Actually, this time, I didn’t do it the old-fashioned way (putting the names on slips of paper and then drawing three folded notes) but used an online random number generator.

The three people who won one of my books are:

Anh Tran

Peggy Adams

Katherine Standell

Congratulations!

Please contact me at jae_s1978 AT yahoo.de and let me know which book you would prefer (first one to contact me gets to pick first) and where to send it.

I’m giving away a signed copy of Conflict of Interest, one copy of Backwards to Oregon, and one copy of Next of Kin.

All you need to do to enter the drawing is to leave a comment on my blog, in which tell me your favorite book of 2011 (or several favorites).

Also, I’m looking for a beta reader for my newest novel. It’s a contemporary romance with the (working) title Something in the Wine. It has around 70,000 words.

I already have a team of skilled betas, but I would like to have a fresh set of eyes—preferably someone who’s a native speaker.

If you’d like to beta-read Something in the Wine, send me an e-mail (jae_s1978@yahoo.de).

But when it comes to actual writing time, I have no clue how many hours it takes to write a novel.

With the start of the new year, I thought that it would be interesting to see how much time a week/month/year I spend writing, so I decided to keep track of my writing time.

To help me do that, I’m using two types of software:

A stopwatch. Here’s a simple one online.

And I’m also trying out an automatic time management software called Slife. Slife tracks what applications, documents, and websites you use throughout the day and for how long.

Is anyone else keeping track of writing time? If yes, how do you do it?

And has anyone ever found out how many hours it takes to write a novel?

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Some of the stories are mini-sequels or prequels to published stories, while others are new stories with new characters.

This year’s anthology also includes the stories from last year’s holiday anthology — all for free!

There are stories from Fran Heckrotte, RJ Nolan, Rrrose Carbinela, Helen Dunn, phair, Rae D. Magdon, Jeanine Hoffman, Al Hotchkin, and me.

In addition to my two stories from last year, you’ll find the brand-new story “The Christmas Grump” in the anthology.

The members of the committee are librarians who select a list of recommended books every year. The bibliography reflects the LGBT experience and is meant for adult readers. It includes fiction, but also categories such as art, biographies, essays, poetry, and non-fiction.

There are 140 books nominated for 2012′s OTR Annotated Bibliography, and one of them is my novel Hidden Truths. Here’s the complete list of nominated books.

If you are still searching for Christmas presents (even if it’s an early Christmas present for yourself), head over to http://l-book.com.

My publisher, L-Book, offers 10% off on every book (paperback, e-book, l-book) today and on Monday.

But participles can cause mayhem even when they are not dangling. Incorrect use of participles is one of the mistakes that I find much too often in fiction.

So what’s the problem?

Present participles are used to describe actions that happen at the same time (= simultaneous actions). If one action happens after the other (= sequential actions), you shouldn’t use a participle.

CORRECT: Holding the tray steadily, Annie approached Drew.

Since she can hold the tray and approach Drew at the same time, these are simultaneous actions and the participle reflects that. Nothing wrong with that sentence.

WRONG: Parking her car, she walked into the house.

First, she parks the car, then she walks into the house. These actions don’t happen at the same time, so using a participle to connect those two actions is incorrect.

I often find incorrectly used participles with dialogue too.

WRONG: “Don’t tempt me,” she said, laughing.

Since she can’t talk and laugh at the same time, you should rewrite the sentence.

CORRECT: “Don’t tempt me.” She laughed.

There are two exceptions/tricks when you want to use a participle for sequential actions:

1. You can use a preposition: After parking her car, she walked into the house.
2. You can use what is called the perfect participle: Having parked the car, she walked into the house.

Most often, it might be better to rewrite the sentence, though. Too many participles create a monotonous rhythm.

By the way, you can use the “find” function in MS Word to highlight all your present participles and other words ending in “-ing”. That makes it easier to weed out all the overused and incorrectly used participles. Here’s the link to the old post.

Kindlegraph is a relatively new platform that enables authors to do virtual book signings of e-books (or any book, for that matter).

Readers can request signatures and personalized inscriptions from authors who have a Kindlegraph account.

The Kindlegraph can be sent to the reader’s Kindle, but you don’t need a Kindle (or any e-reader) to get a Kindlegraph. The pdf file can also be sent to your e-mail address. Since the Kindlegraph is a separate document, you also don’t need to own the book to have the author sign it.

Kindlegraph seems like a pretty cool feature. The only thing I don’t like is that you have to have a Twitter account to use Kindlegraph, but that might change in the future.

If you want to get my Kindlegraph, visit my Kindlegraph site and I’ll gladly sign your book.