kate rothwell

Promo time: Unleash your book is almost here. We've lined up some great prizes for top donation-earners. You can find details of the fund-raiser here: HERE and you can sign up directly with Cystic Fibrosis Foundation here: HERE And if you don’t want to bother keeping track of pages you WRITE, you can try it out with pages you READ. Readers and writers are encouraged to enter. Here are some of the prizes: (I’m still trying to track down a Sony reader--the Alphasmart Neo is a yes!!!!) Critiques, signed books and more AlphaSmart Neo - Designed specifically for writing, NEO is the rugged, low-cost, lightweight, non-stop, power-writing notepad that provides quick and easy writing access from any location. Its instant-on function lets you download your thoughts immediately, and with NEO’s low-energy consumption you can compose for hours, days, and months at a time―up to 700 hours on three AA batteries, or up to 300 hours using the rechargeable batte...

I just finished another begging letter and am blithely sending it off to a potential donor. No hesitation. So why is it so easy for me to ask for these romance unleashed prizes and yet so hard to push for my books and my friends' books? It really isn't a matter of rejection. I don't actually mind rejection much and, no, this is not a lie because otherwise I would have given up this job years ago. (Rejection's okay; it's utter silence I loathe.) I guess I'm trying to avoid the image that I'm pushy for personal gain. And that whole clique thing of supporting fellow authors. It sometimes is an iffy thing to do. It helps that I'm unambiguous about raising money for this cause. I've met kids with cystic fibrosis (and one of us Unleashed authors has two kids with it). CF is a stupid, horrible condition. Grrr. Go away, CF. Research through CFF isn't just looking for a cure, which would be good enough to win my work, it also has helped make quality of ...

Just call me miladyinsanity. I have your contest news here. Lori Devoti is giving away TWO first chapter critiques from Sean Mackiewicz, editorial assistant for NEXT and Nocturne. If you are interested in targeting either of these lines or just in getting a professional critique, this is a great opportunity. And it’s simple to enter. Just decide whether Lusse from Lori Devoti's June 2007 Nocturne release, Unbound, should be brought back in another book–yes or no. And then your reason for your answer. Keep the answers short, but with a little meat. Lori will announce the winners on her blog on July 4th, and the winners will have until August 1st to get the chapter together and to Sean. To enter, email your answer to Lori at winacritique@loridevoti.com. Good Luck! Thanks!! Lori

This probably goes with the romance unleashed/romance-to-kill-for thing. Miss Information. But it's a rant so I'll make it a SBD and then I get to say hey at Beth's. Multiple POVs are happening in every damn book I'm reading (no romances at the moment) and the truth is they're not badly done. Sure some of the shifts are fast, but you can easily figure out by context etc whose head we're in. The trouble is I've been beaten by the romance world rules, and rule number one is We Are In The Heroine Or Hero's POV Period. No one else. And we are told we are supposed to stick around for a long time. Even a chapter, dammit. Anyway, no one told this to these authors of YA and kids' books. So when I read, I see the rules being broken and then I'm pulled away from fantasy land. I hate that this crapola standard intrudes in my reading. I have the automatic "uh oh! you shouldn't be in that boy's head! He's not important in this story." or...

1. When I was a teenager, I worked for part of a summer as a tourguide in my home town, Washington, DC. I had a spiel and I was a good girl for a while. But then. . . okay, so I told a group or two that the Washington Monument was leaning a bit. Built on a swamp, don't you know. I didn't bother with the high water mark lie. Pfah. Everyone did that one. I stole the leaning one, but I had a couple of others I'd invented. That's the one I remember because everyone saw the way the monument leaned after I told them that. Only to a few people, okay? And yeah, I do feel kind of guilty. 2. We at Romance Unleashed are doing a cross-talk act with Romance Worth Killing For . It's all about rotten how-to-get published advice we've gotten, and are happy to share--or something along those lines. 3. A review of Taming Him at Romance Junkies. 4.5 stars, no lie. 4. I'm listening to Peter and the Starcatchers . I got the disks from the library for the boys and am now a...

I blogged over at romance unleashed . I like the other writer's essay better--I've been stuck in crank mode for a while now. A happy woman jumping up and down at the gym yesterday was on about how we "choose our moods." I think soon I'll " choose to stop being a pill ." Of course I have no idea what I'll choose instead. Aggressive go-getter ? Meek ray of sunshine? Thoughtful philosopher ? What persona should I wear tomorrow? I think I'll aim for Of Course I'm a Very Popular Author, You Sil ly ** for Sunday. I'm part of a group book-signing then , unless I choose the currently popular sick as a dog mode. _______ ** Hey, you can't believe everything you read.