A Celebration and a Giveaway!

Here is what Dustin Brown looked like when the Kings won the Stanley Cup. Happy, right? That's how I feel too!

After weeks of working closely with Melissa Bandera of Jelly Design Studio, my new website is finally live!

I'm thrilled with it. It's so bright and cheery. It looks fresh and inviting and I hope it's easy to navigate.

Here are some things, other than the cool design, that I'm really excited about.

I now have a home page so people aren't shuttled directly into the blog.

I have a (long!) list of appearances coming up to commemorate the release of my first hockey romance, On the Surface.

On the sidebar you can see my beautiful cover art for On the Surface and it stays there no matter what page of the website you're visiting.

There are social media buttons!! Quick, go follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. I try to post fun stuff.

My book pages are really easy to navigate now and there are handy links in case you feel like buying one of the books. (You know you want to...!)

You can now get my "authorgraph." It's a cool widget that allows readers to get their electronic book autographed by me.

Amazing site, right? I'm so in love with it. My designer Melissa was wonderful to work with. The process was so painless and she was very patient with all my requests as we tweaked and modified, tried different options, until it was the beautiful site I had only imagined before.

To celebrate the unveiling, I'm giving away a copy of On the Surface, In the Zone Book 1 from Carina Press. Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Video Madness!

I have become obsessed with this game. It's so much fun. The music is fun. The graphics are beautiful. You can't get bored because here is always something new, even after you beat the game. Crazy Dave is hilarious.

You don't want to start playing. Really. It's addicting. But if you feel the need to ignore my warning, go here to play for one free hour.

Unnecessary Knitted Item

I saw this in my Real Simple magazine and couldn't believe it. It's a knitted coffee cup sleeve. Guess how much it retails for!

No, really, guess!

$18.00, no lie. I suppose there might be some eco-freaks out there who might drag this thing into Starbucks to use. (If you're one of them, I'll knit you one for only five bucks.)

This is the place where you can get the original if you want it. They also have slingshot pencils, hair clips that look like googly eyes, and tiny herb gardens whose pots are porcelain eggs. Those things are kind of cool.

Get All Fifty!

Do you know your United States geography? I thought I did. This site proved me wrong.

http://jimspages.com/States.htm

After a couple of tries, I got 92%, largely because I got some key states first and was able to use those to orient others whose locations I was more fuzzy on.

Have fun!

And don't forget about my Writing for Woman's World Magazine blog. A new story analysis is up there.

Words Per Minute

As a writer, I've become a pretty fast typist. I was curious to see just how fast I was, so I took a test. 89 WPM. Not bad. I kind of remember it being about 40 or 50 when I was in high school. I still can't type the numbers without looking, though.

If you're curious, here's the test I took. What's your speed? :)

Scared of Software

I recently bought Dreamweaver CS4 so that I could update my own website. I have yet to open the package because I'm a-skeered. I am so ignorant of html-ish stuff, but I feel silly about that fear. What's the worst that could happen? It's hard? Pfft. Trial and error. That's how I learned how to use Microsoft Publisher.

Okay. I just opened the package. There are just disks. No manual. I'm hoping there are tutorials. I'm actually praying there are tutorials. If there is a God, He'll have made them include tutorials.

I just inserted the disk, but it wants me to close all my programs before installing. So, I won't be doing that now. I have some more blogging to do. But at least I opened the package! LOL

Blog Love Meme

My good friend, Robin Bielman, gave me this award, and I'm so excited about it. Not only is it a cute award (and it totally suits Robin herself), it means I'm not blogging every day to no one. My trusty Robin can be depended upon to come visit so my efforts are not a total waste of time. Every blogger should have a Trusty Robin.

Trying to pay it forward, I'm going to award this to other people, whose blogs I love.

1. Evie Byrne is a friend and fellow erotic romance author. Her recent release Dante's Inferno, I absolutely LOVED. The humor in that book was so wry, it had me, literally (ha! what a pun) laughing out loud. The historical Venetian setting, the artistic aspect, the wonderful description...I would highly recommend the book to anyone.

Anyway, she has an equally fantastic blog, but it's not for virgin eyes. It's dedicated to erotic art. Everytime I go there I'm entertained or educated, or both!

2. Another blog I really like is Risky Regencies. It's a group blog that is so packed with all sorts of Regency stuff. Going there can feel like time-travelling straight to England. Pip pip!

3. Lastly, I'll admit it--I'm a fantasy/sci-fi nerd. One of my very favorite books of recent years is NAME OF THE WIND by Patrick Rothfuss. So immersed was I in his world that even after I finished this book, I remained mesmerized for several days. It is THAT GOOD. This book will be a classic for, like, forever. Anyway, to my delight, he's a regular blogger and is so so so so funny. I can usually count on him to bring a smile to my face. And he's also very real. Like a normal person. He eats junk food. He uses the f-word on his blog. He squees over fan mail, of which he gets a ton. I just love the guy. I can't wait for the next book in the series. So, read the book and visit the blog.