kate rothwell

Let's get the promo out of the way. The SAMMIES are happening and my Summer Devon book, Unnatural Calamities , is up for best ebook cover and best ebook. You should vote for here: THE VOTING LINK! There are a lot of really good books up on that list. I had a hard time deciding who else to vote for. But I did pick Sandy Blair because she's a sweetie-pie. Too many great books to choose so I went with the fabu one by the doll-faced sweetie-pie.  In other news: my book that I tried to make free with a coupon is now just plain free . Here's the link at Smashwords .  It's over at All Romance Ebooks too, but it's not free at Amazon yet. Why am I making it free? Because the newsletter I wrote turned into so much gibberish that the special code to make it free was gone. Also because I'm following the herd. Everyone seems to make books free and just as the books are catching on, they zip over and jack up the price to a buck or so. This ebook world is one wild and w...

Current discussion: Can a bandersnatch be non-frumious? Does it really smell like a jackal? Surely that slug-like creature in several illustrations is a misrepresentation. What is funnier, a penguin or orc shapeshifter? Can a werewolf be an animal care-giver, or would the central conflict of constantly craving blood at the full moon mean that zoo-keeping is right out as a profession.

First chapter of the first book by me, Kate. I just got to beta-read a Bonnie Dee story and you didn't. My life is good. That's two books I've beta-read this summer that I love. I wonder what happened to Heidi's story? Another reason life is thumbs up, I got to wake up from the worst dream ever of a picnic in a field of bones. Standard nightmare B-grade movie visions of bone-y hands reaching from the earth. Bones rolling under our feet, making us trip and fall onto more bones, with just a thin layer of dirt and grass to disguise the sea of violent death. Waking up from that means I'm still alive..... for the moment. I have to drag a kid off to back-to-school shopping. We're not in an all-fired-big-ass-hurry but it's either that or get back to editing one of two stories lurking on my computer and when I say edit I mean rewrite nearly every painful word.

and I'll get sued for unfair use or something but it'll be worth it. ( I think fenrislorsrai wrote it.)

I think it's time to get back to reading Literature again. I've had a streak of YA and easy reads but a varied diet keeps one regular. Don't want to clog up the system with too much of one genre. I've noticed that when I read books by people who are much smarter than I am, there's a nimbus effect. Their little glow rubs off on my brain. ew. Anyway, the emotional chunk of my mind is always in gear. Other bits need some charging up. It's a temporary effect, but I'm sure it delays the decay of the little grey cells ... by a few hours at least. Except I'm trying to find things to do with a bored 14-year-old. I hate driving; he hates staying home; the summer programs are over. There aren't friends around so I can't foist him off on other people. We'll have to do something so I don't look back on these days with regret. I want to push fast-forward on various parts of my life until they're past and then I want rewind. It's a good thi...

Oh, honestly. The people in this book are crying so often they need to rehydrate. My son's southern accent might be worse than my midwestern accent. We need an expert to listen to us both and decide who's more dreadful. Does instant coffee taste better these days or am I less discerning? Twitter has ruined my ability to write paragraphs or think of any subject for more than a minute or two. Hey has Charlene Teglia had that baby yet or is she on the roof taking out people with a bazooka like she threatened?

Diane Wynn Jones, Judith Merkle Riley, Edith Layton...all these writers keeling over. I found an author whose work I really love and went to read about him. Yay! He's younger than me! he'll keep producing as long as I need him. I better write to him and warn him not to pull an Emma Jensen. * * * * * If Horatio Alger released his top seller RAGGED DICK today, it would have to be one wicked BDSM title. (yeah, I tweeted that, but really I don't want to be alone with that imagery. Also what price MOBY DICK?) * * * * * Today's earworms are a series of Al Stewart songs. The tunes are meh, but at least the lyrics are interesting. I'm just enough of a hypochondriac to wonder if earworms are a sign of BDS (brain dissolving syndrome) Anyway. I'm going to Pandora on to drive out "On the Border" and "Chelsea Hotel" and get back to writing a cheerful pot dealer who's going to cause trouble for The Hero.

1. My house is full of men's voices and the only males in the place at the moment are my kids. My baby's voice is still cracking now and then, but he's almost done with that voice change over. I remember the shocking day when I heard some man talking downstairs. I ran down and discovered it was my oldest son. That moment was like the first time you hear someone call you mommy -- a kind of a thrill of squee-yay! we have reached a big point. But this stuff doesn't stay exciting very long. The next time someone calls you that, it's no longer a thrill and in a couple of years mommmmeeeeeeeee becomes one of your least favorite word. And that last baby saying mommy? Old hat. This last manly voice isn't bringing on a squee, poor young fish misses out on the celebration. But here; it's in a blog. 2. And in another repeat-that-isn't-as-breath-taking as the first-time (thank goodness on this one), I've been cleared once again after a needle biopsy. That first ...

Snow report: back snow still about 1 foot tall and impressive. pile in front less than 6" tall and this rain should do it. Book report: Yup, I'm reading -- Kim Harrison. I was annoyed by how people are portrayed as good, then bad, then good. In love, out of love, attracted, hate, love...but now I'm used to it. Everyone is a mix and Rachel, the narrator, really wants black and white so she'll keep switching back and forth in her opinion. I sometimes I wish it was in third person. Also I'm reading some book my college aged kid left behind, Early Judaism: Religious Worlds of the First Judiac Millenium. Works for insomnia. My Book Report: The Mad Baron will be out next week, I think. Food report: We have strawberries and I need some now, I think.

I was offered a $5 gift certificate from Amazon for retweeting some ad. I retweeted, used my $5, and got a $20 gift certificate from Roku. So I used it. And when I plugged in the Roku I was offered a $5 gift certificate from Amazon. Maybe I'll use it, but I'm a bit wary. This could keep going for a while before I run out of money. Speaking of using the Roku -- whatever you hear about how bad Troll 2 is? Is not an exaggeration. That movie is that bad and worse. Also. There is snow, at last.

Blogger wanted me to add all these buttons, so I did. Will that increase traffic? Do I care? A bit, though not as much as I once did. I used to have a little number count on my page but something I clicked or added made it go away. After a half-assed attempt to find out what happened, I had one of those mini-epiphanies. Its absence is a Good Thing. I can't be writing my blog -- or my books -- with too much attention paid to traffic. And my nature is that any attention is too much. I'm one of those authors who used to watch those Amazon, Fictionwise and any other "You Are (un)Popular!" numbers go up and down. In one direction, abandonment, which leads to heartbreak. Or, if you become popular, extreme self-consciousness sets in. All of the above have happened to me at various points since 2004. Madness, heartbreak, paralyzing self-consciousness. Okay, maybe I can't blame the madness on you guys. And it wasn't really madness. But I blame you invisible readers ...

It doesn't seem fair that they can edit out the vuvuzelas during the replays. We have a divided household. Boy against boy. Brother fighting brother. Vuvuzela worshipper vs. Vuvuzela hater. Also I don't know if I should buy chicken breasts or lunch meat for dinner. And I keep starting sentences with And Also But and should be fined for this bad habit. And then there are the people who are offended by this and the rest of us who think it's pretty funny because we have heard the phrase "Grammar Nazi" a lot . often. UPDATE: Seriously we need milk and I can't seem to get going because the whole BREAST vs. LUNCH MEAT controversy remains and will come to a head once I make it to Hall's Market. This is all too much to face on top of the vuvuzela debate. I'm going to go read more Harry Bosch instead...I've used up all the Susan Elizabeth Phillips in the house. Rule one of reading SEP: don't go reading Mrs. Giggles reviews of it afterwards because s...

I got tired of my old header ("random, occasionally about writing and getting published") because I don't seem to write about writing or publishing much these days. And the word random is used too often and used wrong. It's not "nauseous" or "hopefully" but edging into their territory. I'm getting used to the eerie computer voice on my Kindle. I started listening to it when I got a batch of books I wanted to read but was in a multi-tasking mood. It's the same odd computer voice that'll read to you with Word. I was listening to a book that had a hero named Cal and I thought how sweet it was that people called him California and then realized only happened at the end of a sentence. Whoops. Speaking of Kindle (tangent, see?) Did you see that the Amazon bestselling Kindle list is going to split? Freebies and pay-for books are going to be put into different categories. Makes sense. Back to the story I'm writing with Bonnie. I'm doi...

1. I just added this blog to my goodreads feed. I'm not sure how I managed to do that but woo, cool. 2. My dreams have been so vivid lately, I want to go to sleep to catch the latest. 3. 1 part cranberry juice, 1 part oj, 10 parts water--> I've been drinking that for years and the kids all laugh at me. And now it's apparently all the rage; I paid $3 for an 12 oz bottle of some healthy stuff at Whole Foods that tasted just like it. 4 . for anyone still interested in the crap car, the car I bought by accident , the car that Gene Weingarten loved and wrote about more than once , the car that made me famous, and then made every man who's ever read or written smut--and every woman who hates the term smut-- despise me . . . . . We got the title for that very car a couple of days ago, and in big letters across the bottom of the title are the words MILEAGE EXCEEDS MECHANICAL LIMITS. We can guess at that meaning. 5. My baby's voice is cracking. It's funny and we...

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...

1. Probably bad that the major response I have to my husband's tiny little fender bender (involving our own 2 cars and costing well over $1000) is: It wasn't me. I didn't do it. NOT me--someone else! It isn't my fault! Yay! The inner middle-schooler's response is never far from the surface. Constant guilt about almost everything. My current theory: You lose the magic thinking after childhood. but you can't shake the residual guilt about having all that power over the world. Guilt: the id's lizard brain at work. :-P Also when you spend all day alone at work (like I do) you lose perspective fast. 2 . Speaking of writing, I need someone to kick my butt back into work gear. Also I'd like to shift into exercise mode more easily again. Are there pills for these things? Pills are easy. What happened to the coffee achievers? How come that's not working any more? 3. That Alfred E Newman-Smith dinner always struck me as disgusting insidery-beltway self-cong...

The second graduation did include the "today is not an ending but a beginning" line. Mike called it, which means he wins a million dollars but only if he comments below and since he doesn't read this blog, he's gonna remain dirt poor and never even know what he's lost. Such a shame. I've had insomnia for a couple of weeks now. I fall asleep and then wake up about two and that's about it. Chronic insomnia can have some advantages. When one finally dozes off between 5-7 am, the dreams are beyond amazing. I remember that from the newborn stage of parenting. Last night I was thinking about a stalled story as I tried to go to sleep again. I dozed off and the plot showed up in a technicolor dream with a great solution. Unfortunately it means that the story no longer qualifies as a romance, but maybe it's time to move to something new. I got a perfect ending in my sleep or what passes for sleep these days. and that's positively biblical. Joseph, right? ...

First..... LOCAL TERRRISTS!

1. Cilantro . I used to think it tasted like soap, now I love the stuff. Mmmm. Cilantro. 2. Olives . My sister loved them and I wanted to, too, because Nan was so cool. Eventually trying them over and over worked. I like them all now. Even the salty shriveled ones. Yum. 3. Gay marriage. First time I heard about it, I thought it was a joke. I don't recall being strongly opposed to it, I just didn't see why it was important. Now I do. I still see a joke in the topic--people who somehow think it'll destroy their straight marriages = Heh, funny. 4. Romances. I thought they were all trash. I no longer do that ranking thing with genres, ever ("literary books are Better than fantasy are Better than mysteries are Better than romances") because it's stoopid and pointless and leaves out too much good stuff. 5. Books with "a novel" written under the title. I boycotted them for a while just because. Now I think there are too many to ignore them. And anyway, ...

Sometimes when I listen to this I get all verklempt to the point of needing to go for a run. The sap is running way too high. I really like Zimerman** but don't watch, just listen. Or maybe you can but I can't--I've seen too many Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny concert renditions that makes it impossible to watch anything that involves a guy in tails sitting at a piano. and oh, okay, here's the barcarolle that margaret likes. When the time comes, she says, just push her out to sea and play this. I say you want passionate sentiment, skip Andrew Lloyd and go straight for Chopin. _____ ** he's so young here, too. Wow.