-
Goodreads Giveaway!
There’s still time to win the book Publisher’s Weekly is calling one of the most anticipated of 2014! Sign up to win your free copy of THE ACCIDENTAL ABDUCTION! Contest keeps going until August, 19, 2014.
-
Maleficent at 47
THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! You read that up there about the spoilers right? Right. Okay. I saw the original Disney Sleeping Beauty in the movie theater. I was 9. Disney was doing one of it’s periodic re-releases of its classic animated features, and Mom took me as a reward for having memorized my multiplication tables up to 6. I never saw the ending (at least in the theater), because Mom also had to haul me out of the theater because when Maleficent turned into the dragon I started screaming in terror. So, me and that bad fairy, we got history. I took my son to see Maleficent this weekend, just…
-
That Old Time Feeling
Writing is, by necessity, a profession of emotions. This is not going to come as any kind of surprise to readers, especially Romance readers. Emotions are at the heart of character, and character is at the heart of story. And at the heart of the human brain is a quirk that by describing a feeling, you invoke it in yourself. So, there’s no part of writing a novel that is not going to put the writer on an emotional roller coaster. And people wonder why we tend to drink so much… But there are other ways that the work itself gets emotionally involving. One comes at the very beginning. There…
-
This Week’s Video Clip
I love movie musicals, especially the dance numbers. As much as I appreciate movie dance mash ups like this one: I’ve so far only found one that references what is actually the Greatest Dance Number Ever Filmed. How great is it? Bill “Mr. Bojangles” Robinson is the warm up:
-
This Week’s Video Clip
While This Week’s Video Clip is on the subject of the Nicholas Brothers, here’s one I hadn’t seen before, with some local interest to it:
-
This Week’s Video Clip
One of my absolute all time favorite romantic movies is unfortunately very hard to find. It’s the Barretts of Wimpole Street with Norma Shearer as Elizabeth Barrett and Frederic March as Robert Browning and Charles Laughton as one of the creepiest screen villains of all time. A little context for the scene below: Elizabeth Barrett has been confined to her sofa by ill health for a good ten years by this time, writing poetry and trying not to give in to pain and depression. Her many siblings have come in to say good-night, a simple act that has serious consequences:
-
This Week’s Video Clip
Wherein Lauren Bacall shows the rest of us how it’s done. Sorry about the ad.
-
In Praise of Villains
So, there I was, reading away. It was the latest book in series I love, approaching the suspenseful climax, I was in the groove, the author was in the groove. All was right with the world. Then it happened. The villain turned stupid. Made a sudden,s attack for no reason than an explosion of temper They had been something of a martinet all along, but then, in the turn of a sentence, lost their mind. I hate this. I don’t want the villains to be weak, or stupid, or suddenly short tempered. I want a smart villain, with their overall badness paired with a forward-thinking outlook. I want dark intelligence. …
-
What Man of Steel Got Right
THIS POST HAS SPOILERS. GREAT BIG SPOILERY-SPOILERS. MEGA-MONDO-HUGE SPOILERS OF A MOST SPOILERIFIC NATURE. Okay? Okay. In the interests of full disclosure, I will say that Christopher Reeves will always be My Superman. So, I was torn about going to see Man of Steel. But, lately, super hero movies have gotten so much better, which cheers my nerd girl heart, so I decided to give it a chance. And I was really, really surprised at what I saw. Whatever flaws Man of Steel had, and they were legion, there is one thing that movie finally got totally and completely right. They stood one aspect of the continuity they stood on…
-
The Lunch Post
I’m not quite a foodie. I would kind of like to be a foodie. I love food and cooking, I adore eating out. I read chef memoirs and I’m addicted to the show Chopped. But I’m not quite adventurous enough to be a True Foodie, and try as I might I can’t take stuff like artisenal toast seriously. I am, however, the Queen of Southeast Asian Bachelor Chow. SABC is one of those things you do with leftovers. I’m working from home today, which naturally leads to a lunch of leftovers. Actually, pretty much every day leads me to a lunch of leftovers, and I ask you to respect my…