Blog (Page 35)

I have so many odds and ends to mention, so I think I’m just toss them in together. 😀 I saw the neurologist yesterday and we had a good visit, although I’m a little bummed over his “plan” of treatment. Basically, he wants me to stop taking all painkillers so that he can start me on a prevenitive medication for the migraines and so we can actually see how much it’s helping. Simple, no? Yeah, right. I mean I understand why I need to do it but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to do. He suspects, and, to be honest, so doRead More →

Saying what I intend to do here because invariably I don’t do it. At least not as fast as I expect. Real life’s been that way lately. Anyway, I just posted an explanation of what I think might work for the Reader Network, so please go over there and comment if you’re at all interested in being involved. Also, if you find you can’t comment there, please come back and let me know here. I think I may’ve messed up the settings the first time around and had to go back and tweak a couple of things. I want to make sure I haven’t madeRead More →

And I was almost late getting it there. I have one idea for what I was going to post, but then felt really uncertain about it, so I dithered and finally new inspiration hit. So, go check out The comfort of rereading. I have a few errands to run but when I get back the only things on my agenda is to catch up on comments here and put together an organizational post for the new Reader Network blog to let everyone one know how I “think” it can work. Read More →

I was checking to see if there was a new update to WordPress and suddenly decided to try something. Check out the new Reader Network look and feel . . . this is not the old forum link, mind you, although it’s still there. At least at present. I’ll explain more in a post there.Read More →

Just been buried under family stuff for the last few days and today I was out most of the day taking my father for a checkup at the doctor’s and running related errands. On top of that, I got a flu shot while we were there. Technically I’m under the recommended age – ain’t it nice to be underage for something? ;p – but since I’m primary caretaker for someone who is in that group, it’s also recommended. Second teir or something. Lucky me. They say there aren’t any side effects but I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. I almost fellRead More →

So, how come I prefer it in romances most of the time? I knew this already but it was truly driven home while reading The Naked Marquis and then sort of skimming through The Naked Duke, both by Sally MacKenzie. I truly enjoyed both as the rather lightweight and humorous Regency historicals they are but I also have to admit that the double paragraph breaks she employs to separate the points of view of each character made me twitch after a while. At least a little. It wasn’t even so much the breaks in TNM as it was the fact that she would actually backtrack within the middle ofRead More →

I’m working on an idea for my next Romancing the Blog post and need your help. I’m trying to come up with a list of reasons why readers might skip/skim love scenes in romances for comparison to, um, something else I don’t want to talk about yet. 😉 Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Too many/too repetitive – This is mainly where an author is known for having a lot but it also happens when their loves scenes always seem to be the same Noticeable break between writing style of the main narrative and the love scenes themselves – I’ve only noticed this withRead More →

So, I guess it’s time to clean it out, especially since I don’t seem to be in the mood to read anything new yet. In the last week or so, I’ve managed to reread: First up, Only For You by Hannah Howell. She’s one of those authors that I’m not completely sold on but not completely turned off of either. The book that keeps me checking on her “progress” is this one. It’s not really a favorite and yet . . . I do tend to like to reread it every couple of years. (And that’s a thought, maybe I should arrange my favorites list by how oftenRead More →

Tara asked about access to the forum in the comments to the previous post, so I thought this would be a good time to open a discussion on what to do about the Reader Network in general. Basically, I finally had to close down the forum because it was being totally spammed and I couldn’t figure out how to keep it from happening, i.e. as administrator/moderator, I could catch individual posts before they went up but not necessarily keep the spammers from gaining some access to email information, which I find totally weird for a supposedly good forum program and phpBoards is suposedly one. If someoneRead More →

Fast. Because I do not want to get involved in another review discussion but I can feel my blood pressure rising this time at some of the comments about readers on Running with Quills today. I’m not even going to link to the post. The only thing keeping me from commenting there is that I don’t believe I’ve posted there before. I’m certainly not going to start with this one but I’m also sort of speechless as what response would even work so that helps too. 😉 Do people honestly believe that we can ignore that type of attitude towards us poor illiterate readers? Also, do people notRead More →

What kind of mood exactly, I have no idea. I have a basketful of brand new books and don’t want to read any of them. I’ve looked over my shelves so many times in the last day or so that I’m tired of doing that.  I did finally pick out one of Stephanie Laurens Bastion Club books, A Lady of His Own, just to have something in my hands but I honestly can’t say I’m actually happily rereading it. More picking it up when I have nothing better to do. Which is weird because Laurens tends to be my comfort read author nowadays. The problem isRead More →

Just a thought that hit me while posting a comment on Angie’s blog. I mean, really, when did anyone but best sellers start expecting to be able to make a living writing? Seems to me, most great writers only have a handful of truly good books in them, much less masterpieces. And even if a pop fiction writer masters the art of cranking out half-way decent novels on a regular basis, there’s still going to be a finite number of those writers that can actually make a living at it. So, what’s with this concept that readers are supposed to support them all? Okay, I KNOW that’sRead More →

Whether to be upset with myself or proud of myself because I got sucked into another discussion of reviews. Well, there’s some comfort in the fact that it wasn’t really about the unresolvable issue I truly hate to get mired in - that being what are reviews, what makes up a good review, etc. At least, I don’t think it was initially, anyway. What will invariably suck me in nowadays is when people start acting as if readers should have the exact same concerns as authors and should therefore sympathize when their books are “attacked” but at the same time can’t possibly understand where authors are coming from because they’re only readers or worseRead More →

Okay, extra, extra good guys are acceptable too, especially if they wear a cape . . . ahem, back on topic. A title & cover mentioned by Nicole a while back got me all salivating for a book with angels in it as a break from all the dark, um, devil types we’ve been inundated with lately. You know the ones I mean. Then I got to thinking some more and realized that, while I’m sure I’ve run across romance with angel heroines, I can’t remember any angel heroes. Hmmm. Further thought – is there a hidden sexist message in that? (Heh, what am I saying. Isn’t thereRead More →