It took me a long time to think of a topic today. Hopefully, I have 13 things to tell you about this time around…

13 Things I’ve Accomplished in 2007

1.) I celebrated the release of *8* books through both Champagne and Samhain Publishing. While that sounds like a problem any aspiring author would love to have, believe me, it was hell trying to promote them while going on vacations, schooling the kids, doing errands, and trying to keep the house tidy while putting food on the table. ACK!

2.) I wrote (or finished) 5 books. The books I wrote from start to finish in 2007 are: HIGH NOON, TOMB, & NATURE OF THE B*E*A*S*T. The books I merely finished this year are THE WOLVERINE AND THE FLAME and PROMISE ME FOREVER.

3.) I believe I doubled, if not tripled, my reading audience (the fans). Woohoo!

4.) I landed a contract with Cobblestone Press for their Vampire Oracle continuity series with TOMB.

5.) I “came out” to my community after I became a quasi-local celebrity after my name and picture were in the paper, the Hillsboro Argus, not to mention landing a guest spot on a local talk radio show. Now, the people I see at the grocery store, my kids’ karate dojo, and my neighbors know I’m a romance author.

6.) I made a lot of new friends through venues like MySpace and Gather.com that I wouldn’t have made otherwise, such as authors Paula Quinn and Dean Koontz. (Yes, I’ve actually had a conversation with these people. lol, not just random MySpace friends.)

7.) I doubled the amount of members on my author loop, The Magic of Romance.

8.) I doubled the amount of members on my newsletter loop, Rebecca Goings Newsletter.

9.) I doubled the amount of books in my backlist.

10.) I managed to make Becka’s Babble a somewhat successful blog with an average of about 25 visitors a day. Not wonderful, but it doesn’t suck, either.

11.) I won the 2006 Author of the Year Award from Champagne Books – true, it was an award for the previous year, but I WON it in 2007.

12.) HIGH NOON made a brief appearance on Samhain Publishing’s “My Bookstore and More” eBook store’s Top 10 Best Sellers for the last week of Nov./first week of Dec. 2007. I think it made it all the way up to #8. At such a large house like Samhain, I was thrilled to be in the top 10 best sellers!

13.) I landed the cover feature for first issue of The Brass Spectacle, a new magazine that will specifically highlight the eBook industry (which you can see if you follow the link to their website). True, the first issue won’t “hit stands” until March of 2008, however, they are already marketing the issue and I’ve already sent them an article and an interview to be published. The cool thing about it all? I didn’t even ask to be featured. THEY approached ME. Does that mean I’ve “made it” as an author? One can only hope…

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Well, we haven’t taken pictures of our new cat just yet, but on a whim, I went to the animal shelter’s webpage and found they still had a photo of him online.

Isn’t he precious? He’s all white, no other color on him, and his eyes are a light green, the color of jade.

He’s finally becoming one of our family. Our other kitty, Ninja, is tolerating him now, no longer hissing or batting at him. You can tell he wants to be friends with her so badly! She wants to be friends as well, but is still unsure what to make of him. Casper doesn’t like the dog, either, but all the dog wants to do is provoke him into playing chase.

One thing’s for sure, Casper is a vocal little guy. Well, actually, he’s a big cat, you can’t really tell from the picture, but I’ve never had a cat who talked so much. You think he wants something, but no, he’s just saying hi or what’s going on… In fact, I think he talks a lot to get his lovies. He’s one of those cats who stands on his hind legs to rub into your hand, he’s so cute.

He was afraid of the staircase the first couple of days, but now, he’s going up and down them no problem. And thank goodness he’s using the litter box (gods be praised!). LOL We thought he might want to spray, but I don’t think he has. He’s been fixed, after all, and I believe boy cats lose interest in spraying after neutering. I could be way off, tho.

I still don’t feed the cats together, because Ninja is a bully and I have no doubt she’d push him out of the way to eat his bowl, tubby that she is. So I feed Casper on the high shelf in our laundry room, a shelf I know our other kitty has no hope of jumping on. lol But Casper, man, he just sails on up, like he can fly or something. It’s probably because he’s so lithe and athletic, a far cry from our other tardo cat.

Hope you enjoy the pic!

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Okay, so I know there was no official Hottie last week, and that was all me. I’ve been feeling like shite lately, and therefore, I haven’t been in the mood to blog much. I know, you probably couldn’t tell, but it’s the truth. A friend came over on the day we went to cut down the tree and got us all sick. Raged through our family like wildfire. UGH. I hate being sick.

But that’s not what this blog is about. Oh no, I will not be sidetracked.

OUR NEW FAMILY MEMBER

DH and I kinda *talked* after our old cat died, Justin, if you might remember, or as I used to call him, Big J. You see, a few of our friends are allergic to cats, and since we usually hold gatherings at our house due to the fact that we have a large home and that it’s really a pain to entertain a bunch of kids at someone else’s home, we thought perhaps we should keep things down to one kitty.

Between you, me, and half the Internet, I pretty much knew this wasn’t going to fly. My DH is an animal person. Heck, so am I. We both love cats and dogs, even though I complain about our chocolate lab more than I praise him. I guess you could say I love him under duress. LOL He’s a stubborn, mule-headed moron that’s actually smarter than I give him credit for. To give you an example, we have a lazy susan cupboard in the corner of our counter. He opens that with his nose and uses it as stair-steps to get up on the counter in order to eat whatever we may leave up there.

Even when we’re in the other room, people. He’s got balls of steel, even though I could have sworn we got him fixed ages ago…

Anyhow, so I knew this self-imposed critter embargo wouldn’t fly long in the Goings house. DH starts talking about how he wants a new kitty to snuggle with. Not necessarily a kitten, but just someone to love on and be friends with our pure black cat aptly named “Ninja.”

So I start going online to see if coat color actually effects the personality of the cat, as we’ve had two orange tabbies who were extremely laid back cats. We knew if we ever got another kitty, it would have to be a male, as Ninja is very territorial, as all female cats usually are. Male cats, 9 times out of 10, could care less. DH comes in, sees the website I have open, and gets kitten fever or something, I don’t know. But I’m not going to stop him, because I never liked the critter embargo in the first place. This is our house and our family. Y’all alirjiks can take some meds and if that don’t work, well, open the window.

We got our black kitty at the local Bonnie Hays Animal Shelter two years ago, so we decided to go there again to just “see what they have.” What’s cool about this shelter is they list all their animals online so you can see what they currently have for adoption. One kitty stood out for us before we even set foot in our van to go take a look. His name was “Polar Bear”, and he was a pure white cat with amazing green eyes, like jade. The website mentioned he was very affectionate, loved to be petted, head-butter, athletic and playful. AAAWWWW

DH and I loaded up the kids and went to go see if he was still there and take a look at any other kitties we might spy. Adopting with the little microchip they implant and automatic spay/neuter is around $80 per cat. Well, lo and behold, they were having a Christmas special, half off any adoption. $40. Like it was meant to be.

Of course, we’re passing all these cat cages with these PRECIOUS kitties, and I swear to GAWD if I didn’t have a hubby and a family I would be “the cat lady.” I wanted to take them all home, the babies! Anyhow, we scouted around, and we found him. Talkative, lover, rubbing on the cage door.

We asked to see him, and after filling out a questionnaire worthy of the Secret Service of the President of the United States, they allowed us in their playroom with him. And he just melted our hearts. You could hear the crash of the critter embargo falling down around us. He was our kitty.

After paying the fee and getting him microchipped, we brought him home. It’s been about a day and a half since we introduced him to the other animals. The dog just wants to chase him and play, doofus that he is. Our other cat, however, doesn’t know what to make of him. She kinda wants to be friends, but when she gets too close, she hisses.

You might be wondering if we kept his name “Polar Bear.” The short answer would be NO. Lame-o. Sorry Bonnie Hays. We tossed everything around to Ghost, Spike (from Buffy), Zuko (from Avatar), Jayne (from Firefly)… Nothing fit. Then this afternoon, one of our kids mentions, “Hey, how about we name him Casper?”

**LIGHT**BULB**!!**

Now, we have two cats again in the Goings house, Ninja, the pure black kitty, and Casper, the pure white kitty, both with absolutely NO other markings on them. It’s so cool because it was totally not planned. And Casper is a LOVER! And a talker and a handsome guy. We don’t have any pictures yet, but I’m sure we will eventually. I just hope it doesn’t take our cats too long to get used to each other.

Soon, they’ll be having a licky-love-fest and look like some furry version of the Yin-Yang symbol. LOL! I can’t wait.

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

I’ve seen these a few times on You Tube, but I thought I would post them because they’re just so darned funny. I wish I could cut movie trailers. You can literally, through music and cuts, make any movie into a different genre. The Shining as a romantic comedy? Mary Poppins into a horror? Top Gun as the next Brokeback? LOL You decide.

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

In honor of MISTLETOE MAGIC, currently my only Christmas romance available, I’ve decided to “pimp” it here on my T-13. Here we go!

1.) As stated, this is currently my one and only Christmas romance available.

2.) It takes place in my stomping grounds, good ol’ Portland, Oregon, baby!

3.) My novella in this project, entitled UNDERNEATH THE MISTLETOE, was once nominated for “Best Novella in an Anthology 2005″ at the RIO Awards.

4.) Jeremy Kitteridge, the hero, is one of the most adorable men I’ve ever written.

5.) Jeremy’s last name is one of Becka’s real life family names from back in the day.

6.) Jeremy dresses up like Santa for the kids. Aww…

7.) This book is available in eBook AND print, and is even on Amazon.com!

8.) It will get you in the mood for Christmas if you’re not feelin’ it this year.

9.) You’ve read all my other books, but never this one, because it wasn’t Christmas time. Well guess what?

10.) If you’ve NEVER read any of my books, this is an excellent one to start with, since MY contribution is only a novella, and it’s in an anthology with two other authors you may or may not have heard of. Broaden your reading horizons!

11.) It’s a straight contemporary romance, with no shifters, vampires, magic (despite the title), menages, or manlove.

12.) Yes, I said manlove.

13.) Paul Walker.

Okay, so #13 was contrived. But it woke ya up, didnit?

Happy T-13!

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

After reading so many current events in our news recently, I’ve come to realize that we in America sometimes take our rights and privileges for granted.

Freedom of speech, for instance, to name a teddy bear any damn name we want to.

Our right to meet with men in public who are not relatives, and if we do happen to get gang raped along the way, we’re not “blamed” for it — and then flogged and jailed.

Good Lord. What the heck is wrong with the world today?

Sure, America has it’s fair share of heinous and unforgivable crimes. But when it comes to our rights as citizens, we can take them for granted. Regardless of what you think of our president, the war in Iraq, or the state of things here at home, we Americans really do have it good. Our women don’t have to dress from head to toe in black robes. We’re not whipped or caned upon being punished by the court. Our women can VOTE and heck, campaign to become the leader of this country, or even be one of the richest women in the world. Our women can drive and talk to any stranger she likes. We’re allowed to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster if we so desire.

Yessiree, I’m proud to be an American, and regardless of their questionable life practices, I would kiss the Founding Fathers if I could.

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Here it is, week after Thanksgiving, and I’m just “thankful” it’s all over with. Is that horrid of me? You know, I do so love the holidays at the end of the year, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The holiday trifecta. However, there does come a time when the “fun” becomes too much and you just want your life to go back to normal. I reached that point yesterday. LOL

We had fun at my sister’s house on the big day, and on Black Friday, we went out and chopped down our Christmas tree. Pics can be seen on my hubby’s Flickr page:

Christmas tree farm/decoration pictures

As you can see, our tree is red and silver this year. It looks really great, even though our four children oversaw the entire decorating process. I hung a few small balls on the top while DH planted the angel on the tip. All the rest (aside from the lights) our children did. Our tree was 9 feet tall and had to be cut from a much taller Noble Fir. You see, DH and I love the Nobles, in part because they LAST the entire Christmas season, and also because their branches allow your ornaments room to dangle. A lot of other firs, the ornaments “rest” on the needles, and that’s no bueno. So the Nobles this year were EPIC in size, and the farmer told us to go ahead and lob them off wherever we wanted the height to be. So the part we cut off, (9 feet of tree) was about 4 feet up the trunk! In all, the tree we chose was probably about 13 feet from the ground to the top, as the crow flies. Yup, epic, I tell ya.

Did you know that something like 40% of the country’s Christmas trees come from Oregon? So the next time you’re buying a tree from your local tree stand… Perhaps it’s from the Pacific Northwest.

But there’s nothing quite like chopping down your own. The farm we go to does a few things for us. First, if you bought their tree stand from years past, they will give you a free bale for you (which ties up the tree in a thread of plastic twine), and before they bale it, they will shake it on a machine (to get all the dead needles off). That’s kinda funny to watch. lol Then, after the tree is baled, they mount it on their base, which has a spike that goes up into the trunk of the tree. This is extremely handy, because all you do is take your tree home, stand it where you want it to go, cut the baling twine, and voila, your tree is perfectly placed and standing straight up and down.

Not only that, but they give you free hot apple cider and hot chocolate along with candy canes. If you want, they also sell wreaths made with real pine branches. So totally cool. It’s a little bit of a drive, but it’s tradition in the Goings family to go out day after Thanksgiving and start the Christmas season off right.

Besides, picking your tree from a “forest” and chopping it down is much more fun that picking it out of a parking lot line up. LOL Of course, I don’t do any of the work, so that could be why I like it so… hehehe

If any of you is wondering who that dog is in our pictures, no, she’s not our dog. Her name is Reba, and she’s the farm’s dog, allowed to roam wherever she may go. She was a sweetheart.

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

I just wrote Regal Cinemas Corporate a nasty-gram.

Maybe not as scathing as I would have LIKED to have written, but I wrote them a letter nonetheless. Why? Well, DH and I took the kids to see Fred Claus today, which surprisingly, was a good movie. You know you’re a sap when a movie like “Fred Claus” can make you cry. lol

Anyhow, my crying is not the point. I’ll let my nasty-gram tell you the story. And I’ll keep you updated if/when Regal Cinemas ever get in touch with me regarding this issue. Believe me, I left them with my address, my email, and my phone number, so they better damn well get back to me. I don’t necessarily care about “compensation”, (ie, free movie tickets or whatever), but just acknowledgment that SOMETHING will be done about this matter.

Without further adieu:

I took my family to see “Fred Claus” Saturday Nov. 17th. After watching the movie, myself and my two young daughters, aged 8 & 7, had to use the restroom. Upon entering one of the stalls, I found no toilet paper. I went to another stall, and there was no toilet paper in there either. In the FIFTH stall I checked, there was half a roll left, and at this point, I was highly frustrated. My oldest daughter had finished and was washing her hands while my younger daughter mentioned there was no paper in her stall. This was stall #5 without toilet paper, as the first four I’d checked didn’t either. When I was finished, I handed her some toilet paper under the door. I asked my older daughter if there had been toilet paper in her stall. She said no, she just did her business without wiping. That would be stall #6 without toilet paper. After experiencing such shock at the lack of toilet paper, I heard a stranger in a stall I hadn’t checked ALSO lament that there was no paper in HER stall. #7.

I wanted to check the other stalls, but by this time, I was so upset that I went to find a manager. His excuse? They knew they were out of toilet paper and they had someone going to another “location” to pick up more.

My husband was upset as well, mentioning they should put up a sign on the empty stalls, and the manager looked at him as if he’d never thought of that solution, and said, “Good idea.”

This appalled me, mainly because it was Saturday morning, and if Friday night had been so busy, then you’d think the cleaning staff Friday night would have seen there was no toilet paper for the morning. And not only that, there was a SPECIAL EVENT going on at this theater this morning, that included some “fun time” for the kids in lieu of the release of the “Magic Emporium” movie, with a miniature bounce house and some kiddie bowling, not to mention two Marines in full dress uniform handing out raffle tickets. Imagine my disdain in knowing this theater was so poorly maintained that NO ONE on the night shift even THOUGHT to go to this “other location” and obtain the toilet paper before the event the next morning.

I wouldn’t have been so angry if it had just been one or two stalls that had been out of toilet paper. But SEVEN stalls (that I know of), out of about twenty stalls, without toilet paper is unacceptable, especially when my young daughters cannot go to the restroom without soiling themselves. Thank goodness they didn’t have diarrhea! I shudder to think of what poor woman did her business only to find she could not cleanse herself. It is not only unprofessional, but unsanitary, and even though we complained to the management, I felt they did not handle the situation in the manner it should have been handled. There is a huge grocery store right across the street–they could have bought ANYTHING just to have SOMETHING on hand while waiting on a toilet paper delivery from another location. If an employee had done that, I might be writing you a letter of praise instead of one of complaint. Having toilet paper is more than a courtesy, it is customer service, and if Regal et al. wants my family and all my friends to continue going to that theater, I expect there to at least be toilet paper in every stall, so that my children can go to the bathroom and not have to worry about soiling their panties.

~*~*~

Bastardos.

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Today, I’m chatting with my fellow authors, Beth Williamson and Melissa Schroeder on the Samhain Cafe Yahoo Loop. We’re posting excerpts and giving away free downloads today. You do NOT want to miss this chat! What are we yakking about? Our latest anthology, Leather & Lace, of which HIGH NOON is a part. And in honor of HIGH NOON, I thought I would give you the inspiration behind Talon, Mr. Jay Tavare.

Jay Tavare’s HotW Page

Now, you might recognize Jay, not only because he was one of my previous hotties, but because he was also featured on my HotW Rewind a few months ago. Yup, this is his THIRD time being showcased here. But it’s not without reason. I think Mr. Tavare is, perhaps, one of the hottest Native Americans I have EVER laid my eyes on.

Who better to choose for Talon’s inspiration?

Enjoy the Man of Hotties’ Past and come join me for some good times today!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/samhaincafe/

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com