Half-Nekkid Hottie from the North

All right. I confess it. I've always had a little thing for Ryan Gosling pretty much from Are You Afraid of the Dark. I watched Young Hercules simply for the boy toy eye candy.

Eye candy like this:



And now rumour has it he's engaged or about to be engaged to fellow Theatre at York Alum Rachel McAdams. very cool. (I don't remember her, but she either started my last year or the year after. God, I'm old. :) )

Bitten and a little Smitten

I'm a bit of a brat when I read for fun. I always notice things like a Toyota Echo that gets abandoned up north or a tuna sandwich that turns into an egg sandwich in the space of three sentences. And they continue to bug me long after the book is done. Which, in the long run, is one of the things that makes me a good editor. But it makes it very difficult for me to be a gushing reviewer. And it's why I've been putting this off for so very long.

Months and months ago... (ok, like the end of September) I won an ARC for Michelle Rowen's debut novel Bitten and Smitten. I read it immediately (ok, devoured would be a little more accurate :) ) and promised I'd do a gushing review. I knew from reading Michelle's blog that I'd enjoy her voice, and I was right. Sarah Dearly, newly vamped vampire, is a snarky little brat, much like I am. While trying to figure out how to be a vampire, she falls in love with a suicidal vampire (can you kill yourself if you're immortal?). And, always a little thrill for me, the book is set right here in my hometown. I know. I'm Canadian. We get a kick out of stuff like that.

For a while, I wanted Sarah to be a little more proactive - in finding out more about her new world and the vampire rules and not just sitting around thinking... shit something bad is happening. oh well. I'm going shopping. But then, at the end, Sarah totally redeems herself. She does something that not only did I get a huge kick out of, but something I've often wondered why no one else ever has in her situation... (no, I'm not gonna tell you what it is. go read the book.)

Now I've always been first and foremost a romance reader, but Bitten & Smitten is definitely closer to funny paranormal than romance, despite the love triangle with the Vampire Hunter and the suicidal Master Vamp, making it a great read for men who wouldn't be caught dead reading one of those books as well as women who would.

So. consider this me gushing. Go read Bitten & Smitten. It's in stores now.
I mean it. Go. Right now.

Merry Half-Nekkid Christmas!

A little Santa-themed half-nekkidness to celebrate the season:



Heehee.

Of course, if you want something a little sexier, check out this guy. Yummy!

Merry Christmas! Happy Hannukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! and Merry Ramadan! And my apologies if I've forgotten any seasonal celebration.

I need help.

So, you know how most writers procrastinate writing by cleaning their house?

Yeah, me? I procrastinate cleaning my house by writing. I have a gabillion things to do before my family descends on my house on Sunday for Christmas dinnner. (I don't have the energy to link you there, scroll down and look at my to-do list). And my mom and grandma are neat-freaks, so I can't have the usual mess. So what do I do? I happen across the printed out first draft of About Last Night and start reading. Then I start thinking.

For a few months now, I thought about changing it and combining it with Caught to get a longer book. (About Last Night is 7500 words, Caught is about 27000. I was hoping to turn it into a 60000 word category.)

But I sat down and read it this afternoon. It is exactly what it is. A short romantic story. If I just develop the characters a bit better, and ramp up the sex, I think it could be ready to try and sell. I'd been thinking of entering Amber Quill's Amber Heat Wave Contest (prize is publication for everyone they think worthy, not just one or two) cuz it seems like one of the more prestigious epubs out there, and I think I could make this work for them. Now. the entry deadline is only between Jan. 1 and 15th, so I can certainly wait until Monday to start working on this story, rather than procrastinating the cleaning now. But I'm excited about this. It's re-writing. I love re-writing.

I'm going to Saint John (that's New Brunswick, not St. John's, Newfoundland, where I was this summer) for a week leaving Jan 8th for business. I finally get to meet my boss and the rest of my team! I'm quite excited. So, I know me, if I don't get the story out before I leave, it won't get out. So. Jan 7th. About Last Night. Go Me.

And right now, me go get the vaccuum. There's dust bunnies older than me under my bed.

People to do, places to go, things to see

I've been really bad at blogging these past few weeks, and I probably won't have much to say for at least another week or so, until I get through Christmas Day. I don't know why I always offer to host a big dinner with all of family coming over when my house is totally upside down. I've been working from home for about a month and a half now, I should have gotten it in order, but apparently not so much. Although, I did wait a bit because I was a contender to be on the show Neat, but they never got back to me, so I guess my house wasn't messy enough. Or too messy. :)

Right now I'm mostly done my bedroom, and my allergies are seriously acting up because of all the dust I've stirred up. Yick. My goal is to get the house presentable for next week, and then, after Christmas, target the piles of bags and boxes that will inevitably get hidden in closets.

I've also decided to move my office to another room. I'd always planned on this room being my office, but right now there's a really big couch in it, which I don't really need anymore. Speaking of which, anyone wanna buy a green and peach pull out sofa bed? Cheap! :) I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with it, but it's comin' out!

I'll post pictures soon of the mess I'm working in right now and the end result. I've got some big ideas (partly based on the colour of my blog :) ) and I'm excited to get started... Especially now that my boss assures me my contract is going to be extended to permanent very soon, which means I'll be staying at home and I can't work in such a yucky space much longer. It also means, however, that I'm gonna have to start purging my books. I have thousands, and I just don't have room for them all anymore. Especially since I'm trying to convince Mr. Pink to finally move in.

On top of all the decorating and cleaning, I also have a big pile of projects on the go:

1. Edit 512-page user manual - Due Jan. 6th
2. Re-do line edits for In His Brother's Place - due ASAP.
3. Edit Point Break (400 pgs)
4. Edit The True Story of the Wicked Witch (35 pages)
5. Write 20-page apparel catalogue for store I used to work for
6. Write fashion and food pages for March 11th flyer for store I used to work for
7. Write 4-page shoe catalogue for store I used to work for

I would have liked to work on my own writing, but until I get a good chunk of my editing done I think it's gonna have to wait. I joined Jo Leigh's Uber Challenge for the new year, and my challenge is to finish all the shit I've started. All of it. The Prada Bag Princess, Losin' It, the re-vamped Caught/About Last Night and Dangerous Love. At this point, I don't even care about them being good, or publishable, I just want to be able to put the words THE END on all of them. I'll worry about the re-writes later.

*sigh* I think I may have taken on too much. So, back to the grind...

Some things just aren't meant to be half-nekkid

Ok, so I finally saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this weekend. I was okay with it. I find that what bothers me so much about the movies is that so much of the essence of their world is left out. For example, I don't really think the fear the Wizarding community has of the name Voldemort is really ever portrayed, leaving people who haven't read the books confused by who this YouKnowWho (and NOT HeWhoMustNotBeNamed grrr...) is. And with this movie, there were no HouseElves, no SPEW, and they might as well have just slapped a big sticker on TheBadGuy right in the opening scene that said "I'm the bad guy". So much for the mystery.

So for today's half-nekkid hot guy, I thought I'd do a little Daniel Radcliffe, but then I came across this picture, and well, he's sixteen, and there's something just wrong about posting a nekkid picture of him here. If you really want to see it, you can check it out here. Edited to add: Don't say I didn't warn you :)
So, here's Sean Biggerstaff, who a) played Oliver Wood in the first two HP movies , b) is a cutie and c) is legal.

Santa Baby, I'm a greedy Beeyotch

Ok. Seriously. I really like that I can be at home and listen to the radio as loud as I want and whatever channel I want without someone leaning over and whining that he can hear it. And I'm really enjoying listening to Christmas music, cuz I don't have my tree up yet, I haven't started my shopping and I'm really not in the mood... yet.

But I have heard "Santa Baby" eleventy-gajillion times today alone (not to mention every single day last week.) The Madonna version, which really sucks, Eartha Kitt, Peggy Lee and Ally McBeal for Pete's sake.

It's a crappy song. It's some idiot with her boobies stuck out asking Santa to give her a park avenue penthouse, a really cool car and lots of shiny jewellery. Where's the Christmas spirit in that?


Grrrr.

Yippie-Ki-Yay Half-Nekkid Hot Guy

All day today, I thought it was Wednesday. Wasn't 'til I sat down in front of the tv and realized that ER is on Thursdays... doh!

I'm watching one of my favourite Christmas movies. Die Hard. Cuz nothing says Christmas like men with guns. *grin* But I got a chance to take a look at the Bruce when he was in his prime.



'Course I still have to watch my other favourites, the You'll Shoot Your Eye Out movie and I'll sing along with the Miser brothers. Ba-da-ba-ba-baaaah-da... Too much!

What's your favourite Christmas movie?

The Sounds of Silence

So, I took a day off from the Internet yesterday. I got up, I went and got my hair cut ( a lot.... it's really short now. I love it :) ), sat in a restaurant and finished up the proofreading I was working on, did some shopping, came home, made sure I didn't have any work emails I needed to take care of (there wasn't. Have I mentioned how much I love my new job?), and turned off my computer.
I didn't read anyone's blog. I didn't check any websites. I didn't even watch tv with my laptop so I could check imdb, or go to the cool site that the tv said to go to :). I read a couple of magazines. I watched all of Veronica Mars. I went to bed early and got a good night's sleep.

I feel awesome.

Are we too glued to the Internet? I am. I totally am. My MSN messenger is pretty much always on with my work address. I keep my gmail and yahoo accounts constantly open and refresh frequently and I can waste hours reading blogs, websites and advice columns. (yeah, I'm addicted to advice columns. wierd.)
So, I totally needed yesterday. And I'm so glad that I did it.

So try it. You'll like it. Even if your name's not Mikey. And I'll even forgive you for not coming to visit me for one day :)

Too. Much. Girl. Porn.

hee. Yes, erotic romance, or girl porn, as Mr. Pink calls it.

I've been proofreading an anthology for the e-pub I work for, and I think it's affecting my brain. One of the stories (a historical) told of a heroine who was afraid of sex and wasn't putting out for her new husband. So instead of talking about it with hubby, she turns to hubby's best friend for a little sex lesson. Friend obliged, they had a rousing good time. Only... I kept waiting for hubby to join in.
And I was disappointed when he didn't.

Yeah, I know. I've been reading waaaayyyy too much of this stuff.

But if you want to check it out, it's pretty good... It'll be out in January. Go here for more details about Winter Wishes. I also proofread French Kiss, coming out in January as well.

The books I am actually editor on, won't be out til later. I'll talk about them more later.

All the colours of the rainbow

Wow! I had no idea how much people liked the Pink :)

So, I played around with the coolest colour picker and changed all the colours to bring back the pink. Ironically, my blog now matches my pjs. That's wierd.

but now it feels more like me around here.

Cooking 101

I love to cook. I love to bake even more. I particularly love to bake for other people.

I can make a Chocolate Truffle Loaf with Raspberry Sauce that will melt in your mouth. A Lemon Meringue Freeze that will give you shivers. I can make a boring thrown together sandwich that prompts Mr. Pink to tell me I'm a better cook than his mom, except at the boxed pre-packaged stuff (which, I'm ok with :) )

The thing is... I cannot boil an egg. I always get it wrong and end up with half of the egg stuck to the shell. I know. What kind of idiot can't boil an egg.

I'm so ashamed.

Something's different...

Ok. I'm trying something new. Not sure I love the new template, not sure it's gonna stick around, but sometimes you need a change.

Thoughts?

He'll always be Zack Morris to me

I think it's pretty darn cool that my 100th post (!!) is a Half-Nekkid Hot Guy Thursday post.

There's not a lot of actors who've managed to avoid the "child star curse" and keep working after they grew up (and actually do real work as opposed to reality show work. ) I used to love my Saturday morning Zack Attacks... and now, Mark-Paul Gosselaar has gone and joined the cast of Commander in Chief and looking prettier than ever.