Diana Rowland — Writing, Life, and the Stuff in between

I’ll be signing copies of Mark of the Demon this afternoon at the Barnes & Noble in Mandeville, LA from 2-4pm.

So… wow. A book I wrote is being sold in most major bookstores in North America. How f**king cool is that?

The e-book version of Mark of the Demon has been available for preorder at the Random House website for quite some time now, but now it’s available on the Kindle as well! Charge up those e-readers!

I went out earlier today to run errands, and when I came back home there was a box waiting for me.

Hurray! It was THE box!

However, Angel seems to be over his disdain, and is now reluctant to part with any of them.

Kid (who very recently turned 5): Mom, what’s rosemary?

Me: It’s an herb… a kind of plant.

Kid: What does it look like?

Me: Ummm, I’m not really sure.

Kid: You could look it up on the internet!

Me: Why, yes. You’re absolutely right. We should do that.

Kid: Mom. You need to type in PLANTS DOT COM and it will show you what it looks like. That’s how you find out!

Me: You’re terribly smart, dear. Thank you for telling me.

There’s an interview of yours truly up at Bitten By Books. Stop by today for a chance to win Fabulous Prizes!

I went bicycling yesterday–just staying in the neighborhood since I don’t have my mileage up enough yet to make it worth taking my bike out to the trace. To set the scene a bit here, I live in a fairly nice neighborhood, gated subdivision, country club, all of that stuff. (I’m still not sure how we managed to squeeze our way in here. Any minute now they’ll figure out that we Don’t Belong and kick us out..LOL)

Anyway, I’m cycling along and I see a large bird on the side of the road. A large black bird…with a naked head. Yes, a frickin’ buzzard was sitting on the side of the road, watching me with its beady eyes as I rode past. It was still there when I rode back by, peering at me in a hungry leer. At least it looked like a hungry leer to me! I’m sure that it had heard my gasping and puffing and became convinced that I’d be a rotting corpse in short order. If buzzards had lips I’m sure it would have been licking them.

Now I can’t decide if this is a sign that I should exercise more… or less!

(Yes, Sandra, I know what YOUR answer will be..LOL)

I’m back from Kentucky. (Actually I’ve been back since Tuesday evening. But by now y’all should know I’m not known for timely posts!) It was quite an impressive workshop, and I got a lot out of the one-on-one sessions with the attendees. There were a lot of very talented writers there, and I have no doubt that many of them will get published. It was a really great experience and I hope I get the chance to do it again.

The Kid was very glad to have me home though, and proudly announced that she’d learned to swim while I was gone. (Remember, I wasn’t even gone a full four days…LOL) And, she proceeded to lie face down on the living room floor with her face down in the carpet, and kicked her feet and waved her arms to show me how she swam.(I wish I’d had a video camera!)

There’s less than three weeks to go until the official release date of Mark of the Demon. I’m absolutely dying to see what it looks like as a real book. Remember, I didn’t receive any ARCs, and I’ve yet to get my author copies (in fact I’ve been told that those might not arrive until a few weeks after the release. Aakk!)

However, you can now read an excerpt from the first chapter! (FYI–The formatting is a bit off and stuff that’s supposed to be in italics isn’t, so it may read strangely in parts.)

And finally, there’s an interview of yours truly at Lurvalamode.com. (And there’s a review of Mark of the Demon as well!)

Another reviewer had some nice things to say about Mark of the Demon.

If you haven’t yet seen this video of Susan Boyle, you absolutely MUST watch it now. It’s the ultimate feel-good movie, underdog-to-champion, boiled down into seven glorious minutes. Absolutely marvelous.