Another Free Book and Two Excuses for Dropping Out of the Blogosphere

This has been a crazy month.

One reason for this is that I signed up to become a Woman of Steel last December. It sounded like a good idea back then. The Woman of Steel Triathlon was months away. It would give me a training goal, help me get in shape, blah, blah blah.

Now that the race is two days away, I'm thinking it was not such a good idea. I'm not feeling like a Woman of Steel. More like--I don't know--Woman of Silicone, maybe? I'm talking about muscles, of course, not...what you thought. Well, whatever.

I blame those people who set New Year's resolutions to get in shape this year and hogged all the lanes at the pool. And the February smog that made me not want to run. And of course all the rain this spring that kept me off my bike.

I've tried to make up for all that sloppy training in the last two weeks. Except I haven't been very good.

And I'm going to sample my first Poly Platter the day before the race. This is strictly research for my Hawaiian character in my current novel. My friend, Dori's, disclaimer: "Um, I know you sort of like to stay in shape and stuff, but this isn't going to be low-fat or anything. I mean, it's Hawaiian. I thought you should have an authentic Hawaiian experience."

Do I care about my race enough to pass this up for a plate of pre-race spaghetti? No way.

I'll let you know if I die on Saturday.

Research for this character, by the way, has been a blast. My Hawaiian/Samoan neighbors have bent over backward to help me and I've been trying to think of a way to convince someone I need a writer's grant to send me to Hawaii.

I guess that's a stretch. 

But I have been scrambling to see how far I can get on this draft before my kids are out of school next week, so I apologize for dropping off the planet lately. I've done very little lately besides read, write, research, and scramble to make up for all my scanty training.

But I'm still going to give away a free book, never fear.

I'm only offering one book for May, but you probably don't have it yet, unless you were like me and counting the days until its release:


Rick Riordan's latest, The Red Pyramid.




This has only been out in book stores for two or three weeks, so it's hot off the press. More great fun for Percy Jackson fans, Pyramid is the first in a new series called The Kane Chronicles and switches back and
forth between two narrators: a boy and a girl. This time we get Egyptian gods instead of Greek. Lots of adventure and excitement, and some real info about Egyptian mythology.

Same rules as usual to enter:

1) Follow the blog. You can click on the follower link to the right if you aren't a follower yet.

2) Leave a comment and tell me you follow, and that you want to enter the drawing.

3) If you're under 18, get parent permission.

Also, if you are Maria, you might not have noticed that you won a book last time. Email me your address at ejjube@gmail.com so I can send it to you. :)

Happy May!