*cue evil laughter*

As I've mentioned before, this self-promotion gig is hard work. But more than that, it goes against every standard of ladylike conduct with which I was raised.

Yes, I see you there, with the coffee/tea/non-caffeinated-beverage-of-your-choice shooting out your nose at the very idea of my being raised with ANY standards of ladylike or otherwise polite or well-mannered behavior WHATSOEVER. Allow me to assure you that the women in my family strove mightily to imbue me with the tenets of good conduct, beginning with the most important: "A lady does not call attention to herself in any way."

A lady, in fact, does not WANT attention, does not NEED attention, and certainly does not ASK FOR attention. Ever.

A lady toils tirelessly behind the scenes, and never asks for thanks. A lady goes out of her way to blend into the worn kitchen linoleum, preferably while she's scrubbing it. A lady would rather put out her eyes and cut out her own tongue than stand up and ask folks to notice her. This philosophy seemed to work out fine for the long line of strong, stalwart Yankee farm wives from which I hail.

For me? With my more naturally...shall we say...dramatic tendencies? Not so much. And given the extremely rural area in which we lived, and the teeny, tiny public school I attended, which provided no access to anything like a Drama Club or even dance classes? I was pretty much screwed.

Luckily, there was always Halloween, that one marvelous day of the year when I could let loose with every molecule of my organically attention-craving soul, sucking up as much notice as I possibly could, and nobody could say 'boo' about it.

And suck I did. Beginning at about age twelve, my costumes were always the scariest, goriest, and most elaborate creations I could pull together on a virtually nonexistent budget. I routinely amused my classmates, appalled my teachers, reduced my younger sisters to spasms of terror, and sent pint-sized Trick-or-Treaters shrieking into the night...but only after they got their fistfuls of candy.

What does any of this have to do with self-promo, you ask? Yeah, I'm getting to that. See, I've been doing all these evening "chats" with various romance review websites, and interviews, and sending out blurbs and excerpts, and running impromptu contests to hawk my very first release, and in the end what it all comes down to is...

"Look at me. NOTICE me. PAY ATTENTION TO ME."

And that's scary, and uncomfortable, and difficult for me. Because the womenfolk in my family? They did a pretty damned good job of convincing me that asking for attention is NOT okay.

But today is Halloween, isn't it? So tonight I'll be dressing up in something suitably dreadful to scare the greedy little beggars who wander up to our door in search of treats.

And in the meantime...

"Moondance" -- my perverse little werewolf tale that I'm told breaks the "rules" (but that I promise ends happily and on a romantic note, because in the end I'm just as big a sap as anybody else) -- is now available at Phaze.com.

May all your tricks be sweet, and all your treats non-fattening. :)