General musings

  • I’m baaaack …

    4 Comments

    I’m back! 😎

    For those of you wondering were I’ve been, well, back around the first of May, my Web site got hacked. I did manage to do a blog post about that before the hack completely took the site down.

    Anyway, my Web site guy put the site back up about two weeks later. I did some work on it — and then it got hacked again.

    I kid you not. The very next freaking day.

    Evidently, somebody out there either doesn’t like me or just enjoys trashing people’s sites. Because it was a pretty bad hack with lots of nasty, corrupt files everywhere. Anyway, it took my Web site guy a while to go back through and weed out all the bad files. (Thank you, Justin!)

    The result of which is that now all the information on the site is about two years old. Sigh. I have a backup copy of the info from the last time I updated the site, but it’s going to take me a while to go back through and physically change and reformat all the pages again.

    Anyway, thanks for your understanding and patience. Hopefully, the site will not get hacked again as I (slowly) restore all the old information. But if it does go down again, then that is why. And know that I am working to get it back up as quickly as possible.

    In the meantime, we will return to our regularly scheduled blog posts. I’ve got a ton of books to review, and I’ve managed to see some of the summer blockbuster movies.

    Oh yeah, and I’ve got some news on the Elemental Assassin books to share too. 🙂

    I’m glad to be back!

  • Busy, busy, busy …

    2 Comments

    Spring is evidently the busy season because I’ve been absolutely slammed with stuff to do these last two weeks.

    I did a Q&A at a library; judged some student communication portfolios at a local college; went to hear another author speak at that same library; started e-mailing folks about potential ads for Spider’s Bite in February; finished up Quiver, my young adult fantasy; and started writing Blackberry Falls, my contemporary romance.

    Oh yeah, and I’ve got a big project at the day job to finish this week.

    Gah! Is it Friday yet? :rolleyes:

    Hope your week is a little calmer than mine!

  • · ·

    Amazon and other fails …

    I don’t know if you’ve been following all the talk about Amazon deranking books, but Dear Author and Smart Bitches have some interesting commentary up, as usual, and lots of links to other sites. So go forth and read, if you want.

    Whenever I hear stories about something like this or even horror stories about authors behaving badly, I always wonder what people were thinking. Seriously. Did Amazon think no one was going to notice what they were doing? Did they think the authors and publishers affected wouldn’t complain?

    The same thing goes for authors behaving badly. Yeah, we all get bad reviews and snarky comments. But posting your own snarky comments and arguing with reviewers or telling your fans to attack them or whatever isn’t going to help you any.

    Because someone somewhere is going to find your comments and bad behavior on the World Wide Web and point them out. Other people will see this and blog about it. And then, it’s going to go viral and be everywhere. And then, you’re going to look like the dumbass you are.

    And it’s not just Amazon or authors or folks on the Internet. I work at a newspaper, and you wouldn’t believe the calls we get just for reporting the news. Seriously. I’ve gotten calls about everything from my poor grammar skills (one guy told me I needed to take an English class) to those who wonder why we put so much bad news in the paper. Um, well, because the economy’s in the crapper right now, and it’s hurting a lot of people.

    Sigh. Can’t we all just get along? :rolleyes:

  • Happy Easter!

    2 Comments

    Hope everyone has a great Easter weekend. I’m going to color eggs with the Mom, then eat waaay too much turkey, dressing, and other yummy stuff.

    Have a great holiday! :bubbles: