Yesterday, I posted a poll asking people to choose between two covers. At the moment, there have been 82 votes (one person voted in the comments because he or she didn't have an LJ), with 75 people (or 91.5% of the votes) choosing Cover 2, and 7 people (or 8.5% of the votes) choosing Cover 1 . Those totals can - and probably will - change as more votes trickle in. However, at this point, the majority of voters preferred Cover 2 to Cover 1.

_lady_narcissa_, who I happen to know is a veteran romance novel reader, said that "if I'm buying an ebook I probably wouldn't care what the cover looked like. I mean that's the joy of the ebook, it doesn't sit out and take space and I'd never have to actually look at the cover. So I'd probably buy whichever version was listed first." However, the covers do play a part in the reader's selection process. Some of us (okay, me) browse the catalogs of the digital publishers, and cover art can either draw me to click on a specific link or it can drive me away from it.

( Warning: Occasional foul language and NSFW images linked in the rest of this post )

A fair percentage of my flist is working on original fiction, and I have several published authors on my flist. Some are published in print, some are digitally published (or e-published, if you prefer), and some are both. Today, though, I'm going to focus on digital publishing.

( Read more... )

~snicker~ Get your mind out of the internet pr0n for a minute, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about ways to make life on the internet a little easier. ;P I was cleaning out my bookmarks yesterday, and I noted a few links, scripts and Firefox add-ons that I pretty much consider invaluable. So, I'll show you mine, if you'll show me yours....

( Cut for long post with lots of directions )

The first stop on this round of The Fangirl Tour is mine, but I've done this before, and for anyone wondering how the fangirl_tour came about, here are links to my prior Fangirl Tour recs and to the post that started it off:

The Original Fangirl Tour Day One
The Original Fangirl Tour Day Two
The Original Fangirl Tour Day Three
The Original Fangirl Tour Day Four

Now, let's get down to business, shall we? I'll place my hand over my heart and recite the unofficial Fangirl Tour disclaimer: What I've chosen to post today depends a great deal on my mood at the time each was selected, and I heartily apologize for leaving out the thousands of stories, artwork and videos that deserve to be recced here. ;)

( Fandom - Harry Potter )

( Fandom - Labyrinth )

( Fandom - Pirates of the Caribbean )

( Fandom - Star Trek (Original Series) )

( Fandom - Original Novel )

Hello! Long time, no post, but if size matters to you, then I'm about to make up for my lack of posting. ;) Erm, in other words, this is going to be a longish post covering various topics, so I'm putting things under various cuts. That way, you can skip anything you're not interested in reading about. ;)

( SSHG_Exchange Pimpage )

( Other Stuff I Wrote )

( Fangirl_Tour Info )

( Personal Stuff )

To shiv5468 and gilded_glamour! I hope you both have wonderful birthdays filled with all your favorite things. ;)

My mom came through the surgery just fine. The anesthetic made her nauseous, but that mostly went away after she went home and had a nap. I expect it will be an early night for all of us since it's ridiculous how tired you can get from just sitting in a waiting room. :(

Again, thanks for all the good thoughts. My mom appreciated it very much, as did I. ~hugs~

I said I'd post more, but as you can see, I haven't been. ~sighs~ Between RL and the sshg_exchange, I haven't had a lot of free time. I'm trying to read and keep up with my flist, though. I just don't comment as much as I should, and I hope to change that within the next few weeks.

But I had to post to squee over my sshg_exchange gift. If you've not read it yet, what are you waiting for? At the Edge of the World is exactly what I wanted when I submitted my prompts, and it's utterly brilliant. I won't spoil it by telling you all the details, but it made me laugh and sniffle and then laugh again. So thank you, mystery writer (okay, okay - as a mod, I know who wrote it, but that doesn't mean I can tell yet. ;P), it was just perfect! ~hugs~

And in other news, now that I've reappeared, I'm going to disappear again for a few days. My mom's having surgery tomorrow to repair an abdominal hernia, so I'll be over there taking care of her. It's not serious, but she won't feel very well for the first 72-hours, and she can't lift anything over five pounds. I'll be in and out on LJ, but if I miss something important, please email me, okay?

ARRRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

Erm, that is all. Carry on. The sshg_exchange will be starting up in a bit. ;)

A holiday wish for my flist...

( Happy Holidays )

If you're any of the things in the title of of this post, don't count on getting health care in the United States for a while. I should probably put this under an LJ cut, but I'm not because (1) I'm furious and (2) you need to know this.

From the Washington Post:

"The Bush administration today issued a sweeping new regulation that protects a broad range of health-care workers -- from doctors to janitors -- who refuse to participate in providing services that they believe violate their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The controversial rule empowers federal health officials to cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, clinic, health plan, doctor's office or other entity if it does not accommodate employees who exercise their "right of conscience." It would apply to more than 584,000 health-care facilities."

In other others, the U.S. government just gave explicit permission for all health-care workers who are employed by facilities that accept any sort of federal funding to refuse treatment to anyone they disagree with on the basis of their "personal, moral or religious beliefs". If a health-care worker doesn't approve of your choices, your lifestyle, or hell, maybe they just don't like your looks, they can refuse to treat you and they can't be fired or disciplined or reprimanded.

Set aside the issue of abortion (which is the big hot button issue this regulation really wants to address), the nature of the language gives them power to discriminate against anyone needing health-care. All the health-care worker has to say is that it violates their "personal" beliefs and they get a free pass.

Worse, this isn't something that President-Elect Obama can just overturn with the stroke of a pen when he gets into office. Getting this piece of shit out of the books may take some time. I didn't think it was possible for me to have more contempt for the current administration than I already had, but they just hit bottom and started digging.

What screen resolution do you use on your computer monitor? I'm asking because I'm slowly working on the revamp of DQ, and I'm trying to figure out if the old standard of 800 x 600 has finally faded away completely. I suspect that it hasn't, but I also suspect that it's not the standard any longer. So in the interest of my curiosity, a poll:

Poll #1316117 Screen Resolutions
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

The monitor I use most often to read LJ/archives is set to:

Obligatory Ticky box...

Surprise! Erm, yeah, I know. Long time, no see... Actually, I've been seeing you, since I've been reading LJ, but you've not seen so much of me, since I've been (mostly) silent. I wish I could give a single explanation for that, but it's been a combination of things. I've been (and still am) horribly busy. Smokey Joe's death knocked me on my ass, which is something that I'm not sure anyone except another pet owner can truly understand, and while I wasn't depressed per se, I've been... unsociable. I tend to retreat when I'm overly stressed, and damn, there was a period in there that I was really stressed.

Thank you very much to those who nominated "Never Too Late" for the sshg_awards! Also, thanks to sshg316, mollyssister, losille2008 and deemichelle for running the awards. You have a difficult and often thankless job, and you do it just to benefit the fandom. ~smooches~ Special thanks to laiksmarei for making the wonderful nominee banner:



Congratulations to all the other nominees! I'm in very exalted company and honored to be there.

I'm so terribly sorry for all the people on my flist who've been ill or having financial difficulties or who have suffered recent losses. I'm truly thrilled for those who are starting new jobs, getting married, settling into new relationships. I haven't commented as much as I should, and for that I apologize. In fact, I'm disabling comments on this post, because I don't want anyone to feel obligated to say anything. Just know that I'm still here, and I'll try my best to start posting more regularly. ;)

Our host is having a problem with their database server, so DQ is loading extremely slowly. I apologize for the inconvenience, but they're working on the problem now.

( Cut to spare the non-U.S. citizens on my flist )

Edited on 09-22-08 to add: According to the latest news reports, the Bush administration and Congress have agreed to some bailout terms, including adding "layers of oversight, including an emergency board to keep an eye on the program with two congressional appointees, and a special inspector general appointed by the president." It would also limit the bailout program to one year instead of the two that Bush had wanted. However, to be cautious, remember that nothing has passed as of yet. If you want your representatives to know your wishes in this matter, you must contact them.

whitemunin just had her phone service restored, and she called to let me know that she's okay. She said they lost their back fence and some smaller limbs from their trees, but that was the extent of the damage they suffered from Hurricane Ike. They had 85 mph winds, but missed the 110+ winds that they had been told to expect, and they didn't have any flooding. They were without power for about 27 hours, but that's been restored, and she said she was going to turn the air conditioner down low and enjoy the cool. ;)

She said that she'll post once she gets internet service again, but she's not sure when that will happen.

Today is ginny_weasley31's birthday, and for her birthday present, I've written a Twilight ficlet. (Yes, yes, I know. ;P) Gin, I'm sorry that it's not the light-hearted fluff that I sat down to write, but you'd been asking for missing scene fic from Breaking Dawn, and this is what happened...

Title: In the Midst of Life
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Carlisle must face the facts of Bella's pregnancy

( In the Midst of Life )

I so rarely do memes, but this was so perfect, that I couldn't resist.

First meme was created by deemichelle, and I was tagged by ginny_weasley31.

Tag 3-5 people on your f-list and ask them to whom they'd dedicate their fic (that you've chosen of course) if it were published "for real." Then those folks have to tag someone else. Make it fun, but make it real.

GinnyW wanted a dedication for Never Too Late:

To ginny_weasley31. Without you, this story would never have been written, consigned to the flash drive cemetery of abandoned ideas.

And I'm not tagging anyone, actually. I think everyone has done it but me. ;P

...and I think you'll all like it. hereswith gifted me with a Hook/Adult!Wendy drabble that is absolutely gorgeous. "Breathless" can be found here, and it's a companion piece to "Fearless", which can be found here.

I am a lucky, lucky woman. ~gloats~