Well…I finally saw it. While my kids were watching Over the Hedge with their grandparents, I went to see The Da Vinci Code with my husband. I am a HUGE fan of the book. I don’t agree with any of the book’s critics. I think it was well-conceived, well-researched, and well-written. I thought the short chapters and clean prose worked perfectly for this book. And again, despite what the critics had to say…I thought the movie quite well done. It’s been a little while since I read the book, so I’d forgotten some of the details, and I had to think back over whether certain parts had happened in the book. But all in all, I thought it was very enjoyable. Tom Hanks was an odd choice. Certainly he’s a great actor, but from the description in the book and the picture I had of Robert Langdon in my mind, Tom Hanks just seemed too old, too unattractive, and too greasy. That had to have been the worst I have ever seen Tom Hanks look in a movie! Robert Langdon was supposed to be sexy in a scholarly way—the only thing Tom Hanks had going for him was the tweed blazer. A slightly younger Harrison Ford would have been perfect: think Dr. Jones. Dermot Mulroney would have been cute, or Ewan MacGregor, or Viggo Mortensen. I think there is a dearth of hot property mid-thiry to mid-forty actors in Hollywood so they go high or low to fill the parts. My husband thinks Nicolas Cage would have been a good pick. I concur. I do think the actress they chose to play opposite Hanks, Audrey Tautou, was perfect and a good match.

Continuing on from my last blog…I found another one…www.wordwenches.com.
Now for today…

One afternoon recently I imagined that I really didn’t have time to get into my writing because my sons were only going to play unattended for so long without needing intervention. Well, I was totally wrong, so instead of writing, I got a lot of aimless surfing done. One thing led to another and so on and so forth. Anyway, while I was looking for something totally unrelated, I discovered this book:
Incognito by Suzanne Allain. First of all, I love the cover. And secondly, I read a couple of Amazon reviews (which are very good, by the way) and was intrigued. So, of course, I surfed over to the author’s site and was fascinated by the story of the book.

Basically, AOL Time Warner launched a venture called iPublish where authors submitted their works to be judged and reviewed by other authors. Those works generating the most interest would then be published, first in ebook format and then in paperback. Ms. Allain’s book was one of nine chosen and published before iPublish folded. So…her book (originally offered for $2!) is still available in both formats, and quite frankly, it looks great! I plan on adding it to my next Amazon order. (I found it almost immediately after placing my last order). Ms. Allain has not published any more books but is planning to someday…

I was also reading Publishers Lunch recently and discovered another author: Kathleen McGowan who first self-published her Mary Magdalene novel The Enchanted One, before it was picked up by Simon and Schuster. I like to keep my eye on self-publishing successes and trends—I still haven’t decided whether to try and go the traditional route with my next book or stick with self-publishing and use up some more of my ISBN block…

More and more I’ve been discovering a growing trend with blogs penned by multiple authors. I think this is a great idea, and it serves a variety of purposes:

1. It takes the pressure off! You don’t have to blog daily—meaning you don’t have to come up with a topic daily and you don’t have to actually write a little spiel every day. So…

2. It saves precious writing time while still keeping you visible as an author.

3. It’s cross-promotional. You get together a group of authors like you, writing in the same general genre, and you play off one another. You pull in readers for each other and announce each others’ successes.

4. It’s a way to prevent putting a question out there for potential readers and then staring at that ‘0 comments’ field. Your blog mates can help you save face.

5. It’s a sense of community, and readers want to be involved. It looks as if the authors are having fun, and they probably are!

I’d like to do a group blog, but I don’t really feel as if I’m in the same situation as anyone. Most authors published by a major house shy away from aligning themselves with a self-published author. And most self-published authors are not romance authors. Besides, romance doesn’t lend itself to self-publishing in that readers are expecting to pay the standard mass-market price (which isn’t very cost-effective for a self-publisher), competition is fierce, and books easily get lost in the shuffle. So for now, I’m goin’ it alone.

Some fun group blogs I’ve encountered:
Squawk Radio
Sisterhood of the Jaunty Quills
Risky Regencies
Literary Chicks
Dishing With the Divas

Let me know if you find any more good ones…