Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a Mac girl — always have been. So it’s no surprise that I, along with the rest of the world, was saddened by Steve Jobs’ death.
The man truly was an innovator, and we wouldn’t be who we are without his creations. I’m typing this blog post on my iPhone right now.
Since I’m an almost-40-year-old dinosaur, my first experience with computers was in a nine-week eighth-grade computer class. They were old gray Radio Shack computers with green screens and big floppy disks. About the only thing I remember was typing in lines of code to run a Frogger-type game.
I didn’t think computers were for me. Same thing happened in college when I took my first journalism class. We had IBM computers with blue screens and c: prompts. I hated using those things.
Then I visited the college newspaper office and had my first experience with a Mac. It was one of those classic one-piece Macs … And it was love at first sight. It was the first time I could see a computer becoming part of my life.
Did it ever! I became an editor at the paper, so I had a key to the office and could often be found there late at night, writing papers and jamming to Depeche Mode.
By the time my campus opened a snazzy new Mac lab, I was doing all my papers on the computer instead of the Brother typewriter my Mom got me for Christmas while I was in high school.
Sadly, I left the Macs behind when I graduated. My office used a Sun system until a few months before I left, when they switched to iMacs.
When I bought my first computer for my place, in 1995, there was no question it’d be a Mac. I replaced it with an iMac in 2000 and a laptop several years later.
I’ve completed all of my MSs and many great research papers on Macs. Thanks, Steve, for helping me become the writer I am.
When opportunity knocks, you listen. So when an encounter through the day job led to a chance to be profiled on a Phoenix PR firm’s website, I seized the opportunity.
I was in contact with Alison Bailin, a senior account executive at HMA Public Relations, about a new Subway restaurant opening in Flagstaff. As we exchanged e-mails, we discovered a mutual interest in romance writing. (She’s read every Jackie Collins novel published and would love to take Collins’ place on the bestseller list.)
HMA Public Relations’ blog features Media Monday, posts about members of the media (that’s me!) doing cool, non-media things. Here’s mine.
You can find a link to past Media Monday posts here.
Longtime readers of my weight-loss blog know that when I go AWOL from the blog, it’s because I’m not doing so well at the whole diet and exercise thing. That’s not the case here. I’ve been writing up a storm — I just haven’t had any time to blog about it.
With my 40th birthday looming — as well as the 2012 Golden Heart contest deadline and the NaNoWriMo, it’s time to reassess.
Unless I sign with an agent and get a publishing contract in the next two weeks, I’m not going to be published by 40. That’s okay. I know I’m getting closer. It shouldn’t be long now.
I can’t believe September’s almost gone, leaving the big-40 just 13 days away, on Oct. 7. Where did it go?
But I’m beginning to think it’s impossible for me to write another 25,000 words on my single title WIP and prep it (and another entry) for GH entry by the end of October so I can clear November for the NaNo.
With that being the case, I might end up throwing two contemporary series MSs into the ring — thus competing against myself (and hundreds of other entrants). Yikes.
Guess I’ll see what happens with the Rubies’ Make it Golden first line contest. I entered three first lines — from three potential entrants — on Friday. Finalists will be announced Tuesday.
I have a sneaking suspicion that my best first line is the one I hadn’t been planning to enter, from Dave and Melinda’s story. Beth and Cody (single title) and Kenny and Kristi (CS) were going to be my go-to entries. But Dave and Melinda’s story might be the strongest of all.
Who knows? Maybe I can write 10,000 words this weekend.
Yeah, right.
… Not writing it, thank goodness. Although I love watching “Dateline” and other true-crime shows on Investigation Discovery (“Deadly Women,” anyone?), I don’t think I have the chops to write RS. Keeping that thread of danger running throughout isn’t for me.
However, I can enjoy reading romantic suspense, when I’m in a certain mood. (That’s the way I am with historicals, too. I love to read them when I’m in the mood.) And I have just the book to put me in that mood: NARWA president Anne Marie Becker’s new Carina Press release, “Only Fear.”
The blurb:
After a violent incident with a patient leaves scars on both her mind and body, psychiatrist Dr. Maggie Levine craves isolation. A radio talk show host seems to be the perfect profession, a job where she can help people from a distance while staying safe. When a strange caller begins stalking her on the air and murdering people to get her attention, Maggie realizes she can no longer close herself off from the outside world.A personal security expert, former Secret Service Agent Ethan Townsend is no stranger to tracking down the most violent monsters of society and bringing them to justice. Still, it will take all of Ethan’s skills to protect his new assignment, the irresistible Maggie, from a man intent on teaching her the ultimate lesson in fear…
Sounds intriguing, right?
“Only Fear” stands alone, but is the first book in a planned series revolving around the employees of the Society for the Study of the Aberrant Mind (SSAM).
“I was excited to hear that Carina Press would like to work with me on the series I have planned. We’ve even come up with a name: the Mindhunters,” Anne Marie said.
She hopes to have the second book in the series, tentatively titled “Avenging Angel,” submitted by the end of September for a summer 2012 release.
You can order “Only Fear” at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Carina Press.
Connect with Anne Marie:
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