Thanks Michele, Megan, Ferfe LaBat, and Gabby for your great input on digital cameras and point of view.

After exhaustive research online, in magazines, and from the personal experiences of many many people, I went to my local Wolf Camera store and bought a totally different camera from any of the ones I’d been considering. Chalk one up for a great salesman. Is everyone ready? Drumroll please. I bought a Canon SD400. I was completely confused by the time I hit the store’s door. It seemed that no two reviewers could agree about which was the best camera in the three to four hundred dollar range. I like consensus before I spend my money, and some of the horror stories I read on photo bulletin boards gave me chills. I knew I had to eventually make a decision, so when the salesman brought out the SD400, I bought it. I’m glad that I did. It was less than three hundred dollars, but by the time I bought an SD card and all the other little extras, it took the cost up close to four hundred. The other cameras that a lot of reviewers seemed to like were the newest kids on the block (like the Canon A620), but after adding on the extra costs, they would’ve taken me into the five hundred dollar range. Somewhere I didn’t want to go right now. Yes, I get free lessons with this baby, and heaven knows I need them. The camera is like a computer, and I’m not too great with the technical stuff.

Hey, guys, remember the consensus thing? I didn’t get that with my point of view question either. Sheesh! I’m still undecided about whether to try first person. If I ever do, I’ll make sure that one of my series is still in third person. Anyway, all of my 2006 books will be in third person. The one truly memorable first person POV romance that I remember is Outlander. I fell in love with Jamie even though I never got into his head.

Megan, I took your advice and bought some catnip spray and a catnip plant (plant is growing in my computer room, a cat-free zone for the moment). When the plant is mature enough, I’ll put it out for Abby to go crazy over. I bought a bigger scratching post and sprayed it with the catnip spray. She really loves the new post. Then I sprayed a commercial product on the area of my couch that had become a war zone. The manufacturer guarantees that it will stop the scratching, and so far it seems to be working pretty well. No cords have been chewed lately either. Life is good! By the way, you know that as soon as I take a good picture of Abby, I’ll put it up on the site.

Oh, and have faith. My site updates will be done very soon, and I’ll have a January contest up. I’m trying to think of a really great contest to run for my back-to-back books in May and June. Last year it was a big money prize. What do you think? Do readers want the money or something more meaningful (Although money is pretty meaningful to me)? Suggestions welcome.

Not looking forward to speed reading your way through the same tired plot, the same predictable characters?

Welcome to a different kind of writing and a far weirder reality. Take the road no one else traveled and do lunch with the people who paved it.

It?s a romance?for the lunatic fringe.

Tara Cole is a computer geek who drops off the grid to live in the Florida Keys. After ten years taking hit after hit in the digital world, it?s hard to cut all the baggage loose. She carries some of that baggage in the form of a website she runs called Revenge-Gifts.com. One of the gifts she sells comes back to haunt her in the form of a Reversal of Fortune curse a voodoo priestess puts on Tara for revenge. Only, if you haven?t had sex in ten years and your life pretty much sucks already, how bad can a Reversal of Fortune curse really be?

For your Christmas Revenge Shopping visit http://www.revenge-gifts.com/Revenge%20Gifts/index.htm

Excerpt:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0765352257/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-1562852-4871063#reader-link

Cover:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0765352257/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-1562852-4871063#reader-link

ABOUT Cindy Cruciger
Cindy Cruciger was born on a full moon night in Okeechobee, Florida. A few days later, the doctor who delivered her disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Weird? Yes. But, she’s used to it. She graduated from USF and UCF with a degree in computer engineering and is an alumna of the Delta Eta chapter of Kappa Delta sorority. She got married, got a job, had a few kids and ended up in Puerto Rico for five years. There amongst the Chupacabra sightings, Santeria rituals, and all the usual island-life madness, on a full moon night at the height of the summer heat, no air-conditioning, fans blowing so hard the cats were skittering over the terrazzo floor trying to get some traction and failing, the scent of night blooming Jasmine so thick in the air that you could wring it out of the curtains — she started writing. Her first work of fiction won an RT Book Club contest and for three years she has been chronicling the strange world of an aspiring author, trying to get published. Her Path to Publishing column appears monthly in RT Book Club Magazine. She is a computer engineer for the Miami Herald and freelances for the Keynoter — a bi-weekly tabloid that chronicles everything and anything that happens in the hundred plus miles of the Florida Keys.

She currently lives in the village of Islamorada in the Florida Keys — until her neighbors read her book and kick her off the island.

REVIEWS
?Four and a half stars TOP PICK Flat-out fabulous, this novel is one-of-a-kind. Cruciger?s original, funny voice is cool and wise?? ?RTBOOK Club Magazine

?Cindy Cruciger?s debut novel is riotously funny and wickedly witty.? ? Romance Junkies
?I kept hiding behind the boxes to keep reading it – this book seriously hooks you so bad you?ll have a rictus curl in the side of your face.? ? Smart Bitches Trashy Books

Website: http://www.CindyCruciger.com

MY COMMENTS: The term “fresh voice” is tossed around a lot in the publishing industry, but Cindy lives up to the hype. She combines great storytelling with a caustic sense of humor that kept me turning the pages. And what a great concept! If you haven’t read this book, do it. Now. That’s an order.

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words about my books. I finally finished A TASTE OF DARKNESS, and now I’m working on my novella for the July anthology, SURF’S UP, with MaryJanice Davidson and Janelle Denison. It’s tentatively titled, “Hot Summer Bites.” And no, it’s not about two mosquitoes who fall in love.

Michele, I loved your catnip story. And thanks Megan and Gabby for your suggestions on how to keep Abby from clawing everything. Believe me, I’ll try them all. Do they have a commercial catnip spray? Please tell me she’ll mature and grow out of this phase.

Robin, I finally finished my week of jury duty. They chose me to sit on a jury that heard a very ugly case. I won’t talk about it, but I definitely never want to do that again. And as for calling some kick-butt heroines “abrasive,” that was the perfect word to describe them.

I don’t know if I mentioned this already (I’m too lazy to check), but I’m treating myself to a digital camera for Christmas. I bought a magazine that gave info on all the cameras out there, and now I’m more confused than ever. I need something that takes good pictures but isn’t too hard to operate. I want it to be small enough to carry around in my purse. I want to get it now so that I’ll know how to use it next year when I go to Ireland.

What do you guys think about writing in first person? Some of my favorite authors do it (Janet Evanovich, MaryJanice Davidson, Charlaine Harris, etc.). And now, two of the members of my critique group have sold vampire series written in first person (Kimberly Raye and Gerry Barlett). I’ve thought about trying it, but I don’t know if I want to take the chance when readers have gotten used to me writing in third person. Hmm, just a thought.