Kathleen! Congratulations to you! If you will e-mail me at kim@kimberlylogan.net with your snail mail address, I’ll get your prize sent out within the next week or two.

Thanks for all the great comments on getting in the Christmas spirit everyone. For those who didn’t win, I’ll be giving away two more book stuffed tote bags through my website this month, so don’t forget to check it out at www.kimberlylogan.net.

I hope you all have the happiest of holidays!

The lovely ladies of Risky Regencies interviewed me today at their blog! Come by and check it out! And if you post a comment or question, you’ll automatically be entered to win a signed copy of Desire Never Dies when it hits stores! To see the interview click here.

And don’t forget to scroll down and read both Kimberly and Anne’s holiday posts!

The tree is up, the lights are hung, A Christmas Story is in the DVD player, and today is my baking day. (Yep, that’s right. I’m actually going to attempt to make Christmas cookies without burning the house down. News at 11! ) This afternoon has been designated my official “Get in the Christmas Mood” time, and these are just a few of the things that I usually do as the holiday draws near each year.

There are many different things that people can do to get themselves in the Christmas spirit. I used to go shopping. There is nothing like wandering through the malls with the Christmas carols playing over the loud speakers, the bustle of shoppers, and Santa ho-ho-hoing in the background as he greets all of the little ones to make you realize that the holidays are here. (Of course, that was before the crowds started to get to me and I began doing most of my shopping online!) My dad wraps gifts to get himself in the Christmas-y mood. (Not me! As I mentioned last year, I tend to be a procrastinator when it comes to wrapping.) And my mom starts digging out her Christmas knick-knacks to decorate her house right after Thanksgiving. It’s not unusual to find her putting up the tree to the strains of Feliz Navidad.

So, do you have any annual rituals that you peform each year to get you in the seasonal mood? Do you listen to your favorite Christmas tunes, as Margo mentions below? Do you drag out all of your Christmas movies for a marathon viewing? Do you deck your house in enough tinsel to rival Rockefeller Square? What are some things that you do to get yourself in the holiday spirit?

And as a special Christmas gift to our JQ visitors, everyone who comments before midnight tonight will be included in a drawing for a Jaunty Quill tote bag stuffed with signed copies of each of my first three books: A Kiss in the Dark, A Kiss Before Dawn, and Sins of Midnight. The Winner will be announced tomorrow morning.

So good luck and happy holidays to all!

What is your favorite Christmas or holiday song? I’m quite partial to O Holy Night, especially when sung by someone on par with the Three Tenors – powerful! I still remember hearing it for the first time (or at least the first time it registered with me – I was young). Goose bumps popped out everywhere.

I also love Auld Lang Syne (New Year’s) – such a lovely feeling of nostalgia every time I hear it.

What tunes do you like? Do they make you think of anything in particular, or do you just plain old like the tune?

Everyone who knows me knows that my specialty is sugar cookies and this time of year, it’s a veritable cookie factory at our house. It started innocently enough. I grew up in a house with a mother who is an excellent cook and at Christmas she makes wonderful candy (fudge, pralines, peanut brittle, etc.) but never cookies. But what is the universal food symbol of Christmas? Cookies. In particular sugar cookies, beautifully decorated and tasty to boot. It’s what all the cool kids leave Santa. So I decided that I wanted to master this yummy treat so that when Santa came to my house he’d tell all the Elves about my incredible cookies. I tried several recipes and had many flops and then I hit upon the magic combination. So without further ado, I give you my world famous sugar cookies…step-by-step.

first you roll the dough out and cut it into shapes

then you bake them until they’re lightly browned

then you pipe icing around them

finally you flood them and decorate. Ta-Da!

So what’s your favorite holiday treat to prepare?

My cats are so spoiled. I mean, really. Here’s a picture of my cat Suki in her desk chair.

Suki likes to sit by me at the computer, so Ultimate Sportsfan and I got her her own chair. Since it’s been a little cooler here in Houston, we put an afghan on it to keep her warm. Is that a spoiled cat or what?

My other cat, Roxie, likes to sleep on the bed. But she doesn’t like to sleep alone. If neither USF or I are available, she sleeps with Mr. Bunny. Here’s a picture, and I swear I did not pose this!

Ever since we got Roxie, she has treated Mr. Bunny like something between her kitten and her prey. She carries him around in her mouth and talks to him. Yes, she really talks to him! She makes these weird yowling noises, and she only makes them to Mr. Bunny.

One time USF woke up in the middle of the night and pulled Mr. Bunny out from between us, where he’d been lodged under the covers. I still don’t think he believes that the cat, not me, put it there.

So what about you? How spoiled are your pets?

Here is another question from a reader/writer visitor to the Jaunty Quills. If you have a question you’d like to ask the quills, just email it to me at jenna@jennapetersen.com. I’ll add it to our queue!

I’m a writer who is interested in getting into the Romance genre. Can you recommend a good book(s) that can help me succeed in getting my manuscript noticed? Also, do you recommend having an agent?

Wow, two very different questions. For the first one, I’m not sure there are books to help you get your manuscript noticed, but there are lots of great books to help you tighten and hone your craft, as well as learn more about the industry and good approaches to take with editors and/or agents. I have a list of my favorite books at Passionate Pen. The list includes:

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Your Romance Published by Julie Beard
Scene and Structure by Jack Bickman
What’s Next compiled by the New England RWA Chapter

And much more.

As for does an author need an agent, I think the answer is yes. I know for sure I wouldn’t have sold SCANDALOUS to Avon without my agent because I’d pitched it on my own a year before to a rejection. I wouldn’t have resubmitted it. Aside from which, my agent negotiated a much better deal for me, deals with the mundane business details of my contracts, acts as a go-between and is a terrific sounding board. It’s about so much more than just selling a book. So I would say a resounding YES to needing an agent.

Other Jaunties? Want to chime in?

Oh, and P.S. — Be sure to check out Jenna Petersen! I’ve just done my third December update, including continuing the progressive excerpt!

We saw The Holiday Friday night and … Come on, people! Jack Black in a romantic lead?

What is it about Hollywood? They give us Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslett. And OK, they threw Jude Law in there, but Jack Black? What are they thinking?

This particular story is about a couple of women who are unlucky in love and they decide to get away by swapping homes for the two weeks of Christmas. Cameron Diaz goes to a cozy cottage in Surrey, England. Kate Winslett goes to Cameron’s palatial home in L.A.

OK, Cameron meets up with Jude Law and they hit the sack almost instantly. Many complications and slick lines later, you’re not really sure if things are going to work out for them.

And Kate and Jack? Really. Jack Black as a tender guy who sweetly helps her get a piece of dust out of her eye? He’s more likely the character who would turn on the fan that caused the dust to get into her eye. OK, so maybe he’s going for an image change. It’s not working for me.

Why couldn’t it have been Mark Ruffalo? Or Dermott Mulroney? Yum.

What about Borat? My kids love this movie (love Sasha Cohen no matter what he does). But I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to sit through this kind of a farce that insults absolutely everything and everyone in it. I’m looking forward to Stranger Than Fiction, even though I’m not a Will Farrell fan. I love the premise, and the trailers look pretty good. So did the trailers for Night at the Museum. Actually this one looks wildly funny. I think we might take this one for our ‘family’ movie night – when we all (including aunts/uncles/cousins) go out for pizza and a movie over the holidays.

So what’s your movie line-up for the holidays?

…Elaine C. of Florida. Congratulations, Elaine!

She has a week to decide which bookseller she wants me to get the $25 certificate prize from. In just a few hours, we’re heading out on a road trip through Oregon and California, not stopping until I sink my bare toes into the warm sandy beaches at my dad’s place on the Sea of Cortez. Oh yeah, and stopping at a few book stores along the way to sign copies of Confessions of A Viscount. I’ll post pics when I get back.

I’ll do another drawing for a regular prize packet next week, and a bonus drawing Christmas day. Details on my web site, www.ShirleyKarr.com, if you haven’t already entered.

Happy holidays!

Jaunty poll time! With the spate of recent releases, and my quills all aquiver, I conducted a Jaunty poll, in super secret, stealthy, sneaky, sly, surreptitious silence. Ok, maybe not so silent. But all that other stuff – it’s terribly true. Just call me, Private Porcupine…

The question for this round of secret spying — What’s it like to see your book on a store shelf? Do you get release jitters?

SHANA: A relief because it wasn’t all a dream!

ANNE: Crazy. The first time was very surreal. I think I laughed a bit nervously, touched the cover, then laughed a bit more. The joy at seeing a book on the shelf hasn’t dimmed yet! The jitter part usually hits a month before when the first review pops through. But by the time release date actually comes, I’m normally pretty calm.

CINDY: It sends a tingle down my spine and puts an immediate smile on my face. I find myself looking around, wanting to say to someone “Hey, this is my book”, but not sure if I did get up the nerve that they’d even believe me…because it’s hard for me to believe it myself!

MARGO: My release jitters are all about the weeks before the book is released. Should I have arranged book signings? Have I sent enough promo information to booksellers and reviewers? Will the good reviews get seen far and wide enough to make a difference? Once the book is out, I relax. Until about a week or two later. Then I check the Borders stores near me to see how many copies are left. If they started with six, are there five left? Two? If there are six on the shelf, did they replenish? Hmmm… let’s see … how many ways can I make myself crazy?

KIM: It’s a very exciting but surreal experience! Even when I am standing there, holding the book in my hand, it’s still hard to believe sometimes that I’m the one who wrote it. I halfway expect someone to pinch me and tell me I’m dreaming. (Or to have one of the store clerks have me hauled off by security for drooling on the merchandise, lol) And I’d say the coolest thing so far was seeing Sins of Midnight front and center at my local Waldenbooks on the What’s Hot shelf. It was the first thing I saw when I entered the store on the day of its release. Talk about surreal!

As for release jitters, I’ve learned to try not to let myself think about it too much. If I’d let myself, I could get pretty obsessive. Yes, that’s right. Kim. Obsessive. Hard to believe, I know.

SHIRLEY: My jitters are in the weeks preceding the release, when the reviews start trickling in. I’m doing all sorts of marketing things, but will anyone care? Will they like the book that I sweated over and worked so hard for? And if they do like it, will they actually buy their own copy instead of passing the same one to all their friends, family and co-workers?

Seeing it on the shelf gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, but it’s still kind of anti-climactic. My first release day was three days after Christmas, so we’re talking *seriously* anti-climactic. It was a day like any other. George Clooney didn’t show up on my doorstep with roses and a movie option deal. I still had to scoop the cat box and take out the trash.

Seeing my second book on the shelf beside the first one though — that made me giddy the rest of the day.

ROBYN: I get excited as the release date approaches, but I don’t really get nervous about it hitting stores. I get really nervous before reviews start coming in because before this, I’m still convinced the book is terrible. Then after the reviews (which are hopefully good) I get nervous that I won’t receive any fan mail from readers or that no one will talk about the book on-line. Okay, wait, that sounds so narcissistic, what I mean is that I worry that no one will like the book because more than anything, I just want to write good books that touch people. So I guess I should say that I worry that no one will like the book, the fan mail stuff is really just gravy. But the actual seeing the book on the shelf, frankly, is rather anti-climactic. I think I finally figured out why the other day. So far my favorite part of the whole published part is getting the cover for the first time. We’ll we get our covers about 6 months before the book is released so by the time those books hit the stores, I’ve been staring at the cover for months. That’s not to say that it’s not exciting to have my books at the stores because it is pretty stinking cool, but the actual release day is like the hour after you’ve opened all your Christmas presents – after all the build-up, you’re done rather quickly and you’ve gained 5 pounds.

JENNA: Like Robyn said, for me it’s a bit anti-climactic. There’s all this build up, you’re talking about the book and thinking about the book and promoting the book and worrying about the book… and suddenly there it is. And it’s like, “huh. It’s a book.” It doesn’t even have a glow around it or anything. I do still get excited, but it’s always sort of strange. For me the jitters come more during the first couple of weeks after. How will it perform? And how will that performance change my career? Will people like it? Will enough people like it to make a difference?

And there you have it! Until next time…Private Porcupine, out!