Just a quickie post tonight to let you all know about a couple of site updates I’ve done this week. I added some new pages, one detailing what I’m currently reading (because I liked that feature whenever I was blogging on Blogger) and links to the two versions of an essay I wrote in hopes one would be included in an anthology about the show Supernatural, which I believe I’ve mentioned here before. Unfortunately, neither version made the final cut, but I thought Supernatural fans might enjoy reading them anyway.

The What I’m Reading has its own page link on the left. The Supernatural essays are accessible through the Fun Stuff page.

The RWA National Conference is now less than five weeks away, and one of the things I look forward to as a purely fun event is the Harlequin publisher party. It’s a full-on dance party, and I do love to dance. When I was in college, some friends and I would go to a club called Cheers to dance. But when I went to the Harlequin party last year, I figured out it had been probably 15 years since I’d gone out dancing. Good grief, how did those years fly by so fast!? But I boogied for hours nonetheless. It wasn’t until I got back to my hotel room that I felt the effects. My feet were throbbing so much I had a difficult time going to sleep. But hey, I’ll do it again this year.

And speaking of dancing, does anyone watch America’s Best Dance Crew? Hubby started watching it first last season, and I caught the last few episodes — enough to make me a fan of both Jabbawockeez and Kaba Modern. Season 2 started last night, so we watched while hubby also surfed the Internet and I browsed through my latest issue of BookPage to see what new books were hitting the shelves (multi-tasking, you know). Last night’s performances can be seen here. They were enough to make Super Cr3w and SoReal Cru my early favorites though I also really enjoyed the performances of Phresh Select and A.S.I.I.D. If you watched it (or if you even go to the link above and watch the short performances), let me know who your early favorites are.

In writing news, I just finished and submitted by revised essay for the Supernatural anthology being published by BenBella Books next year. The ever-wonderful Mary is also reading my revised ms of The Willow Creek, which I hope to finish revising based on her comments and submitted well in advance of its July 14 deadline. The rest of today’s schedule includes doing research for my next YA book and working on revisions to that book’s outline, just in case you were wondering.

Sometimes I think my two editors’ brains are connected even though they don’t work for the same publishing company, don’t even live in the same country. I’ve been working on revisions to my second Harlequin American (The Willow Creek Cafe) and finished them this morning so I could send them to Mary for a read-through to make sure it all still makes sense after cutting some material and adding some new scenes. Only a few hours later, my YA editor e-mailed with revisions to my second YA book (Arctic Heart). So those are due back in a week, but before that I have to do revisions to my Supernatural essay for BenBella Books. Hmm, I think perhaps I should change my middle name to Revisions.

So, I’m thinking about learning how to do podcasts so I can start putting some on my site. Has anyone reading this ever created a podcast? I don’t know the ins and outs of how to create the proper types of files and how to put them on my site. Must investigate. And if you were to listen to short (like five-minute) podcasts on an author’s site, what would you want her to talk about? I’m thinking about doing a variety of things, but nothing is firm in my mind yet.

I haven’t watched my TiVoed episodes of Smallville and LOST yet, but I thought I’d comment some on my favorite night of television.

Survivor — Poor Erik. I’m of two minds about his ouster tonight. On the one hand, it really was an incredibly dumb move to give up his immunity necklace to conniving Natalie (Please don’t let her win!), especially after what had happened at Tribal Council in recent weeks. Don’t trust anyone! But on the other hand, I hated that he was trying to do a good thing and, I think, honestly preserve some friendships for after the game was over, and the girls repaid him by not only voting him out but rubbing in how “stupid” he was. I do feel sorry for him. I wonder what the jury members said to him when he joined them.

Supernatural — The clock is ticking down to when Dean’s deal comes due and the hellhounds come for him. How in the world do you think he’s going to get out of this? Or do you think they’re going to have him really die and go to hell in the finale and not bring him back until next season? And do you think we’ll see Bella again? I feel like there’s more story to tell about her.

LOST — Haven’t watched it yet, but there was an interesting link to a theory a fan has in the May 9 issue of Entertainment Weekly. I don’t know if any part of this time loop theory will prove true, but it was interesting reading. Check it out at www.timelooptheory.com.

On the writing front, I finished and turned in a freelance article today and read some interesting articles on promotion. Soon, I need to come up with a master plan for promotion for the weeks surrounding the September release of my first book.

Well, I’m off to the Romantic Times conference tomorrow. It’ll be fun to see some writer friends, meet lots of readers and the ladies who run Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine. What’s not so great is the forecast for tomorrow. It’s supposed to be cold with a chance of some snow. Bleh. It’s like spring took a vacation for a few days. Today, hubby could see his breath as he mowed the lawn. Hopefully there won’t be any problems with the road. If there is, I’m so stopping somewhere until there isn’t a problem anymore.

I had a lot of fun today writing my essay for the Supernatural anthology. I can’t wait for the book to be published so I can read everyone else’s essays. In honor of the essay getting done and turned in, here’s a fun YouTube video with funny moments from the show. Gotta laugh at those Winchester boys.

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.

Guess where I am. Yep, I’m back at Panera Bread because my Internet is out AGAIN! Not that I’m frustrated or anything. The guy from the cable company is coming in the morning to figure out why the cable Internet has suddenly decided to lose its freakin’ mind. And get this — at the end of the call during which I’m detailing all the problems we’ve been having with the cable Internet connection, the customer service lady says, “We also offer home phone service which can save you money. Is this something you’d be interested in?”

Come on, seriously?

My response: “Not with the problems we’ve been having with the Internet service.”

In writing-related news,  I’ve finished re-watching and taking notes on the first season of Supernatural for my essay. I’m starting season 2 today when I get home from the lovely free WiFi here at Panera. I’ll finish watching season 2 this week and refresh my memory on what’s happened in season 3 and start writing the essay this weekend.

I’m working on an essay for Benbella Books, for a compilation they’re doing for their SmartPop series on the show Supernatural, my favorite show on TV. So, I’ve been re-watching the first two seasons, taking notes to support the theme of my essay. It’s interesting what you catch when you’re watching something analytically versus just for fun. And though I already knew it, it’s striking me again just how good this show really is — great writing, great acting, totally fun and believable relationship between the brothers. Thank you, Eric Kripke!

I was talking to my husband yesterday about how different our TV viewing choices are. I like certain shows and don’t want to miss a single episode. That’s because I like shows that have a developing story arc over time. If you miss an episode, you miss a valuable part of the arc. Hubby, on the other hand, watches programs at random as he’s surfing, stuff you can miss and it won’t matter. For instance: Me (Supernatural or Moonlight) versus Hubby (South Park or The Colbert Report). I think our viewing choices are also reflected in our reading choices. Hubby watches Book TV on C-SPAN on the weekends, which makes sense because he’s almost exclusively a nonfiction reader (and really smart dude). I like shows that have stories to tell, just like my preference for fiction. I do think I’m more likely to read a nonfiction work than he is a fiction work, though he will be reading my published books — good hubby that he is. Same goes for TV. I’ve watched some Book TV, and I really enjoy The Daily Show. But I don’t see hubby giving in to weekly watching of Bones anytime soon.

Busy day today — I judged three contest entries and am working on an article for the Romance Writers Report. Unfortunately, while judging one of the contest entries, I had to give some low scores. I don’t like doing this. I always try to give some constructive and hopeful comments to lessen the sting of the scores, but I don’t want to give a person a false sense of how good their work is when it really needs a good bit of revision to make it submittable. It’s a delicate balance as a judge.

During my lunch break, I watched last night’s episode of Supernatural. Wow, what a combination of hilarity (Dean dancing to Asia’s “Heat of the Moment”) and poignancy (poor Sam having to relive watching Dean die in different ways over and over and over again). My two truly laugh-out-loud moments were Dean’s “Heat of the Moment” dancing and when Sam told Dean that he peed himself when he got hit by a car. I was here alone in my house and I was laughing myself silly.

Okay, not TV Land as in the network by that name. I’m talking about TV in general. With the writers’ strike still under way, the ol’ TiVo has been recording mainly movies and some random shows I’ve never heard of, plus, curiously, episodes of Gunsmoke. Maybe that’s because I recorded The Quick and the Dead. Hmm. Anyway, some shows are coming back on with the few episodes they were able to complete before the strike. Here’s a quick roundup:

Prison Break — So it’s incredibly far-fetched. So what. Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell still have me glued to the episodes, and I can’t help rooting for Agent Mahone. I HATE what happened to the Sarah storyline because of actress Sarah Wayne Callies’ departure from the show, and I don’t know how Michael will possibly get any sort of happy ending after all he’s gone through, but I’m intensely curious how it’s all going to play out.

Smallville — If you’ve read my blog for very long, you know I love superhero stuff. No surprise I’m still watching the boy who will become Superman. I’m ready to say bye-bye to Lana now though. Her and Clark’s romance doesn’t feel real anymore, and I’m ready for the turn toward Lois to start. It’s fun to see James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) back as Brainiac though. I’ve read he also has a role in Torchwood now, but that’s on BBC America and I don’t get that channel.

Supernatural — The Winchester boys are BACK! This is my favorite show, and it came back on tonight. We got to learn a bit more about Ruby — I think she’s a cool character. I mean, Dean and Sam hunt and kill demons and she’s a demon. BUT she’s on their side. More fuel added to the “everything isn’t black and white” fire tonight when Ruby revealed a fact to Dean about her own past and the nature of demons. I think something else she revealed to him is the turning point for him in how he thinks about being doomed to die within the year. My poor Sammy, pinned to the wall AGAIN.

Stargate Atlantis — I’m excited about the potential new romance between Dr. Keller and Ronon. Plus, I just like sci-fi shows. John is still snarky, Ronon still kicks butt, and Rodney is still fantastically annoying and yet endearing.

LOST — I haven’t watched tonight’s premiere yet. Must write a guest blog post for next week instead.

Anybody out there in blogland watch these shows? What do you think of recent episodes?