Christmas Eve and World Hunger

The title of my post sounds awfully momentous. I can't possibly write anything that lives up to it.

I hope you all are having a great holiday. I'm feeling super blessed this year. Disney gave us an entire week off, starting today. I work with an awesome group of creative and interesting people. I had money to buy gifts. Everyone I love is well and as happy as can be expected. My house will be full on Christmas day. A tiny dog is curled against my thigh as I type on my new MacBook Pro. I simply can't believe how lucky I've been.

So my early New Year resolution is to take steps to give other people as great a year as I've had. Despite the fact that I've no idea how to do this.

Luckily, Nathan Bradford posted a link to Heifer International on his blog. Y'all probably already knew that you can give a cow, goat, sheep, pig or whatever, to a needy family but I didn't. I've decided that since my sister beat me to the punch and already gave my mother an ereader, I'm going to give a goat to a family in her name. Neat.

As the week progresses, I hope to find other ways to give (hopefully not as expensive). I do plan a post-christmas give-away of my books as well.

Don't eat too much gingerbread. That stuff is dangerous.

book give away! Death by Misfortune

Wander on over to 'Stumbling Over Chaos' and win a free copy of Death by Misfortune! Chris has been kind enough to run the contest on her blog.

Or maybe Chaos, the cat, is running it. I often wonder who is in charge over there.

Death by Misfortune's first review!

Auntie Lynn, at Reviews by Jessewave, gave 'Death by Misfortune' five stars here.

Very nice of her and she did a thorough job reviewing a complex book so I'm very grateful.

I have four books simmering on the burners right now, the sequel to DbM being on 'low'. They are:

Sequel to "Son of a Gun" called "The Unmapped Country"
Sequel to "Death by Misfortune" called "I Dead Things"
Another Adam-the-vampire book called "Till Death Us Do Part" (this one is not even simmering at the moment, it's going to be a while)
And a new one called "If Not for You". Which I keep thinking I'm going to finish by the end of the month... and then something happens at work and I revise that thought.

My question is which would you rather see first? The 'Son of a Gun' sequel or the 'Death by Misfortune' sequel. Keeping in mind that my writing schedule looks like its been through a blender...

The magic bunny and the dust bunny try to save my Droid from the twitter demon.

Accompanied by an orchid fairy and a crow.

And a happy rock.

What can I say? Things are slow at work...

MLR authors at Love Romance Cafe

We are there. I posted something. There's a bunch of wild and crazy people exchanging info and recipes and God knows what else.

Come join us if you dare.

I'm not anti-social

I have accounts on all the social networks that I've neglected off and on for the past year or so. It's not that I don't like people, I'm just a little shy of the internet.

And I have a problem with names. In real life, the real world where flesh and blood people talk to me daily, I have a problem remembering their names. I'm not a name-oriented person. I'll remember that their favorite flower is a hyacinth, or that their oldest son is at Vassar, or that they collect shoes... but I'll stand there and stammer and hem and haw when it's time to introduce them at a party because I can't, for the life of me, recall their name.

And then we have the internet where LG Bean is also Beanie is also LGB is also Sam. And is referred to frequently as both he AND she and has an alter ego who lives in Montreal. It is far far beyond my meager name-recall faculties to cope.

And the internet seems to be as moody and tidal as a teenager. I'm almost afraid to post lest I stick my finger in some brewing tempest.

I'm an internet wallflower. But its the holiday season and everybody is blogging and partying and decking the halls and I feel kind of like a girl with an empty dance card. So. Tomorrow I understand LRC (??? Love Romance Cafe I presume) is having an MLR author day and I shall be there with bells on.

Death by Misfortune is available today from MLR Press as an ebook here.

Bill Turner, the closeted detective from "Amor en Retrogrado" and his partner, Kate Crandall, investigate the murder of a minor celebrity and soon find themselves up to their eyeballs in Hollywood secrets.

There's a lengthy excerpt at the MLR press site.

I've been working on this book simply for ages. The primary couple from AeR are NOT in this book, but Bill and his lover are. It has an enormous cast of characters, and I really enjoyed writing about the 'Hollywood' that I experience daily.