Jean Marie's Domain
the WardSmith Blog

jmward14
Date: 2010-02-09 00:02
Subject: From Twitter
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jmward14
Date: 2010-02-08 18:11
Subject: Because it's silly
Security: Public
Location:home
Mood:amused amused
Music:humming appliances
Tags:iv caffeine, snow, squirrels

This is Greg's take on the storm.  :-)

Snowmageddon2010

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jmward14
Date: 2010-02-08 01:31
Subject: SnowMyGosh 2010
Security: Public
Location:home
Mood:tired tired
Music:sleeping cat
Tags:blizzard of 2010, snow, snow 2010, snowmagedon, snowmygosh

You knew I had to post pictures of this weekend's SnowMyGosh.  I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't seen it.  Depending on where you were in the Washington DC area, the snow stick measured between 18 and 32 inches of accumulation.  The Squirrel Towers side of the hill collected around 24 inches.
 
I'm still stupefied.  I've lived in this area most of my life, and I've never seen a winter to match.  Not one, but two--TWO--record snowfalls, and the season's still promising more.  We could get between another two and eight inches by mid-week.
 

What makes this all the more surreal: in late 2008 I visited a friend in Montana.  I was enchanted by her town and awed by the vastness of the landscape, but we both agreed I couldn't handle the winter.  So I flew home to Virginia.

How the heck did Montana sneak on the plane?

Saturday evening, as the snow finally ceased.
 













The view from the patio Saturday evening, as the snow finally ceased.




The front sidewalk Sunday afternoon.  The sunlight on the snow is so bright the shadows are blue.

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jmward14
Date: 2010-02-07 00:02
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public


  • 01:37 Snow-magedon is definitely upon us--8-12 in. & still snowing strong. The front steps are lost in the side of the hill. #

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jmward14
Date: 2010-02-06 00:02
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public


  • 20:13 Updated the web page with all the latest book and convention news. (jeanmarieward.com/) Go me! #

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jmward14
Date: 2010-02-04 02:22
Subject: My Thursday Thirteen Favorite Lines from "Hoodoo Cupid"
Security: Public
Location:home
Mood:sleepy sleepy
Music:sleeping cat
Tags:hoodoo cupid, red rose publishing

Cue the trumpet fanfare.  Today marks the release of “Hoodoo Cupid”, my first contemporary romance, by Red Rose Publishing.  “Hoodoo Cupid” tells the story of two ad agency pros—copywriter Maggie Scanlan and agency wunderkind Dan Constantine—who fall in love in an Emergency Room…with a little help from a certain voodoo doll.

In honor of the occasion, and because it’s Thursday, here are thirteen of my favorite lines from the story:

1. Forget the clichés about friends helping you move and friends helping you move bodies. Real friends sacrificed their lunch hour to help you exact proxy revenge outdoors on a day so brutally cold even the agency’s smokers refused to risk it.

2. “Now hurry up and push your pin in his heart so we can get back inside. My five-year plan doesn’t include freezing to death for the sake of you or your bad boy.”

3. “It’s not going to work. It never does. All it does is make me feel better. Take that, Daniel Curtiss Constantine.” Maggie finished hacking through the second leg and started to sob.

4. “Yeah, I can see how it’s a real attitude adjuster,” Germaine said dryly.

5. The universe had other plans. It planned to enjoy a big honking, snorting, coffee-through-the-nose-spewing belly laugh at Maggie’s expense. There, not a dozen yards in front of her, striding in the direction of her favorite takeout, was the bane of her professional life.

6. It never occurred to her to push him into traffic. He stepped off the curb all by himself.

7. “So this is what it takes,” Constantine gasped, “to get your attention.”

8. She expected the surroundings to diminish him. Instead she discovered the width of his shoulders owed nothing to padding. An uneasy mix of guilt and curiosity writhed inside her. Did his legs match the rest of him?

9. [His eyes] were a clear light gray, completely at odds with his Mediterranean complexion and the dark brown eyelashes that belonged in a mascara commercial. When those eyes focused on a person—the way they focused on her now—it was like being targeted by a pair of lasers.

10. His voice had a husky quality—a subtle roughness like vintage mohair upholstery, which inspired almost as much thigh wriggling and skirt palming among the agency power groupies as his eyes.

11. The only answers Maggie had were rude. She found a spot on the floor that looked like Kansas and wished for a tornado.

12. Worse, the movement called attention to his muscular, mostly naked legs. Inside her head she groaned. He’d be perfect if only he weren’t in advertising.

13. (The one my Texas friends like best.)
“Afghanistan?” she squeaked. “You were in the Army?”
“Three years, eight months, seventeen days, and just a little over three hours. Do you want it in minutes? C’mon, Maggie, give me a little credit. You didn’t think it took me seven years to graduate Yale, did you?” He laughed. “If I’d been that slow, the only way I could’ve made a living would’ve been to move to Texas and go into politics.”
 

Now you know you want to read the rest.  Check it out at Red Rose Publishing and, maybe, take it home for Valentine’s Day.

Happy reading!


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jmward14
Date: 2010-02-04 00:02
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public

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jmward14
Date: 2010-02-02 00:05
Subject: From Twitter
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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-31 00:02
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public


  • 13:15 I baked and it's snowing. It was inevitable. 3-6 inches--just enough to be a nuisance to clear. LOL #

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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-30 22:12
Subject: Join Me on the Red Rose Channel at Blog Talk Radio
Security: Public
Location:home
Mood:cheerful cheerful
Music:Angels & Demons Decoded
Tags:angela kay austin, blog talk radio, red rose publishing

That's right--me, the person who hates to chat--will be co-hosting the Red Rose Channel at Blog Talk Radio tomorrow, January 31, from 2-3 p.m. EST. Well, I might hate IM chat, but I do like to talk.
And I won't be the only one there. The featured guest will be Red Rose author Angela Kaye Austin. Angela is an author of inter-racial contemporary romance novels featuring strong African-American women whose love can't be bound by race, bank accounts, age, religion or gender. Her current novel, Love's Chance, tells the story of Sinclair Mosley, a woman on a mission to pay back her parents and save her family business. That mission takes her to Pennsylvania, where the locals don't exactly welcome her with open arms. But Chance O'Malley does. At the risk of losing everything that brought her to Pennsylvania, including her family's restaurant, Sinclair must decide if she's willing to take a chance on love.
My co-host will be one half of the Red Rose Channel's terrific twosome, Kali Willows. Franny is away on a well-deserved vacation, and she turned over the keys to the kingdom. Tune in or call in (917-889-3332), if only to see how I manage to make her sorry. ;-)

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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-30 00:02
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public

  • 14:25 Felt the urge to bake today. Ah, there will be snow, my precious. Not as much as in Dec.--no mad holiday baking rush--but nesting = snow. #
  • 20:36 I'll be co-hosting Red Rose's Blog Talk Radio Show this Sunday <www.blogtalkradio.com/redroseauthors>. #
  • 20:37 What's the big deal? Only that I don't chat. But I will talk... Hope to hear U there <www.blogtalkradio.com/redroseauthors>. #
  • 20:37 Oh, yeah! The time is 2 p.m., Sun., Jan 31 <> #
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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-28 00:09
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public

  • 01:18 Discovered I've got another twitter account--one I never use. Oops. I'll take care of that, sometime... *facepalm* #
  • 01:20 On the plus side, I'm working on a cool new nonfiction book proposal for the London Book Fair involving vampires. :D #
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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-21 00:04
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public


  • 19:48 Too funny: search "vampire club" in DC & the 7th listing is Walter Reed Hosp. ARC is #4. #

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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-17 02:39
Subject: Waiting to Promo
Security: Public
Location:home
Mood:ecstatic ecstatic
Music:slumbering spouse
Tags:beyond the veil, fantasy art templates, hoodoo cupid

Still deep in the writing cave, but I'll be emerging soon.  Promise!  (Be afraid.  Be very afraid...)  As a foretaste, today I posted the first tickle of promo for "Hoodoo Cupid", my February 4 release from Red Rose, at Beyond the Veil.
Tomorrow, if I figure out how to do it, I'll try to post a very low res version of one of the interior pages of Fantasy Art Templates.  My promo copies arrived yesterday, and they are beautiful beyond belief.  Even better, earlier tonight [info]crazywritergirl  was looking for the name of a specific member of the angelic hosts--and it was in there, along with everything from pirates to giants to snake goddesses.  Not only is it gorgeous, the book's a great reference too.  Win!
Cheers and smiles,

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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-09 00:00
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public

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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-04 01:58
Subject: Trolling for Beta Readers
Security: Public
Location:home
Mood:accomplished accomplished
Music:sleeping cat
Tags:beta reading, lord bai

I finally, finally finished the draft of "Lord Bai and the Magic Pirate" I've owed to a certain kind editor for longer than I care to think about it. I'm late. She may no longer want the story. It may not meet her specs. (It's a little long.) But it's done, except for the mad twitching that always happens in the first 48 hours after I think I've finished a draft.
As usual, I'm looking for a few victims--er, volunteers to give me their thoughts before I send this baby out into the cold cruel world. *user beams hopeful puppy eyes at the crowd*
To help you make up your mind, LB & the MP, is a comic fantasy set in Nanjing in the early Ming Dynasty. It's a little under 11,000 words long. There's no romance, though Bai does manage to accost at least one well-paid courtesan, a shape-changing fox, several large dogs, and a lot of people who really ought to know better.
Just let me know.
Cheers and relieved smiles,

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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-03 00:01
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public

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jmward14
Date: 2010-01-01 17:19
Subject: New Year blogging at Samhain Publishing
Security: Public
Location:home
Mood:content content
Music:Looney Tunes
Tags:blogging, samhain blog, samhain publishing

For reasons beyond human ken, the good folks at Samhain Publishing thought I'd be the perfect person to open the next decade of the company blog. You can read the damage here. One thing you can be sure of, it fits right in with the Cartoon Network's New Year Looney Tunes marathon. Enjoy!
Wishing everyone the best of the New Year!
Cheers and cyber-confetti,

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jmward14
Date: 2009-12-31 21:34
Subject: Best Blue Moon Wishes
Security: Public
Location:home
Music:After the Thin Man
Tags:new year's eve


May the countdown be as special as the night!

Wishing you and all your loved ones joy,

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jmward14
Date: 2009-12-29 00:05
Subject: From Twitter
Security: Public


  • 18:16 My web site (JeanMarieWard.com). Yay! I will never, ever attempt a Word Press upgrade again. #

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