A Feather in my CAPA

I'm ensconced at the G-ma's house for the holidays and snuck in some email. What do I see but several messages congratulating me for finaling in the CAPA Awards at The Romance Studio!

Survival of the Fairest is one of the nominees in the Fantasy Romance category. The other nominees in this category are Bound by Love by Wendy Stone (Phaze), No Future Christmas by Barbara Goodwin (Cerridwen Press), The Dragon Master by Allyson James (Berkley), and Dragon's Heart by Marly Mathews (New Concepts Publishing). The winners will be chosen on Valentine's Day in 2009.

Kind of glad SOTF got categorized as fantasy romance right now because paranormal romance has 16 nominees instead of 5 :). I'll post a link to the whole list when TRS publishes the names. I like to read awards lists to add to my never ending TBR stack.

Jody W.
http://www.jodywallace.com
A SPELL FOR SUSANNAH--In Paper, Samhain Publishing
LIAM'S GOLD--In Electrons, Samhain Publishing

Who Is Awesome?

Meankitty is awesome, that's who! And now she's art.


Speaking of art, Meankitty fan Judy L. is awesome, too, because look what she sent Meankitty for the holidays:




Yes, folks, bow down in envy of Judy's talent and our new wall hanging because that is gen-u-ine cross stitch.

And Typing Slave thought she was so cool crocheting gnomes! When she manages to crochet ME, then we'll talk.

Sincerely,
MK

Today's The Day #2

My prequel to A SPELL FOR SUSANNAH is now available at Samhain in the free ebooks section!

Blurb: If the King is fated to love thirteen women before he turns fifty, is he still husband material? One cold, wet Wintertide Eve, the Queen labors over the answer to her husband’s curse.

Link: http://www.thesamhellion.com/ebooks/wallace_spell.pdf

If you like the story and want to share it, please do! But please ask people to download it directly from http://www.thesamhellion.com/ so I can get "credit" for number of downloads and Samhain can get an accurate picture of how popular the free ebooks are.

You don't have to have read A SPELL FOR SUSANNAH to understand the story. It's fantasy romance, and the holiday in question is "Wintertide", so I'd say it's relatively nondenominational :)

Enjoy!
JW

Today's The Day #1

My happy holiday items are part of the TRS 12 Days of Christmas giveaway today, so if you haven't signed up for their newsletter, here's what I wrote:

"Happy Holidays from my family to yours! Here at the Wallace household, we do a lot of gift giving in December, and the past several years I've been sewing reusable cloth gift bags to cut down on paper waste. If you’d like one of these bags filled with paranormal romances off my teeming bookshelf, TRS’s 12 Days of Holiday Cheer is the way to get it!"

To enter today's drawing: http://theromancestudio.com/extra_drawing2.php.

For more details on the whole thing (like how to win a $100 gift certificate): http://www.theromancestudio.com/12days/

I don't know what books will be in that bag, but I have so many in my TBR stack my husband is begging me to offload some! So I can definitely set you up.

To sign up for the TRS newsletter: http://www.theromancestudio.com/mailinglist.php.

JW

What Do You Think Of Samhain Publishing?

Now's your chance to tell Samhain about your favorite authors, favorite books, favorite covers, and all that jazz. You can also tell them what you'd like to see more or LESS of, and it's totally anonymous.

Feel free to recommend any of my books or covers on the "Best Stuff from 2008" list! Samhain is going to be publishing a list of best-selling list books from 2008 in early January, and I know I won't be making that list, so if I got some nominations on the reader-favorites list, that would be tres awesome.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=cx0Pt6VHI_2fJ4m5lSThk8Qg_3d_3d
Obviously, if you haven't read my books or they weren't your favorite Samhain books, you should not write them down.

You don't have to fill out the complete survey, so if all you want to do is tell Samhain what you want to see more or less of, that's fine.

JW

Writing Advice, More Contests

Samhain editrix Angela James guest blogged at "Nose in a Book" and provided a very good list of what to do once you've finished a manuscript here: http://lisabea.blogspot.com/2008/12/mlm-guest-host-angela-james.html There's a giveaway involved but that's secondary--the advice is worth the visit. Of the items on Angela's list, I did every one after finishing my recent WIP, I'm proud to say! Whether or not that helped, only time will tell. (Be aware that this is one of those "not work safe" blogs although this particular article only has half-naked man pics.)

Samhain's second scavanger hunt contest begins today: http://www.thesamhellion.com/hunt.htm

There's still time to enter the contest hosted by the Samhain Paranormal Authors here http://paranormalauthors.blogspot.com/ (which I'm participating in) and The Romance Studio's 12 Days of Christmas contest here http://theromancestudio.com/mailinglist.php (which I'm also in).

My own writing advice for the day: don't try to proof galleys with your two year old in your lap. And out of your lap. And in your lap. And out of your lap.

My crafting advice for the day is going to be a separate blog post. That might not show up until after the holidays, because I don't want to "spoil" certain treasures for any family members reading this blog.

Sincerely,
Jody W.

Yet More Giveaways

The Romance Studio started a gigantic giveaway yesterday, December 11, and I'm participating in it. I can't remember what I said I'd give away, but there is a special holiday greeting involved! To enter you sign up for their newsletter, which normally just pings your inbox 2x a month or so, so it's not like signing up for a chat loop or something:

http://theromancestudio.com/mailinglist.php

I believe you have to sign up to get the details. Obviously I don't remember them! I need to track down which email I used to get their newsletter.

Jody W.

Giving It Away

As you may know, my publisher, Samhain, is currently running a number of contests--books, goodies, even a Kindle or two. At the newsletter, the Samhellion, they're giving away a ton of free, holiday themed short fiction.

What you don't know (because we just decided) is that we are going to do some holiday gifting at the Samhain Paranormal Blog, Beyond the Veil, too!

Check out the details. All you have to do to get into the "hat" is comment on something at the BtV blog between now and Dec. 21. My contribution is one of my so-useful handmade giftbags and a download.

JW

Resurgence of the One Paw

What better time to break it out than during a household bout of the stomach flu? Especially since all the humans were asleep in the same room, the better for the adults to tend to the illnesses of the children.

Pink Thing was on the foam fold out chair on the floor with a bucket beside her, and who am I to resist giving a puke bucket the one paw? I mean, really. I annoyed every single one of them with minimal effort.

MK

Cookie Recipe

FYI, my cookie recipe is on the Red Sage blog today:

http://redsagerevealed.blogspot.com/2008/12/nookie-cookies-from-ellie-marvel.html

You will see when you read it that it's not a COMPLICATED recipe :)

Jody W.

More Samhain Holiday Goodness

The Samhellion Calendar of Events for December 3rd

• Holiday eBook Freebie - Men of SWAT: Tactically Yours by J.C. Wilder (sweet)
• Discover New Authors - Touch of Fire by Maria Zannini
• 7pm - 9pm - Ménage Mania on the Cafe
• Samhellion Holiday Hunt: Check out The Samhellion Blog
• Samhain Publishing's Winner Wonderland!
  Samhain Publishing is calling all readers to join in their reindeer games! Santa ran out of room in his sleigh so he dropped off some cases of books in our offices! (This is where you yell, `How many boxes?') He left so many that we can't even get to the water cooler! In order to stem the dehydration that is running rampant in the office, we will be giving away paperbacks from some of our most talented authors.
  
  To sign up, go to http://samhainpublishing.com/contests/winner-wonderland-contest and the rules are:
  
  Contest runs from December 1 – December 31, 2008. Two winners will be selected every day. Only 1 entry per person for the whole month. Duplicates will be deleted. Be sure to enter your name, address (street address no PO Boxes) and phone number. If you fail to enter all of this information, we will discard your entry. Void where prohibited by law.
  
  *It will take several weeks to receive your books; the mail is notoriously slow during the holidays.

Just thought you might like to know where you can maybe get free stuff this month. Beats paying for everything, even at sale prices!

JW

We Have Taught Her Well...

If you follow any of Typing Slave's aptly named "twits" in the sidebar, you may have noticed a few recent references to small humans with kak attacks. It's not unusual for the Wallace children to come down with every virus they can get their hands on, so this is not interesting news. Certainly isn't to us cats.

At least not until Loud Thing got the virus and proved what a devoted follower of Big D's barf methodology she is!

First she got the carpet behind the rocking chair with a silent stealth puke, and when Typing Slave realized what was happening, Loud Thing took off running, projectile puking in a spray across the living room carpet, which of course was cluttered with toys. Then she wedged herself in her favorite corner behind the recliner and kakked down the register and on Typing Slave's yarn bag before TS could capture the clever tyke.

Isn't she just a wee human after our own hearts?? Yes, she is! In fact, in honor of her advanced skills in barfology, I will share this photo with you of a nap I may or may not have taken with the child in question.

Sincerely,
MK

PS: TS would like me to add that the puke did NOT get on any of the items she will be giving away in her contest this week.

PPS: TS would also like me to add that Loud Thing was properly and humanely treated and now seems to be over the virus.

PPPS: The adult slaves *think* that Pink Thing had the virus already while they were on vacation in Gatlinburg, but I'm betting that was motion sickness and she'll come down with it soon.

PPPPS: As will Typing Slave, but not Food Slave, because he never catches anything. Except hell.

A Plethora of Free Reads

Samhain is hosting a free reads program where they are posting holiday themed short stories by their authors: http://www.thesamhellion.com/ebooks.htm

I participated with a little tale called "A Spell for Susannah's Mother" and I'll let you know when it's due to be posted. It's kind of a prequel to "A Spell for Susannah" (obviously), but it does stand alone. The blurb:

If the King is fated to love thirteen women before he turns fifty, is he still husband material? One cold, wet Wintertide Eve, the Queen labors over the answer to her husband’s curse.

These PDFs are free, but Samhain and its authors would like readers to download them from the Samhain page so we can track how popular this function is. If you like one of these stories and want to share it with another reader, please have them snag it from the Samhain site.

JW