Blogging at Nine Naughty Novelists Today!

Just wanted to invite you to stop on by the Nine Naughty Novelists blog today. I'm answering our Nine Naughty Questions, so you could learn something new about me!

Presenting - Nine Naughty Novelists!

Today is the official kick-off event for Nine Naughty Novelists, a new group blog and author collective I'm participating in. We've got some great party fun lined up, including some amazing prizes, so be sure to stop by our blog to say hi! I'll be posting on Thursday, but every weekday for the next nine days you'll get to meet one of the Naughty Novelists and learn a little about us. Here's a sneak peek for you:




And here's a link to our blog. So stop by and say howdy!

Congratulations - Blog Party Winners!

Hey all!


Hope you had a lovely weekend. After a birthday filled with soccer, we headed to the pumpkin patch yesterday, so it was a great time all around.


But now I'm back, and ready to announce the winner of my Birthday Blog Party contest. Thanks to everyone who posted - it made the week a lot of fun. And the winner, chosen randomly by my critique partner via IM ("Hey, pick a number between one and..."), is

Laurie Ryan!

Congrats, Laurie! You've won a gift pack with some of my favorite things - a bath product set, a candle, a gorgeous notebook, some chocolate, and whatever else I decide to toss in before sending it your way. Please contact me off-blog with your addy info.


And because I completely forgot to announce the winner of my Banned Books Week giveaway, congrats to

Jane!

Jane, contact me and I'll get you a list of books for you to choose from.


Congrats again to the two winners! And everyone else, I hope you'll stop by again. There will be more prizes coming up in the near future, plus an announcement for Nine Naughty Novelists with even more opportunities to win!

Forty Facts About Kate - The Final Countdown!

Wheeee! Today is a day to celebrate. Let me count the ways (because that's all this week has been about, doncha know - counting!):

*It's my birthday!
*I'm finishing the Forty Facts today, which was WAY more complicated than I anticipated.
*It's my birthday!
*The regular soccer season is OVER TODAY!
*It's my birthday!

I'll be celebrating by watching soccer. And then going to end of season soccer parties. And I wouldn't have it any other way!

But setting all that aside, here are the final ten facts to round out the week of useless Kate information here on Kate Davies Blogs!

10. I don't drink coffee. Hot chocolate and tea, yes, but not coffee.

9. I love the smell of coffee brewing, however.

8. I have a really hard time spending money on myself. I've worked hard this year to overcome that issue. :)

7. I tend to be a night owl. Unfortunately, my personal schedule does not play nicely with things like public school opening times, work meetings, and hungry children. It's a conundrum.

6. The best advice my mother gave me, the advice I'll pass down to my children, is: "Don't forget to clean the lint trap." Seriously.

5. I have been a beta reader/critique partner to five writers since I started writing romance. All five have had at least one book published with Samhain. I'm fairly certain I had nothing to do with that fact.

4. A few years ago, I won tickets to the Rolling Stones concert through a radio call-in contest. The concert just happened to be held on my birthday. That one will probably remain hard to top for a while.

3. I was once left "home alone" while visiting relatives as a child. They all left for an event and forgot to bring me along. It took over half an hour before I noticed there was nobody else around. I was, of course, reading at the time.

2. I am really looking forward to enjoying my forties. No angsting over the change of decade - at least, not yet. ;)

1. I AM SO GLAD TO BE DONE WITH THIS THEME! *tosses confetti*

Thanks to everyone who hung in there through this random salute to my 40th birthday. Remember, every comment (or RT on Twitter) earns you another entry into my birthday giveaway drawing. So comment early, comment often, and stop by tomorrow to learn who won!

Forty Facts About Kate - Day the Third

So.

Ten more things to tell, huh?

Okay, here we go...

20. I love buying makeup and skincare products during bonus giveaway times, even though I rarely use what I get.

19. The last musical I was in was A Chorus Line. I played the "don't dance!" girl, who gets kicked out of the audition five minutes into the show.

18. My favorite car colors were used in the late sixties/early seventies, those eye-popping shades with fabulous names. Go Mango, Panther Pink, SubLime, and my personal favorite, InViolet (aka Plum Crazy).

17. I love, love, love my iPhone. Love it.

16. I've always thought Romeo and Juliet is the worst Shakespearean play to teach to high school freshmen. Two teenagers who kill themselves because they can't date? Please. Why not A Midsummer Night's Dream? The rotating crushes in that play would fit high school perfectly.

15. I once discovered a significant error in a favorite cookbook. Unfortunately, that meant I ended up serving raw chicken cordon bleu. (The half an hour cooking time had been left off the recipe, leaving the dish with only five minutes pan-frying on each side.)

14. Here's a sneak peek at my newest venture: The Video. Bonus points if you can identify which pic is my avatar for the group!

13. I once spent hours researching why the widows in the play Riders to the Sea wore red petticoats over their heads. AND I STILL DON'T KNOW.

12. Favorite pizza - a tie between Hawaiian and BBQ chicken.

11. Twenty of my top 25 most played songs on iTunes were purchased after I discovered them on YouTube.

One day to go! See you back here Saturday with ten final facts - and the last chance to post a comment and be entered to win!

Forty Facts About Kate - Day Two

Ready for round two? Here we go!

30. I love creativity-based reality shows - Top Chef and Project Runway are two of my favorites.

29. For many years I re-read my favorite YA book, The Dark Is Rising, every winter around the solstice.

28. The author with the most books on my bookshelf is Lucy Monroe. Second? Suz Brockmann.

27. I love to collect cookbooks and cooking magazines. Despite my best intentions, I rarely actually make any recipes contained in said books and magazines.

26. I once went to a science fiction convention dressed as Krissy Kochanski. (Bonus points to the first person who can identify KK! Not you, Maia.)

25. I love tomato-based dishes (spaghetti, lasagna, chili), but other than in bruschetta, I'm not fond of uncooked tomatoes.

24. I can still recite my monologues from A Midsummer Night's Dream, a play I was in twenty years ago.

23. Although I took piano lessons for three years, the only instrument I can still play with any skill is the tambourine.

22. I love Frangos. Especially the mint chocolate kind.

21. The first time I got glasses, I couldn't find the eye chart on the wall - I couldn't even see the big E.

More tomorrow. And I'll have to start thinking about them today, because dang this is harder than I thought!

Forty Facts About Kate - The Countdown Begins

*note: these facts will be random and jumbled together, sort of like me.

40. When I was a kid, we had a cat named Muffin. Muffin liked to get, erm, amorous on the deck outside the family room before we had her fixed. Being a kid, I worried that she kept getting in "fights". My parents would respond by telling me to go practice my piano. Ever since then, whenever the topic of sex comes up, the stock response is "go practice your piano".

39. After my first book came out, Mom called to tell me she'd learned a whole bunch of new piano pieces while reading it.

38. My feet are almost always cold.

37. In college, my friends and I staged a fight in the middle of Red Square on campus. Our storyline? A couple was arguing with each other across the square, but every time one of us said something, another couple "translated" it for us. At the end, the two couples switched places. We took our bows and walked off.

36. I once sang karaoke in a Philipine restaurant in the middle of Munich. Under duress. (The person who'd taken us out to dinner insisted.) The song? Thanks to a dearth of English-language titles, I ended up butchering The Theme From Mahogany.

35. The year I started teaching at a junior high, I paid student prices for lunch for almost two months until the lunch lady realized I was a teacher. (Sadly, I wasn't even aware I was getting away with anything until it was too late.)

34. My first paid writing experience was winning first place in a "flash fiction" contest put on by the local community newspaper. I earned $75 for a story about a girl who turned into a pizza.

33. I'm left handed.

32. The first play I was ever in was Charley's Aunt, in high school.

31. My husband opened a bag of halloween candy yesterday and did not hide it from me. This was a tactical error. I have a very hard time saying no to chocolate.

More tomorrow! And remember, every comment gets you an entry into the prize giveaway!

Turning Forty - A Blog Party!

On Saturday my parents came to town to watch the kids play soccer. Afterwards, we went out to lunch and then back to the house for cupcakes and presents. See, next Saturday I turn 40, and we celebrated a week early.

Leaving aside the fact that I was absurdly thrilled to have cupcakes, the best part was opening the gifts. My mom and dad had decided that, in honor of the decade birthday, they'd give me 40 presents. (Give or take. Mom confessed she lost track there near the end.)

So I found myself surrounded by a sea of colored tissue paper, unwrapping things like lip gloss, fingernail clippers, sample-size bubble bath, a bottle of wine, chocolate, and an entire Clinique bonus pack wrapped individually. Each individual item was small (except for the last one, which was the large-size crock pot I've been dying to get for ages), but put together it was one fabulous gift. And loads of fun!

In keeping with the counting to forty theme, then, I've decided to spend the next four days sharing Forty Things About Kate as I count down to my 40th birthday. Eveyr day, I'll post ten more, with the final set coming on Saturday, my actual birthday. By now you probably know the drill -- every comment on the blog in that time frame is entered to win a prize pack of some of my favorite things.

Sound good? Great! Stop by tomorrow and check out items #40-31 on my Forty Facts list! And remember, every comment (or retweet, or post on Facebook) gets you another entry to win!

Don't Fence Me In

Or, Why Geographical Restrictions Make No Sense.

Yesterday, I tried to buy and download some songs from the German version of Amazon. These particular songs aren't available on Amazon US or iTunes US, so I hunted around and found them. (Makes sense that they're available in Germany, because they're German pop songs, right?)

So I clicked on "buy", and got an error message. "Sorry, but you can't buy these songs. The files are limited by geographical restrictions." (Or the German equivalent - I don't really trust Google Translator to give a fully accurate English version.)

But the main point was, I was out of luck. My money wasn't good there, because my computer isn't registered in Germany. Too bad, so sad, only certain people can buy those songs.

To that I say, WTF?

Geographical restrictions on digital content MAKE NO SENSE. We live in a global society, with interests and connections that go well beyond arbitrary borders. It's crazy that people who want to buy an e-book can't because sales are limited to certain countries. It's stupid to tell people "your money doesn't work here, because these pixels can only go home with a person living over here."

Those songs I wanted to buy? They were featured on a German soap opera that I watch on YouTube after English subtitles have been added by a team of three fans who live in three different countries. The commenters are from all over the world. There's really no such thing as a geographical restriction when it comes to people's interests. So why should there be one when it comes to supporting the artists who stoke those interests?

What's worse is, preventing people from buying content legally makes illegal filesharing more prevalent. Now, as someone who makes a living off copyright, I refuse break it just to get those songs I wanted. But that doesn't mean I wasn't tempted. As it stands, I don't have the song, the artist doesn't have the royalties, and everybody loses.

So please, Powers That Be, get rid of those geographical restrictions on digital content. Let the fans support the artists, and the artists get their due. It's time for the rules to catch up to the new, interconnected world. And I really want those songs!

Book BIN Tuesday -- Virtually Hers

Woo-hoo! Save the series!

Kudos to Samhain for publishing Gennita Low's new book, Virtually Hers, which comes out today. It's a follow-up book to Virtually His, published by the Mira imprint of Harlequin. Sadly, Gennita's contract for VHers was dropped for whatever reason, leaving the full story untold. So glad that Samhain stepped in and gave it a home!

Here's the skinny:



He can’t get her out of his head…literally.

Virtually, Book 2

In Helen “Hell” Roston’s elite black ops world, failure isn’t listed as an option in the rule book. As the leading guinea pig in a dangerous combination of virtual reality training and a mind-altering serum, though, every day offers a thousand ways to blow it. And the very real sexual chemistry that sizzles between Hell and her trainer is messing with her head even more.

COS Commando Jed McNeil is an expert in mind manipulation games. He’s been chosen to be Hell’s monitor and anchor in the Super Soldier Spy program. Trained to compartmentalize his needs and feelings in an assignment, he’s unprepared by how much Hell affects him.

When the experimental serum gives Helen incapacitating headaches, her pain throws Jed into protect-at-all-costs mode. A position the fiercely independent Hell would rather die than be in. But with a rogue CIA faction out to sabotage the program, Hell has no choice—even if it makes her head explode. It’s trust Jed, or die.



Product Warnings

Contains scenes of voyeuristic hanky panky, bad guys that feed off mind-blowing sexual energy, a heroine who knows how to get her kick-ass on, and a hero who gives as good as he gets.

****

So head on over to My Bookstore and More and pick up a copy because the first book rocked, because Gennita tells a hell of a story, and because we should support publishers who help authors finish what they started. :) It's Tuesday. Go Buy It Now!