Special Guest - Suzan Harden

Winner! Winner! We have a winner! The winner of Suzan's tote bag with all its goodies is . . . Donnas. Congratulations! Donnas, please send me your snail mail address - Christie (at) Christie-Craig (dot) com - and I'll get the prize off to you. Thanks again to Suzan Harden for joining us at Killer Fiction. You rocked, girl!

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Hi, Guys,

Please join me in welcoming Suzan Harden to Killer Fiction. Suzan is a dear friend and one of my critique partners. She writes urban fantasy and is thisclose to securing a publishing contract. Her blog, Wild, Wicked and Wacky, is a must read, and her blog today will tell you why.

Take it away, Suzan!

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Humor is a very subjective concept. All you have to do is compare one of my manuscripts with one of Christie’s to comprehend this. Seriously, it’s like comparing Zombieland to Pretty Woman. If can wrap your mind around that concept, maybe you’ll understand why Christie and I are friends.

But there are times when my logic and her logic don’t mesh. Recently, Christie had a WTF moment over something I did.

Okay, Christie would NEVER say WTF. It was more like WTH. She was quickly joined by Jody and Teri. On the other hand, Faye has lived in New York long enough she will say WTF.

Anyway, back to what I did. Every year for the month of May, Brenda Novak has an online auction to benefit diabetes research. For this year’s auction, she had a little contest each week. The person who put the most bids on items would win a special prize. The first week’s prize was a brand-new Apple iPad. Genius Kid had been salivating over one at the mall a few days before the auction started. So I logged on the auction website and bid. And bid. And bid. On books, on agent reads, on the gorgeous leather Acheron coat Sherrilyn Kenyon donated. In all, I placed nearly 300 bids.

I didn’t win the iPad.

Over the course of the next couple weeks, I watched my high bids get overrun, especially by writers more desperate than me to snag the attention of a particular editor. I’d never won anything in the last three years I’d bid on items at Brenda’s auction. Never.

I checked in on the evening of May 31st. There were 65 items left on my high-bidder list. “Yep, everyone’s waiting until the last minute in order not to go higher,” I told myself and my husband. Heck, I’d used the same strategy many a time on eBay.

My last agent read disappeared. So did the signed hardcover of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Ain’t She Sweet? Another item disappeared at the last second.

Then something weird happened. It’s like everyone else stopped bidding. The auction ended.

I had won 62 FRIGGIN’ AUCTIONS. And a lot of them were multiple-item auctions, like Carly Phillips donating an iPod (hot pink), $50 iTunes gift card plus three of her books.

Then I realized I had another problem. I ALREADY OWNED over half of the books I’d won.

My husband just looked at me. “I thought we were supposed to be cleaning the house out, not adding more stuff to it.” (We’re prepping for putting our place on the market next year.)

I gave him a sheepish grin. “Um, I’ll let you play with the iPod?”

He rolled his eyes. “Ri-i-ight. I’m going to walk around with a hot pink iPod. By the way, how are you planning to pay for this?”

At least, I’d come up with a plan to pay for the auction (let’s just say Starbuck’s won’t be getting quite as much money from me this year) before I addressed my overflowing bookshelf problem with the girls. “Would it be too tacky for me to ask these authors if I could interview them and give away their books on my blog?”

Surprisingly, every writer I’ve asked has been gracious enough to agree to an interview. I’ve given away lots of cool stuff. My husband’s happy that I haven’t taken over more of his office than I already have. Christie and the girls are still laughing over my oops.

And me? I’m jamming on the hot pink iPod while I work on my latest wip.

So, have you had any WTF, or as Christie would say, WTH moments lately. Leave a comment to win

CONTEST: This will be the biggest giveaway yet! I’ve got a beautiful zippered bag with a design based on Monet’s Water Lilies. It’ll be chock full of signed books, bookmarks, pens, notepads, and a cute journal. As for the chocolate (since any decent contest must include chocolate in the prizes), a box of Harry London’s Mints will be shipped straight to your house from the chocolatier.