Hi, I know, I haven't been over here and I wanted to just give you an update. Baxter (our beloved 11 year old dog) had emergency surgery last week and we are waiting for some test results. This started on Thursday night, so I apologize for being out of touch (if in fact you're trying to get ahold of me). He's back at home and recovering very well from the surgery, and we are just trying to enjoy our time together in case we find out that it's going to be shorter than we had hoped.
I have been taking photos of him non-stop, and here is one of my favorites. This is from last night, when he realized that the "don't interrupt us during dinner" rule no longer applied and that he was going to be eating barbequed chicken out of our hands from now on. Score!
More updates on Baxter's condition as I get them, of course, and of course we appreciate any and all good thoughts/ prayers you might want to send his way. He is an awesome dog and has been the light of our lives since we rescued him after 9/11.
Today is the birthday of my wonderful and amazing husband Stephan Cox. Let's all wish him a happy birthday, shall we? Here he is on Twitter in case you would like to Happy Birthday Tweet him.
I am running around buying him presents and cake today, but here are some other places you can see me out and about the interwebs.
On Bittersweet Enchantment, I did a blog post about negative reviews, plus there is a giveaway!
I am "Inside the Writer's Studio" over here, talking about advice for aspiring writers.
As always, I will remind you that I co-authored a book called "How to Market a Book," and you can always go and read that if you miss me and want to learn about marketing.
And in closing, I would like to say, happy birthday, Stephan Cox!
Have you been watching the Olympics? Stephan is a self-confessed Olympics freak, so we’re on full media lockdown over here so we don’t get any spoilers, and we’re not providing any commentary lest we spoil for other people. This is proving to be pretty difficult, actually, because of well, social media, and the radio, and email alerts from the New York Times, and even my precious diversion People magazine, because you know what? Everyone wants to tell you who won and how they’re feeling about it, and if you want to have a pure, organic Olympics experience, you pretty much have to cut yourself off from ALL THINGS MEDIA.
So, we’re doing that. And, since I’m also training for a half-marathon at the moment and am considering myself quite an athlete, I have been mentally comparing myself to Olympians in an amusing way. Are you doing this too? I think it’s because these great Olympic athletes make their respective sports look so effortless, my mind then goes “I could totally do that,” and then I laugh at myself and try to imagine how funny it would be if I were actually to get up on that high dive platform or in the starting blocks of that 100 meter race and do those sports next to professional people who do them for a living, and this strikes me as so funny, I now they think they should make this part of Olympic coverage.
I now think they should take an average of all the people in America and make “Out of Shape American Cam” to compare how fast you can run with how fast the Olympic athletes can run. Don’t you think that would be so funny? Because then you could see that you can run approximately 6 miles per hour on a good day, and that the World Record for marathon is 2 hours, 3 minutes, and that this means the world record holder is running approximately 13 miles per hour, and if you tried to run 13 mph even on a treadmill, your heart would explode. I’m just saying that if you put these two things side by side, that would give you some perspective, and that would be funny.
Also, just for the record, that high dive platform is so high, all I would do if I even made it all the way up there is cover my eyes and scream, and that would also be funny when compared to the incredible athletic prowess represented at the Olympics. The Olympics are the opposite of Muppetting and spaziness, and as we've established, I run like this:
So, media blackout. That’s what I’ve been doing. What about you?
Book Promotion . com News and resources about book marketing and promotion. Many cool contributors and awesome insights!
Dermatologist NYC My friend and dermatologist, Dr. Michael Eidelman. If you live in or around NYC, I highly recommend him!
How to Be a Voice Actor If you're wondering how to become a voice actor like Voice of God Stephan Cox, here is the book we recommend!
How to Become a Doctor This is another cartoon in the "Three Minute Summaries" series. It summarizes the 12 (or so) years it takes to become a doctor, all in three minutes!
How to Become a Lawyer If you're wondering how to become a lawyer, this video will help you get started!
How to Become a Pharmacist We're launching a project where we make educational cartoons. Here is the pilot, "How to Become a Pharmacist."
Laser Pet Toy My favorite pet toy of all time. Good for a cat, good for a dog, and it's also a pen and a flashlight. Good Lord.
Maria Carvainis Agency Maria Carvainis Agency, discovering new talent and managing bestselling careers for more than 30 years.
My Book on Book Marketing Not ironically, I wrote a book on how to market a book, and called it "How to Market a Book." I wish more writers would take the initiative to get out their on their own behalf, so I wrote up a set of instructions on how to do that.
