Possibly one of the coolest words ever...

WIDGET!







Get your widget on at Anna Hackett's Blog!

She'd been a thief a long time but bank robbery was a new low...

...Anna Hackett's TIME THIEF is OUT NOW!  

So, I have two Critique Partners--you knew that, right?

And you know that I think they're completely awesome, right?  

Did you know that one of them has a COMPLETELY AWESOME NEW BOOK OUT?

TIME THIEF is the first book of Anna Hackett's new Anomaly Trilogy (See how cool that sounds?)

I have always loved Anna's work in an entirely non-biased way, ever since I read SAVAGE DRAGON, her pitch-winning Silhouette Nocturne Bites.

Here's a blurb:

Hunted for her ability to steal time, Bay North lives a life on the run. All she wants is to make the crime lord who slaughtered her family pay. But now he's set the ultimate hunter on her trail and Bay will need all her skills to carry out her revenge and survive.

Ex-Navy SEAL Sean Archer saw his team killed by a time thief in Afghanistan and came back a broken man. He's made a dark deal with a criminal to hunt down all time thieves and now Sean's tracked the wily Bay North to Denver where he plans to rid the world of one more dangerous mutation.

But during a shootout, hunter and hunted find themselves depending on each other for survival. Joining forces to exact payback by stealing a priceless treasure, their reluctant alliance shatters both their defenses. Can Bay find the courage to trust? And can Sean convince a woman honed in revenge that she can have more than vengeance, blood and killing?

Get your copy at Amazon, Smashwords, or All Romance eBooks.  More estores to come.  

Anna will be having a party at her blog soon to celebrate TIME THIEF's release, and I know she's going to be giving some very cool things away, so stay tuned for that.

Anna's been busy tweaking her website in time for her new release, I think it's come up a treat!  While you're perusing, check out her book list.

I'll leave you now to go download a book. :)

E x

I've got a secret...

...and if you have ever met me, you'll know--short of superglue and maybe strategic placement of duct tape--I usually fail miserably at keeping them.

Today is no different.

I'm going to let you in on a secret, which in truth, isn't a secret at all.  Lucky for me, coz I'm about to let you in on it.

My marvellous CP, Anna Hackett, has a new book coming out!

Isn't it pretty?!  I'll keep you updated, but I have seen the shenanigans she has planned for the release and OH MY!  there will be lots of cool stuff going on.  Anna will also keep us updated at her blog:  www.annahackett.blogspot.com.

But at this stage, all that's still secret.

AHEM.  Excuse me while I go find the duct tape.


Stay awesome,
Em.



PS After a long hiatus, Anna is back on twitter @AnnaHackett.  Feel free to enter the twittersphere and heckle her a bit about her new releases this year.  Tell her Em sent you.  She loves the attention.  ;)

She's hanging out at DSDU now too, so head over there and get amongst it.

Z is for Zuckuss...and farewell to The Alphabet Posts.

Awesome, right?

Artist Brandon Peat and his wife Emma designed these fabulous Star Wars prints for their baby boy, based on the original trilogy and wider universe.  No new dudes.  ADORE!

Check out the full alphabet here.  

As a final HOORAH! to the alphabet, I thought I'd feature some results of alphabet web searches:


This one is by Fabian 'Lishoff' Gonzales:  Yes!  The Simpsons!  I found it at Digital Bus Stop.


Can you name the characters?  Take your time...  The answers are underneath, so once you scroll down, there's no going back.

How many did you get?

A – Abe (Grandpa) Simpson
B- Bart Simpson
C – C. Montgomery Burns
D – Dr. Hibbert
E – Edna Krabappel
F – Fallout Boy (as portrayed by Milhouse)
G – Groundskeeper Willy
H – Homer Simpson
I – Itchy
J – Jimbo (one of the school bullies)
K – Krusty the Clown
L – Lisa Simpson
M – Marge and Maggie Simpson
N – Ned Flanders
O – Otto (the bus driver)
P – Patty Bouvier (one of Marge’s sisters)
Q – (mayor) Quincy
R – Ralph Wiggum
S – Santa’s Little Helper
T – Troy McClure
U – Uter Zorker
V – the Van Houtens
W – Waylon Smithers
X – Xtapolapocetl
Y – Yes Man
Z – Zutroy

Finally, here's a vaguely disturbing alphabet in a book called The Gashlycrumb Tinies (or, After the Outing), by Edward Gorey.  It's an ABC book that tells the story of 26 children (one for each letter of the alphabet) and their untimely demises in didactic rhyming couplets (yes, I did look that up), complete with black and white illustrations.  It's said to be poking fun at parenting paranoias, and having a bit of a go at the general notion of idyllic, sunny childhoods. 

I can sort of see the amusing areas:

"F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leach."

"Q is for Quentin, who sank in a mire."

"N is for Neville, who died of ennui."

But, by and large, I'm left squirming.  

Of course, given this is the Z post, this must be aired:

Image:  Digital Bus Stop.  See the full set.

Gin; yes please.  Gin + Kiddies; no.  Not suprisingly, Mr Gorey did not create any children of his own before his own demise in 2000 (the cause of which is not mentioned.  Perhaps he fell into a tiger pit?).  Apparently, he didn't like them particularly much. Children, that is. Can't comment on his feelings about tiger pits.  

This is the Zilla I know, my sister's very sweet Great Dane, who isn't partial to gin, thus should live a long and very spoiled life.  She's much happier than she looks, even thought she doesn't drink.  

And on that very marvellous note we bid farewell to the Alphabet Posts.

Happy reading!  

Em.  

Y is for Yippeedoo.

It's July.  Which means that the RWA's 50Kin20days is over.

I didn't quite make goal (which was 20k), but I got close, and finished the wip, so I didn't suck as much as I suspected I would, which is always a nice suprise.  Yippeedoo!

That said, the wip is one HUUUGE, hot, stinky, convoluted MESS.  There is a long road ahead, re-write-wise.  The whole thing has just made me cranky enough that I want to beat it up a little just to make myself feel better, so that's good.

On the CP front, Anna and Rach have both been busy writing.  In fact, Anna's got some new releases coming up very shortly, which are awesome and exciting.  Stay tuned!

While you're headed over to Anna's website, hit DSDU's Good News as well.  They're busy little bats over there...

It's school holidays here, and we've been away at the beach, doing a great deal of not very much.  I've been reading, fiddling with my plot on the wip, and taking photos.

Here's my favourite.  I have called it, "Give us the fish, and nobody gets hurt.  Capiche?"

X is for Xtremes

Do you know how hard it is to find things that start with 'X' that aren't xylophone and x-ray?  I don't have any strong feelings about either of these concepts, good or bad, but I don't really feel the need to discuss them.

Sorry to all the xylophone enthusiasts out there.  I know there are many.

So, I cheated.  I'd just like to say I know that xtreme does not actually start with an 'X'.  I am aware.  But since it's my blog, I'm all right with suspending rational thought.  Yet again.

Speaking of xtremes (finally), I wanted to direct your attention to the Cover Cafe Annual Cover Contest for 2011.

These are nominated covers which are then voted on, and there are winners in a number of categories.  For example, the winner in the Alternate Reality Section:

So pretty, as so many in this category are.

 And the Contemporary section:

Yes, I like that one.  I have a pulse.


And this gorgeous one from the Historical section:

Isn't it beautiful?


And then there's the Worst Covers section:

What is going on with that dude's head?

Hence, my poorly-spelled XTREME.

This cover was the one which caught my eye the most for all the wrong reasons, but it's not the winner of the worst covers category.  Go have a look.

I actually feel a little bad for some of these authors.  Is that normal?  

While you're there in that final section, check out the comments.

Xtremely hilarious stuff!  





Happy reading,

Emmeline.

W is for 'What the?'

Our youngest offspring, Anarchy, is four.  He's more like me than I'm strictly comfortable with.  He's not a highly physical child (he holds his hands high when he runs, so he looks like a human washing machine, and none of his limbs seem to be facing the right direction), although he does love kicking balls, reading books and riding his scooter.  He's verbose, and he's a drama llama.

Now, he's only little.  He can't tie his shoelaces, he can't cook, he can't even clean his room without supervision.

So, 'W is for Whale" should be right up his alley:

Right?  No.  Boo-ooring!

Anarchy has an iPad.  Well, it's my old one.

The child uses it far more effectively than I ever will.  Now, I have heard all the arguments against too much gaming, too much TV, not enough running around outside.  For the record, he is a mean machine on the trampoline.

But, I swear, he learned the concept of 'first, second, third" from MarioKart on the Wii.  His reflexes are sharp as little tacks.  He understands some laws of physics, especially if they are accurately depicted in the game.

He could read his name not long after he turned three.  He could spell it shortly after, clicking the little letters in games to put himself in the hall of fame.  In recent months, he's been inclined to pick up a pen and write it.

And write and write and write.  Names, labels, random nouns.

Recently, he was playing a cute little game called Scribblenauts Remix on his device.  It involves you helping a little character by typing in nouns, and that thing will appear for your little man to use.  It's like choose your own adventure with stuff.

Anarchy's little man was in a bind, couldn't move, was stuck between two buildings and to add insult to injury, the boy had conjured up an eel that had eaten all of his goldfish. Time to get out of there.

He asked me, "How do you spell jetpack?"

I looked at him.

"It starts with 'juh', right?"

"Um, yes.  What do you think is next?"

With coaching, he got it all except the kicking K.

You should have seen the fist punching when his little man sailed up and out of there.

He's learned something that I have long suspected to be true:  a jetpack fixes everything.

Until next time,

Em.  x