My book, you knows you wants it.

Quick note—it's my day to post on the Blaze Authors Blog, and as it's St. Patrick's Day, a holiday all about luck, I'm giving away a paperback copy (or perhaps two) of my Blaze debut, Caught on Camera (out in bookstores next month). Head over HERE for a chance to win!

Thrusty Thursday: Dylan Moran

When you're as pasty and freckly as I am, you can't in good conscience let St. Patrick's Day pass without making a bit of a to-do. And as it lands on a Thursday this year, how better to celebrate than by thrusting against an authentic Irishman?

No, not Colin Farrell. Not Liam Neeson. Not Cillian Murphy or Johnathan Rhys Meyers or Gabriel Byrne. Nope, when I think of my homeland, I think first of Dylan Moran, whose face and accent and dry, spastic humor personify Ireland for me. If you haven't seen the series Black Books, you're truly doing yourself a disservice. Especially if you've got a personal relationship with books. I missed seeing Moran live during the New Zealand Comedy Festival on my 2007 trip to Wellington by a single day. Heartbreak!

Do enjoy this quick, theme-appropriate clip responsibly (warning: it contains profanity, in case you're watching it out loud in a room full of toddlers, in which case, why are you on this smutty blog to begin with?), and Happy St. Paddy's Day!

DA BWAHA 2011: It's ON!

Sorry to cross-pollinate again, but my erotica-writing alter ego Cara McKenna's novella Willing Victim got tapped for DA BWAHA 2011 (the March Madness-style book tournament put on jointly by the romance review blogs Dear Author and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books) and shameless self-pimping by the authors is compulsory. The deadline to create your bracket for a chance to win mad-good prizes is midnight tonight, CST. Voting begins shortly on the DA BWAHA blog!

The man-titty war has officially begun, set off by this gem from Meljean Brook. Well I didn't earn that BFA in graphic design to just let my Photoshop skillz rest on their laurels when the shrapnel begins to fly.

Don't you judge me, Tex.

Gasp! Caught on Camera, caught on camera! My beloved beta reader sent me this photo over the weekend. She'd lent my book to a friend, and while she and said friend were out for drinks, her friend received this picture plus a text from her fiancé reading, "Tex and I both want to know what the fuck this is about." Apparently, steamy romance novels are not something commonly left lying around their house, incriminating absent parties. I won't lie—it is just a bit thrilling to traumatize another woman's fiancé and pet.

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:

Think of a five-letter girl's name that ends in a "J" sound. Change that to a CH sound to get a five-letter boy's name. What names are these?

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

Thrusty Thursday: Jason Statham

I have been in the dark on this one! I haven't seen Jason Statham in a film since around 2003, which is when I watched both Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch in a single weekend. And even then I didn't really register who he was.

Then the other week I was working on a blog post for my erotica-writing alter ego, celebrating a new sale in my favorite, narcissistic author way—playing Fantasy Casting Couch. It's the shameless outside-of-your-head version of a game many authors and readers play, which consists of casting the books we write and read with familiar (usually celebrity) faces. For me, it makes animating the movie that plays in my head while I write easier. The celebrities usually fade away once I get to know my characters inside-out, but I love hearing what familiar faces other authors picked to envision their heroes and heroines, to see if their vision was anything like mine. It usually isn't. I also love hearing who readers cast as my own characters. Matt Damon as Flynn? Really?

Anyway, I was Googling "action movie star" in a frantic attempt to cast one of the book's male leads, and wouldn't you know it, Jason Statham popped right up! I knew his name from panting tweets bandied about by my contemporaries, but I didn't really know what he looked like. Lo and behold, he is three kinds of nonstandard sextasticalz—balding, hairy-chested, and over forty. I have no issue with any of those things, and bundle them all together and slap a British accent and a six-pack on that shit…for swoon! And he used to be a commercial diver? And he was in a movie set in a prison?! Where have you been all my life? The anti-hero I was attempting to cast (who, serendipitously enough, is a commercial diver) isn't balding or British, but Statham's face alone, with that charmingly, gruffly smug expression, was enough for me to shout, "You're hired! Here's your trailer. Would you like a relaxing massage? Go ahead, take off your shirt."

While doing the half-assed research I always dedicate to this feature, I noticed he's in a movie with Jet Li, called War. I'm hoping this means it involves a modicum of Kung Fu, as I plan to watch it tonight while drinking too much wine then run an overdue Friday Night Fu Review for it tomorrow. For now, I will leave you with this, a quick clip I picked simply because when I see the word "training" my brain goes blank. Enjoy:

"Someone already hates your book."

No amount of philosophy can ever prevent the screaming. 

Those are my husband's grim words of wisdom on the topic of reviews. They sound harsh, but he means them philosophically. As many writers will agree, we live our lives in cycles of pain and joy, fear and delight. I'm now entering the pre-release phase on two books, my first two romances. I already know from my experience publishing erotica that book pre-release is a time of jitters, of both the happy and terrified varieties. Excitement for the world to finally have access to my work, and fear that it will disappoint them. Greater fear that it will disappoint them and they will share their displeasure with the internet and shave away a little sliver of my self-worth. (Luckily, self-worth regenerates, much like a starfish's appendages.)

I'm at a funky, unnerving point this week. Advanced review copies of my two romances are circulating, and the paperback and ebook versions of my April Blaze seem to already be available to buy from eHarlequin.

Reviews and ratings are already trickling in for both stories. Positive ones. Out of the blue I discovered that Caught on Camera (the Blaze) had earned four-and-a-half stars from Andrew Shaffer at Romantic Times (you need a subscription to view the review for the time being, but the highlights are on my books page). The story also received glowing praise from Penelope's Romance Reviews—Penny and I are RWA chaptermates, and she told me up front in her charmingly blunt way that if she hated it, she'd be diplomatic enough not to post her opinions. She doesn't mince words or kiss asses, so I was relieved as well as surprised when I earned a lovely write-up from her this morning. Also today, I Twitter-stumbled (twumbled?) across this review from a self-described Harlequin aficionado. Colored me flattered!

So I'm on cloud nine, right? Dear God, no! I'm terrified.

I've never owned a new car, but I have to imagine this is what it feels like, right after you've been handed the papers and keys to your dream ride. At this moment in time, it's perfect. Unmarred by scratches and mud and spilled drinks. The second it leaves the lot, the danger begins. You almost beg for a dent, just to get it out of the way, so that you may give up the suffocating dream of perfection and the pressure that comes with it. That's where I am now, waiting for the first inevitable ding. Practically praying for one, so I can breathe and move on in glorious, dignified imperfection.

When I reach this phase and become nervous and self-doubtful and sometimes downright paranoid, my husband likes to lay that line on me. "Someone already hates your book." What he means is, no matter how great a job a writer did, somebody, somewhere, won't like it. Quite possibly, many somebodies won't like it. It's a scientific fact. When he says that to me, he does so hoping to set me free from my own expectations. It pretty much works, at least in theory.

This job comes patterned in alternating stripes of relief and fear. Relief at the hands of a satisfied reviewer, fear that the next one that won't be so kind or impressed. Relief to have finished a book, sold a book, seen its cover, smelled its pages. Fear of what will happen to it, thrust out into the world and the interwebs. For each book, this pattern has a peak, and the descent down the other side eventually smooths out as my release day [or week, or month] high fades and my focus shifts to the next story. I'm not there yet, though. With a double romance debut ahead of me in the next month, the white-knuckling is just beginning. I am making the jerky, clunky ascent to the zenith of the roller coaster's highest drop, awaiting free fall, twists and turns before I'm deposited sweaty but safe back on the ground. And wouldn't you know it? The second I am, I'm already counting my tickets and scouting for the next ride.