I'm guest blogging today over at You Gotta Read, talking a bit about what it means to contract a book. Check it out!

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Bonanza!

Lyrical Press's End of Summer celebration culminates this weekend with live chats (accessible through a window at the LPI blog) on Saturday starting at 6 PM central with tons of authors and prizes. On Sunday, same time, same place, the LPI editors will be available to answer all your reader/author questions.

Come party your butt off (next day hangover or not? YOUR choice).

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

PS Don't forget - the remaining author and editor profiles will post today on the blog, too. Comment on individual interviews for chances to win free books!

She-cat

I believe I've undergone some experimental treatment. The staff in a building operating under the facade of an oral surgical facility has turned me into a half-cat.



I'm not making this up. All I want to do now is sleep - some days even more than my cats - and when I wake up and stretch I want to sleep some more. I make strange purring noises in the back of my throat (sometimes when I'm not even asleep yet!), and I have an uncanny craving for meat. Any kind of meat: fish, beef, chicken, pork... perhaps in part because so many of those grinder-teeth are gone, and now I'm left with a higher ratio of the bite-off-shreds-n-tatters-of-your-fare, fang-like teeth.

If I start growing (longer) whiskers, The Institute for Upright-Walking-Cat Creation is going down.

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Ed in the hotseat

I'm the interview victim du jour on the LPI blog today at 5 PM central. Stop by to ask whatever you'd like about editing or writing in general.

http://lyricalpress.blogspot.com/

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Onward, Promo Party!

Today I get to be in the limelight at 9 AM central over at the LPI blog - http://lyricalpress.blogspot.com/

Stop by and leave a comment - you'll be entered in a drawing for my book!

Also....

Ms. Denna is the guest blogger of the day over at You Gotta Read -

http://yougottareadguest.blogspot.com/

She's discussing what women want from a steamy novel, and why.

Happy Tuesday!

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Suckless Monday

Today, Lyrical Press is kicking off its massive end-of-summer blast. Various author interviews will be posted on the blog throughout the week. All readers who comment on the interviews get entered in a drawing for that author's book (winners to be announced on Saturday and will be contacted by the Editor in Chief). Also this weekend, we'll have a live author blogcast (think a chat moving at a much niftier speed) with more giveaways on Saturday, and an editor chat on Sunday, where readers and authors can co-mingle with the LPI eds and ask those burning questions.

I'm featured/interviewed/victim today at 9 AM central. Find me at the LPI Blog:
http://lyricalpress.blogspot.com/

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Things That Suck More Than Monday - on a Friday

Early mornings when you can't have anything to eat or drink - bleh. I know it's for a reason, but it's still no fun.

Off to have the wisdom choppers yanked. My pal Amanda tells me not to worry - I'll come out feeling like I had a baby, just from the opposite end.

Bonus: no sore nipples this time...

Happy weekend, ya'll.

Autumn

And the beat goes on...

I'm about halfway through Diana Gabaldon's Drums of Autumn (3rd in a series of very FAT books, all about one couple) and the romance between Jamie and Claire is just as fresh as in Outlander.
How can this be? Kinda makes me ponder sexual tension. Most of the time it's really hard to keep a reader's interest once the H and h proclaim love and hit their happily-ever-after. How can daily drudgery and dialogue between these two be so intrinsically interesting?
Well, for one thing, their adventures are pretty darn believable, yet exciting. And you can see their feelings for one another. It's obvious by the characters' actions and dialogue.
Superb.
And now I've got a new book in the series to collect...

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

What the...? Wednesday

So. It's very quiet around this house now that the kids are gone to school. I kept hearing this thumping noise and would get up, then go from room to room, trying to figure out what it was.
Both cats were sleeping.
Neighbor at work = not hammering anything.
Wind not blowing, at least not that much...
What in the world?
More thumping.
Outside I go, to find... Senor Woodpecker perched atop the satellite dish, trying to punch himself a hole in the wood siding.
Goofy bird.
Such is country living.

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

3 Cheers for Public School (yes, I mean it!)

Blaming "the gov'met" for everything is almost an American pastime. A perennial favorite for these whinefests is "public schools". Just crack open an editorial/opinion section of a newspaper and pretty much everything wrong in the world is blamed on the public school system.

As someone who has spent the last 8 years as an almost full-time volunteer and/or substitute teacher in some 7 elementary and middle schools in 2 states, I applaud what public educators accomplish. In our society, every parent has the "right" to send his children to public school, regardless of the effort he puts into disciplining his offspring or helping them learn, regardless of whether he provides them with school supplies, launders their clothing or feeds them. Mom can tell the teachers she doesn't "believe in homework" because her kids will earn more on Welfare than in dead-end jobs. The boy in the front row of a classroom may have gone to bed at 8 or 11 or not at all. He may have slept in a car the next town over while Mom went into a house to "buy something" and didn't come out til morning. Maybe he has a bed, but he comes to school itching from strange bites all over his body from "little bugs" in his sheets. He might have language obstacles to overcome, or learning disabilities. His parents could have obscure religious beliefs that'll send them running into the classroom complaining about certain curricula. Some kids are determined to make good grades so they can get into a prestigious college, coveting perfect attendance, while another misses every Wednesday in first grade because it's Mommy's day off and she'd rather sleep in than get him to school. Not only does his school lose money for the days he misses, but if his standardized test scores lag, "the school system" has failed, and in some states the school's funding is then docked even more.

No, these kids aren't fictional. Neither is the little kindergarten guy whose daddy was stoned out of his mind every single day when he drove him to school or the 7th grade girl who told me outright, "My mom used to be a crack whore, but not anymore. Now she's into meth." They're real kids in affluent - yet diverse -communities. Teachers cope with diversity every day. One student might be miles ahead of the others and eager to learn more; meanwhile she's dealing with Fidgety Farrah, who had a Mountain Dew on the way to school.

Teachers are, by and large, good people who want to improve the world. They're not getting rich but they certainly enrich many lives. Patience isn't just a virtue, it's a requirement in schools, and to be honest, most of the people I've heard "dissing" public school don't have the sort of patience themselves to make it through a single day there. Lucky them - they get to send their kids off to school, just like those of us who appreciate it.

No matter who you are, at least one teacher made a difference in your life. Maybe she taugh a subject you loved, or was a friendly face during those awful adolescent years when Mom and Dad were the dumbest people you knew. Chances are, it was a public school teacher (88% of kids are enrolled in public school). My hat is off to the fine folk trudging back to their classrooms this time of year. And in case you don't hear it often enough, hey... thanks.

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

(If you like this, feel free to pass it on, at least to a teacher who made a difference in your life.)

Things That Suck More Than Mondays

In honor of back-to-school today, I'll share a recently learned math lesson:

Steady diet of ibuprofen (picture a food pyramid with a base made of little red pills) + RockStar Energy drink = hole-in-stomach type pain.

*Folks, do not try this at home, or anywhere else*

Autumn Piper
Got stomach lining?

Race to the (toothless) finish

My daughter must have sympathy tooth loss for me. She's lost 2 molars this week and has 3 more loose ones.

I think she's trying to show me up for when I have all those extra holes in my head next week.

Well, maybe we'll have lots of PB&J sandwiches around here for awhile.

Wish the tooth fairy would show up here next Friday night after my surgery, and help fill the hole in my wallet. Course, she'd need a cargo plane to haul around my big ole teeth...

We're off to school shop and have a bit of R&R (not so much rest & relaxation as run and... run around).

Happy weekend to all!

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Why a synopsis (The reason behind all the pain and suffering)

Had some important stuff to share and the LPI blog sat empty, so... I crashed it.
My post is there today.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Watcha Readin' Wednesday

This week I'm reviewing a book I've planned to read for about 6 months (ever since samples came through in my DearReader.com messages): Just Breathe, by Susan Wiggs.

This is my first experience with Wiggs' work, and I wasn't disappointed. The story begins when Sarah is undergoing a fertility treatment, which her husband is unable to attend. Much to her dismay, when she searches him out later in the day with pizza and Coke, she finds him doing the dirty with another woman.

Needless to say, I was interested to see how Sarah's situation panned out, and how it compared with my own Waiting for Revenge. Sarah leaves Chicago and goes "home" to a tiny coastal town in California, where romance blooms with firechief/former high school golden boy, Will. At first it seems Sarah's problem isn't quite the same as Mandy's in Waiting, because unlike Mandy she doesn't have two kids to consider in her decision to divorce. Like I said...at first. Before long, Sarah finds her final fertility treatment was a success, which complicates matters considerably.

I love Sarah's grandma and great-aunt. Their advice is spot-on, and they meddle in the best possible ways (a la Waiting's great-Aunt Clara). Sarah does have girlfriends who give her little pushes in the right direction, whereas Mandy tried to keep her marital problems on the down-low and didn't share much, other than with her sister-in-law. And boy, did I dislike Sarah's soon-to-be ex, Jack. Jack had apparently been something of a jerk for years, and he never fails to say the perfect thing to make me hate him more. This is far from Mandy's situation, where she'd been happily married and felt Mike treated her right up until his indiscretion. At no time in Just Breathe did I feel like Sarah should give Jack another chance. Maybe infidelity is a total Dealbreaker for me, like it is for these gals.

This book was well worth the wait. I rate it a Keeper, although to be entirely honest I snagged it from the New shelf at the library so I'd best not keep it... Susan Wiggs is now on my radar and I'll be watching for her stuff.

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Tube Tuesday

In honor of my nerve-wracking consult at the oral surgeon's yesterday...a bit of lightness.


httt://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoMhLoKkuOU&NR=1

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

"Small Press"... What it means

I'm blogger du jour over at the LPI blog today, educating one and all about small presses.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Sheet Eater

Things are weird enough at 2 a.m. when the full moon casts wonky shadows over the nightscape. The coyotes tend to howl all night instead of briefly, and sometimes things get darn disorienting...

I dreamed of eating the sheet, woke to find I'd been grinding my molars. A cool breeze ruffled the curtains, which glowed with moonlight. Why the heck would I dream about chewing on the sheet?

"Rip, tear, grind, grind, grind."
"Snort."
"Riiiiip, grind, grind..."

What the...?

Our neighbor has his horses penned around the houses right now, to help mow down the extravagant vegetation we've had with all this rain. And apparently the roughage growing along the drip line of our house is Grade A, because the older horse really likes eating right outside our bedroom windows.

In case anybody's wondering, horses are not quiet eaters.

Feel like I spent the night gnawing a batch of crazy-tough romaine.

Happy Friday!

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Think I'm in Love...

A few of the things I'm totally digging this week:

I *heart* Statcounter. It's a nifty hit-tracking tool for anybody with a website or blog. If you have multiple sites, it'll display all your stats in one neat chart, listed by number of hits today, yesterday, for the month, and for all time (since you installed your counters). You can also get more detailed info on each individual project. Best of all? Totally free. Anybody with a web presence should use it. I just love checking it and seeing how many people are visiting my sites. And they are, for some reason...

I *heart* Amazon discussions. Whatever you're into, there's a discussion about it on Amazon. Right now, I'm following along and having fun with one in the Romance Community, Titled "Book Rant", where people complain about what they hate in books. Very fun to see what winds people up. We're having some discussion presently about how likely a 28 year-old virgin is in a contemporary romance.

I *heart* Fictionwise top sellers lists. At present, I'm addicted to checking the lists for my two publishers to see how my books rank compared with my peers' books. Might become an obsession at some point. Amazon posts rankings too, in each item's description. If one of my books ever hits a number with less than 6 digits, I'll probably faint dead away.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!

Watcha Readin' Wednesday

I'm back in Diana Gabaldon mode, and I've dusted off that poor neglected copy of Drums of Autumn. Which is causing me some problems, because these books really suck me in and all I want to do is park my butt and read, when I've got a bajillion other things to do. Dangit.

Claire and Jaimie are in the colonies now, which is a whole other world of opportunities for them to get into trouble. Just a riveting story. And I keep panicking, knowing one day I'll reach the end and then what?

Will review it... eventually.
But I've still got 3 more books to copy edit by month's end, and then my summer copy editing spree will wind down a bit. (Yes, that's a big sigh of relief. I like editing, but it's been rather intense the last 3 months.)

Happy page-turning, whatever you're reading.

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Tube Tuesday

Today, a clip from my new favorite comedy. (well, in truth it ties with 2 1/2 Men for laugh-out-louds)

The Big Bang Theory: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

Happy tubing!

Autumn Piper
Romance is sexy!

Day Off

Sorting some things out today.

Disorganization probably does suck more than Mondays.

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!