NO HOLE!!!!!!

I'm deliriously happy!!! (Have I already mentioned that I'm slightly paranoid when it comes to holes in my teeth?) Anyway, went to the dentist, told her about the big, black, ugly hole in my tooth, then opened mouth -- aaaaaahhhhhh -- so she could have a look for herself.

"Where?" she asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Left side at the back," I said and pointed for good measure before I opened my mouth again -- aaaaaahhhhhhh.

"Hmm." So she took her itty-bitty dentis-mirror and had another look. Then she reached for this disgusting, small hook and prodded in my teeth for a bit. (Bah! I really hate when they're doing that!) And then, "There's no hole," she said.

"No hole?" I asked, cautiously hopeful.

"No hole. There's a discoloration, but no hole."

At which point my face broke into the goofiest grin imaginable. "No hole! Oh my gosh, there's NO hole! No hole!!!!!"

Dentis threw me a strange look and hurried finished her examination. I've got the sneaky suspicion that she now thinks I'm mad.

And I'm not!

Really!

And I've got no hole in my tooth! Yay! :O)

Oooooooh: On Your Toes! Or, Sandy in Fangirl-Mode

Found even more of Adam Cooper (the Swan in the Swan Lake video below) on Your Tube (I luuuuuuuuuuve Your Tube!!!!!!!!!!!!!!):

On Your Toes 1

On Your Toes 2 (It's got to be love)

Here be Swans!

Most of you will probably already know how much I love Matthew Bourne's SWAN LAKE. Well, now you can find the Swans on You Tube, too. The first snippet starts at one of my favourite SWAN LAKE moments (see pic above).

And here's the Pas de Quatre of the Little Swans: Matthew Bourne's version and traditional version.

Enjoy! (And then run to the nearest music store and get the DVD of Bourne's SWAN LAKE! *g*)

The First of the Week

I've sunk into lazyboneritis. Terrible lazyboneritis. And the weather here is not really inducing me to get rid of it any time soon: it's cold, it's raining, it's fricking autumn! Bah! And I've got this hole in my tooth. Baaaah!

So I'm trying to reduce my TBV (to be viewed) pile of DVDs -- and have discovered a true gem: the anime MILLENNIUM ACTRESS.

The director Tachibana plans to interview one of the great film legends of the past, the beautiful actress Chiyoko Fujiwara. 30 years ago she quitted film-making under mysterious circumstances and has lived as a recluse ever since. And while she talks to Tachibana, the story of her life mingles with the stories of her films - both herself and the characters she played are are on a never-ending search for something or someone. The interview with Tachibana is her last chance to unravel the secrets of her life ...

Very beautiful film. Made me cry buckets ...

Second Chapter of BETRAYAL is now online!

In this chapter the other twin returns home to Ashburnham Place in Sussex, we meet the hero, and a secret is revealed. Enjoy! (I do hope my audio-file editing programme did not gobble up any parts of this episode!) (Let me know if it did!!!)

Sandy's Podchatter

Friday Stuff

Bought another trunk yesterday. And found a hole in my tooth. Whaaaaaaaaah! (I've got this phobia about teeth and holes ever since I discovered a crater at the back of one of my teeth a few years ago. And to my utter horror, the dentist failed to mention filling, but starting mumbling about crowns straight away.) And to make things really cozy, I still haven't quite finished that chapter I'm supposed to read tomorrow. (Okay, this just proves that A) appearances are totally deceptive because B) while I might be a wonderfully organized person from the outside, the inside me is a chaotic freak. *sigh*)

Off to feed the cats before they're sick in the hallway ....

Ikea Adventures

Sorry for having been absent from bloglandia for the past few days. I'm currently trying to put the finishing touches to my flat. Into which I moved two years ago, I know. But the walls in the sitting room are still bare and my bedroom regularily turns into the setting for unimaginable chaos. Oh, and I realized I'll really need another shelf in my home office. I'm going to put it behind the door. You won't be able to fully open door then, but I consider a small sacrifice in view of getting more shelf space. Speaking of shelves, there're still no shelves on the wall of the library-cum-music-room. 'nother thing that needs to be done. (Does it ever end????)

Anyway, this week I tackled the bedroom situation. Went to Ikea and bought new stuff (took me three hours to walk through the whole store -- why?). Found magnetic coasters for pots (are they called coasters when they're for pots?). Cool, isn't it? Also bought new pot. And a towel rack (for the bedroom, though. For used clothes.) And a trunk for the bedroom (will be filled with all my bags so I've got more space in my wardrobe!).

Today, I spent all day assembling the towel rack (easy) and the trunk (not to easy). Got tiny slivers in my finger. They were so tiny that you couldn't even see them, but still, they hurt like hell. In the end I conquered both towel rack AND trunk. Now I just need to clean up the additonal chaos that putting everything together created as well as the normal chaos in the bedroom.

There are times when I suspect I've got too much stuff ...

Oh, guess what the cat's doing!

Indeed: being sick in the hallway.

Twice.

Oh joy!

First Episode of BETRAYAL Is Now Online!!!!

You're all invited to join me at Sandy's Podchatter and step back into Regency England and Germany for Georgina's and Ash's story. Enjoy!

You realize you're getting older when ...

... you walk into H&M and realize these clothes are so not for you. In addition you've got a hard time finding your size in the undies section ...

After these depressing facts, some uplifting stuff:

The World's Smallest Website

Jumping Lady (klick on the lady to make her jump!)

Rain, rain, go away ...

Woke up in the middle of the night due to heavy rainfall (it sounded as if we should've been boarding a new arc!). Woke up in the morning to more rain -- and decided I won't go to Frankfurt today. I had planned to visit that shop one of my friends discovered: A Taste of Britain. They seem to have run out of Cadbury Twirls, but hey, I would have settled for a Cadbury Flake all right. Only -- going to the station and waiting for the train in the rain? Walking around Frankfurt in the rain? Ew. No thanks. I'll just go to the Main-Taunus-Zentrum instead, which is something like an outdoor mall. Only they've put a glass roof over most of the walkways, so you don't have to run around with an umbrella when it's raining. Neat!

So while I amuse myself going shopping, here's something for your amusement, too:

Fluffy Puppy & Kittens

Puppy in the Grass

Puppy Plays with Its Human

And have you ever dreamed about throwing waterbombs from the Golden Gate Bridge? Here's your chance!

Golden Gate Drop

Holiday Reading

Sent off revisions to agent. Agent loved revisions. Yay! So I took the last two days off and spent a large part of them READING! Yes! (After all, I've got these 61 new books, remember?) (Okay, okay, I admit it: I had already done a bit of reading on the weekend.) Soooo, what did I read? Here's the list:

• THE TRUE LOVE WEDDING DRESS (anthology), loved especially Barbara Metzger's and Connie Brockway's stories
• Meggin Cabot, SHE WENT ALL THE WAY, sweet, humorous, with a bit of suspense
• Meg Cabot, EVERY BOY'S GOT ONE, really liked that one! It's very different: it consists of diary entries, e-mails, receipts, etc. But -- well, that Nazi joke at the end of the book -- that was so not necessary.
• Debbie Macomber, WYOMING KID
• Catherine Spangler, SHADOW FIRES, loved, loved, loved it!!!
• Catherine Spangler, SHADOWER.

And in a few minutes, I'll be standing in my library and will pick yet another book to read. I luuuuuuuuuuve holidays!!!!

Addition to my Idea Boutique Post

I've just found out that Kästner's DAS DOPPELTE LOTTCHEN has been translated into English as LOTTIE AND LISA:

Unfortunately, the book seems to be out of print, but I'm sure you can get it used, if you're interested in Kästner's novel.

My favourite film adaptation is the old black and white German film with Jutta and Isa Günther. All the women in my family seem to love this version best. :-)

Idea Boutique Post

Today I'm guest-blogging at the Idea Boutique about the inspiration for BETRAYAL. Enjoy!

Monday Mutterings

You know what's so horrid about proof-reading your own stuff? Inevitably you come to a point where you think, "This SOOOO sucks. This is worse than anything the dinosaurs would have written if they had been able to write! Oh, oh, oh!" And then you dash into the kitchen, open your cookie jar -- and remember that the cookie monster ate all your cookies. (It also ate all the peanutbutter cups, btw.)

And then, to make it all totally perfect, your cat is sick in the hallway.

Well, no, it hasn't.

At least not yet.

Hm ....

Or at least, I hope none of the cats has been sick in the hallway.

Sometimes you can't really tell. Until you step into the hairball-goo, that is. But have you ever seen any of the romance heroines who own a cat stepping into any hairball-goo? Sometimes it would be really good to be a romance heroine. I mean, you would also have the added benefit of a totally hunkalicious, but also caring, sensitive guy in your bed (I'm obviously talking about the ending here; who wants to be a romance heroine in the middle of the book when the hero's snarling at the poor girl and about to throw her into the dungeons?)! Okay, where was I? -- Ah, yes, the hunkalicious guy in your bed. Cool, right? So he would be the one to get up in the mornings to feed the cats, step into the hairball-goo and do the litter trays! Ha! :)

Sunday Afternoon Mishaps

Bad things that might happen to a girl on a Sunday afternoon: she ambles into her kitchen, opens lid of her cookie jar -- and realizes some terrible, cookie-eating monster must have devoured all her delicious, chocolate-covered cookies during the night. This is terrible! Where have all the cookies gone?

If you've got some spare cookies (preferably chocolate-covered), please send them to this poor, cookieless author.

Else, I'm writing a post for The Idea Boutique, which will go up on Tuesday.

Hell Hath No Fury ....

You gotta love this girl! Apparently, there's been some speculation on the net whether this is a real story or not. But even if she's fictional, you still gotta love Emily. You go girl!

Thursday Duh

Over at AAR they've got a not-so-nice discussion about THE LILY BRAND. I was so proud of myself because it didn't upset me at all --- until somebody called Troy a jerk. Now, that hurt. :-/ Nobody wants to have her hero called a jerk. Or a moron. (Of course, the heroine is allowed to call the hero a jerk. Or a moron. Or a nigemog. Featherhead. Dunderhead. Bird-witted dodo. Take your pick. *g*) But luckily, I've still got some peanutbutter cups, so I'm eating those for comfort. I would give a few to Troy, too, really I would! But well, you see the flaw in that...

Wolfenbach revisions: Yesterday I noticed for the first time that the hero's father and the hero's valet have almost identical names. *head on table* Why haven't I seen this before? So I'll need to page through my book of German firstnames some more.

Whaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!

What ARE these people at M&B doing to their Tender Romance line???? Check out their September releases. Can anybody please explain me what was wrong with the orange covers? I really liked the orange covers! (Okay, so not these orange covers. Geez. What the heck happened to their art department???) Now the Tender Romances look like the historicals. Geez.

In addition, this will disrupt the whole color scheme in my M&B shelf.

Not good.

Definitely not good.

Duh.

Firsts as Favourites

Yesterday an interesting At the Back Fence column went up at All About Romance. Among other things, Laurie raises the theory that the first books we've read by a specific author are often our favourite novels by that author. She wrote about this in more detail ten years ago in At the Back Fence #9:

ARE OUR FIRSTS OUR FAVORITES? This question, and get your minds out of the gutter ;), was brought to my attention by a Prodigy pal. Gretchen was struck by the fact that, although so many of us are such fans of Julie Garwood, most of us cannot agree on which of her books is best. For instance, Gretchen likes The Bride best. I like Castles best. It turns out that she read The Bride first. I read Castles first. Were we on to something? Could we say that readers tend to prefer the first book they read by a beloved author? As it turns out, yes . . . and no. . . .
When I looked through my library database, I discovered that my firsts are usually my favorites. It has held true for Julie Garwood, Johanna Lindsey, Catherine Coulter, Rexanne Becnel, Teresa Medeiros, Judith McNaught, Lisa Kleypas, and Kathryn Lynn Davis. But it is not always the case -- my favorites by Ruth Langan, Amanda Quick, Deborah Simmons, Elizabeth Elliott, Linda Lael Miller, and Katherine Sutcliffe were not the first books I read.

Now, when I looked through my bookshelves, I came to a similar result. My firsts are often my favourites: Gaelen Foley's LORD OF FIRE, Teresa Medeiros' THE BRIDE & THE BEAST, Susan Elizabeth Phillips's THIS HEART OF MINE, Stephanie Laurens's A RAKE'S VOW, Nora Roberts's THE MACGREGOR GROOMS, Victoria Holt's THE DEVIL ON HORSEBACK, Penelope Williamson's KEEPER OF THE DREAM. However, this is not to say that later books by these authors are worse -- not at all! I absolutely adored Teresa's YOURS UNTIL DAWN; Gaelen's latest, HIS WICKED KISS with its jungle-reared heroine is absolutely intriguing; and I don't really have to tell you that Nora Roberts is a top-notch author. It's just that the books I read first hold a special place in my heart. I guess this is comparable to whether you are a Lymond-fan or a Niccolo-lover: it depends on which series you read first. :)

Moreover, I've found that I've got a special love for my early romances -- which makes perfect sense, doesn't it? With your first secret baby or amnesia plot, you're totally charmed by the whole concept of it. Yet when you discover that secret babies and amnesia abound in romance (just like dragons and hidden kings do in fantasy), you are no longer quite as surprised and start looking more closely at the execution of the specific plot. I still love secret babies and amnesia, yet I want to see some fresh ideas being brought to these motifs. (Wow, now I sound like all these editors during the publishers' spotlights: "We want the same, but different." *g*)

Can you still remember your first secret baby book? Mine was Anita Mills's THE DUKE'S DOUBLE, a very sweet story indeed. And my first amnesia book was Penny Jordan's LOVER BY DECEPTION with its lovely, lovely cover (I really liked the old, painted M&B covers much better than the new ones with the photographs!). And I still can remember the sheer wonder I felt when reading Stephanie Laurens's A RAKE'S VOW, one of the first romances I ever read: I was totally enchanted by the heroine, who might be a Regency miss, but nevertheless is eager to explore her sexuality and makes a grab at what she wants, i.e. she basically seduces the hero to seduce her and to make love to her. This was a truly refreshing change from all the poor sexually active women who end up being dead as doornails in the classics. And this was what made me fall in love with romance: the celebration of female sexuality and sensuality. Who cares that this might not be historically correct? It nurtures women today -- something that in my opinion is much more important than historical accuracy (which can never be fully achieved in fiction anyway ...)!

Revisions Once More & Things I've Discovered in America

Once again, I'm going through my ms of Wolfenbach in order to tweak it into shape. And I promptly found that at some places where I made cuts during the last revision-feast the text has become somewhat obscure, so the cut paragraphs have to come back after all. In addition, I highlight intertextual references or passages for which I'll want to provide some additional background info on my website. *rubbing my hands* It's going to be so much fun when I finally get the chance to do "Secrets of Wolfenbach" pages for the website!!! :) But first of all, of course, I'll need to create some "Secrets of Betrayal" pages -- I hope the pics I took for these turned out fine. Well, perhaps it would help if I would just get the film developed!

Now, on to things I've discovered during my latest stay in the U.S.:

• peanutbutter M&Ms (this is Kris Alice's fault! just so you know)
• smoothies (ooooh yum! I bought a mixer on Saturday so I can now create smoothies myself -- and now I'm thinking about buying an icecream maker, too. *g*)

AAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wanted to post a new podcast episode this evening, complete with Lois Winston reading from her debut novel TALK GERTIE TO ME. But once again, Audacity destroyed a whole project, and thus, my work of the last 2 1/2 hours. Booohooo!

And now I need to feed the cats.

And do the litter tray, of course. :-/

What Sells? (Shells???)

At RWA National Sue Grimshaw and Kathy Baker gave a workshop as part of the PAN retreat (Published Authors Network), and among other interesting things, Sue Grimshaw listed things that sell well these days:

• paranormals (no surprise here)
• sex / erotic romance (even less surprise here)
• a torso on the cover ("man-titty", yay! *g*)

Okay, so my novels are slowly and steadfastly tripsing into the paranormal section (but so far there are no werwolves or vampirs involved!), and I've already had a torso on a cover. Two torsos (torsi?) in fact, if you count my mock cover for BETRAYAL! Now I just have to do something about the sex. There will be a love scene in BETRAYAL, but so far, I haven't even the faintest idea for a love scene in BEWITCHED. Ah well, I'm counting on the Muse to provide me with something nice! :O)

Llamas Rock!

Found this link again and nearly peed my pants -- again! Enjoy!

Hit by the Jetlag

Yup, jetlag has hit me squarely in the face, so I slept through much of today. And ate some more of the heavenly Godiva truffels! (Unfortunately, I'm now down to only two -- boohooo! I guess I have to throw in some mini-peanutbuttercups in between to make the truffels last another day.)

Lethal Godiva Truffels

The lovely Teresa Medeiros, who was generous enough to give me a wonderful cover quote for THE LILY BRAND, brought me chocolates to Atlanta. Godiva Passion Truffels. And let me tell you, those things are absolutely LETHAL!!!! I don't know how I'll ever lose all the weight I gained during the last week! Here's a picture of Teresa and me at the conference (I stole the pic from Squawk Radio)

The Five Faces (300th Post!!!!)

I'm not quite sure who came up with the Five-Faces-theory, but I heard it mentioned several times during the conference. It goes as follows: at each big conference, there are five people (dear friends and roomies excluded) you will run into repeatedly, and thus, there are five faces you'll see, like, everywhere. I'm afraid, I know only two of my 2006 Five Faces by name: Ann DeStefano and costume whizz kid extraordinaire Kalen Hughes aka Tonda Fuller. Tonda is a follow Beau Monde member and gives the most terrific workshops on clothing! Unfortunately, I missed her workshop this year because my own was scheduled for the same slot. Duh. But she prepared a lovely booklet on fabrics of the Regency -- complete with fabric samples!!! Her first romance novel, LORD OF SIN, will be published in April 2007 -- and she's got one sexy cover for that one!

TBR Pile Takes Gigantic Leap -- Up

Indeed, I did bring home more books this year than in the last: I counted 73 books, 12 of which will become give-aways. Not all of them were RWA books, though:

• Valdemar Companion (YESSSSSS! in paperback even!)
• Diana Wynne Jones, Conrad's Fate (which I'm reading at the moment)
• a big Calvin & Hobbes anthology (how could I resist?)
• The Monster Trap (a picture book)
• Ann Pruser, Murder on Monday
• Lois Faye Dyer, Jessie's Child
• Sandra Marton, Naked in his Arms (uhmm ... sounds promising, doesn't it? *g*)
• Kate Walker, The Antonakos Marriage (can never resist a Kate Walker novel!)
• Lynne Graham, Mistress Bought & Paid For (can't resist a Lynne Graham novel either)

Back Home

As you can see, I survived the giant cockroaches and the truly crappy Lufthansa-food (it was worse than uni-cafeteria food -- much worse!!!) and am happily back home again, where the jet lag has hit me. So, once again, I feel as if something dropped onto my head (what's new?). I'm currently taking a break from unpacking my suitcase (isn't unpacking one's suitcase terribly boring?). If I'm not mistaken, I've managed to drag even more books home with me than in 2005 (54). Will take picture later.

I'm going to post some of my conference adventures later this week. For now, here's a pic of me and the Whine Sisters (aka Kathleen Givens, Julia London & Sherri Browning), schmoozing before I had to head off to the Dorchester dinner. (Note: I shamelessly stole the pic from the Whine Sisters' blog -- as Kathleen found out on Saturday, I can be terribly sneaky if the situation warrants it *g*)