At the moment, I probably use my FB profile the most, because I can catch up with a lot of people with a few clickety clicks. Twitter, I use more as a virtual water-cooler, where I can pop in on a break and have a quick chat.

But it makes me think – what did we do before social networking? How did we *gasp* ever find out anything about everyone?! Can you remember your pre-social networking days? Or is it a hazy memory?

What’s your favorite social network – any particular reason?

And, one final question – anyone out there still resisting the pull of all those networking invitations from your friends? Come on, you can tell us. We won’t then bombard you with invites

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So I’ve done other things. I’ve always been active, so I still get out and do the hiking/walking/running around with my girl thing (chasing your daughter through a park on the threat of monster kisses doesn’t qualify as running.) The natural runner machine, that’s a little bit like a ski machine. I’ve done Pilates. I’ve done the bicycles. When I was 21 I moved from Alaska to Oregon and lost 20 lbs on Tae Bo (I still have fond memories of my sister and I telling Billy Blanks to Eff off.) But running, I still won’t do, even though I dream of one day have the toned, taut, marathon body.

Anyway, last night I was out to dinner with a couple of friends, and I heard that one of them has begun to … Jazzercise. I think we all know what popped into my head.

Now with more cowbell.

Headbands. Thong leotards. Spandex. Leg warmers.

But apparently it’s having a huge comeback … and I’ll admit I’m tempted. Not because I want to jazzercise or exercise or do anything to make myself taut and toned (Where’s my miracle pill?) but I’ve got a conference in July and the writer thighs have got to go! And it is a lot easier to make myself do it when I’m on a schedule with a friend, rather than dragging myself out at 10am, because it’s easiest to go when everyone is at school.

…or I really just want an excuse to get some leg warmers. To cover my thick ankles, if nothing else.

Exercise: Love it, hate it? Love it when you do it but can’t ever find time? And what color of leg warmers did you have?

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Case in point – me. There’s a scene toward the end of Gentlemen Prefer Succubi in which Zane’s jacket is torn up and he loses it. In the next page? Wearing it again. I’ve gotten multiple emails on this goof, and it embarrasses me every time. See, for that goof to end up on the page, I had to miss it every time that I read the book for edits (and I read it at least 12x). Then it went to my agent, who read it. My editor, who read it (and read it again when I made edits). My editor’s assistant, who also reads to catch mistakes. The copyeditor. The production editor.

We all missed it. Shameful, isn’t it? This post isn’t to defend, of course. This is to explain how every single person on that list above — each who read the book multiple times — did not manage to catch a simple error, and readers do.

It’s because our heads are bursting at that point. Really. Here’s a representative picture of the beginning of the book, in my mind.

Copyright The Beatles, of course!

That’s right – look at that. So neat. So pretty. So ordered. Nice, distinctive clothes. Everyone walking apace. Streets not too crowded. Plot is forming a single line. This is good stuff. We can do this!

Now here’s what your plot feels like by the end of the book.

Copyright Martin Handford and Candlewick Press

Okay, there’s thirteen characters on stage in this next scene. You can do this! And don’t forget that Jackie is wearing a necklace. No wait! She can’t put her hand in her pocket, because you mentioned she was wearing cargo shorts 3 chapters back — or did she change? You can’t remember! Go back and re-read! Wait, how many cigarettes has Zane smoked in this scene? How many are left in his pack? Can he say that particular phrase without a lit cig hanging out of his lip? Jackie can’t move in to kiss him -cigarette burn! And for this scene, he needs to be in achurchexcept hecan’tbeinachurchbecausehe’savampireand ohshiti’vepaintedmyselfintoacorner anddon’tforgetaboutthebadguythat’swaitingtomakehismove assoonastheypullapart andwhataboutthequeen anddoesthisstreetinwyomingevenhavemeters so canshereallyparkthere ohgodi’mgoingtomessthisupand waitwhere’sRemystanding andwhataboutEthanandCaleb? Wouldn’tethanmoveintohelp sowhydoesn’thebutifhedoesitruinsmyplotand ohgodwherearemykleenexbecause ineedtohaveagoodcry.

You see what I mean? Instead of nice, neat and orderly, you feel like you’re playing ‘Where’s Waldo’ in your own head, trying to figure out how to move the plot ahead without losing track of everything that is going on. Ditto for the copyeditor and my editor, who are also trying to make sure that I don’t make myself sound like a grammatical cave(wo)man with a stupid sentence.

It’s not an excuse, of course. As writers, we owe the readers the best book possible. It’s just that sometimes minor things run away from everyone.

PS — Nalini’s book is out this week. You’ve bought a copy, right? Right.

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Of course, just like titles (but this happens less often than title changes), authors sometimes don’t get to keep a character’s name. Usually it’s because the author has unwittingly given several characters names that start with the first letter, which might work fine in real life (I’m on of three Ps! Alliteration anyone?  ) but not so much in fiction. It gets confusing for the reader to differentiate the characters in their mind as they’re reading along if the names are too similar looking or even sounding! Another reason authors have been asked to change names is if the author chose a main character’s name that happened to be a really popular authors main character’s names (like Edward and Jacob for instance).  The hero’s name in Scions: Resurrection, Jachin (pronounced Yah-kin), was originally Riot, but I was asked to change it. So, to the baby name websites I went, where I actually found a BETTER name that truly fit his character in the story. Jachin is a biblical name that means “he who establishes” and it fit perfectly for Jachin and what he accomplished in Scions: Resurrection.  So sometimes having to change the name can ultimately be a good thing.

Have there been any character’s names that have stuck with you, either because they truly fit the character or because you just thought they were cool. Got any great names to share? Or stories behind cool names?

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Don’t forget to check out Nalini’s newest book, ARCHANGEL’S KISS!

Congrats on the release, Nalini!

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Today is the first of the tax days: the house looks like a war zone.  There are stacks of paper everywhere, everything painstakingly sorted.  We, mostly my husband but I too, have been staring at these papers and trying to sort out five different revenue sources, deposits, expenses, and so on.

We have all of our stuff together but dealing with the business on top of the personal taxes adds a new layer: we now have to sort four different accounts.

After staring at this for a while, we’re a little bit stupid and the following conversations took place:

Husband: staring at the piece of paper:  What is this?  Is this a royalty statement?

Me:  I think…  Yes?  No…  I think it’s your IRA?

Husband: I have an IRA?

###

Me: ….

Husband:  Yes?

Me: staring at him with what is probably a blank look:

Husband, patiently: Finish the thought.

Me: ?

Husband: You were looking at the 1099 and then you said, “Do you want me to…”

Me:  Uuuuhhhh.

five minutes later

Me: I remembered!

He: Yes?

Me: Do you want me to make you a steak burrito?

###

Husband: These business checks are no good.

Me: Why?

Husband: They say 2009 on them.

Me: thinking really hard:  I think that’s the check number.

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1) If you work at a school, do not inform your wife on Thursday afternoon that, “oh yeah, you’re chaperoning our daughter’s field trip tomorrow.”

She will respond with a wide-eyed, “I am? Since when?”

“Since I volunteered you last week.”

There will be an explosion of brains all over the car. Also, maybe a few curse words spoken (but of course, not the WHOLE word, because the kid is in the backseat. So it’s more like, “What the effing eff were you thinking?!”)

So, don’t do this to your wife. Especially if your wife really, really hates riding in school buses, and her Dell laptop 4-hour battery only lasts about 5 minutes lately so she can’t work on said bus, and she also won’t get back until the evening, because that means she wastes a WHOLE FREAKING DAY of writing.

Also, because she has a blog, and she’ll tell a story like Reason #2.

2) No matter how hot the guy you’re dating is, don’t buy him a pair of Levi 501s just because you want to see his cute little ass in them.

Once, there was a young woman. She wasn’t a wife of a teacher yet, but still in the dating stages after drunkenly writing and e-mailing a really bad science fiction story to the cute grad assistant whose class she’d just finished. Over the course of dating, she discovered that he didn’t own any 501s, which was a shame, because he had the nicest butt in the world. So, she bought him a pair.

At this time, she also lived about 60 miles from the city where he did. For various reasons, going to his home to make out wasn’t an option, and so her ‘67 Mustang became, ahem, a bit of a makeout spot. And the location of choice was on the 4th floor of the university parking lot farthest from the campus, because no one was there after 10pm or so.

It so happened upon one of these days, that the grad assistant and his former student were steaming up the windows when they happened to notice some flashing lights just before there was a tap on that steamed-up window. Once again, curses flew in that car. The young woman frantically straightened up and got out of the car when asked…and the grad assistant also got out, but the button fly had given him some trouble — this was his first day wearing the pair of jeans she’d given him — and he stood behind the car clutching his fly together.

And they said, “You need to show us your hands, sir.”

So the grad assistant let go of his pants, and showed them his hands…and a few other things. :-D

***

Thank you, thank you to Nalini for filling in for me on Friday. Don’t forget that her newest book, ARCHANGEL’S KISS, comes out tomorrow!

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This was a fun contest everyone – thanks for your awesome comments!

____________

I’m filling in for Meljean today. I thought we should make fun of her as she isn’t here to stop us as is grand tradition on Oddshots.

But…

You knew there was a but didn’t you?

While Meljean has glorious photoshop talent and can make Book PoRn, I have no skills in that department, so here’s what we’re going to do.

Have a contest!

To enter, leave a comment telling me where you think Meljean is today, and what she’s doing (the crazier the better…not that I’m enabling any of you ). Do this before six p.m. Sunday 31st Jan 2010, New Zealand time. I’ll pick a random winner and edit this post to include their name.

And what will you win? I’ll let the winner choose a copy of any one book of mine published pre-2010 so long as I have a copy of it, so go to it! Link to Books page of my website.

___________________

p.s. Archangel’s Kiss is out Tuesday, Feb 2nd!! Woohoo!! It’s awesome. Go buy it!! <– I iz subtle.

Excerpt Link and excerpt link for the first book, Angels’ Blood (this series should definitely be read in order).

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http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/

It’s the new cast for the Survivor season that starts in a few weeks! And not only is it a new season, but they’re bringing back previous players again and pitting them against each other – Heroes Tribe vs Villains Tribe. Some of my favorites from past seasons are back – Evil Russell, Courtney from China, Sandra from Pearl Islands,  Boston Rob…

(Yes, I tend to love the Survivors that are snarky and unpleasant to others).

Survivors that I’m not so excited to see back?  Rupert, for starters. Jerri Manthey. COACH. Ugh. Okay, I am torn on Coach. Part of me wants him to be back because there is sure to be craziness. Part of me wants him to disappear off my TV forever.

My husband hates Survivor, but I love it. There’s just something about seeing a team of people fighting to claw out an existence on a deserted (well, sort of) beach and willing to sell each other down a river for the promise of money. I think that’s why I appreciate the ‘less noble’ contestants – there’s no fake sense of accomplishment in having survived the struggle. They are there for the MONEY, baby!

Interesting note about yours truly – I am a Survivor nerd. I bought a buff once (Red! Samburu!) I bought the companion book that came out. I made co-workers play Survivor-type games at my office for training exercises. I could name every luxury item for the first few seasons, as well as every Survivor. I have only ever missed one episode of Survivor. It was the episode where Robb (with two B’s!) was voted off of Thailand. Probably kind of sad that I remember that. But I am just passionate about Survivor – I absolutely adore it.

How about you? What’s your guilty TV pleasure? And are you as obsessive about it as I am about Survivor?

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Here are a few examples of the kind of characters I’m talking about…

Myrnin, an old vampire/mad scientist in Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampires series.  Myrinin has some fabulously kooky moments and with his sudden decent into “the crazies” comes the threat he’ll kill Claire, the main character, who happens to be human and his sometimes lab assistant.  Imagine a vampire who speaks in an old world way, dresses in dashing clothes from the past and…bunny slippers. Yes, bunny slippers. Well, sometimes he wears flip flops or goes barefoot. Hehe

Then there’s the obnoxious Grandmother Lynn in the book the Lovely Bones.  When she shows up in the story, the characters are so sad, having lost their daughter/sister, Susan. The grandmother brings added “light” into the grieving household with her obnoxious comments and hard-boiled, no nonsense ways.

And one other character who stood out to me as so outrageous, you couldn’t help but think: Whose side is he on?  This is the character Sherman Blackstone from the TV series Wolf Lake.  This guy seemed to know everyone. Sometimes a joker, sometimes a wiseman to the shapeshifters at Wolf lake, you never really knew what his agenda was because he seemed to be stirring up both sides. Kind of like a kid poking a stick at a bear.

So, tell me about some of your favorite “slightly off center” characters, either in movies or books. What made them so memorable to you? Why did you like them so much?

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(Batman walks into a bar and says, “Ow.”)

It’s a fine line: you want to inform and you want to entertain, but at the same time you keep a part of yourself – a larger part – hidden.  Most things in life are private and not to be dragged into spotlight.  I’ll post funny things about kids, but I won’t post anything that would embarrass them.  If my husband and I had a fight, you won’t find it on the blog.  It’s not because we’re perfect, but because our life is made of those small private moments that belong to the two of us alone, whether they are fragments of contentment or of conflict.  That’s what makes them priceless.

When you share things with people (and I don’t mean close friends or family but the blogging audience at large), you let them into your world.  You share your successes and occasionally your failures. For the past two months I’ve been waiting for the resolution of some schedule and contract issues. It was an intensely private stress, and I didn’t want to unload it on anybody else.  My friends and family have to put up with me.  Dumping my worries out there for everyone to see just didn’t seem fair.

As a blog author, I completely understand the narrow boundary: too much to the left and you hit TMI; too much to the right and your blog loses all personal touch.

But I also read some blogs in my Google Reader.

The other day I had a distinctly blog reader moment.  I subscribed to a couple of knitting blogs.  Let me tell you, if you say you have a knitting blog, I assume you will talk about knitting.  I expect techniques, yarn reviews, pattern reviews, maybe some patterns or some items you actually knitted.  I expect a yarn-and-needles spectacular.

For the last two-three weeks both blogs I subscribed to presented everything under the sun except for the actual knitting.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the authors of the blog should write whatever they want.  There are things that are important to them, but I very much support my right not to read a blog that becomes boring.  I dropped one and unless the second one starts kicking, I will drop it, too.  I want some knitting crap, damn it.

So, have you ever dropped a blog?  Why?  What makes it or breaks it, in your opinion?

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