Monday, January 23, 2012

And Winner Is . . .! (Plus, commenting systems suck.)

YES! We have a winner in the G-Spot Ask Me Anything contest!

Dianne K. Salerni!!!

Dianne asked: "What was your inspiration for the story that will become your debut novel?
(Just getting you ready for your blog tour ...)" 

To which I replied: "LOL! Would you believe I saw my MC's name on a vanity license plate and the whole story bloomed in my head? It's true. Just seeing "Ciel" unveiled a book that I'm sure must have already been hiding in my subconscious. If I hadn't been on the Fairfax County Parkway that fateful day, IN A FIX might have never come to be."

Come on. She gave me the perfect opportunity to blather on about the woo-woo way my book came to be. That deserves a cheezy prize, right? 

Not that I didn't adore all the other questions, because I did. And I thank you all for entering. You were all enter-taining. *cough* Er, sorry.

So, what is Dianne's prize? It's . . .



. . . a bag of Hershey's Kisses (with Almonds!) left over from Christmas (but they're not stale yet, I promise) AND a THOR Pez Dispenser!!!!


Can you stand the excitement, Dianne? If you'll email me your address at linda(dot)grimes(at)gmail(dot)com, I'll get your fabulous prize in the mail to you ASAP.



And now I have to express my frustration with Blogger's commenting options. Grrrr. 

As some of you know, I tried out the Intense Debate commenting system a while back, because it had that very cool option of replying to comments individually. I reeeeally like being able to do that. Unfortunately, it was a capricious pr*ck, and wouldn't let a lot of my regular readers comment. Which kind of, yanno, defeats the purpose of a commenting system. So I dumped it. (And *bites knuckle and sobs* lost all those lovely comments!)

Then, just a little while ago, I noticed on another Blogger blog that there was a way to reply to individual comments with Blogger itself. Hallelujah! The perfect solution!

Or so I thought.

But it appears the Blogger threaded commenting option doesn't play well with all my readers, either. I think it's mainly those who use Internet Explorer who haven't been able to leave a comment, but maybe it's others, too. I can't say for sure, because they can't all, yanno, leave a freakin' comment. Argh!

Anyway, I've changed the setting back to the old, non-threaded one. Guess I'll leave it that way until I hear Blogger has worked the bugs out of the other one.

Or else I may just bit the bullet and switch to Wordpress. Any Wordpress users out there? Do you like it? Does it have any glitches that will drive me crazy? If I do switch, will I regret it? 

16 comments:

Patty Blount said...

I use Wordpress and like it, but find most of what I want to do requires an afternoon to research and implement it. It's not entirely intuitive. But, so far, everything I want to do has been possible!

Unknown said...

hey1 i was one of those peeps who couldn't comment. i actually thought it was operator error on my part, but yes, let's blame blogger :)

also, congrats to diane!

Dianne K. Salerni said...

Ooooh! I won!

And what a cool way for a story to spring into your head -- just from the name! (It's usually the opposite for me; I think of the story and the characters pick their own names.)

Michele Shaw said...

Oh, drat! I didn't win, but then again,I can't really say I NEED more chocolate, just WANT it;) Great story about your inspiration for the book! You never know when it will strike!

Jennifer Shirk said...

Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one having problems with Bogger--I mean, Blogger.
I don't like Wordpress but I'm really thinking I might have to switch soon.

Sarah Tokeley said...

I've been hearing of a few people having problems. I have the new blogger system and now I'm starting to worry that people are having problems and just haven't told me.

abby mumford said...

congrats to diane!

i use wordpress. i have very basic technological skills, so i'm not trying to do anything fancy like patty. it's been smooth sailing for me. (knock on wood).

Diane Henders said...

I've used Wordpress right from the start, and I've always liked it. I found it quite easy to set up, but I'm a total geek, so don't take my word for it.

I particularly like the "widgets" they supply, along with the fact that I can easily create additional pages. And of course, the threaded comments are great.

Good luck!

Kimberly Sabatini said...

Linda-just switched to Wordpress and I'm liking it so far, but what Patty said, it think there is a bit of a learning curve. Having said that, I'm glad I made the switch.

Teri Anne Stanley said...

No, don't move!
I mean, it's not like we won't be able to find you, but still. I would still probably be using AOL if The Big Guy hadn't taken the reins. Is AOL even still OL? And what ever happened to MySpace?

Carol Kilgore said...

Wordpress isn't as user-friendly as Blogger. My website is based on a Wordpress template. Blogger is much easier for me to use. I've seen the new blogger comments thing but didn't know how to implement it. SEE WHY I NEED EASY -LOL? But it's still buggy, I'll wait.

Patsy said...

Lots ogf Blogger accounts seem to be having comment issues. It's jolly annoying.

Anne Gallagher said...

Well, I dont' know if it's your going back to the old system or the fact I'm on my daughter's computer but here I am. Yay!

I was thinking of jumping over to Wordpress too because of all the changes Blogger is implementing, BUT it would be soooo much work for me to get over, and then the learning curve, and then Blogger is behaving again, so I might as well stay until they really make me crazy again.

Al said...

you might lose all your blogger friends

Trisha Leigh said...

I love Wordpress.

I also love hearing how people get ideas for their novels. So yay!

Dawn@Lighten Up! said...

I saw that threaded method and was going to give it a try too, so I am glad you told me it sucks. Bloggers comment form stinks because I can't reply until the weekend, then I have eleventh billion comments to reply to. Scroll up, see comment, scroll all the dam way down, replay. Is PITA. have to say I HATE commenting on wordpress blogs and filling out ALLLL that info every time. Ugh.