I’ve heard so much about J.R. Ward and her Black Dag­ger Broth­er­hood books that I finally reached into my to-be-read pile this week­end and started the first one, Dark Lover. More to come when I fin­ish it.

But it got me to think­ing about how much I’ve heard about her — and how cool her books are sup­posed to be. And I was won­der­ing how that hap­pens. What makes buzz? Is it one reader telling another? A good review on a pop­u­lar site like All About Romance? A fea­ture in Roman­tic Times? Luck of the draw?

Other authors I’ve noticed get­ting a lot of atten­tion recently are Mar­jorie M. Liu, who’s been men­tioned in RT a cou­ple of times recently. Lora Leigh too. And, of course, there’s Nora Roberts, who’s always on everybody’s radar screen.

What about you? Who’s the hot author you’ve been hear­ing about? What book do you want to read right now? How did you hear about it? What are your friends reading/recommending? Inquir­ing minds want to know …

Maybe Mega­phone would be a bet­ter ubervil­lain name when I’m in spread-the-word mode. Or Loud­mouth. Or Obnox­ious Girl. Or Broad­cast Babe. Hmmm … the pos­si­b­li­ties are endless …

It’s not a competition.

Those are the words that my sig­nif­i­cant other said to me last night when I told him about the myr­iad of book work I was attempt­ing to accomplish.

My response? Oh, babe. It is so a com­pe­ti­tion.

Karma Girl comes out May 1, and I have been bust­ing my ass for the last six weeks try­ing to get stuff done. I’ve set up book sign­ings and adver­tis­ing and guest blogs. The last two weeks, I’ve spent about three hours a night stuff­ing envelopes and mail­ing out book­marks to read­ers’ groups and book­stores around the coun­try. Oh yeah, and I need to work on Big­time 4 too. And my para­nor­mal spy book. And get ready to do inter­views. The list is endless …

Evi­dently, the way I was explan­ing things, my sig­nif­i­cant got the impres­sion that I was in a con­test with myself to see how much work I could do — and how crazy I can make myself. That’s not the case. I’m in a con­test with all the other authors out there.

Every sin­gle one.

Because we all have books to sell, and folks only have so much dis­pos­able income. I’m a new­bie, a nobody really. Peo­ple don’t know who am I. They don’t know what my books are about. They don’t know that they should give me a chance to daz­zle them with my bril­liance and campy, fun books.

But I can fix that. And that’s what I’m try­ing to accom­plish with all this stuff — get­ting the word out. And I have to com­pete with all the other authors already out there who want you to buy their book instead of mine. I have to com­pete with the other new­bies scram­bling for posi­tion and the heavy-hitters who already have their fan bases in place.

In short, we are all sin­gle women at a wed­ding, jostling and kick­ing and claw­ing in an attempt to catch that elu­sive bou­quet — in this case, a loyal reader and climb­ing sales.

Don’t get me wrong. I love writ­ing. Love books. Love read­ing. Love talk­ing with other authors. Love help­ing peo­ple out and spread­ing the word about books that I’ve enjoyed or authors I think are cool stand-up people.

But I never for­get that this is a competition.

Call me cold. Call me cruel and cal­cu­lat­ing. But by hok­ies, I want another contract. And another … and another … And if that means that I have to stuff envelopes until the wee hours of the night and visit the post office every sin­gle day for the rest of my life, well, so be it.

Folks might not buy Karma Girl, but it’s not going to be for lack of try­ing on my part. I’m going to work as hard as I can for as long as I can. So con­sider me your friendly neigh­bor­hood ubervil­lain, Jen-Jen, whose mis­sion in life is to inform you about her books … and take over the world one reader at a time.

So yeah, babe, it is a con­test — one I hope to win. And hey, world dom­i­na­tion is always fun.

What about you? Do you think of writ­ing as a con­test? A sub­lime expe­ri­ence? Inquir­ing minds want to know …

I’ve been added as a reg­u­lar colum­nist over at Romanc­ing the Blog. I’m going to be writ­ing about reader inter­ests and issues about once a month or so. Today, I’m talk­ing about the end of the Harry Pot­ter series. Check it out!

Saw Ghost Rider with Nic Cage this weekend.

I was inter­ested in see­ing it because it’s based on a comic book char­ac­ter, Johnny Blaze, who makes a deal with the devil and becomes Satan’s bounty hunter. I’ve never read that comic — never even heard of it until the movie came out, actu­ally. But I like comics, and it looked like cheesy fun if noth­ing else.

It was cheesy, all right. Basi­cally, a teenage Johnny acci­den­tally gives his soul to Satan (Peter Fonda) to cure his dad’s can­cer. Only Satan double-crosses him and offs dad in a fiery motor­cy­cle acci­dent. Of course, when Johnny grows up, he sort of has a death wish and spends his time think­ing of new and inter­est­ing things to jump over on his motor­cy­cle (trucks! foot­ball fields! heli­copters!) since he’s a bad-ass stunt driver.

Satan finally gives him some bad guys to track down, which Johnny does with the help of a crusty old codger (Sam Elliot, the go-to guy for this sort of role) while try­ing to explain his new night­time job to his old flame (Eva Mendes).

There were some funny lines, and one scene with Eva Mendes chug­ging wine that was pretty humor­ous. Nic Cage looked like he was hav­ing fun and was enter­tain­ing enough.

Overall, a meh movie. It was okay. Not great, but not bad. Pret­ty pre­dictable all the way around. Save a few bucks and catch it on cable one night.

What about you? What movies have you seen lately? Inquir­ing minds want to know …