Tube Tuesday

This week's Tube selection is a montage from Jersey Girl.

Great acting in this movie, and a fab romance. Ben does heartbroken and despairing quite well. (I looked all over for the "porn study interview" but just couldn't find it.) Liv Tylers is quirky and fun, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eQcz2VPbkE&feature=related

Happy Tubing!

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Something wrong with this term?

I have a problem with a certain word being thrown about, places such as restroom doors and garment tags on hats and sweatshirts. The word is "unisex".

Let's take a moment to dissect it. "Uni" means one. Herein lies the problem. A restroom with a sign labeling it "unisex" is intended for members of both sexes. So where the heck did this dumb term come from? We all know the term unibrow, and it certainly doesn't mean a number of different brows - it means a dude's got one, big, grown-together brow. Consider also, uniboob...

Of course, labeling anything "bisexual" would probably cause problems (just look what it did to poor George Michael!) I do have a solution, however. "Omni" means all, so they could be "omnisex" restrooms, hats, sweatshirts. Now I've just got to figure where to go with this. Grassroots movement? Get folks writing to their congressmen? Dateline NBC?

Off to battle the wind generator with my electric toothbrush...

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Friday Funny

We had a baseball game in the mountain town of Frisco on Tuesday night. It's high in the mountains, surrounded by spruce and lodge pole pine, with huge snowbanks on the hills around, and sitting right next to Dillon Reservoir. Kind of a neat place, with the contrasts of surrounding continental divide reaching up above the tree line and a sailboat-filled marina (For you non-mountain types, tree line is the point at which the carbon dioxide level gets too low for trees to grow. We get a lot of that in the Rockies.).

Anyway, we're driving through town and we see a sign:

DOGWASH
SELF SERVE
$15.00

LOL. What the heck? Dh was hoping some kid thought this up...

Happy Friday!

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Live from the net, it's... another website

www.autumnpiper.com is up and running.

Check it out if you get the chance.

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Bad mom?

We've got no new books to review this week. Instead, I'm up for opinions completely off the subject of writing.

I sort, wash, dry, re-sort, and fold my kids' (age 11 and 13) laundry. Lately we've been on an Inside-out Binge, meaning one of them is peeling every last piece of clothing off and tossing it in the laundry inside-out, which irritates me at folding time. Don't know why, it's just a peeve. And after numerous requests, I'm still getting the same ole thing.

Well. I told them I'm going to start folding them that way. Which elicited outrage from Cornfuscius. He thinks it's incredibly lazy and wrong of me, and that the washing machine is probably turning things inside-out (suddenly, without having done so previously).

So I ask you...am I being a Laundry Nazi? Should I buck up and pull out those sleeves and pants legs? (about the socks - fuhgettaboutit. No way do I turn socks right. The toes are always full of creepy stuff.)

Autumn Piper
Romance is sexy!

Tuesday, Interrupted

We interrupt this Tube Tuesday to deliver a couple of announcements.

First, we (finally) got Autumn her own Blogger ID, so no more confusion about who posted what.

Second, I just had to share this fantastic review:

http://manicreaders.com/index.cfm?disp=reviews&bookid=3643

It's always a great feeling to find out somebody enjoyed your book.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Play on words

So I'm reading a re-released novel by a big name author (theoretically means it's been through the editing process twice) and hit a funny speedbump: A paragraph began with "Peddling his feet in the blankets..."

Double-take. Dictionary double-take. Giggle.
Peddling means selling stuff from place to place.
Pedaling (or pedalling) means working one's feet in a circular motion.

So this poor dude is heading out to sell his wares - in this case, his feet. Hmm. Methinks he'll be out of merchandise PDQ, and probably miss those feet more than a little. For his sake, we can only hope there are no buyers lurking in the blankets.

Probably not something most readers would notice. But funny anyhow.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Friday Funny

Heading out of town today for my baby brother's wedding. And in light of the precise hell I can foresee him putting her through for the next fifty years or so, I'll share my alltime favorite joke:

Q: You know why single women never fart?
A: They don't have @$$holes until they're married.

That is all. Happy Friday to ya!

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Is the hoopla over yet? I doubt it.

This week there's been an incredible uproar over RWA's policies regarding which smaller pubs are "valid" and what the qualification is for a member author to be "published" in romance fiction. Apparently when I left the organization last fall feeling like the cost/return ratio wasn't to my benefit as an author with a small press, I was not alone. Given the 250+ comments on Deidre Knight's blog post, lots of authors appear to feel the same.

Part of the problem appears to be a few foot-in-mouth comments by the president, along with the organization's slow-to-change demeanor. Do I think RWA will respond and eventually make itself more welcome and useful to epublished writers? Certainly. Someone with business sense will start to look at numbers and realize how many members they could recruit by bending things a little. But, people, we've got to remember it's an old school group. Look how long they take to change things like the Golden Heart. They just started accepting more sensual submissions, but made absolutely no allowance for judges who scorn such smut (like seeing that such entries get judges who are okay with the heat level), which essentially means the erotic entries are doomed from the get-go. So... they're allowed in but it's highly unlikely they'll win. And hey, that's the way (uh-huh, uh-uh) some little old biddy in Houston who's maybe finalled once or twice but still hasn't sold a manuscript or landed an agent after writing for 75 years likes it.

Fear Change, For It Is the Enemy is the same attitude that keeps all those "rules" of romance writing alive and well. Does today's romance reader have as many uptight likes/dislikes and demands about her heroine as you'll hear if you lurk around a few RWA convos online? Heck, no. The rise of Chick Lit is a prime example. Leave the old school rules behind, write a fresh story young women can relate to, and voila, hot sales, a brand-new target audience...all with heroines who sometimes sleep with more than one man during the course of a book, are not widows or virgins, and *gasp* may have even divorced!

I don't mean to call RWA a dinosaur (well, maybe a little) but hopefully it'll evolve. I'm pretty sure the founders did not intend for it to become outdated and elitist. Those gals would've wanted the organization to change with the times and stay modern.

So I won't be holding my breath, but I will be watching with interest to see how things unfold.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Watcha Readin' Wednesday

I've found another Keeper. It's Lisa Kleypas' Smooth Talking Stranger.

This is part of Kleypas' series about the wealthy and fabulous Travis family of Houston. (think hot, sexy, filthy rich alpha heroes...), including Sugar Daddy and Blue Eyed Devil.

Ella has a real disaster of a family, yet no matter how awful the flashbacks, it's still believably bad, not overdone. She's smart and very aware of how her defective childhood has damaged her. Jack is smooth, sexy, and droolworthy strong, which we as readers can see is just what Ella needs. Throw her abandoned infant nephew into the mix for a heapin' helpin' of cute-n-vulnerable, and this is a book I couldn't put down until I'd finished.

Smooth Talking Stranger is a must-read in contemporary romance (and no, you don't need to read the related books in the series to "get" this one). Borrow it, buy it, get it any way you can. You won't regret it.

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

On the reader: Kathleen Woodiwiss's Forever in Your Embrace
On the nightstand: Lori Foster's Caught!

Tube Tuesday

Mostly I was just in the mood to hear the theme song from Happy Days, but I found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA_hNoGDM4Y&NR=1

Too cute. Tom Hanks does such a good goofball.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Sucks More Than Mondays

Insomnia.

It's not a frequent affliction for me, but probably one of my worst fears and it totally sucks.

Autumn

New word?

During our son's baseball game the other night, Cornfuscius coined a new word. He was speaking about a kid who threw the ball hard and he said the kid "really zung the ball to the 2nd baseman".

zung: v. threw with great force, past tense of zing, syn: flung

I can totally imagine hearing that word on Sportscenter or during a televised ball game.

Piper Denna
Got romance?

More Porta-blog

This time I'm the guest blogger for LPI.

All about idolizing a couple of awesome authors.

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Watcha Readin Wednesday

I'm hot in the middle of (or rather, the last quarter of - Shit Hits Fan Moment is coming soon, I just know it!) Lisa Kleypas' newest: Smooth Talking Stranger. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I almost went back to bed to finish reading it this morning after making CornFucscius' lunch and only by the skin of my teeth remembered to blog first.

*sigh*

One thing I did read this week, which in my mind makes my Sony Reader worth its weight in gold - or at least worth the price of the newest iPhone: I've been reviewing my current WIP (non writers, that's a Work In Progress), hoping to refresh the muse and generally remember what the heck has happened in the story. But as with most writers, I find myself stopping to edit - like, constantly. Sooo. On the way out the door to baseball practice the other day, I wised up. (did NOT involve killing any mafia members) I saved the manuscript file as a PDF and loaded it on my Reader and PRESTO, I could read the story without stopping to do any fixing. Awesome. And hey, guess what?

I kinda like the story.

Okay, off to finish Stranger... it's so great. Kinda wishing I'd bought it instead of borrowing from the library. When I'm done, I'll write a review and with any luck, I'll get the date right so it posts next Wednesday instead of, like, an extra post for tomorrow! ahh, those User Errors.

Happy reading!

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

On the Reader: Kathleen Woodiwiss Forever In Your Embrace
On the nightstand: (for after I finish Stranger - 2 Lori Fosters I also nabbed on the NEW rack at the librario)

Tittering Tuesday

Here's a little something to hopefully put a grin on your face. (I figured I'd kind of overdone the Tube thing the last couple days, LOL).

When Allergies Don't Suck:


A man and a woman were sitting beside each other in the first class section of an airplane.
The woman sneezed, took out a tissue, gently wiped her nose, then visibly shuddered
for ten to fifteen seconds.
The man went back to his reading.
A few minutes later, the woman sneezed again, took a tissue, wiped her nose, then shuddered violently once more.
Assuming that the woman might have a cold, the man was still curious about the shuddering.
A few more minutes passed when the woman sneezed yet again. As before she took a tissue, wiped her nose, her body shaking even more than before.
Unable to restrain his curiosity, the man turned to the woman and said,"I couldn't help but notice that you've sneezed three times, wipe your nose and then shudder violently. Are you ok?"
"I am sorry if I disturbed you. I have a very rare medical condition; whenever I sneeze I have an orgasm."
The man, more than a bit embarrassed, was still curious. "I have never heard of that condition before," he said."Are you taking anything for it?"
The woman nodded. "Pepper."

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

???

Great.
First Sunday was Tube Tuesday and now today is Tube Tuesday, too.

How bout I just take ALL my prescheduled posts and shove them through by tomorrow?

It's like on TV when they show a marathon of just one show. This is a Tube Tuesday marathon.

And I guess it's what I get for posting late last night when I was so tired I could barely sit up straight, but waiting for lil 'Fusciusetta's friend's mom to bring her home at a crazy late hour.

Cripes.

Blogging from the ark...

OK. Aside from the very obvious, very silly fact that we had a freebie Sunday post which was supposed to go up tomorrow...(Tube Tuesday on Sunday, and it wasn't even April Fool's Day...)
things are pretty soggy around here.

As in, it's raining every day around here. So I've ordered an ark and I'm ready to go.

Thing is, I don't love ALL God's creatures in the way that, say, Noah did. So I figure, hey, if I've gotta take this type of initiative, I'm entitled to make a few "executive" decisions (or in this case - exclusions).

• No mosquitos. Non negotiable. Bats will have to find something else to eat. Besides, like I have time to make some little-ass cage to keep 'em in... sheesh.
• No snakes. In the future, birds will have to pick up the slack for rodent control.
• No wasps (aka yellow jackets), fire ants, or killer bees. Sorry for 'em, but other insects will step in. Earth will be okay.
• NO, and I mean absolutely NO centipedes or millipedes. Yuck. I'm not even going to offer an explanation.

If I've gotta be stuck on a boat with only inlaws, poop-slinging monkeys, barking dogs, spraying skunks, and various other noisy, smelly animals for 40 days and nights, I'm damn sure eliminating the uck factor for when we disembark.

Soaking wet in Colorado,

Autumn Piper

Got romance?

Tube Tuesday

Okay, so the post scheduled for today went up on Sunday.

It was just meant to be.
Consider it a bonus.

So for today, I've got one that really doesn't pertain to romance, but it's funny and so very pertinent to everybody's attitude:

http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56

Enjoy.

Piper Denna
Got romance?

Tube Tuesday

This week's 'Tube feature is from Coyote Ugly. Violet is such an easy heroine to root for. And so darn cute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0vcPXi5YhE

It just wouldn't be right to NOT watch Kevin's dance scene. Not only is he a cutie petutie, but he's got that Aussie accent. Yum!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrfAoDc4x1M

Damn that blonde. Damn that blonde! Where'd this actor go, anyhow?

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Somebody got a foot thing?

When I was blogging yesterday about cleaning up queries, I used a cliche about putting your best foot forward.

Which got me thinking: If you don't put your best foot forward, you're likely to shoot yourself in the foot, which means you probably won't get your foot in the (publishing) door. (and Oh God, I can't help it - your writing career is likely to end up 6 feet under! or at least with one foot in the grave. Oh my. Must stop myself.)

What's the deal with feet? Here all this time I've always been worried about having my hair fixed, or whether I've got part of lunch stuck in my teeth.

Damn. Makes me wonder if I shouldn't be paying more attention to my shoes. Maybe I should be shopping for some new ones...

Happy Friday.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Porta-bloggy

I did the editor-blog thing over at LPI today.

Figured I'd blathered on enough, no need to write more here.

Check it out - advice for querying authors (since, ya know, I'm an "acquiring" editor now, perhaps getting a bit big for my britches - and no, that's nothing to do with donuts):

http://lyricalpress.blogspot.com/

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Watcha Readin' Wednesday

This week I'm reviewing Klondike Wedding, by Kate Bridges. (and I read it on the Reader- shouldn't Sony be giving me something for plugging their device all the time?)

WRONG GROOM... All Genevieve Summerville wants is a good life for herself in the wild Klondike. She agrees to take handsome Canadian Mountie Luke Hunter as a stand-in groom while her fiance satisfies his gold-fever. But the best-laid plans go awry and Genevieve and Luke find themselves legally bound together!
RIGHT HUSBAND?
Living in close quarters, Genevieve is surprised by Luke's gentleness. And as his kisses awaken her most secret desires, Genevieve must choose between the life she wanted and the longings of her heart...

This is a bit slower-paced than the fiction I'm used to reading, but it's a solid story with believable characters. I have to admit I had a hard time keeping track of the other characters and the "whodunnit" part of the story, but it did all make sense in the end. I rooted for the happily ever after. It seemed like a "sweet" romance for the first 3/4 of the book, with barely a kiss in the way of heat. But once the characters succumbed to passion, the love scenes were fairly detailed. Maybe it was the lack of action which made it hard for me to stay interested, which could be my problem and not a problem with the book itself.

Still undecided whether I'll invest in the other Klondike books (Fictionwise has several of them).
For me, this is a: Borrow It. An okay read, but try to borrow it from a friend or library.

On the reader: Forever in Your Embrace, by Kathleen Woodiwiss
On the nightstand: Drums of Autumn (still), by Diana Gabaldon

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Tube Tuesday

A neat montage of some of the best romantic comedy scenes, ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XLHnOAqxKo

And wow, now I've got a list of movies to add to our Netflix que.

Happy Tubin'!


Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Not sucky

I got to take a walk yesterday morning and it was... perfect. The sun was out, it wasn't windy but just breezy enough to keep cool, the bugs haven't yet made an appearance, traffic was almost nonexistent, and the wild flowers... Oh my. It's been raining almost daily for the last couple weeks and our semi-arid climate is totally loving it. All the native plants are flourishing. Red/orange Indian Paintbrush, white Primrose, yellow wild mustard blooms, little purple flowers on what will later be dastardly little burs known as "hitchhikers", purple clover and alfalfa - not precisely native but seeded nicely along the roadside by hay trucks and quite sweet smelling - wild pea plants with little white flowers, an occasional pink wild rose plant (a bit too straggly to qualify as a bush!), yellow Gazania, all set with a backdrop of tall green grass and a bluer grass which later in the summer will sport pokey seeds. I might add, I saw only the "good" kind of wildlife. (politically correct? I don't care.) Lots of birds, one chipmunk, and zero creepy scaly types with no legs who like to sun themselves at the edge of the road. Those creepy scaly buggers make my heart beat faster than an all-out sprint does!

Hope you're having a great Monday!

Autumn Piper
Got romance?