Weekly round-up, including some perks of mid-level fame.

Once again, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to those of you who posted comments in the last couple of days. I have been hoping to find some fellow "smart chick lit" authors online... it's so easy to find the internet-based Sci Fi and Fantasy writing communities (which makes sense), but not so easy to find the women's fiction/chick lit communities. Women's fiction is too broad, and for a while it seemed like all the chick lit sites had stopped posting updates somewhere between 2006 and 2008, but as of this week I'm starting to see a resurgence! Chick Lit Books just started up again, and I'm starting to hunt down some of the 50 Best Chick Lit Blogs -- the list was originally posted in late '08, so some pages are defunct, but I think it's still worth checking out. If we don't support each other, who will?

So, while I hope this blog gathers (and speaks to!) people from all sources and genres, I do want to give a special shout-out to the Chick Literati.

What else? This week I went to one of my local indie bookstores, and scored an ARC (advance release copy) of James Ellroy's Blood's a Rover. The back cover is a letter from Ellroy to booksellers, using the phrase "groin-grabbing gravity." I love it already.

I also attended a book reading/signing for J. Courtney Sullivan's debut novel, Commencement. She said she thinks her book got accepted before the genre wars really started, and seemed to feel that her novel could be classified as chick lit or women's fiction... A story of four best friends, described as a great summer read? Chick lit! A story of how the lessons of feminism may be difficult to apply in real life, with a blurb from Gloria Steinem? Women's fiction! Either way, I thought the author was lovely, and I can't wait to read her novel.

Still no word from the literary agents. I am physically restraining myself from calling to "check in." Whenever I am near a computer, I compulsively click "refresh" on my email, hoping there will be some update. I am hanging in.

And, finally, there's the recent discovery I alluded to in the title of this post... the "perks of mid-level fame." For those of you who don't already know me, I used to act. I'm on IMDB. I'm well within the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Briefly, there were perks: the Baskin' Robbins next door to my house used to give me free ice cream because I was a "star" ('cause, you know, the stars are the ones who really need a free cone of Pralines n' Cream). And occasionally I'd find something cool on the internet, like the automated Birthday Countdown that said how many days were left until my next birthday -- I printed it out every year to stick on my office door: "There are 0 days left until Carrie Kei Heim turns [insert age here]."

But this week I discovered that, due to being a "celebrity," I am getting free numerology readings. Now that's something to write home about. Should I go email them the place and time of my birth? I think I kinda like my results, and I wouldn't want to suddenly find out that being born in Tokyo screws the whole thing up...

Have a great weekend, everyone, and I hope your weather is better than ours is right now.