kate rothwell

1. I really like Jeanne Ray's Step-Ball-Change . It's fluffy but dammit, the world needs more fluff, not less. 2. I'm reading books for a contest. A few are dumb. One is good. One is well-written but I loathe the main character. I can't seem to grade those books. I've lost confidence about what counts as an important factor. That must mean I'm becoming an expert. 3. I am tempted to look up how many times I whine about contests on this blog, but that will only depress me more. 4. If I number things in this blog, will they seem more significant? 5. Maybe, maybe not but this, definitely. 6. I'll link to this old one about contests but only because I like the song.

Now if only Amazon would change the description so that people wouldn't be so annoyed by the sudden appearance of another book at the end. Also if only this was making the monies. Ah well. Like my superb photoshopping? I am the PhotoShopQueen!

Seducing Miss Dunaway has been free at Allromanceebooks for a while. It's been $0.00 at Smashwords for more than a week. AND NOW it's FREE AT AMAZON.  LOW AMAZON NUMBERS FOR THIS =   ** So you have no excuse. Go pick up a copy. You don't read heart-warming Victorian romances? Gowwan. Buy it anyway to make my numbers look good. I'm looking for a reason to celebrate so I can buy an expensive cup of coffee with whipped cream on the top. __________ **  book = yummy coffee for me, but you can buy some too with the money you save getting this FREE NOVELLA.

HAPPY RELEASE DAY! Go buy our book while it's discounted. Okay?  For the Psychic and the Sleuth I got to dig into some juicy material. Take a society obsessed with death, add a backlash against science and the age of Darwinism--and you have the makings of world in which spiritualism was bound to thrive.     The characters of that age seem so much more colorful than today’s mediums, showmen, and hacks. Here are two of my favorite famous psychics from the past: LOOK DEEEP INTO MY EYES. (from here ) Madame Blavatsky , a Russian living in London, founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. Theosophy means “knowledge of the divine” It was (and still is) based on uniting practitioners with more enlightened spiritual beings from another plane. From a website celebrating Madame Blavatsky: In the 1800's they [the spirits from another dimension] had been searching for a century for the next messenger and finally settled upon Helena Blavatsky, b...

Hey, Hilary Sares, I miss you. I'm the one who gave you Bosnian socks and some books, not the coffee mug (she had so many writers in her life, she mixed us up). Also now that you're a ghost writer, I'd give you this shirt from woot.com

I've done it before, a couple of years ago (!!) and I made an effort to ask editors and Successful Writers what they think should appear in all synopses.  Read the above links --I did actual work on them. I'm kind of lazy today so I'll not bug the editors etc and hope they bug me. I'm a writer. Sitting and waiting for someone to tell me The Truth about Synopses. Hey, I know what--I'll look for hashtags on twitter. But still. If you have info about synopsis you'd like to share, I'll give you credit. Free promo, mo fo!** _______ ** I'd like to point out that Lauren Dane is one of the writers who gave me advice and since then (okay maybe around then, as well) she has turned into a best-selling author. More than a coincidence? Give Kate advice and then become The BOMB!? I do not think so.

I'm watching the UK version of Being Human these days, doing a glom. I tried Buffy but it was too high school, fake high school, I mean. TV's version of high school feels familiar only because it's always the same place TV always visits. Not the school I knew or my kids attend. Thank you God for that. And Buffy might have been cutting edge a while back but now, eh, old stuff, cliche-city. Kind of like Shakespeare's full of cliches, maybe? Many people seem to love it, so there must be something there. ANYWAY,  the name of this post is a word my mother used to say. That's how I heard it, and I'm sure it's not spelled that way--couldn't be, since it's Russian. And the L? Was there an L? It meant uncultured, I think, but also vulgar, a galoot's choice. It's what I want these days. My mother considered television a wasteland, except PBS was occasionally all right. I want to like Buffy the vampire and I read/write romance. She wouldn't be c...

A review for Unnatural Calamities.  and one for The Gentleman and the Rogue.    People like the books! Yay!** I've written a lot of books and I think these two were the most fun to write. UC, because I was playing around and G&R because it was actually the first time Bonnie and I collaborated successfully (we had a half book or two lying around before this one.) Except, hold the presses, now that I'm thinking back, I really got a kick out of writing Thank You, Mrs. M , and Irrational Arousal was a fun time too. And Somebody Wonderful , that was mostly a good time to write as well. Lately writing has been a labor more than a labor of love, so it's nice to recall that sometimes sitting down and working is a good time. I'm trying to fish out the good times and plaster them on this wall to remind myself. Not exactly a New Year's resolution. More like a "while I'm waiting to make some money, there is this to recall" event. A form of motiv...

I've decided that Al Stewart should be better appreciated. He's got that plummy voice, the kind you think should be singing kids' songs, and the tunes seem pretty simple (not that I know) and probably out-dated. . . but here's the thing, his songs are great.  They're filled with ambiguity and loss and change and loneliness and history and whole stories and word play. . . . If he sang like Dylan or Waits, he'd still be played all the time and probably listed as Wildly Influential everywhere.  I've got Modern Times, The Dark and the Rolling Sea, Next Time,  On the Border and Broadway Hotel on my MP3 player for running. I still like them all these years later--in fact I like them more. I wouldn't play them for my kids, though. There's that Top 40s voice thing.

It's posted over at Renee Bagby's place. The chapter is free; reading it is easy.

Listen. I got what you want. Seriously, if this is what people want to read, I should be a freaking best-selling author.** Most of my books are set in the 1880s -- I've done a lot of research about that era and feel comfortable there. “a fine eye for detail, Rothwell recreates the era beautifully.” -- RT Bookclub These links are all to Amazon.  Here's my list: Somebody Wonderful --1880s hero=NYC cop/ heroine=wealthy but not a lady-like person (she's based on Pauline from Perils of Pauline) Somebody to Love --heroine=mixed-race chef/ hero=brother of SW heroine. Granted the guy is wealthy, but he doesn't have a title. Okay? Good. Someone To Cherish --hero=NYC cop/heroine=impoverished innocent Powder of Sin --hero=a detective/ heroine=okay she's a wealthy heiress, daughter of nobility. But she's half American and she lives in NYC. The Mad Baron --Does a baron have to count? He's hardly a duke or earl. She's a shop-girl and he's an addict. ...

I promised myself I would never, ever read another Jane Austen based book. No. Way. Anything by Austen, yeah, you betcha I'd read her books again (Maybe not Mansfield Par k, but no one reads that book more than once, unless they're writing a paper.) I liked Austenland by Shannon Hale as a bit of escapist fun but many of them? Ugh. I haven't finished any of them, except a Joan Aiken or two (and she had too much gothick action.) I've read better Potter fan fiction on the webs. Speaking of which, here's WTF fanfiction which should be examined when you're in the mood to laugh at pitiable writing. At best the Austen-based books feel like a shellacking of a legend, as in applying a glossy surface to something that should remain lively and able to breathe. The worst ones are just. . . .no.Not my cup of tea. But then I had to grab a book fast at the library, and the only one I could find was the Jane Austen Book Club. I'm only part way through it and I lov...

Hey, look it! There I am again! Go on over and say something because, once again, the world watches to see if anyone bothers to comment. And the world feels that I shouldn't be ignored. By "world" I mean me and the dog that's leaning against me.  Except wait, no, never mind. She's closed her eyes and is snoring. Half the world has stopped watching. I'm still here though, watching, watching, watching. . . I'm loving the Eloisa James books I'm reading. She follows a formula but what do I care? Answer: more power to her. I'm only sad that Carol Bly (her mom) didn't get it. I love Carol Bly's work--I read her essays years ago and they haunted me. The idea that down-deep examinations of the darkness within is the only way to think and write properly seems sort of sad because it means that that's the only capital T Truth you can see. I think it's a bad idea not because I'm a (reverse) snob but because bleak doesn't provide tot...