Dec 10
2009

Thursday thrashings

Today has been one of those days when I’ve had a frillion things to do and before I could finish one thing someone was asking me to do another thing and it’s been very frazzling and nowhere near as productive as I’d hoped it would be. It was oddly relaxing to go to kenpo tonight and throw people around/get thrown around. Ah, the calming nature of violence!

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I’ve fallen completely in love with Emerald Cocoa Roast Almonds.

***

I need some clever programmer to come up with a program or macro that will go through my manuscript and point out words that are repeated within x number of sentences/paragraphs/pages of each other. Frex when I use the word “just” fifteen times in a chapter, or when I use the word “really” three times in one sentence. Does anyone know if such a thing already exists?

Dec 8
2009

A poodle named Wolf

The CIA doesn’t need to waterboard prisoners. If they really want to break someone, all they need to do is sic a determined five-year-old on them.

It went something like this:

The Kid: I want a puppy.
Me: Maybe in a few years, honey.

(a few days later)
The Kid: Pleeeeeease? I want a puppy.
Me: We don’t have a fenced yard. We’ll have a dog someday.

(a few more days)
The Kid: Maybe Santa can give us a new house that has a yard so that we can get a puppy?
Me: Erm… I don’t think that’s going to happen.
The Kid: PLEEEEASE? I really want a puppy!
The Husband: What kind of dog do you want, Kid?
Me: [gives the husband the Look Of Death]

(several more days)
The Kid: Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease! I want a puppy!
Me: [whimpers] No small dogs! Tell daddy that you want a German Shepherd!
The Kid: DAD! I WANT A GERMAN SHEPHERD!
The Husband: [makes growly noises about how much they shed]
Me: [snickers]

(still more days)
The Husband: What kind of dog are we getting?
Me: [sighs] No small dogs. No stupid dogs.
Husband: No shedding dogs.
Me: And no destructive dogs.
Both of us: [internet internet internet]
Me: Standard poodle?
Husband: Standard poodle.

Meet the latest addition to our household:
Wolf the Poodle

Nov 25
2009

Blood of the Demon

Random House has an excerpt from the first chapter of Blood of the Demon up at their website. Check it out!

Blood of the Demon will be available February 23, 2010!

Nov 6
2009

Giveaway giveaway update

Abigail and Jennifer (Arceneaux), my emails don’t seem to be getting through to y’all, so if you’d please drop me an email with a snail mail adress in it, I’ll get those books out to you!

email to diana [at] dianarowland [dot] com

Thanks!

Oct 28
2009

The winners of the giveaway giveaway!

The completely randomly picked winners of a copy of Mark of the Demon to be read and then passed on are:

Pia Veleno
Zombie Joe
Vicki
Elaine G
Jennifer (sorry, there was more than one Jennifer–this is the jenarceneaux one)
Barbara Elness
Jenn
Abigail

Hurray!! I’ll be sending an email out to the winners in just a few minutes, asking you to supply me with a mailing address. To the rest of you, thank you SO much for playing along and posting your terrific testimonials to the power of sharing books! Keep on lending!!

Oct 26
2009

I’m going to be living at the post office soon

Another giveaway, but this one’s going to be a little different. I have eight copies of Mark of the Demon to give away, but these are NOT going to be autographed copies. Instead, I’m asking that, after you finish reading it, you pass it along to someone who you think might enjoy it. And then ask them to pass it along when they finish it, etc.

To enter, post a comment and give an example of a series or author you fell in love with after reading a book that was borrowed (from library, friend, relative, whatever.)

Contest will close Wednesday morning (October 28th) as soon as I’ve consumed my coffee.

ETA: You can also give an example of a series/author that you hooked someone else on by loaning them a book!

Oct 12
2009

And the randomly picked winner of the six pack is….

GRETA! Woohoo!! Congrats!

Email me with your address and I’ll ship your six pack to you!
(email: diana [at] dianarowland [dot] com)

And, if you didn’t win, don’t fret! There are more awesome giveaways coming up soon! Huge thanks to everyone who entered. I had a lot of fun reading everyone’s “six things”. :)

Oct 7
2009

Giving away a six-pack of AWESOME!!

Contest time again!! But this one’s going to be a little different. One lucky person will win the following six-pack of books:

Six pack of books!

Displayed are:

Speak of the Devil by Jenna Black
Doubleblind by Ann Aguirre
Darker Angels by MLN Hanover
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
The Trouble With Demons by Lisa Shearin
Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout

To enter, simply leave a comment and list six things. It can be ANYTHING. On Sunday, October 11th, I will randomly pick one winner to receive the whole six pack of AWESOME books. (Yes, this is open to international peeps too, though please be aware that I’ll be using the cheapest (i.e. slowest) shipping method available.)

Go wild!

ETA: It can be six ANYTHINGS! Does not have to be random. Can be six flavors, six colors, six organ names, six things seen on the way to the corner… can be anything at all!!

Jul 24
2009

Quick update

Okay, San Diego Comic-Con is the coolest convention I’ve ever been to. Many more details and pictures to come once my brain is not mush, but for now I have some cool news to share. I received word this morning that german language rights for Mark of the Demon and Blood of the Demon have been sold! (I’ll supply more info once I have it.)

Jun 28
2009

sunday Sunday SUNDAY!

Okay, yeah it’s a Sunday, and I was still awake at 5am. WTF?????

My signing yesterday was AMAZING!!!!!! Over 60 books sold, and many of those were to complete strangers who had no obligation to buy it! :D Seriously, huge thanks to everyone who showed up, and enormous thanks to AnnaMarie at Barnes & Noble who went way above and beyond to give my book and the signing some awesome push. I’ll try and post some pics later on as soon as I can come up to breathe a bit!

In other book-related news, I just received my revision letter for Blood of the Demon, so everything is chugging away nicely on that front as well. The release has been pushed back one month–it’s now February 23, 2010. Sorry about the delay, but it’s for some very cool reasons. (And yeah, I’m going to pull one of those, “It’s cool and I can’t talk about it!” things. [g])

Also, I was “Dame for a Day” at the Deadline Dames yesterday. But instead of deadlines, I talked about death, so stop on by and check it out! Plus, I’m giving away two copies of Mark of the Demon to random commenters! The giveaway ends at midnight tonight (Sunday, JUne 28th), so hutty on over!

In non-book-related news, in a few hours the family and I will be driving to Florida. The Spouse is attending a conference, and the Kid and I are tagging along to die in the blistering heat to enjoy the sun and the sand. Actually, since I have revisions to work on (and a tight deadline), the Kid will probably end up enjoying some of the childrens programs that the resort offers while I hunker down in a corner with manuscript and laptop. Ah, the glamour!

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