but I never did figure out how to make changes. So I had to do something I can play with. Anyway. See any mistakes? I'll blame the webmistress who's a total techno-feeb-ola. New page is here.

another nice review for Thank You, Mrs. M. "Thank You, Mrs. M. is a wonderful read. One enjoyable aspect was learning of the give and take between the characters as seen from Ben's viewpoint when he sends his recordings and, at times, his E-Mails. Another was seeing how the characters grew and changed as their circumstances changed. This is a poignant and enjoyable read." * * * * Oops. Almost forgot the link to the contest . I can't fall behind on the nagging -- school's starting in a few weeks and I have to be in top chivvying form.

Blue M&Ms may mend spinal injuries. Yet another reason to enter the contest.

1. How come you haven't entered the contest? It's easy. Go down to the previous entry and COMMENT . You can write "this is a comment" and it counts. Seriously. Plus I think I'll add an UNOPENED bag of M&Ms to the grand prize. MMmmm. A big bag. Enter it or I will open the bag. 1a. So we're talking a gift certificate, a book, M&Ms. How can you hold yourself back? 2. I've rediscovered M&Ms this week and there are so many creative ways to eat them. No, I'm not thinking sexual, potty-minds, though that has potential I suppose. I mean letting them melt in the mouth or the hand, or mooshing them up with a mortar and pestle. I haven't eaten that many. Really. 3. The visiting dog's HOLYSHITBADGUYSENEMIESALERTKILLDIE barking out of nowhere attacks still get to me and I wonder if maybe that sudden lurch into hyper-mode is a form of cardiac exercise. They must have done studies on this, They Would. "Get Heart-Fit with the Startle Respon...

Here's the deal. I have two book events last week: 1. a 4.5 star Romantic Times review for Thank You, Mrs. M .... I'd put it up but I think they don't like that when it's not on their website yet. 2. and a print copy of Taken Unaware became available. Also in the still-hanging-in-there news, Summer Devon got a new contract from EC ** So. I am going to give away a print book on Tuesday and then one on Friday. And the first three people who make a remark here on the blog will get a download of the book that got the nice review. And then I'm going to give away two more books at the end of the month, too. Got that? I've been entering contests lately and they've gotten pretty complicated. Yet I also have the standard craving shared by all writers: that is have to have other people post about my books and my blogs and my contest and me, me, me,*** so I'll add rule two and the usual bribe. The rules: 1. Comment below on this blog and maybe win a book t...