I’m trying to decide between getting up — and risk falling flat on my face — and bearing the pain of walking around on a leg as it’s coming back to life, or just never moving again and having a numb leg forever, even if it means I have to pee on myself.

…and to relate this post to romance novels, that metaphorically resembles the decision that an emotionally stunted hero must make at the book’s climax. It also explains why dogs like to hump my leg — they are channeling their inner stunted alpha.

I think that makes me a doormat by default, though.

***

Also, I’m starting to plan the website update in preparation for the new steampunk series. Is there anything on this site that you’d like to see that isn’t currently available? Anything about the current site that you wish wasn’t there, or that you wish was done differently?

Okay, not really. But after some consideration, I’ve decided to take the summer off from blogging. Looking back at the last few months of posts, I feel like I’ve lost my blogging mojo (maybe it’s to be expected after 5 years?) I haven’t been reading enough to have anything interesting to say about books, when I have been reading I haven’t had time to talk about them, my posts have been sporadic and I’ve been using contests as filler, and this summer is going to be a busy one both personally and writing-wise.

I will still pop in on Twitter, Facebook, and on other blogs, just because I like the social aspect of the internet, but I’m going to step back from this blog until I feel like I can make it entertaining again — for myself and for my readers. I will schedule a few things — like the reminders to nominate favorite covers — but this post will remain as a sticky on the top. If I have news, I’ll post it on the front page of the website and the News page (although, if I have really big news, I’ll post it here, Twitter, and everywhere else.)

As always, I’m available via my Contact page.

Have a great summer!

I updated Wordpress, then messed around with the theme a little bit … and broke it all. My Lazy Meljean theme files were just gone, the main site was gone (eek!) and it was a big mess.

So I finally did what I’ve been intending to do for a while (although I had wanted to put it off until after DEMON FORGED was done.) I’ve transferred all of the pages from my main site over to Wordpress pretty much by copy/paste, so that means a lot of links (especially in the primer) are out of date. This blog will also have many of the images missing until I figure out how to redirect all of the uploads in one fell swoop. 

I think that most of the links to my book pages should still be active; I’m not sure about the blog (it’s in another directory now). If you have come here on a link to an archive page, if you take the /blog out of the address, I imagine it will work.  

I’ll probably take fifteen minutes or so a day updating the links, but it’s not a priority, because the guts are there and the site is navigable. However — if you do find something that is a horrible, horrible problem, please contact me (via the handy-dandy CONTACT tab in the above menu.)

ETA: You will need to update your feed settings! Gah! The RSS link is on the META sidebar.

ETA2: I think I fixed the permalink problem.

Is this blog layout too wide for your screen?

Is it really geeky to admit that I love love the music to this, or just an admission of bad taste?

don’t panic!

You just have to go in and re-activate your old theme after you’ve updated.

I just upgraded, and a few things did go crazy (like the random symbols splashed through my posts.) The fun comic book smileys aren’t working, and won’t until I edit the page again … which probably won’t be until I have more time to do my big website update (eek, and the primer!)

If you run into any big problems though (it won’t let you comment, you get error pages) please give me a shout.

…except my stupid internet. 2007 shall be remembered by me as the Year of the Shitty Connection! (the exclamation is important.) My computer would connect everywhere but at my house (where I resorted to using dial-up from my old university account (26.4 kbps!! WTF? Do they still make them that slow?) that couldn’t actually send OUT any e-mails or download (my SMTP server mocked that connection) and even bypassing wireless and plugging the DSL modem directly into my computer didn’t work. And I have no idea what my Wordpress password is, so I couldn’t access my blog from my husband’s computer. But I have fixed it, by god. I sent an e-mail to my agent, and it went through.

Everyone has probably already seen this at Dear Author, (and that’s how I found out about it), but DEMON ANGEL was in a The Courier Mail’s “Best of the Year” list.

Demon Angel, from new author Meljean Brooks, is the kind of novel you are lucky if you manage to come across maybe once a year: a thick, meaty, dig your feet in and hold on tight kind of novel with adventure, sex and an epic quality that’s rarely seen in this genre. Demon Angel is an astonishing debut, and a harbinger of great things to come. If you read one romance this year, make it this one.

As an aside, maybe I should have made my pseudonym “Brooks” instead of “Brook” (which is the last syllable of my maiden name.) It seems to flow off fingers more easily when people are typing it.

Anyway, I’m writing writing like mad, so I can’t promise daily updates, but I’ll be around a bit more now. And I can check my e-mail in a timely manner, too.

I’m having massive huge problems with my e-mail lately. Not just because I’m slow answering them due to me being offline for two weeks, but stuff being delayed way too much when I do send them out — and as of this evening I can’t even log on.

So, temporarily, I’ll be at meljean.brook at gmail.com (and I’ll try to remember to check it, since I usually only use it for storing my backup copies of WIPs)

Okay, I can’t keep up with all of the people on message boards who are hotlinking to Capt Kirk and He-Man, so I had to block all outside access to my image files. Which unfortunately means some legitimate hotlinks (mine, and those who are linking to my covers and stuff) will get blocked, too.

If you end up with a message that says, “Oops! hotlinked, blah blah,” let me know and I’ll send you the link to the pic in imageshack, or just e-mail the picture to you.

While looking for something in an old file today, I ran across some stuff I wrote while I was trying to determine exactly how I would a) get Colin’s backstory across, b) share some worldbuilding information, and c) show what had happened in Caelum, and in the months between the end of Demon Angel and the opening of Demon Moon.

I ended up doing something different than this — but I had originally thought of opening each chapter with an e-mail exchange. Because Savi, she is v. curious, and her constant questions could have been an easy way to explain certain rules. So that’s how these started out … but then I ended up entertaining myself way too much, and these little exchanges would have disrupted the narrative flow of the rest of the novel.

So, as far as I’m concerned, these are in continuity — and they aren’t really spoilers for Demon Moon, because they take place in the in-between time. There are slight spoilers for Demon Angel, however. It’s not much, but…yeah. The title of it should probably be: Savitri Has A Question; or, How Savitri’s Curiosity Slowly Drives Colin Insane.

There are also some early reviews coming in — from loonigrrl (whose reviews I’ve been reading at Amazon for some time, so I’m glad she’s got a blog) and Holly (at The Book Binge, the new-and-improved SF). These may include spoilers. I’ll be putting all of the Demon Moon reviews on their own page pretty soon, along with a place for readers to enter comments and links to their reviews, or to ask me questions about the series/book in a way that’s out there in the open. I’ll link to that as soon as I get it up.

I’m also going to be signing at the Beaverton Powell’s on July 2nd. It will be my first signing, eek! I will have more info as the date approaches, but if you’re related to me, mark your calendars now, because I totally expect you to show up and pretend you aren’t related, and buy lots of copies and say how great my hair looks.

Don’t forget to play for a free copy of WILD THING! The scavenger hunt is up until Friday night.