Divine E-books for E-books Week

I've been enjoying catching up on Sookie Stackhouse's adventures on my Sony eReader now that the Redwood book is turned in. I purchased the Charlaine Harris bundle from the Sony bookstore and got the whole library at once. Thank goodness, too, because although she's one of my BIH (Buy In Hardback) reads, I lend her books out so often that I can't recall which ones are where. Some of them eventually come home, but I miss them.

Another point in the Sony Reader's favor: you can't lend e-books. Mwa ha ha. I'll still buy the darn hardback, just to keep her on the NYT bestseller list so that she'll stay so spectacularly published.

Imagine my surprise last night when I got an email from the delightful Debbie Kaufman, she of the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales (not sure if she's a cakelet or a saucy tamale--I think those ladies take turns being one or the other), informing me that this is Read an E-Book Week and sending a delicious link to a whole page of wonderful downloads. All legal, all great press for the publishers and authors who support this ever more popular way to read. I started downloading left and right, and bookmarking great bookstores that I'll be sure to revisit once the week is over. Hurry over and grab your ebooks now, because at midnight on the 14th, the links will vanish.

Visit the download link for yourself. I think the new iPhone/Kindle app was just what was needed to push the industry over the slope and down the hill, in a yay-we're-sledding-fast-way, not a geez-bail-out-now-before-we-wipe-out-like-the-economy way. Interested in more about epublishing? Check out literary agent Richard Curtis' blog at www.ereads.com. He comments on all the news.

Singing and Driving

Anyone who's had the dangerous pleasure of driving in a car next to mine will be treated to a view of my tonsils as I try to sing along with my favorite music. Sometimes it's Van Halen, sometimes Dianna Krall or Amy Winehouse, or a Donizetti aria sung by Anna Netrebko, but whatever it is, I give it my all. Music enthralls me. The artist creates the recording, but I get to play along. You can't do that with a painting, and acting along with the TV is too weird (but hey, that's CosPlay, isn't it?). Books have a bit of that pleasure baked into them. You read the text, and the story unfurls in your head, like magic.

I was hesitant to try audio books for fear that the magical element would be lost. If someone read the story, it would be the reader's voice I would hear, their intonations and characterizations. A few years ago, when my commute became hellish, I checked out an audio book from the library. I remember that it was a Nora Lofts novel, although I'm not sure which one. Just as a new bicycle rider spends a while concentrating on balance and maneuvering before thrilling to the wind in her hair, I spent a little time hearing the narrator and not the story. Three tracks into the first disk, I was hooked. Now audio books take the chore out of cleaning floors, dusting furniture and scrubbing bathrooms.

It took much less time to appreciate ebooks. Before I asked (begged, pleaded) Santa for my Sony reader, I tried them out on my computer. I loved the experience. Maybe my audio books gave me practice with accepting stories in different media, different formats. My only annoyance is that not enough titles are available. I still buy paper books, but I'm now duplicating all the titles on my "keeper shelf" with electronic versions.

I've been thinking a lot about new media as I plot a post apocalyptic young adult novel (it's actually more of a Peak Oil novel). What happens to ebooks without electricity to charge the reader? Paper books are always ready to be enjoyed, barring darkness, illiteracy, or misplaced reading glasses. I'm giving this a lot of thought, and for that, I have to remove my headphones. Can't think if you're listening to someone else's story.

The sap is rising...

And no, I don't mean the Fed Ex guy that I accidentally knocked out when I swung my laptop case around in the elevator. Kidding.

Temperatures are expected to be in the 70's this weekend, my book is turned in, and I'm going to put on my wellies and hit the garden. Roses to prune! Garden beds to prepare! I'm an indifferent gardener all other seasons, but I enjoy digging and planting this time of year. I'm not sure whether I'll listen to the new audiobook I downloaded from the Gwinnett Public Library, Nora Roberts' HONEST ILLUSIONS, or just let birdsong and ideas for my next book waft around in my head. I guess it depends on whether any of my neighbors are playing "git 'er done" with chainsaws, blowers, and mowers.

My little mp3 player looks like an oversized cough drop, red with a white circle on it, and it holds 2g of audio - a pittance if you're my daughter, but plenty for me, and I use my iPod Shuffle for music, anyway. This little red baby is just for audiobooks. I was forced to buy it when I discovered the wonderful world of downloadable audiobooks from the library, none of which could be put on an iPod (this has since changed). It died the other day, and I almost chucked it, but the $40 I paid for it (lus the fact that it's so cute and tiny) made me grit my teeth and look online.

I googled "dead mp3 player"and got back many angry hits. I googled "repair Zen Stone Plus" and bingo! I downloaded a little patch of software, ran my mp3 through it, and it works good as new. I love the internet. This weekend, I'll share that love with my garden.

Make a Referral - jump start the economy

I'm pledging to make a referral to a business I want to help as part of a national campaign to make 1000 referrals March 9-13. What a great small business stimulus plan.

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Starting a new book....

Well, in a few days. It's down to the wire with the latest Keelie Heartwood YA. This will be the first of the next trilogy, set in the Redwood forests of the northern California coast. Michelle and I have been working like fiends, writing on our own, then emailing our chapters to each and working online in chat format at night. We got ourselves totally confused the other day and had to step back and revisit a couple of scenes. Almost done, though, and after a big workathon this weekend, it should be in shape to email to our editor Brian at Flux on Monday!

After that we can start our new book. This is totally different. No elves! Lots of humor, and some field trips in store for us as we visit a few wild animal parks and get friendly with leopards, lions, and tigers. As friendly as they'll let us get, of course, and double-checking that our nametags don't read "Lunch."

At the same time I'll be rereading my next women's fiction manuscript, then it's off to my agent, too. I love being productive. Some stages of the life cycle of a book seem more like a stationary bike than a road trip, but you get there eventually. I just happen to be at my very favorite part, the crossroads between "the end" of one project, and "my story begins when...".

Pushing your creative buttons

I'm a big fan of crafts. I'm not necessarily creative that way, though. I can come up with a plot in a second. Need help with a plot of a book? Give me a call. Miniatures, scrapbooking, knitting, sewing, and all kinds of gluey, twinkly paper crafts that I adore? Not so much.

Give me some guidance, though, and I'm absorbed for hours. I love projects, they make my creativity soar. After working on an art project, I can write for hours!

And I love, love, love Kathy Cano-Murillo's site, The Crafty Chica. So much fun stuff to do! I have her Art de la Soul book, which I won't even allow out of my house because I know one of my fellow crafty sisters will steal it (love you guys but I know you will), and now she has an equally fab followup - Crafty Chica's Guide to Artful Sewing. Chock full of great ideas! BURSTING with cute, colorful projects. My 14-year-old daughter snatched it out of my hands and ran off with it, so you know it's not some kind of granny thing. My mom's button box has disappeared, so I think she's sewing buttons to the back of her denim jacket. My glitter is missing as well - suspicious.

Since it shows you how to sew, step by step, as well as gives detailed lists of the what you need to make each project, you can wild without worry! I may start at the beginning and make every single project.

I'm buying copies for all of my crafty friends. And for that girlie who took this one - next week is her birthday. I think I'll stuff a box full of ribbons and buttons and charms. How can you say no to creativity? I think that the Crafty Chica, Goddess of Glitter, would approve.

The Literary Hamster Wheel

So co-author Michelle and I are back to cooking up our latest YA, due *gulp* March 1st, and we had to stop to do edits on The Dread Forest's Secret, our June release. That took a week, then we were back to work on the new book and now we just got the copyedits on Dread. The sound you hear are my mental brakes screeching.

The reality of being a published author is that you're always revisiting the past, whether doing edits on a book you finished months before or marketing for an older title. Our first two YA books, The Tree Shepherd's Daughter and Into the Wildewood, are now available as ebooks in several formats, because busy Michelle and busy Berta love alternate ways to get our stories. We're both big fans of audio books, and since Christmas, when I got my Sony reader, I've been gobbling up the digital reads. In between writing my books, of course.

You'd think that March 1st when we turn in the book we would get a little vacation, but I have two more books to write, and Michelle is feverishly working on a couple of others, not counting the ones we do together.

Why work so hard? We've asked ourselves that, and come up with two reasons. One is the feeling that time is running out. We have these great ideas that we want very much to get on paper. The other is that it's so much fun to see our books on bookshelves and in catalogs.

I wouldn't trade that fabulous feeling for the world. If only the literary hamster wheel could do something about my thighs.