Monday, January 31, 2011

Ten Things I Learned from Gymuary

Well, it's the final day of Gymuary, and I still have bronchitis. That sort of knocks my big 5K running goal finale on the head…but no matter. Maybe I'll do that on March 1. Get it? 3.1 miles on 3/1?

I wouldn't quite call Gymuary an epic failure, despite the fact that I fell flagrantly short of my goal. Thirteen days out of thirty-one! Not even a fifty percent completion rate. Stupid blizzards. Stupid dangerously low temperatures. Stupid bronchitis. Stupid injury…oh wait, that one was my fault. But onward! To assure myself that the experiment was not a complete flop, here are ten things I learned from this first month of Discipline Year:
  1. January is poor month to pick if you're looking to go to the gym every day in New England.
  2. I like Zumba! And it's okay to look a sweaty clod while learning something new.
  3. The busy, walk-signless street that I cross to get to my gym, the one which gives me disproportionate anxiety when I haven't been out of the house enough, loses much of its scariness after a few days' exposure (hermitic writer alert).
  4. Locker 118 sucks. Request a different one when they hand you that key.
  5. I am not immune to the Katie Perry virus. Teenage Dream in now on my running shortlist.
  6. I can run as fast or faster than nearly all the dudes in my gym, if not for long distances.
  7. I need to listen to my body more, and less to my adrenal glands. Not all twinges are the sensation of normal, spirited exertion.
  8. It's okay to give up on Revolved Triangle pose. Some things aren't meant to be.
  9. You can indeed go to gym dressed like a total schlub and no one will look at you funny.
  10. A more reasonable goal would have been, "I will go to the gym every day I am physically able." That one I would have met!
So tomorrow kicks off Face-Off February, the dreaded month of no-makeup. Swing by and see what I look like, all naked up in the face!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Sunday Puzzle

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist
extraordinaire, Will Shortz
If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog…at least not before the submission deadline. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle:

From Alan Meyer of Newberg, Ore.: Think of a common word that's six letters long and includes a Q. Change the Q to an N, and rearrange the result to form a new word that's a synonym of the first one. What are the words?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting, check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Gymuary non-update

It's been a while since I've brought everyone up to speed on how Gymuary is progressing, and I'm sad to say it's not because of my deep appreciation of how boring it is, listening to people talking about what they did at the gym.

As it turns out, January is a pretty lousy pick if you're determined to go to the gym every single day for a month. At least in New England. We're now twenty-nine days into January, and I've only gone thirteen of those days. As a consolation to my overworked guilt gland, I never once failed to go to the gym simply because I didn't want to. The spirit was willing. Those gym-fails were due to two blizzards, two days of dangerously low negative temperatures (I walk to my gym), one injury, and now bronchitis. I'm bummed. I'm also just a little impressed with myself for having not wonked myself up worse than I may have out of blind determination. As one of my yoga instructors likes to tell me as I'm triangle-ing, I hyperextend.

Basically, it'll be a miracle if my bronchitis goes away by Monday and I can make it in for a final Gymuary workout. Trust me, I'd love nothing more. I have cabin fever like you wouldn't believe, plus I do my best story brainstorming while I'm exercising. I'm itching to work out. And so sadly, Discipline Year's first month is sort of a big fat FAIL, but for legitimate reasons.

Onward and upward! It's nearly Face-Off February, and luckily, I can't fail that challenge due to circumstances beyond my control. A cosmetics tsunami won't sweep through and force foundation onto my face. The only thing that can cause me to fail is an acute attack of vanity. In fact, February is one of few challenges this year that will actually save me time, and demand less of my effort and energy than normal. I've got my before-and-after mugshots ready to go, so tune in on Tuesday as I kick off the next Discipline Year challenge.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Thrusty Thursday: Tina Fey

Several months ago it was suggested to me by the #1 Fun Blog's Special Correspondent Mike Myers (special because he can pee standing up) that I ought to consider thrusting against a woman one of these weeks. Alrighty then! You got it. The thrusting will be more platonic than it might be toward, say, Vincent Regan, but I'm game.

There is really only one choice for the inaugural lady-thrustin'. Tina Fey. Or more specifically, Liz Lemon. If you enjoy comedy and haven't seen 30 Rock, you are truly doing yourself a disservice. It's a great sitcom (no laugh track, hallelujah) that's stayed incredibly consistent in tone and quality for the past five seasons (and every single one of those seasons is on Nexflix Instant Watcher, incidentally).

For the uninitiated, Tina Fey plays comedy writer Liz Lemon, a character who is equal parts Cathy (of the infamous comic strip) and Mary Richards (of the Mary Tyler Moore Show). She is impossibly flawed, but in wonderful, atypical, original ways for a female TV character…she eats cheese late at night, she drunk-dials her prospective condo association board, she makes terrible romantic choices, she is petty, mean, pathetic, hopeless, conniving, hypocritical, weak, and lazy, yet you can't help but love her. It's really rather remarkable. In fact, I suspect 30 Rock may be the only show I can think of wherein I'm more excited for a certain female character's scenes than a male's. I can even forgive that the audience is supposed to overlook Tina Fey's rather striking good looks and believe that Liz Lemon is a fairly average woman, physically. For everything else 30 Rock delivers, I will happily buy in to that fantasy.

As I've said before, I find few things more endearing than when someone is unafraid to be seen at their most unflattering—making weird faces, owning up to bodily functions, generally being a flawed human being. And so I'll leave you all with this, the genius of Tina Fey, montaged:

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Does everyone get it, now?


I take a lot of flak from my extended family-in-law for my desire to squeeze round birds. Not to hurt the birds, mind you. Just to, you know…squeeze them. Gently. In my cupped hands. My cousins like to paint this as sexual deviance, but that's because they themselves are perverts. Ignorant perverts, trying to shift focus from their own issues. My bird-squeezing inclinations are one hundred percent nurturing. I mean, look at old Huggums up there, and tell me you don't want to give him a little squeeze. Just look at his thumbs!

Okay, technical stuff: this bird is not called Huggums, he is actually called a buff-breasted sandpiper. He does not have thumbs. He is not actually looking to get squozen, but rather he's performing his species' [hilarious] armpit-flashing mating dance. Photo credit to the talented Gerrit Vyn.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Awww, so sweet.

From YouTuber blau111. Thanks to my lady-cuz for the linkage:

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sunday Puzzle

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist
extraordinaire, Will Shortz
If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog…at least not before the submission deadline. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle:

Name a nationality. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and 10th letters in order name a country. Also the fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth and 12th letters in order also name a country. Neither country is related to the nationality. What nationality is this?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting, check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Recipe: Lazy Roast Chicken

It doesn't have to be this complicated!
I have no research to back this up, but I suspect that my generation of cooks has lost sight of the roast as an at-home, everyday meal option. But it's so delicious! It sounds daunting, because one envisions spending all afternoon roasting an entire chicken, removing (or forgetting to remove) the giblets, hoisting, carving, dodging bones, and generally feeling all too acquainted with the fact that dinner used to be an actual chicken. Let me help! Here's how I make roast chicken. It takes about 20–30 minutes of prep work, but the steps are super-easy.

This recipe serves 2–3, depending on appetites. You'll need:

olive oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (cage-free organic if you want to go to heaven) cut into large chunks (3 chunks per breast)
2 cups of your favorite type of potato (I prefer sweet potatoes) cut into chunks
1 cup carrots, cut into small chunks or medallions
3 cups broccoli florets (or cauliflower, or both)
1 red bell pepper, cut into large chunks
4 cloves garlic, sliced
½ medium onion, thinly sliced into rings
salt
black pepper
paprika
red pepper flakes

1. Drizzle 1 tsp. of olive oil onto the bottom of a large baking dish (roughly 12x12x2). Place chicken chunks in the middle of the dish with a bit of space between them. (Using chunks instead of whole breasts reduces cooking time, plus you won't need steak knives when you're eating.)

2. Fill the dish around the edges with potatoes and carrots. Sprinkle with salt.

3. Pile broccoli (and/or cauliflower) on top of potatoes. Peppers go on top of the broccoli. Sprinkle garlic slices over the entire dish. Separate onion rings and arrange them on top of the meat and vegetables.

4. Drizzle the top of the meat and veggies with 1–2 tsp. olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, paprika, and red pepper flakes.

5. Set oven to 375° and place the dish in the center, uncovered. Roast for 40–45 minutes, until the onion rings are browned and the broccoli has turned crispy at the edges. Chicken should be cooked all the way through.

6. Scoop meat and veggies onto plates, and serve as is or with a side of steak or barbecue sauce for dipping.

Friday, January 21, 2011

14 Thoughts for Aspiring Authors

Are you considering making fiction writing a full-time pursuit? I'm about two years into that transition, and I wanted to share some observations from the field. Quick recap. I've been writing diligently for two and a half years: nine months part-time while I worked as a graphic designer, trying to figure out if the story straining to burst from my bosom was any good; seven months writing and querying full-time but not yet published, after my office closed; seven months writing erotica full-time for an e-press and polishing my romances on the side; and for the past six months, still writing erotica and also short romance for both a traditional publisher (Harlequin Blaze) and a smaller, progressive digital and print publisher (Samhain). And so from the trenches of new authordom, here is what you may encounter as you make this journey…

1. You will get rejected. Lots.

2. But you could very possibly one day get a contract offer from a publisher or agent you respect, and if so, you will very suddenly forget how much those initial rejections stung.

3. You will need a ritual or treat for when you get good news—requests for partials or fulls, new contracts, exceptional reviews—something indulgent to punctuate the good moments. Rejections are sharp and painful and sudden as electric shocks, and you can't allow yourself to become one of Pavlov's dogs. Each and every time you hit Send, you are inviting another zap, and they can't make you shy from your goal. Sales and agent nibbles and contest wins are treats worthy of the risk, but it can't hurt to sweeten those triumphs further with a bottle or box of something pleasurable. Positive reinforcement.

4. Bad news does not warrant a ritual, merely an hour or day of mourning and owning your disappointment…and once the pile of horse crap also known as a rejection or a nasty review has ceased steaming, put on your grown-up writer gloves and dig around, just in case there's a little nugget of wisdom hidden in there. Note: rejection probably won't ever fail to hurt when it arrives, but as you cultivate your author calluses, it won't hurt as badly, or for as long.

5. On your journey, you will make new author friends. Perhaps through your writing group, or at conferences, or on a social networking site, or via a blog you participate in. Some of them will be the most excellent people ever. They will offer you free advice you can't find in a book. Some will turn out to be petty or competitive or maybe even mean, because fiction authors are inherently emotional, passionate, and sensitive creatures, just like you. Treat them kindly but use your intuition. Some hurtful people are having a shitty day or week or life, but some are just assholes. If you feel in your gut you've bumped into a genuine asshole, smile and back away slowly. Never bait an asshole. Save your worms for more worthwhile hooks.

6. You will set goals, and meet them. Or miss them. When you meet them, you will be proud to feel like a professional, driven writer, and you will set more goals. When you miss them, you will either come up with excuses (valid or otherwise), accept that you were being unrealistic, or admit that you dropped the ball. You will then set more goals, ones that are both realistic and ambitious. Writing is an addiction, one whose drug can do our souls great good, but we still have to manage our disease one day at a time. Writers get strung out very easily.

7. Your personal life will change. If you quit or lose a job and pursue writing in its place, you will have to adjust to the financial hit. If you have a partner, prepare for them to feel differently about you. Perhaps proud and fearlessly supportive, perhaps resentful, perhaps anxious, perhaps all of the above. You will feel differently, too. If you used to have a more lucrative gig, be prepared to find yourself redefining your worth in monetary terms, and worrying if the scale balancing your worth against your partner's may be tipping. Let yourself feel these worries, and if they don't land you in the hospital with a nervous breakdown or in the poor house, keep working toward your goal of professional writerdom.

8. As time goes on, you will diagnose yourself with authorly illnesses. Some will be real, some imagined. You may wake up with writer's block, carpal tunnel, back pain, eye strain, spontaneous retina detachment, Sedentary Ass Syndrome, and mental hermitism. Dim your screen. Be conscious of your posture. Go outside. Move your body and let your blood circulate and refresh your brain. Remind yourself that there's a world and people outside of what you've created in a Word document. Realize that writing is a very hard job to leave at the office. Accept and expect that it can be an all-consuming pursuit, and that there is a fine line between passionate abandon and narrowly focused self-obsession.

9. Things will be different after you sell. You will see yourself differently, and for a brief and beautiful time, you will feel like an invincible genius. Congratulations, you've made it to the start line. Long drive to the track, wasn't it? You may suddenly have more money, or perhaps just the promise of modest but real royalties. When your release day comes, you will feel both euphoric and vulnerable, like you're standing naked on a mountaintop. Because hooray, you have arrived! But oh noes, because now a thousand opinionated, internet-connected loud-mouths have been handed an open invitation to share their feelings about the thing you worked so hard to create. They will praise your baby and you will grin; they will tell you your baby is ugly and should never have been birthed. You will question whether or not making more babies is worth it, and if you are a writer, you will go and get yourself pregnant with the next book.

10. Once you are published, you will work with many professionals, and you will trust them with your precious work. You'll hand your baby over and pray they don't disfigure it. You'll pray they will hand it back to you, freshly bathed and wearing a precious new outfit with pockets stuffed with money, yet it will still unmistakably be your baby. But there is a chance they will not. They may run away with it and leave you bereft. They may mangle it, or dress it in clothes you cannot stand. They may return it to you unrecognizable. You may overhear them describing it to others, and you will think, That is not my baby. That is why before you hand it over, you have to perform background checks.

11. When you sell your work, you must understand that you have done so because someone expects to profit off of your labor. They did not buy your work because you inherently deserve such treatment. They did so because they expect to make money from you, and this is good. They trust you and have faith in your talent, and now you must decide whether or not to return the favor. Authors and their publishers live together in a strange and glorious kingdom, one in which both parties trade off the duties of master and servant. When it is your turn to dictate, do so graciously. When it is your turn to bow, do so with dignity and trust.

12. Once you are published, you will get rejected. Perhaps less, but still lots, over the course of your career. It will sting in a whole new way, as though a very sharp needle is piercing your hard-earned, trusted writer calluses, straight through your bones and into your marrow. But it is not barbed, and unless you pick at the scab and let it permanently infect your confidence, you will recover.

13. Once you are published, you may think the world owes you certain praise, opportunities, and treatment. It doesn't. You earn your external rewards one check and one satisfied reader at a time, and you will absolutely need to cultivate a strong internal sense of worthiness for the in-between times, as you wait amid the chirping crickets for the glorious highs of outward validation.

14. All throughout your journey, you will find that to physically write is to live your life treading water in a deep quarry. Above the water is sunshine and sweet air and a perfect sense of up and down. At the bottom is pressure and darkness, confusion and cold, hard, coarse granite. Some days, writing will come easily, as pleasurable and effortless and joyful as floating on the surface, sun on your face. Other days you will struggle for breath and orientation, down in the pitch darkness. Most days you will swim somewhere in the middle, with a sense of which way is which, aimed toward the light. But you can never predict which days you will float, and which you will fight not to drown, and that is why you must endeavor to write every single day, whenever possible, so that you don't chance missing one of the surface days. And down in the darkness, that's where you'll strengthen your muscles and lungs and your faith that despite this moment of blackness, you'll once again see the sun.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

A thousand times, yes!


I wish I could credit whomever created this infographic, but their identity remains an interwebs mystery. So instead, my thanks to the manfriend, who found this via Reddit, and who is extremely forgiving of my often thinly veiled desire to run away with my Canadian back-up husband Les Stroud.

Thrusty Thursday: Adam Levine

Full disclosure: I really know very little about musician Adam Levine. Google tells me he's the frontman for Maroon 5, a band I'm fairly sure I'd recognize at least one single by…do the kids still use the term "single"? I also know that he's not Rob Thomas and looks nothing like Rob Thomas, but when I hear "Maroon 5", for some reason I get that Rob Thomas / Santana song in my head.

Is that a velvet suit? Oh rockstars, 
the things you can get away with!
Anyhow, the reason I'm highlighting Adam Levine is that I've been on the digital prowl for foxy, edgy Jewish men. For a book! It's for a book. Needing visual inspiration for a hero I'm just beginning to write, I Googled "hot Jewish men", and you know what? It actually worked. The search returned some rather intimidating photos from such sources as the Men of Israel calendar, but otherwise I got what I was after. Way to go, internet! Adam Levine stood out, as he's got short dark hair, a five o'clock shadow, subdued rockstar dress sense, and arm tattoos, like my hero. Pre-fab muse! Yes, you'll do nicely. And so with that, I must get down to work.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

RWA 2011 Conference Registration is Open!

And guess what—I'm not going!

It's just minutes into registration opening and the pre-conference tweets are already flying around like crazy, many of them seeming to be technical ones ("try using Internet Explorer" seems to be the winning prescription), but many others of pure excitement. And make no mistake, I'm totally jealous.

2010 was my Year of Infinite Schmooze. By the time registration for last year's National conference was open, my evil conjoined erotica-writing twin had two contracts and was tempted to shell out in order to take her place as a newly legitimized published author…but oh, the price tag! Then in March I got word that The Reluctant Nude had finaled in the Golden Heart—the manfriend said no ifs, ands or buts, I was going. And so was he—he's so not an Orlando man, but he wouldn't have missed a chance to sit beside me while I awaited the GH verdict. Then, by the time the conference had actually arrived, I'd sold The Reluctant Nude to Samhain (via good old-fashioned editor querying) and had just revised and sold the book that would become my first Blaze, Caught on Camera. I had editors to meet and parties to attend! I had outfits to buy! I was somebody and goddammit, I was going to dress up!

And when all was said and done, I had a blast at RWA National 2010, and I don't regret a penny or a minute I invested in those four chaotic days. I had tons of firsts—my first major contest jitters, my first book signing, my first Harlequin party, my first face-to-face meetings with my editors. A truly wonderful whirlwind I wouldn't have traded for…well, not for an awful lot of money, anyhow.

But this year, my focus has shifted.

First off, it's just too much cash to pony up…and this coming from someone who could take the cheapie death-wish Chinatown bus to and from. I don't blame RWA for the steep hotel and registration costs, either—it's just the nature of Manhattan. But I'm not up for any awards, and I have three publishers now; I hope to maybe even have an agent by the summer, fingers crossed painfully tight, so my reasons for going to NYC to attend would largely be social. For that price, it's just not motivation enough. I'm not going to the Romantic Times Convention, either, for the same reasons. Don't get me wrong, if money wasn't an object, I'd be at both, with bells on! But I think that as the excitement-dust of 2010 clears, my focus in 2011 needs to be on writing as a day-to-day job.

The thing I most need to work on this year is finding my flow with my new publishers and their expectations. I also have solid income goals I'm determined to make, so that this dream job can hopefully become and stay a fiscally justifiable "real" job. So instead of breaking the bank on the big-time national conferences, I'm planning instead to attend two or three smaller, regional ones, with fittingly smaller fees and attendance, perfect for the barside chatting I'll be most missing when the mid-conference tweets start popping up in a few months. But to everyone able and planning to go to National this year, have an illicit drink or two for me!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Sunday Puzzle

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist
extraordinaire, Will Shortz
If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog…at least not before the submission deadline. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle:

From listener Mike Shteyman of Reisterstown, Md.: Take the first seven letters of the alphabet, A through G, change one of these letters to another letter that is also either A, B, C, D, E, F or G. Rearrange the result to spell a familiar seven-letter word. What word is it?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting, check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Beer Recommendation

Though anyone could guess it after spending just thirty seconds on this nobody-blog, I will reiterate this point again: no one gives me stuff for free or pays me to mention it. Any name-brand things I recommend here are unsolicited endorsements of stuff I genuinely like.

Onward! I wanted to put in a plug for some beer that's recently shown up at my bodega (aka the corner store where I routinely appear around three in the afternoon twice a week to buy family-sized jugs of cheap merlot—yes, I am a writer). It's a newish seasonal brew from Sam Adams, called Noble Pils. I heartily concur with something the manfriend said when he first brought it home and cracked one open—I've never been particularly blown away by a Sam offering before. Their beers are generally above average (in both taste and, sadly, price), and I'm proud of them as a local enterprise. But this is the first beer I've had of theirs that is truly excellent.

I won't bore you by rehashing what I might find written about the brewing process or ingredients. I will also fess up that I'm having a bottle of it right now, and that I preceded it with a large hunk of brownie, eaten directly off the spatula over the sink. This is probably not a recommended food pairing. But anyhow, here's what I think: Noble Pils is light without tasting watery, has a faintly spicy tang to it, and I bet it tastes even better in the summer than it does now, in the midst of a blizzardy January in New England. Also, it is a gooorgeous color. Pantone 136C. Call me phallic, but I usually prefer to drink my [non-stout] beer straight out of a bottle, but for this one I'd make an exception, because it's just the prettiest honey color you've ever seen.

That's it, really. If you spot Noble Pils in a packie near you, you have my full encouragement to bring it home.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Friday Night Fu Review: District 13: Ultimatum

District 13: Ultimatum ★ ½ 
Solid, but nothing we didn't see in 
the original. 
So a few months ago I went on and on about Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle, the two foxy Frenchmen who starred in District B13 (2004, French title Banlieue 13). Now despite its super awesome stunts, I wouldn't have called it a martial arts film…but its sequel, District 13: Ultimatum (2009, French title Banlieue 13: Ultimatum) I believe, is. Hooray! That means I get to do another Fu Review, even if it's not an actual Kung Fu movie. I believe Raffaelli may be trained in Muay Thai (cue tingling of my lady-bits) but don't quote me on that. I just had my pupils dilated and I want to spend as little time staring at this screen as possible, so to hell with research.

Let me say right now, this movie is super cool. Like the original, it's set in a sort of not-too-distant-future dystopic Paris, out in the racially divided ghettos. Like the original, it's got amazing on-foot chases and fight sequences, a bit of romance, government intrigue, tongue-in-cheek moments of humor, and two hot dudes running about being impressive in a variety of ways. But that's sort of the problem…this sequel doesn't really give you anything you didn't already get from the first installment. In fact, the climactic scenes of both movies are strikingly similar. They made a movie that was equally good as its predecessor, but almost too equal. I feel silly asking a pretty innovative movie to be more innovative… I feel even more silly complaining about how they gave me more of all the stuff I loved in the first movie. But that is essentially what I'm doing.

Anyhow, it was a cool movie. I recommend it, even if it didn't rock my socks as hard as the original. Oh and two things you do get in this one that you don't in the first—Cyril Raffaelli in drag, and probably the best violent use of a Van Gogh painting that has been and will ever be seen on film.

The last time I gushed about these two, I showed a chase clip of David Belle. So this time, I'll share some of Raffaelli's handiwork—the aforementioned "painting fight". Blazzow!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Thrusty Thursday: Andy Whitfield

Foxy as a ye olde asse-kicker, foxy as a civilian. 
If you're a pervert like me, you wish there were just hours and hours of 300 deleted scenes, full of muddy, muscly, stylized men fighting and shouting in ye olde ancient tymes. Well there is! It's called Spartacus: Blood and Sand, a Starz show that premiered in 2010, and is poised to come back for a second season at the end of this month. I just started it last night, and it didn't disappoint. It's mad-gory, but it's that over-the-top digitized gore that's borderline silly…too like a comic book to really make me flinch.

Anyhow, the chief fox is Spartacus, naturally, played in the first season by thirty-eight-year-old Welsh-slash-Australian actor Andy Whitfield. In the early episodes he's got long hair and a beard and a sort of sexy-caveman (or perhaps sexy-Jesus) thing going on, though I wasn't able to find any excellent pictures of this. No matter. He's foxy with short hair as well. If you're super pervy (you know who you are) you will be pleased to know he (and other ancient-times foxes, many with vaguely Antipodean accents) spend much of the show scantily clad and in shackles. Plus, there's a lot of softcore porno going on. Maybe that was just to juice up the pilot episode…but I hope not. It's like butts and boobs and thrustin' every-dag-where. A good show for husbands and wives to watch together, as there's something for everyone! Also, the chicks occasionally get to kick ass alongside the men. Blam!

Bonus: Spartacus is taped in New Zealand, the most thrust-upon-able nation on Earth.

Now for the bad news—Whitfield will not be returning as Spartacus in the second season, as he's currently battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Sadness! But don't let that diminish your enjoyment of his thrustability. If you have a Netflix subscription, sign in and click here to go to the Spartacus: Blood and Sand page. All thirteen episodes of season one are available on Instant Watcher, joy of joys.

For a gore-free taste of brutish foxiness, check out this short segment about the show's Gladiator Camp training program:

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Gymuary FAIL

So I mentioned yesterday that I did something to my left leg while running balls-out on the treadmill. Well, by the time I went to bed, it was feeling pretty normal again. This morning, still normal. Then I went out and got groceries (there's a blizzard a-comin'!) and while I was lugging the bags up the front stairwell, I felt it again. A certain not-right-ness in my shin. Carrying the extra weight made my leg's unhappiness perfectly plain. So I am fessing up now, I'm not going to the gym today. Better to be a slacker than a dimwit, better to perhaps make it up later in the month than to go today out of stubbornness and risk really wonking myself up and spending the rest of Gymuary in traction. So there, I've confessed. I'll try to make it up by doing a double shift—perhaps some cardio following a yoga class—in the coming weeks, but for now, rational choices need to outweigh anal-retentive persistence. Not my usual m.o., but maybe there's an unforeseen lesson to be extracted in this first month of the Discipline Year experiments: I am capable of not crippling myself for the sake of fulfilling arbitrary commitments. Wow, I feel so grown up. Now where's my Advil…

Monday, January 10, 2011

Uncle!

Gymuary day ten, and the inevitable has come to pass. Little Miss Overachiever-Pants pushed too hard and hurt herself. Not badly, nothing grievous…but my left shin, ankle, and knee are not amused. It wasn't a super crazy workout. Half hour on the elliptical, then my beloved ten-minute sprint-fest on the treadmill. I did awesomely, injury nowithstanding…two solid minutes at 7.5 mph, an overall average speed of 6.8. Blazzow! But clearly, I shouldn't be celebrating. In fact as soon as I get the laundry in the dryer I promise I'm going to pop a few Advil and head to bed to elevate my leg and while I self-edit a sub. My left knee has a history of being a prima donna, so at least I know what to do. Looks like Gymuary's about to turn into Swimuary, at least until my leg gives me the all-clear. If anyone catches me tweeting or posting about doing anything aside from swimming or gentle yoga for the rest of the week, feel free to lambaste me in all caps.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

I Cry on a Treadmill

Unimportant facts: it's Gymuary day nine. My body's pretty beat so I decided to just speed walk on the treadmill for forty minutes and catch up on some back podcast episodes of The Archers (the super long-running, super nerdy BBC Radio 4 rural-set soap opera that I accidentally got addicted to about five years ago) whilst fulfilling my promise to go to the gym every day this month.

Important! I finally caught up to the January 2 Archers double-episode. I'm way behind, so this shouldn't be a spoiler for any other listeners. Holy shit! Helen gets preeclampsia during the party at Lower Loxley and the baby is delivered by emergency C-section six weeks early! Oh, the fear! But they're fine! It's a boy! Amy's a hero! Helen and Tony finally reconcile! Hoorays! Then OH MY CRAP! Nigel falls off the roof! And he DIES! Oh, the blood-chilling SCREEEAM! Poor Elizabeth! Poor David, who'll surely be guilt-stricken for pressuring Nigel into getting the stupid sign taken down that night! Poor Lily and Freddie, suddenly fatherless and already prematurely stressed by their own inherited poshness!

So many exclamation points, and I am not an exclamatory person!!!

And don't think I'm above crying on a treadmill at the YMCA in front of two dozen relative strangers. Then I had to walk home across the icy sidewalks in bitter winter wind, trying not to slip and fall myself…oh, the trauma! This will take some time to recover from. And to think I'd been so eager to see where Fallon and Harry's romance might be heading… Oh Ambridge, you surely do know how to kick off a new year.

Sunday Puzzle

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist
extraordinaire, Will Shortz
If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog…at least not before the submission deadline. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle:

Name an article of apparel in the plural form, ending with an S. Rearrange the letters to name an article of apparel in the single form. What things to wear are these?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting, check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Snowy Saturday Whatnots

It's a lazy, snowy Saturday. It's also day eight of Gymuary and I must confess, I feel it. I'm now over a week in and the experiment is more than a quarter complete. Between the running and elliptical machines, Zumba, and yoga, I feel as spring loaded as I did back when I practiced Taekwondo. My body's starting to change shape, if I'm not mistaken. That wasn't the point of Gymuary, merely a side effect, but I won't complain. On the flip side, I'm at a point where I groan like an eighty-year-old when I get out of bed. Not sports-injury bad, but distinctly sore. They're pains of accomplishment, so I welcome them…though I do move slower in the mornings than I did a couple of weeks ago.

But step aside, Gymuary. Make room for Januquery!

So in equally painful and sweaty news, I've officially begun my search for a literary agent. I'm going about it slowly, one query at the time, perhaps five queries a month. A Twitter friend and fellow Blaze author recommended I query her agent, who represents both category and single-title romance, and she even gave her agent a heads-up about me. What a doll! So I'll be starting there in the next few days, once my all-time favorite manuscript's partial is freshly polished and its synopsis whittled down by about 200 words. Gah. If there's anything worse than writing a synopsis, it's shortening one you already slaved to construct. I did get my query drafted and synopsis shortened considerably this morning, so I just need to keep the momentum up.

I haven't queried agents in over a year, and I will admit, I've been putting it off. I'm still a new writer, and I'm intimidated. I don't tend to write high concept books, so I'm very easy to reject. I've had my fair share of rejections and I'm a big girl about them, but they still hurt. Especially when it's my favorite thing I've written, as this manuscript is. But like my 5K time goal for the end of the month, no pain no gain. If I don't get a-queryin', I won't ever be able to share the good news of finding the right agent. Funny how that works.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Baby's First Romance Cover

Finally! I can share the cover for The Reluctant Nude, my first romance title with Samhain, due out this April. I've been getting taunting e-mails from my editor for the past few weeks, asking for my authorly input on various versions, and left to salivate while I wait for the green light to share. Now the wait's over! Behold!


Huge thanks to the artist, Kanaxa. It's my aim to keep this blog as light on the book promo as possible, but if you want more details about the story, you can head to the books page of my website.

Oh and since this post is borderline self-pimpy already, I may as well mention that I also just found out my debut April Blaze, Caught on Camera, is available for preorder on Amazon. Surreal.

Thrusty Thursday: Ray Allen

It's been a great start to the new year for my boyfriend Ray Allen. (Never mind that he and I are both married, and not to each other. He's my boyfriend.) The Celtics are giving their fans plenty of heart attacks en route to squeaking out wins at the buzzer this week, and I had the pleasure of watching the pulse-pounding Monday night game against Minnesota live at the Garden. My boyfriend Ray, in his patented, understated fashion, kicked ass.

How many of you can buy an unlicensed 
tee-shirt in the subway that proclaims your 
love for your boyfriend? That's what I thought.
For a highly successful basketball player, my boyfriend Ray is remarkably swagger-free. For an NBA Champion and nine-time All-Star, he seems very humble. You can see why he won the Sportsmanship award in 2003, just watching him play. He looks like a guy just doing his job, and having a good time doing it. Plus he'd have to be an extra-awesometasticals athlete to make it into my harem as a non-martial-artist.

Even Denzel can't keep his mitts off my boyfriend!
Here are some vital stats and trivia about my boyfriend Ray Allen: he's six-foot-five, 205 pounds, and a very seasoned thirty-five (he's been playing pro for fifteen years, which is forever in basketball years). He has one of the most accurate three-point and free-throw shooting records in the history of the NBA. Blam! He was in the 1998 Spike Lee movie, He Got Game, with Denzel Washington. He also allegedly has a borderline case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but he credits this with his enviable shooting prowess. He cannot sing on key.

Ready to see my boyfriend in action? Here you go! And as gushy as this montage is, I didn't compile it. Credit to Youtuber iverson1legend.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Goal Within a Goal

First off, God love you if you're still following these posts. I know there are few things more boring than listening to someone tell you about how they went to the gym, so I dread to think how much worse reading about it must be. It's even more boring than hearing about people's dreams, so bless you. I promise February will be better, as you'll get to watch me suffer through a whole month without makeup.

But anyhow, today was day five of Gymuary. My evil conjoined erotica-writing twin has a release out today (not a plug—don't read her book, it's filthy and full of swears and naughty bits being ground together) and was driving me up the wall with her spastic lack of concentration, so heading to the Y for a good brain-wiping workout was just the ticket. I decided to set a little goal within my greater Gymuary goal. Since it's January 5, I ran a 5K on the treadmill. Then, on January 31, I'll run another 3.1 miles (that's how far 5K is, if you didn't know) and I'll see if I can top today's time.

I'd hoped to run it in under 30 minutes, which was a bit of challenge as I underestimated how, um, effective a workout Zumba is. Dude, my ass was grass. But, with the help of a lung-bursting final quarter mile…

Today's 5K time—29:31
That's an average speed of 6.4 miles an hour.

My goal for January 31—28:30 (or better)
That'd be an average speed of just under 6.6 mph. Doesn't sound like a huge leap, but I'm pretty sure it'll suck. Which is good. Fitness goals always suck while you're meeting them, though they do rule afterward.

Now, must shower.

Heavy Metal Penguin

My thanks to Kramy at City Dangers for the heads-up. We have a rockhopper penguin at the New England Aquarium who used to do this on occasion, back when I was a regular pengo volunteer. We called it Noir's Happy Dance. How silly I feel now, to realize he was just moshing.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Zumba'd!!

Gymuary, day four. Quick note to say I succeeded in not psyching myself out and finding an excuse to not go to a Zumba class today. All of my first-timer anxiety was ill-founded, as of the eight or so women taking part, I believe four of us had never done a real class before, and everyone was at a different level of fitness and coordination. So I looked no more a clumsy clod than most anyone else might have, plus I'm sure everyone was only paying attention to their own moves or the instructor's. As long you have fun and keep moving, you're doing it right. Participating also made me feel I'm taking better advantage of my gym membership, instead of just treating it like a big room full of home exercise equipment. Oh and a bonus—I finally get to make more use of the spendy aerobic dance shoes I invested in when I took a Latin dance course a few years back (though don't let that trick you into thinking I'm especially good at Latin dance).

Not my actual Y, but this is very much what the 
class looked like. 
I'd recommend Zumba to people interested in a fast-paced workout that flies right by. I don't particularly recommended the official Zumba DVDs—they're pricey and really boring compared to a real class, and the instructions aren't especially easy to follow, if you're looking to learn the basics. I'll be reselling my set soon. The interwebs in general also makes Zumba look like something only Fly Girls and seasoned salsa dancers are into, but my class was very low-key and consisted mainly of middle-aged women. If you're curious, look for an intro class, or just toss yourself into a regular class and risk looking foolish. I promise you'll be fine.

Today's class was forty-five minutes long and I really liked the instructor, so I'm going to check out her hour-long class tomorrow, bright and early. For now, I've earned a shower and some lunch.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Sugar Rush, Humble Pie

It's Gymuary, day three! Nearly ten percent done with this first of the twelve month-long experiments comprising Discipline Year. I took it fairly easy today—forty minutes on the elliptical while I caught up with a bunch of Archers podcasts. I did a lot of it in the backward motion and now my butt feels funny. Good funny. Burned about five hundred calories if you count the walk to and from, and just in time. Waiting for me when I got home was my pen pal Gerry's Christmas package from New Zealand, and it was stuffed with Almond Gold bars of various sizes—my favorite Kiwi candy bar, which he sends me dutifully a few times a year. I ate about a quarter pound's worth just now. That may even be an underestimation, sad but true. Very dangerous to get candy in the mail when your body's begging for carbs.

Also from the pen pal, this excellent retro Kiwi tee-shirt.
So tomorrow I've resolved to finally go to my first real group Zumba class, whether I'm prepared or not. I attended an intro class a month ago and did a few sessions with DVDs, but a large part of me is still suffering from the old fear of looking foolish, unable to keep up. That class moves quick and they won't explain the steps as they did in the intro. But Gymuary for me is more about intention and follow-through than getting in shape. I'm already in reasonably decent shape, a shape that demands a level of maintenance I know I can comfortably fit into my life. This month is simply about making the decision to go each and every day, and doing what I set out to. And, trying new things and stepping out of my comfort zone. So, ready or not, I'm off to Zumba tomorrow, bright and early. More than likely, since it's resolution time, I won't be the only amateur fumbling through the steps. Plus it's not like anything bad will happen if I do look like as asshole in a class full of perky experts. No one will point or laugh, and I'll end the session a bit better at it, and bit less intimidated for the next one. So there but for the gracelessness of my legs go I.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Just a tiny bit extraordinary…

Gymuary, day two of thirty-one.

Resolution-makers were out in full force today, which was nice to see. I like that my gym—it's a YMCA—is so unpretentious. We've got body-builders and the usual sporty, perky young women with bouncing ponytails and distinctly un-bouncing bodies, but also eighty-year-old men who walk on the treadmill at two miles an hour in khakis and suspenders and boat shoes, excitable senior ladies who gab in the locker room in their dripping swimsuits after a water aerobics class. We've got people of all races and ages and sizes, who nearly all adhere to the rule about wiping down the machines when they're done with them.

Then there's me. Unremarkable. Short brown hair, not quite five-foot-six, size eight in both jeans and shoes, 140 pounds, just about textbook averageness in every physical sense. Except maybe my boobs. They're sort of average and a half. I'm thirty-one, an age at which no new privileges are granted and people no longer ask what you think you'd like to do with your life. These aren't complaints, mind you. Average is a nice enough thing to be.

But for ten minutes each day, I can make myself feel exceptional. Before I do, I spend thirty or forty minutes on the most central elliptical machine I can find. I scout. The row in front of the ellipticals is treadmills, with big screens and large red numbers displaying the incline and speed and time and such of the people using them. I scout for a pace car, usually a twenty-something guy, and I try to spy on him and see how fast he runs. I pick a guy, because the women who run have an eerie synchronicity in which they all seem to top off at six miles an hour. As though they were all made privy to some stone tablet passed down from on high that proclaims 6.0 to be the optimum and perfect setting for every woman. But usually there will be a fit guy that hits seven or faster, and he is my pace car.

After the elliptical-slash-voyeurism portion of my workout is done, I've already burned a few hundred calories and my heart is going at a nice fat-burning pace and my muscles are warm and primed. I switch to a treadmill and set it for ten or fifteen minutes. I pick the interval workout setting, which asks you to enter your jogging speed and your running speed. I enter six and seven. I cue up Kylie Minogue's "Get Outta My Way" and "Aphrodite" and for ten minutes, I am a tiny bit extraordinary. Well, I feel like I am. It's mostly the music and the adrenaline, but when I hit the interval button and it goes to run-mode, I feel like an Olympian. If I saw a guy running at 7.2 during my stake-out, I make it a point to nudge myself up to 7.5 for sixty seconds toward the end. Finish strong, the cheesy inspirational poster on the wall tells me. Okay, I will, I say.

I'm not a distance runner. When I run outside I rarely go more than three miles, because I hate carrying water and my knees just aren't the marathon types. But for ten minutes, I can run my ass off. For ten minutes, I can run as fast as a college guy. And for ten minutes, in a gym full of relative strangers who probably aren't paying me any attention, I feel pretty exceptional. I pump my arms and sprint as though I'm in a character in a movie, sequestered in an underground training bunker, taking some high-tech stress test with electrodes taped to my vital bits. The white noise of the popular media that's always buzzing in the back of my Western brain, always murmuring to me about thinness and grooming and brand names is utterly drowned out, and I don't care that I'm stinky or red in the face or what my little pockets of excess may look like to an observer. I don't care that my track pants and tee-shirt and bandanna make me look like a frump compared to that trim woman in the form-fitting, matching work-out gear. I don't care if anything's jiggling because I am running an eight-minute mile, and I just blew right past all those pointless voices, too quick to hear.

When I am done, I am sweaty and pink and probably not attractive beyond the pheromonal level, but it is the best and most desirable I will feel all day. High on endorphins, I do an A+ job of wiping down the machine, even the parts I didn't touch, and for this short sliver of my time on the planet, I am damn-near perfect.

Sunday Puzzle

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist
extraordinaire, Will Shortz
If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog…at least not before the submission deadline. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle:

From Mark Leeper of Matawan, N.J.: Take a plural noun that ends with the letter S. Insert a space somewhere in this word, retaining the order of the letters. The result will be a two-word phrase that has the same meaning as the original word, except in the singular. What word is this?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting, check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

1-1-11

Happy New Year!

I came home from a family New Year's party around two a.m. to some unexpected but very welcome news in my inbox. My Samhain editor had written to offer me a contract for another romance, called Trespass—my eleventh sale right on the cusp of 2011. She'd sent the e-mail on December 31, but I received it on January 1, so it was either a happy cap on the end of 2010 or a fortuitous start to the new year. I'll go with both. I think I better wait to celebrate though, as I can still feel last night's champagne pumping where my blood ought to be.

I also gained about four pounds in pure cheese at that party, so good thing it's Gymuary, day one! Let Discipline Year begin! The only catch is that I don't actually know if my gym is open today, which would be a bit of a false start to my plan to go every single day this month… But still, I got up and put on a jog bra, and later I will walk to my gym to literally fulfill my plan to "go to the gym", even if it's locked when I arrive.

Addendum!

The gym was open, and it was hoppin'! I guess people are eager to make good on those fitness resolutions, as every single elliptical machine was being used, which is very abnormal. I'd hoped to snag one to ease my hungover self gently into Gymuary, but alas. I ran for a half hour on a treadmill instead and sweated mightily, and wine-pickled or not I did not fall off or pass out. Actually I think it squeezed all the party toxins from my system, as I feel much better now.

So Gymuary Day One—check.