Picking New Headshots, SUITS is Phenomenal, and Jen's Kindle Fire Giveaway
Over two months. It's been OVER two months since I checked in here last. So, I thought it would behoove me to at least stop in and say hi, see how folks are doing, that sort of thing, since I feel like I haven't talked to a bunch of you in about a million years. There have been a few developments in the last couple of months, but I'll try to keep things reasonably brief so this entry doesn't just run on for days and days. Here, then, is Jen's life in a nutshell:
(1) Photo Shoot. I had my first professional photo shoot last month -- well, my first professional photo shoot since the days of Sears portraits when I was five or six, anyway. It was actually, surprisingly painless; an old friend of mine from high school is a photographer now, and she contacted me after she read my books, to see if I'd be interested in getting some updated headshots. I was, particularly since the headshots I've been using are actually from like '96 or something. So, I lassoed the hounds and piled them into the car, and my photographer friend took me out to these old, dilapidated buildings in Augusta (Maine). I HATE having my picture taken, but my friend was great and we got to catch up and wander with the hounds and generally pass a good afternoon. Now, I need to decide which picture to use as my new headshot for... Well, everything. Here are my choices. I welcome ANY input you guys might have:
There are some other awesome pics of the hounds, but unfortunately LJ is acting up and for some reason I can't post any other pics here. Because LJ is like that. Ah, Livejournal, how I've missed you. Those are the frontrunners for my headshot, though, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.
(2) Books (and the Kindle Fire Giveaway I mentioned)
The novels are doing really well, actually. ANGELS and SINS OF THE FATHER are both selling well, and while I've gotten a handful of nasty reviews for ANGELS (mostly for the cliffhanger ending), by and large people have been really positive. I was supposed to be coming out with another novel this month -- a prequel to the series featuring my main characters, Diggs and Solomon. But there were some complications with that, the main one being that the novel totally took on a life of its own and I don't want to just use it as a placeholder until the next novel in the series is out... And also I don't want to confuse readers, since the tone of this one is markedly different from the others in the series thus far. So, I'm back to pounding out the third novel in the series, which will be out March 2nd. I have to say, it's really nice being back in Erin's skin again, though. I've really missed her!
In the meantime, I'm doing a promotion to put a nice cap on 2012, since it's been kind of a banner year 'round here. So, I'm doing a contest giving away a Kindle Fire on January 1st. You can enter here, and there are a whole slew of ways you can get points toward winning. So far, a ton of people haven't entered, so right now folks stand a pretty good chance of winning if they enter.
(3) TV, Fic, and Fandoms
I'm just getting over what started out as a monster cold and ultimately became bronchial pneumonia, so I've been bedridden for the past week. Unable to speak. Living on ice cream and mac n' cheese. I gained like five pounds in the course of that single week, which makes me that much more determined to get back to getting in shape. On the bright side, however, I had time to get back to the important things in life: Namely, TV.
Thanks to the wondrous lizook12, I've discovered SUITS. Which I promptly marathoned, and finished all twenty-two episodes in a record three days. LOVE. Harvey Specter is my new man, without a doubt, and the Harvey/Donna 'ship promises to keep me entertained for months to come. After that, I made the mistake of trying to catch up on GLEE. Not good; that's pretty much all I have to say about that. Terrible, even. Other favorites? I'm pretty much caught up with Bones, and of course I never miss Castle or The Mentalist. Or New Girl. I actually have fics in the works for all of the above, but... Well, we'll see what comes of them once the real world comes back front and center tomorrow. Speaking of fic, though, while I was cruising around LJ, I discovered The Heart Won't Lie by razztaztic. It's awesome. She's awesome. If you haven't read her yet (though I have a feeling I'm the only one 'round these parts who hadn't), I highly recommend checking her out. FABULOUS.
(4) The Dating World
Well... Yeah, we'll keep this one short. I've been so busy over the past year or so that I haven't even entertained the idea of dating, pretty much since the end of TC and me. I've been debating the idea of checking out match.com -- which I've done before, but not for many, many moons. The problem is that I live in midcoast Maine, so it's not like there's a huge dating pool out there. Meh. I don't know... I always have the idea that I need to wait for x, y, or z before I start with the dating thing -- Get the next book out, drop twenty pounds, get a car or a house or a Pulitzer or... Well, you get the idea. But forty is just around the corner at this point, and one of my resolutions for 2013 is to start living in the now, rather than focusing on how I hope things will be six months down the road. At any rate... I guess we'll see.
All right, I think that's about it for me. What about you guys? Any new developments/fun things I should know/shows I should be watching/fic I should be reading? I welcome any and all thoughts. Oh, and if you have an opinion on which pic would be right for my headshot, I'd love to hear it. Hope you're well, f-list!
(1) Photo Shoot. I had my first professional photo shoot last month -- well, my first professional photo shoot since the days of Sears portraits when I was five or six, anyway. It was actually, surprisingly painless; an old friend of mine from high school is a photographer now, and she contacted me after she read my books, to see if I'd be interested in getting some updated headshots. I was, particularly since the headshots I've been using are actually from like '96 or something. So, I lassoed the hounds and piled them into the car, and my photographer friend took me out to these old, dilapidated buildings in Augusta (Maine). I HATE having my picture taken, but my friend was great and we got to catch up and wander with the hounds and generally pass a good afternoon. Now, I need to decide which picture to use as my new headshot for... Well, everything. Here are my choices. I welcome ANY input you guys might have:
There are some other awesome pics of the hounds, but unfortunately LJ is acting up and for some reason I can't post any other pics here. Because LJ is like that. Ah, Livejournal, how I've missed you. Those are the frontrunners for my headshot, though, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.
(2) Books (and the Kindle Fire Giveaway I mentioned)
The novels are doing really well, actually. ANGELS and SINS OF THE FATHER are both selling well, and while I've gotten a handful of nasty reviews for ANGELS (mostly for the cliffhanger ending), by and large people have been really positive. I was supposed to be coming out with another novel this month -- a prequel to the series featuring my main characters, Diggs and Solomon. But there were some complications with that, the main one being that the novel totally took on a life of its own and I don't want to just use it as a placeholder until the next novel in the series is out... And also I don't want to confuse readers, since the tone of this one is markedly different from the others in the series thus far. So, I'm back to pounding out the third novel in the series, which will be out March 2nd. I have to say, it's really nice being back in Erin's skin again, though. I've really missed her!
In the meantime, I'm doing a promotion to put a nice cap on 2012, since it's been kind of a banner year 'round here. So, I'm doing a contest giving away a Kindle Fire on January 1st. You can enter here, and there are a whole slew of ways you can get points toward winning. So far, a ton of people haven't entered, so right now folks stand a pretty good chance of winning if they enter.
(3) TV, Fic, and Fandoms
I'm just getting over what started out as a monster cold and ultimately became bronchial pneumonia, so I've been bedridden for the past week. Unable to speak. Living on ice cream and mac n' cheese. I gained like five pounds in the course of that single week, which makes me that much more determined to get back to getting in shape. On the bright side, however, I had time to get back to the important things in life: Namely, TV.
Thanks to the wondrous lizook12, I've discovered SUITS. Which I promptly marathoned, and finished all twenty-two episodes in a record three days. LOVE. Harvey Specter is my new man, without a doubt, and the Harvey/Donna 'ship promises to keep me entertained for months to come. After that, I made the mistake of trying to catch up on GLEE. Not good; that's pretty much all I have to say about that. Terrible, even. Other favorites? I'm pretty much caught up with Bones, and of course I never miss Castle or The Mentalist. Or New Girl. I actually have fics in the works for all of the above, but... Well, we'll see what comes of them once the real world comes back front and center tomorrow. Speaking of fic, though, while I was cruising around LJ, I discovered The Heart Won't Lie by razztaztic. It's awesome. She's awesome. If you haven't read her yet (though I have a feeling I'm the only one 'round these parts who hadn't), I highly recommend checking her out. FABULOUS.
(4) The Dating World
Well... Yeah, we'll keep this one short. I've been so busy over the past year or so that I haven't even entertained the idea of dating, pretty much since the end of TC and me. I've been debating the idea of checking out match.com -- which I've done before, but not for many, many moons. The problem is that I live in midcoast Maine, so it's not like there's a huge dating pool out there. Meh. I don't know... I always have the idea that I need to wait for x, y, or z before I start with the dating thing -- Get the next book out, drop twenty pounds, get a car or a house or a Pulitzer or... Well, you get the idea. But forty is just around the corner at this point, and one of my resolutions for 2013 is to start living in the now, rather than focusing on how I hope things will be six months down the road. At any rate... I guess we'll see.
All right, I think that's about it for me. What about you guys? Any new developments/fun things I should know/shows I should be watching/fic I should be reading? I welcome any and all thoughts. Oh, and if you have an opinion on which pic would be right for my headshot, I'd love to hear it. Hope you're well, f-list!