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

It’s a new year?? Holy crap, how the hell did that happen?

Okay, so I didn’t mean to lay off blogging for six months. (Cringe!) Things got busy, yanno?

Anyway—here’s a bit of catch-up:

July: Went to San Diego ComicCon. Had a total blast. I LOVE this con and fully intend to go every year if possible.

July-ish: The German version of Mark of the Demon came out.

Isn’t it purty??? I can’t read a lick of German, so I’m taking it on faith that it’s really my book.

August, September, October, November: Wrote. Caught up on various TV. Prepared for the holidays. Gained too much weight. Wrote some more. Didn’t blog. (Heh.) Did something to my knee that made it hurt. A lot. Went to the doc, had an MRI, was informed that I have an impressive amount of osteoarthritis in my right knee. Go me! Sheesh.

December: Got mad at myself for gaining too much weight. Re-joined Loseit! (loseit.com) along with a handful of friends, got my ass back into the gym and become BFFs with the elliptical (since I can’t run any more.) Got back into the heavy weight-lifting as well. Love me some muscles! Lost 8.5 pounds since Dec 5th. Go Me! Did some more writing, but nowhere near as much as I needed to. Sigh. Survived Christmas. Did promo for Secrets of the Demon. Holy crap, I have a book coming out soon!

January: Still exercising, still writing!

So, yes, Secrets of the Demon officially comes out tomorrow, but I’m hearing lots of reports of sightings! I have a signing at the Barnes & Noble in Mandeville, LA, on Saturday, Jan 8th, from 2-4 pm, and another at the Books-A-Million in Baton Rouge on Jan 15th, also from 2-4pm.

And I know many people who don’t believe in making resolutions, and I seldom do, but my routine and my already-paltry organizational skills fell apart during the latter half of 2010, so my biggest resolution this year will be to stop screwing around so much and get the work done that needs to get done. 2010 was actually a terrific year for me in a lot of ways, and I’m hoping 2011 will build on that and totally rock. I have a lot of great opportunities popping up for me, and if I miss out on them, I’ll only have myself to blame.

Oh, and I’m thinking of getting pink stripes in my hair once I reach my goal weight.

I just wanted to let everyone know–especially people new to this site–that first-time commenters to this site have to be approved before the comment shows up. It’s a bit of a pain for everyone, but I had a truly horrible problem with comment spam last year and had to make some changes. That being said, once you’ve had a comment approved here, you’re “in” for life! And, I’m also doing my best to check in frequently and get the new comments approved and posted.

Thanks for your patience!

Oh, don’t expect anything profound here. It’s just that I’ve been working 10+ hours a day on deadlined material, and haven’t squeezed out the time to do proper blog entries for various news items. But Stuff has been turned in, so I finally have a chance to breathe!

So:

The woman on the cover of Mark of the Demon is not me. (Many people have asked.) I have no idea who the woman is. The artist who created that wonderful and awesome cover is Juliana Kolesova, so I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that it is either some acquaintance of hers or a model that she hired.

I’ve been asked to be a guest lecturer/instructor at the Writers Retreat Workshop next summer. I’m really stoked about this (and not just because it’s actually a paying gig!) It’s not a genre-only workshop, so I think it’s going to be a great opportunity for me to meet new people and get some insight into how authors outside of SF/F view the craft and the industry. And, I have to give mad props to my agent for dropping my name to the directors. Thanks, Matt! (He’s taught at the workshop in past years and recommended it highly.)

I’ll be in Calgary, AB (yeah, that would be in Canada) for World Fantasy Con at the end of the month. I’ll be arriving on Wednesday, Oct 29 and staying at the Hyatt, so if you want to say Hi, look for me in the usual places. (IOW, the bar.) I had put my name in the hat to be on programming, but since it’s two weeks out and I’ve heard nothing, I’m beginning to think that there will be no programming for me this time. Ah well. Worse things have happened.

I’m really tired of this persistent low-grade headache that’s been hanging on for several weeks now. Yeah, I’ve been to the doctor and have had the x-rays and the MRI. There are no pesky brain tumors or lurking aneurysms, however I do seem to have arthritic spurs in my neck. Arthritis. WTF is up with that? I’m in my early forties fer cryin’ out loud. OTOH, it gives me a good excuse to get frequent massages.

I turn 42 in less than a week. Y’know, I kinda like being in my forties. I finally feel like I know what the heck I’m doing.

If you emailed me and I never responded, please don’t think I just blew you off. I have a HORRIBLE habit of not responding to email immediately, which means that it then falls off my radar. If you sent me something to read or critique and I never responded, PLEASE give me a nudge. It doesn’t even have to be an excessively polite nudge (though I would prefer if you didn’t castigate me too terribly viciously.)

And finally: Congrats to Lindsay for finishing her extremely awesome YA urban fantasy! I’ve read it and it really rocks and I can’t wait for it to sell. She’s a terrific writer with a fantastic voice, so I don’t think it will take long!

Oh, my poor neglected blog.

In my defense, my life really hasn’t been that exciting lately. Marvelous and stress-free, yes, but the excitement level has been a bit low.

However, there are a few things I could mention:

I received my first advance check a couple of weeks ago. That was WAY up there in the “Holy crap this is so frickin cool!” category.

I’ll be speaking at the next meeting of the New Orleans chapter of the Romance Writers of America on Crime Scene Investigation for the Writer (subtitled: Don’t You Dare Use CSI For Your Research.)

I gave up on the running a couple of months ago due to the persistent plantar fasciitis and bought a cheapo Schwinn bicycle. Turns out I really like cycling and I managed to get my distance up to respectable mileage fairly quickly. I subsequently turned around and bought a non-cheapo Trek FX 7.3 which I luurrrrrrve! I started cycling on the St. Tammany Trace and last Sunday did 34 miles. Go me! My current goal is to ride at least a hundred miles a week, however I’m seriously considering signing up for a century ride in late September (though I think I’ll probably just sign up for the “metric century” since two months is a pretty short amount of time to add almost seventy miles to my distance. Yeah, I’m a wimp.)

The writing is going well. The reading is going well.

I’m taking cooking classes and having a blast. Cooking is one of my non-existent skills and this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. However, at the end of the class we eat what we cooked, so it’s a damn good thing I’m doing well with the cycling!

I’ll be at Worldcon in Denver from August 6-11 and will be on the following programming:

Friday 1300
SF in CSI: What’s possible. What’s imaginary, and what’s economically feasible

Saturday 1000
Clarion West Student Readings, the 90s

And finally, I had some professional pictures taken recently, and I’m pretty darn psyched with how they turned out!

Dear Man-at-the-gym-who-was-working-out-with-his-two-sons:

Thank you for accepting the small piece of advice I gave you and your (skinny and weak-looking) son on how he could spot you on your 225lb bench press in a safer and more effective manner. Thank you for listening attentively and not batting a single eyelash that it was a gurl giving you weightlifting advice. Thank you for thanking me sincerely and then, after I walked away, turning to your son and saying, “Did you understand what she was saying? See, if you do it her way it’s better because–” etc. You might not know that it took me several minutes to convince myself that it was better for me to possibly damage your ego than to allow you and your son to not be aware of a safer way for a weaker person to spot a stronger person on the bench press. You might not know that I’ve offered well-meaning advice to novice lifters before and been rudely rebuffed and then seen those same novice lifters accept instruction from other novices who happen to be male.

So, anyway, thank you for setting such a superb example for your sons on how to be a terrific man.