Can you believe Thanks­giv­ing has passed? I hope you all had a great one, and a safe Black Fri­day. We’re now offi­cial­ly into the Christ­mas sea­son. Is it me, or did 2012 just fly by?

Work in Progress News ~ Back to work on my Bad Girl short sto­ry. I real­ly want­ed this one done by the end of Novem­ber. I need a kick in the butt, but I’ve real­ly only got about 6K left to go. I can do it, right??

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I’ve begun lis­ten­ing to Christ­mas music which is my very favorite part of the sea­son. So I’ll be shar­ing a Christ­mas song with you for the next four weeks. This is a very very short song. I love acap­pel­la music.

Indus­try News ~  A few weeks ago I men­tioned the merg­er of Ran­dom House and Pen­guin. Now it looks like News­corp, the own­ers of Harper­Collins are look­ing to buy Simon & Schus­ter. [source] So now there’s a pos­si­bil­i­ty of the big five becom­ing the big four? Simon Collins & Harp­er Schus­ter? I just don’t know.

What I’m read­ing ~A new book by Dee Car­ney! A food­ie romance based on those real­i­ty game shows we all love.  Blurb Snippet: With a chance to win a cook­ing com­pe­ti­tion that will advance her career, the last thing food truck chef Pep­per Joseph needs is a dis­trac­tion. Except she’s got a heap­ing help­ing of it in the form of fel­low chef Darien Priest, the man who broke her heart. It’s been years, and she tells her­self she’s over his betray­al, but to her irri­ta­tion, she finds she still has an appetite for his steel-gray eyes, clean-shaven head, and sleeve tattoos.

Tweet of the Week:

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ I’m not sure if I should be insult­ed by this, or if I should start prepar­ing for a new drink fla­vor launch: “alana coca zero”

Book Snip­pet ~ From Fine Print:

Derek closed the door behind him, and flipped on the lamp. He imag­ined Kara Bianchi, walk­ing into her own home min­utes ago, and curs­ing him. She would be the type to throw one hell of a fit. Did she take off those sassy shoes at the door and throw them across the room?

No, too much feel­ing. She prob­a­bly just marched into her bed­room and put those pumps right back in their tis­sue-filled box, and filed them alpha­bet­i­cal­ly in her col­or-coör­di­nat­ed closet.

And then she’d take off her skirt.

Derek groaned, and land­ed on the couch, bump­ing the back into the wall with his exuberance.

Okay folks, have a great week­end, don’t spend too much mon­ey, and be nice to all those retail work­ers out there!