Karen and I went on our first house-hunting trip when we were out here in Southern California for Thanksgiving last fall. After that time, Karen made three separate house-hunting trips while we were still in Texas, and then, after we moved out here in late August, she's been pretty much in full-time house-hunting mode (she sold a book late last week, but she really hasn't had much time for writing because the house-hunting has consumed her). I've lost count of how many offers we've made...maybe 20. A couple of times, we got beat out by a thousand dollars or less. Once, the people who beat us out flipped the house and put it back on the market for 100K more than they'd paid for it...I sure hope they don't get it and lose their shirt. All the while, we've been living in a small one-bedroom apartment and paying $400 a month to keep our stuff in storage (they're in PODs we loaded when we moved out of TX).

So, when we made an offer on Monday, I didn't really get my hopes up. In fact, I told our agent, Maria, that I wanted to pull the offer if it looked like they were using it to negotiate with anyone else. Instead, miracle of miracles, they countered, accepting our price and just wanting to add disclosure. We've accepted their counter (subject to an inspection finding anything horrible), so it looks like we may actually get a house. With a lot of luck, we'll close around the 20th of this month.

I'm not holding my breath and I suspect we over-paid, but the house is cute...with a historic marker. It's on 7th street and one of the few remaining Victorians. There's a carriage house, a lot of dirt in the yard (a pretty big yard), and it's pretty far east which, in Long Beach, doesn't mean farther from the ocean. I'll post pictures later, assuming that the deal doesn't explode as so many others have.

I've written my review for DRAGONS OF THE HOURGLASS MAGE by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and will post it shortly here: www.booksforabuck.com/sfpages/sf_09/dragons-of-the-hourglass-mage.html. I also finished edits on FORWARD, SHAMBLE! by Joshua Calkins-Treworgy and forwarded it back to him for his corrections. I suspect we'll be able to publish in approximately one week. I've got to nag Karen for a cover.

I'm also making progress in NaNoWriMo. On day 3, I'm a bit over 5K words which puts me right on schedule. Considering that this is about as much again as I've written since moving to California months ago, it's a pretty big deal.

No bridge today. I played yesterday. Not very good. Only 47%. We were tied for 2nd in the 'C' group (the lowest number of master points) so we ended up with a bit over two fifths of a master point. Again, not too good although I've played plenty of times and gotten no points at all.

I'm going to make HUNGER by Rob Preece the www.BooksForABuck.com book of the day. Ewan hungers for that special magic that Tia Burns uniquely exudes, but she cannot remain true to herself and yeild to his allure. Still, when quasi-government hunters attempt to trap both of them, they must work together...no matter how painful it is for both of them. Very sexy. Only $3.99 (available in HTML, Adobe PDF, eReader, Mobipocket, Microsoft Reader and ePub formats). Here's the link: http://www.booksforabuck.com/rompages/rom_2008/hunger.html.

It's got a great cover but Bravenet is not cooperating.

Oh, here's a great offer: you can buy an eBookWise for only $89.95. If you've been thinking about buying an eBook reader device but you can't make yourself belly up the $259 for a Kindle or BN Nook, you might give eBookWise a chance. I've had mine for a couple of years now and use it religiously and this is a nice price reduction/sale. Check it out at www.ebookwise.com.

Rob