I hope everyone had a great 4th. Having done our cookout and partying last weekend, we didn’t even leave the house except to step out onto the front porch to watch the neighbors shoot off fireworks. And as you can tell from my lack of blogging the past couple of days, I’ve been in the writing cave. I’ve written 33 pages in the past two days. I’m really pushing to have a rough draft done by the time I head to San Fran so I can do editing on the train.

You know how you get those meme things in e-mail and are tagged by other bloggers all the time. You know the ones that ask things like — tell us six random things about you? Well, I’ve decided to start my own and see how long it takes the world of the Internet to send it back to me. So, here goes:

Famous People Meme — Which famous person in each of the following categories would you like to meet?

Author — J.K. Rowling

Movie Actor — Orlando Bloom

TV Actor — Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, also Sarah Michelle Gellar

Musician/Singer — Bon Jovi

Historical Figure — Queen Elizabeth I and Sacajawea

Fictional Book Character — J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood brothers

Fictional Movie or TV Character — Buffy Sommers

Okay, if you have a blog, go forth and blog. Everyone, including the bloggers, share your answers in the comments section. I’m verrry curious.

First off, the books. Last week’s winner of three free books is Jane! I’ll get them in the mail to you this week.

Up for grabs this week:

Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught
Guarding Jane Doe by Harper Allen
Undertow by Dixie Browning

And now for the music. This is the song I’m currently playing a lot, “Breath” by Breaking Benjamin.

Moonlight was back after an extended, writers’ strike-induced break, but it was well worth the wait. I’ve blogged before about how I like vampire shows, so it was a fun fan moment at the end of tonight’s episode when two of those shows had a bit of an intersection. During a scene between Mick and Beth, “Lucky” by Biff Naked started playing. I recognized it from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album soundtrack. Of course, when the episode was over I had to fire up iTunes and play the full version of the song.

In other TV news, the last two weeks of Survivor have been wild. Last week’s blindside of Ozzy was a brilliant strategic move. Ozzy was one of my favorite players from his original season. While I still liked him, at least the editing made him seem cockier and full of himself this time around. Then last night, another blindside of someone sitting with the immunity idol but not playing it. Poor Jason was just lied to and lied to. I never understood why everyone disliked him so much, and I was pulling for him. Alas, the bitchy patrol got together and ousted him. Those girls have got to realize that everyone on the jury is totally ticked at them. Of the people left, I’m rooting for Erik first, then Amanda, then Cirie, then James. I’d love them to be the final four, would love to see the other three girls voting out one after another over the next three weeks.

So, yesterday could have been called Adventures in Mowing for me. Hubby normally mows the lawn, but he’s been traveling a lot for work. I’ve only mowed one before in my life, and that was just the front yard. Yesterday, I decided to be ambitious and mowed both the front and the back, all while wearing an oh-so-stylish surgical mask because of my allergies. I seriously hope I sweated off about ten pounds because I was pooped when I was done. I’m doing this with a push mower, people. I came away with sore hands and two blisters on the insides of my thumbs, but I felt oddly good to have tackled the lawn and won. But I think I’ll leave the weedeating for hubby.

And finally, in writing news, I finished up my second round of revisions on Heartbreak River. All I have to do after posting this blog post is to do a spell check and then e-mail it to my editor. Wahoo!

Since I’m headed out of town on Monday for the Romantic Times conference and I just got another set of revisions to do on my YA book, Heartbreak River, due April 29, and my Supernatural essay is due to BenBella by May 1, I’m looking at a busy rest of the month. No surprise there. Today, I finished re-watching season 2 of Supernatural (teared up at the episode “Heart” yet again) and read through some online summaries from season 3 to refresh my memory. I plan to work up an outline for the essay this evening and hope to get the first draft of the essay completed tomorrow so that I can revise and tweak it while I’m on my trip while also working on my book revisions.

I really like how rock songs are worked into the show because of Dean’s love of rock, especially classic rock. Two are still playing in my head for different reasons — “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas because the Winchester boys are from Kansas, and “Silent” Lucidity” by Queensryche because it played over the very emotional end to the episode “Heart” and because that song was a hit during my college years and was a favorite of mine.

I began revising my rough draft of Heartbreak River today and made good progress. Yay, me!

The big news of the day though was the birth of our newest nephew. Can’t wait to see him in a few days. I hear he looks just like his older brother did when he was born, only with a lot more hair.

Anyone watch Heroes tonight? Did anything surprise you?

More music for your little ears:

I was e-mailing with buddy Tawny Weber a couple of days ago about an article I’m doing for the Romance Writers Report on the appeal of the bad boy versus the good boy. One thing led to another, and we got to talking about how we’re both big fans of rock stars and how they don’t turn up in romance novels as heroes. We talked about the various “hair bands” we saw in concert in the ’80s and about bands we like now, and ones we’re still discovering. I think I might have her hooked on HIM, the Finnish band I just discovered.

The topic of age came up in the conversation too. We were both teenagers in the ’80s, and that doesn’t seem so long ago. To think that it’s been 18 years since I graduated high school is just weird. Part of me still feels like I’m in my early to mid 20s, and I admit to occasionally wanting to do something on pure impulse. I’m normally a big planner, and doing something like up and driving several hours just to see a concert doesn’t seem like the responsible adult thing to do. But do we get so tied up in what’s expected of us as “responsible adults” that we cut out the fun of impulsive trips?

I think a lot of aging is how old you feel. And I don’t feel old — well, until I go to a concert and see how much younger a lot of the other people are. Thankfully, though, there are still quite a few people in their mid 30s there. But will there be when I’m 40, 50, 60? Because I don’t think my taste in music is going to change.

So, do you feel your age? Have you ever done something like take a road trip on pure impulse, on the spur of the moment? How did it work out?

And here for your viewing pleasure is a cool video from HIM.

Writing update: Wrote two chapters yesterday, wrote two more today, three to go. Am ready for this first draft to be done so I can start back through it doing revisions and additions because it’s going to need them. I’m having a case of “this book is crap,” but I’ve had it before and they ended up okay in the end. I’m hoping that’ll be the case for this one as well.
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When bands remake songs, the result is often not as good as the original though that’s not always the case. One of my all-time favorite songs is Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”, so I didn’t know how I’d like a remake by HIM, a Finnish band I just discovered. Turns out I really like it, even though Chris Isaak’s is still the classic. What do you think? Also, I recognize the actress wearing white in the video (can’t tell if she’s the same one as in the black outfit), but for the life of me I can’t figure out what her name is.

Mary often puts up her goals for the week on her blog, so I’m going to give it a try. All of you hold me to them, okay?

1. Finish the first draft of Heartbreak River by Friday
2. Decorate for Christmas
3. Catch up on miscellaneous paperwork
4. Cull e-mail accounts
5. Finish Christmas shopping
6. Begin revisions/additions to Heartbreak River on Sunday
7. Exercise one hour every day

I’ve mentioned here before that 1) I’ve discovered new bands I like by watching fan videos on YouTube, 2) I find I like European bands, and 3) I like vampire shows. Well, here’s a video that combines all three. I discovered the band HIM, a Finnish metal band, while on a fan site for the show Blood Ties, a Lifetime show that is based on the vampire novels by Tanya Huff. The people in the video and show are Detective Vicki Nelson and her partner, vampire Henry Fitzroy. The song is called “Vampire Heart.”

When I was in high school and college, one of my favorite bands was Bon Jovi. Yes, it was the hair band era. The first song I ever heard my hubby play (before we even started dating) was Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.” After I was married, the hubby and I went to see Bon Jovi in concert at a local outdoor venue. It was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. And while most of the bands I liked back in the mid to late ’80s haven’t aged all that well (either physically or musically), may only show up in venues a tiny fraction of the size of the stadiums they used to fill, and haven’t had a hit since Ronald Reagan was president, Bon Jovi has been creatively and business savvy and changed with the times. And it’s paid off as they now have the No. 1 album in the country, Lost Highway, their first No. 1 album since 1988’s New Jersey. (Hubby says they have the No. 1 album because people our age don’t know how to download the songs, and if it’s not round we don’t know how to play it. LOL! Speak for yourself, says I, the proud owner of an iPod.)

I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks they’ve sold out, but I disagree. I believe artists of all kinds can stretch themselves creatively in new directions to find new audiences and keep their work interesting both to fans and themselves. The option is staying in a rut and fading into oblivion. That’s not to say that you abandon everything your fans enjoy. Even with their new music, Bon Jovi is still Bon Jovi. It’s the same with a writer’s “voice”. It doesn’t matter if she’s writing historicals, contemporaries or paranormals, her voice is still there for readers to enjoy.

Now, shifting gears, I discovered another new-to-me band. DeVotchKa is an indie band from Denver, and I really like their unique mixture of musical styles — a little rock, a little folk, a little Eastern European, and some mariachi thrown in. This is another band I discovered because one of their songs, “How it Ends”, was used on a fan video for Smallville.

Connie Talbot was another of the favorites to win Britain’s Got Talent, though she lost out to Phil Potts, who I blogged about yesterday. Still, I think she’s absolutely adorable and very talented — and only 6 years old!