Gah. My head hurts. Yes, I’m sick. Tonsilitis I’m sure. I’ve had it umpteen times in my life so I sorta know it. Fever = massive headache. So, I’m gonna drop a Marcus on you, promise to come back and post by New Year’s Eve, and go back to bed.
After all these years, he’s still cover material. Yum!
Hope your Christmas was all you hoped it would be!
Today I have a litany of hos for you. Hos as in the plural of ho ho ho.
Hos.
It looks better with an apostrophe, but fuck me if that isn’t incorrect grammar.
My litany starts like this: I need to write three Christmas short stories, but I hate all the Christmas crap that goes up as soon as Halloween hits. You’re wondering how does the one affect the other. In a word, inspiration. I wasn’t feeling the Christmas spirit this past weekend and the stories suffered.
I decided I needed to make the covers in order to start things gelling in my head better. I have the plots. I know how the stories go, but I didn’t have the words yet. Weird but true. I tried playing Christmas music while I was working on the covers but Rhapsody wouldn’t cooperate with me. I have this strange, niggling feeling that I must have somehow programmed the client years ago never to play Christmas music before Thanksgiving. It would be like me to do that. If the client had that function. Which it doesn’t. Still, it did refuse to play the Christmas tune which pissed me off and amused me at the same time.
I figured since it was 3 am maybe I’d better just go to bed. I’d pissed away the whole weekend and now, faced with a Monday vacation day off before I get swamped at work for the rest of the month, I needed to show some progress. With that in mind, and knowing how I dream shit for my books all the time, I turned on the TV to the Sounds of the Season channel. Oh, yeah. Happy Ho Ho to the nth degree. I had nightmares of course and nothing at all related to Christmas.
So that’s Ho number one. Ho number two actually happened before Ho number one but I felt the effects all weekend. It happened late Saturday night when the finalists for the EPIC awards came out and Hot Water didn’t make it to the finals. I was disappointed in a weird sorta way. An eye rolling sorta way. I saw a few people make the finals whose books I’d read. Whose books I’d thought were… ahem… not so tightly as others I’d read in the genre. (Note how I did not use the word crap in the previous sentence.) I noticed how someone connected to the awards made the finals with a book I’d thought was lame-o.
Yeah, you can say it’s sour grapes, but it’s not really. I just know how the human brain works. No matter how impartial people want to stay… they still have biases. Hello! New name here! No one effing knows me! Stick me and my funny, hot little dragon falls for vampire novella of 23K words next to some 60K epoch written by someone everyone has known for years and guess what? I am ass out. Which wasn’t exactly unexpected on my part. One of the main reasons newbs don’t tend to win awards is in part because judges don’t know who they are. It’s human nature to be drawn to the familiar. This part of the whole thing was just an eye roll moment for me. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t put a bit of a damper on my mood all weekend.
For my last Ho, I give you my return to sucking down Tylenols. Fuck my hip hurts. And I worry like hell eating those little white caplets so I take one of a two pill dosage and limp along all day until near bedtime when I take one more. Pain is a motherfucker though. Not at all conducive to creativity. Now, I’m sitting with my coffee, having sucked down the one Tylenol arthritis strength pill I’m allowing myself, waiting for the spams in my lower back and hip to stop, and complaining to you. I should really be feeling better, shouldn’t I? Maybe in a half an hour after the second cup of Starbuck’s Breakfast Blend has made it’s way to my bladder…
And now for the visual portion of my Ho, Ho, Hos this fine Monday. I will start with a lovely Marcus, move to a redhead with a great ass, and then give you some rippling muscles. Yes, Marcus and the two Christmas covers I made. Heh. Enjoy!
I feel better after my ho-ey bitch session. I can always count on all of you to let me get my rant on. Oh! And I have an update on the Bar. I finally moved it this weekend and moved Winterheart Design and it’s gallery. Well, I moved domains not hosting so I actually ended up not moving the forum off the server which is just as well cause I couldn’t make it work. LOL Now that the sites are all fixed and I’m done with my bitchfest, maybe I can get some work done for my publisher. If the Christmas music cooperates…
Have a great Monday!
Yanno, I can pimp other people pretty well. I drop their names everywhere. Do you think I can pimp myself worth a damn? HELL NO!
My character Holden Antaeus is in a poll for the hottest hero of the summer. This guy screws women and men. He has a throbbing dragon cock (TDC © 2009 blogography.com). He’s even a black dragon! He’s got ALL the bases covered – sexually, ethnically, and more! I think he should win. Yet, I cannot bring myself to get on every Yahoo group I’m a member of and BEG for votes.
Two people already have over 300 votes. *sigh* I suppose the only way I would get that many is if every person I know recruited a buncha other people to vote for Holden. I want this, but I cannot get my fingers to type the begging words. This sucks ass.
So here’s the thing. I’d love to win this thing by NOT begging and looking like a complete fucking moron. I mean, that would put a bee in the bonnet of all those people who did beg, right? So, to do it, someone would have to start a movement, wouldn’t they? On blogs, on Twitter, on Yahoo and and Live Journal and ning or whatever. It would be cool if someone did. But I can’t beg. It just wouldn’t be right. I’ll still love you all if you read this, laugh at me, and move on to dinner or a movie or whatever.
Click this link to find Holden’s information. (Scroll down to his name on both pages.)
Click this link to vote for Holden if you are so inclined.
But maybe you’d like to start the Throbbing Dragon Cock Movement. If so, feel free to retweet and post and do all those networking things we all do when we want to get the word out. Tell people we want the bi dragon to win! C’mon! Het men win everything! Why can’t the cocksucker win for once?
Here’s a picture of the book cover and a picture of Holden.
I’m pretty sure that there’s no way to beat the authors who’ve begged all over the planet for votes, but it would sure be pretty cool if it happened. Sorta like a black man becoming president or beating a parking ticket rap. *wink*
Where did it go? I found myself asking that question repeatedly this morning… of myself. The reason for the question is that I lost my weekend. I was supposed to put some solid time into Fire Season, Book 3 of the Tales of the Darkworld. I didn’t add one single word to that manuscript. Instead, I spent the weekend helping someone who’d had her website and email address deleted by Yahoo. Actually, I was giving a lecture on making trailers (and posted a link to Marty’s post Fuck You WMG) and how to use media to promote yourself when all this started. I didn’t even get to finish my lecture. It’s missing the part about using Audacity.
Now, first of all, she’s a really nice lady and she’s been really nice to me, so if she or anyone else who knows her reads this – PLEASE DO NOT TAKE IT THE WRONG WAY. This is not a criticism of ANYONE. *sigh* At any rate, she panicked. And she ended up panicking everyone from her Yahoo group – that is A LOT of panicked women. She thought Yahoo had deleted her group too and told people that they had. They hadn’t. People were still posting to it. In fact, people were posting to the group saying, “OMG how could Yahoo delete this group? Don’t they know how much she helps us?”
I know. You’re thinking, how logical was that? They posted to the group freaking out about the group being deleted. I eventually had to yell at them and say what was so obvious to me – Hello! It’s not deleted! You’re posting to it and everyone sees you posting to it! Granted, I wasn’t panicked. They were. I felt like I was in the middle of a cattle stampede.
I spent the rest of Saturday getting her up and running with a new domain and new hosting and a new email address. The new website looks rather nice actually. I built it on Wordpress with a pretty template and when I ran into some CSS issues a very nice writer named Maura from the Pink Chair Diaries group helped me out. That was pretty late on Saturday night… or rather early on Sunday morning.
Sunday I spoke with my publisher Mary and thought about trying to finish my blogger novella for her quickly. If I had been able to write, I think I would have been able to finish it for her by next weekend. Unfortunately, Sunday disappeared like Saturday did. I was supposed to be in a Zanctuary chat at 1 pm my time. I was, but no one else was. I wasn’t quite sure whether to be insulted or relieved actually. I’m tired of chats. They aren’t doing me any good or selling more copies of my books. They’re just frustrating me.
So Sunday was more of the same sorta. I fixed some stuff for the lady who lost everything. I fixed some stuff for another woman I’d helped previously with Wordpress. I answered a lot of left over questions from my lecture forum. I said “You’re welcome” a lot. I explained some more about the Saturday fiasco. I ended up writing a little on the blogger story but it was less than 1K. And then I realized my whole weekend had been sucked down some big black hole leaving me tired and with nothing accomplished but the schedule for the Flirty Author Bitches blog. I’m not pissed or sad or even disappointed. I’m just tired. I guess the black hole sucked up my energy too.
Now, it’s Monday and I’m faced with yet another draining work week. I must seriously need a Marcus. Being a helpful person means I get to help myself to some Marcus. I deserve it. You do too! I’m not sure if the shirt is coming off or going on here but I like to think it’s coming off…
If you’re interested in a fun blog written by a group of flirty writers both male and female come on over to Flirty Author Bitches. There’s a sexy poem, a hot male body, some naked female breasts, a little bitching, a story about length, and another one about going to Hell. All of it is fun!
Happy Monday, my darlins!
So I finally got someone to draw me a winner in my blogiversary contest. I numbered everyone’s name randomly and asked my friend Lisa Alexander-Griffin to pick a number and she chose… BLUEPAINTRED’s number! WOOT! Now, I know BPR lives for her coffee so I’m gonna send her a Sex Toy coffee mug from the RottNRoll store. Now, BPR… you gotta email me so I can get a mailing addy. Winter at winterheart dot com. You’ll be drinkin’ sexy in no time!
So it’s almost 8 pm and I forgot it was Monday and I needed to post Marcus. Since it’s still Monday, this isn’t technically late. I don’t even wanna get into why I forgot about him this morning. It was a slightly stressful morning… oh hell, I’ll tell.
One of the editors I know was having a contest… well, 4 contests actually. I have an entry for one of the contests. Winner gets the cover and a contract for the story. Well, she resigned and asked me to take the submissions for the contest and pick winners. YIKES! All that work I did… I can’t judge my own entry! Egad! So I had to find some people to judge those entries for me. Stressful indeed.
And now back to my regularly scheduled Marcus. Man, I need to ogle him tonight. I’m tired. How about something sweet and sexy?
What a cute smile! He looks good for an older guy. I’d still take him if he was being given away. I wish. HEH. Make sure you send BPR some congrats for winning a Sex Toy mug!
Hope your Monday was great!
I have a crappy life. All I do is come here and whine.
My air mattress popped. For those of you who read my Princess and the Pea post, you know how devastating a popped air mattress is for me. I can’t sleep. My hips feel bruised. I am thoroughly out of sorts. The new mattress better come today or I’m in deep shit in the rest department. I can’t write. I’m irritated. I’m grumpy. Bah!
On a happier note, Ce from Cesigned is making my author website for lexvalentine.com. I’m soooo excited. I had Jester look at the first mockup last night, and he pointed out all the same things I wanted changed so I feel good about being on the right track with this.
I submitted a 5K word piece to Wild Rose Press last night too. Thanks to Jen for helping me with the query letter. It’s for their Cougar Club series. HEH. Yeah, I’d say I know a thing or two about the whole older woman/younger man thing. I have no experience whatsoever with men my age or older. Young and hot? That would be what I know. Yes, I know I’m pathetic. 
Oh, and by the way, since I didn’t blog yesterday I’ll say it today – HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN! Stop on over at the Redneck Romance Writer and wish Jen Happy Birthday. She’s always so supportive of my writing. She’s just a great friend to have and I appreciate her muchly!
I’ve been busy over at the horse racing sim too. Moderating can be tiring! There’s a couple of threads of arguments going on and I have to keep an eye on them. So I started posting little flirty remarks reminding them not to name call or say bad words. I got accused of being lovey-dovey! ME! My reply had something to do with knowing the difference between lovey-dovey and flirty. And besides, a couple of those guys are hot. I’m allowed a little harmless flirtation, right?
I have not yet received a single photo for the Better Than a Hot Blogger calendar. C’mon, people! Send a photo, or I will just stalk your Flickr accounts and pick one myself! Do you really trust me to choose?
I’m planning a little something special for my blog for Halloween week. Not only is it my birthday on Halloween, but this blog is themed rather appropriately for that holiday. So I’ve got some “stuff” in the works, not the least of which is that there will probably be a guest post on my actual birthday of Halloween. I got in on the winnings over at Whall’s a while back and one of the prize choices was a guest post. So I asked him to do one on my birthday so I don’t have to. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with for Halloween at this batty blog!
My back hurts. Have I said I feel bruised? Not to mention that I really do still have bruises from last week’s fall. Ack. I’m gonna go suck down some pharmaceuticals. You all have a spectacular Friday!
You know how I always get after Motley, even here in the PRB, about taking out the trash? Well, all the little things I ask her to do, that she doesn’t do, caused a little problem last night. A magazine (Elle Decor) was knocked to the floor. I asked Motley to pick it up. She didn’t. Later on, I attempted to step over it, stepped on the corner of it in my flip flops, had the glossy pages slide against each other beneath my foot, and because I was already trying to step over the damn thing in a narrow space and had my balance off kilter, I went down like a tranked hippo.
I hit my elbow and shoulder on the big Rubbermaid tub the fan sits on. I hit the fan with my hand. The foot on the magazine twisted as did the knee on that leg. My hip hit the corner of the bed. Both knees skidded on the carpet, and I whacked my head on a box as I landed on my face. Ow.
Today, I am black and blue. I am swollen in places that are not supposed to be swollen. I’m not in a very good mood, and I can’t wait for the cupcakes to get here. (Groceries arrive between 10 and noon, but I’ll be at the office.) I’m a very unhappy camper today because now my bad knee, which has had no deterioration in about 2 years, is gonna need an xray. I don’t like the way they poke and prod it for those. It fucking hurts when they poke and prod it. And I’m pretty sure my 2 years of holding steady on the condition of my cartilage, tendons, ligaments, and joint are over with. My pain management will probably be out the window too now.
So far, I’m managing on Tylenol, but the aches and bruises are bad enough that 3 of the arthritis strength have me barely hanging in there. I know they won’t give me any pain meds either, and I’m not sure I want them anyway. Once I start taking them, I depend on them to “mask” the pain, instead of learning to manage it. I got myself off the Darvocets before and down to occasional Tylenols. I prefer that things stay that way so I’m not totally unhappy that I have a doctor who doesn’t prescribe Vicodin or Darvons.
Anyway, I’m having trouble sitting for very long so I don’t know how today is going to go. A couple hours at the office and I may come home crying, although my chair is very comfy there. The problem is more the suit. Tailored suit pants in a wool blend, socks and shoes… all on the parts of my body that just want to soak in the hot tub. I’ve been doing okay sitting around in my undies. Putting clothes on and sitting for several hours is gonna hurt like a muthafucka.
If you don’t see me on Twitter or YIM for very long at a time, you know it’s cause I’m off crying in my coffee about my bruised and battered old body. Pray that the cupcakes work to ease my misery.
UPDATE: I tried putting on my suit pants and shoes and socks. It’s far too uncomfortable. I’m gonna call my boss and finish the stuff I was working on from home then head back to bed to elevate the knee. Later, a trip to the radiologist. Oh, joy.
Hope your Tuesday isn’t trippin’!
