Anny Cook's Blog, page 100

This 'n' That

It's Monday! And I'm home. We had a great time over the weekend at the booksigning. The other authors were lovely, funny women. Met one author who turned out to be an old acquaintance, though neither of us knew each other under our pen names. That was funny. We both worked for the same place.There were the usual crazy drivers on the road. Can I just say? If you're in the "fast" lane, what is the

On the road again...

Well, the house hunk and I are off to New York upstate today so I will be there tomorrow for the booksigning in Middletown, New York. For details, check the upper right corner! If you're in the area, please stop in and say hello!anny

Spies...

With all the recent rigmarole about spies in the news, it occurred to me these masks would be just the thing for them to implement. You couldn't miss them that way.Our attitude toward spies depends on who they're spying for, doesn't it? If they're our spies, then they're patriots. If they're the other fellow's spies then they're no good, evil bad guys.Spying is one of the world's oldest

Paranormal Cougars

In the paranormal world, it's difficult to settle on a definition for cougar--as refers to older woman/younger man. For one thing, it's very hard to define age by appearance.Vampires can be any age. And what they appear to be has nothing to do with actual age. So that hunky nighttime pool boy could be a couple hundred years old...making the fiftyish cougar a mere babe. Or if you reverse it, that

Working benefits

There are a lot of people out there looking for jobs. In the current economy people are settling for "less" in the benefits packages. I suspect that will be the wave of the future.At one time--way back when I was a young woman--benefits meant you were hired to work a standard forty hours a week and therefore you could count on a specific amount of money in your paycheck. When I started working, I

Slimming?

Sigh. The swimming season is upon us. And there are numerous style shows on TV and sites on the Internet with a parade of swimsuits that are supposedly slimming.Well, I'm just going to say this flat out. If you're over a size sixteen, there ain't no such thing as a slimming swim suit. It may be more supportive. It might have a belly tightening section around the middle so you don't jiggle and

Don't be a Funky Chicken!

It's Friday, the beginning of a long weekend. Many people will be traveling to celebrate the American Independence Day. In Canada, they're celebrating Canada Day. That's a lot of people celebrating and traveling.Every year, people die or are injured during the celebrations, mostly because of someone's stupidity. Too much alcohol. Traveling on too little sleep. Unsupervised fireworks. Too much sun

Funky Chicken?

Hmmmm. Planning you say?

There is a very undervalued stage in writing--the planning stage. I sometimes think writer's block, that point when you stare at the screen in blank horror, could be blamed on underplanning.I'm not talking about outlines or the storyline here. I'm talking about the general setting for the book and the required research. In my case, when I come up with an idea for a book, the first thing I do is

Historical Accuracy

At the moment in Romancelandia, there's a debate going on regarding historical accuracy in Historicals. I'm not sure the average reader is truly ready for the real deal. As far as I can tell, most of the most vociferous critics are belly-achin' about the the way the various classes were portrayed.Most readers don't want to read about how servant girls were fair game to be raped by the men in the