Ramblings and Romance

But... Is It Art?

2012-03-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

(Warning: This post may be NSFW)

In the literary world, we get a lot of dissent (I'll call it that to be polite) about what constitutes art. Pretty much, the big guns are of the opinion that if it isn't literary fiction, it isn't art. And, it seems as if it's too popular, it isn't art either, but I could be wrong on that last bit. A few years ago, Stephen King got some big deal award and the literary world was all up in arms because he wrote popular fiction and, not just that, but *gasp* genre fiction. Apparently, you can't be brilliant unless no one reads what you write.

Image from www.1902encyclopedia.com

At the time, I did some grumbling about how other forms of art don't suffer from this problem. But something came up recently that made me rethink this. Now, to be fair, one could argue that photography and painting aren't the same thing, but considering 1) they didn't have photography when the image below was painted, the argument is moot, and 2) we'll call it literary fiction versus genre fiction if that makes it easier.

Image from www.http://st.tumblr.com/

Anyway, I was talking to some people last week regarding Pinterest and that I write both YA and adult--basically wondering if I could use the same account for both. It was decided that there were a couple photos that were too racy for teens. (I'll share them as we go.) Now, this isn't to say the people who said this were wrong. They'd be uncomfortable with their teens seeing the photos, and that's totally fair.

But... I bet they'd take them to the Sistine chapel, or even allow them to write a report (with pictures) on Michelangelo. If you notice, in the picture above, Adam's choicest bits are all out for the world to see. The same is true of Michelangelo's statue of David. Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man also is rocking out with his cock out. I could keep going, but the point is a nice chunk of art by the masters involves full frontal nudity. I'm not suggesting that we should cover it up, rather that we don't tend to look at it sexually.

Image from www.dennisdoeshollywood.com/

However, when it comes to photos of people, that changes. Now, I'm not trying to say that the images of Jon Bon Jovi and Ryan Kwanten are on the same level as master works, but what exactly differentiates it from art so much that it is inherently sexual and "forbidden"? (Especially considering they show less.) There are photographers who are considered artists, but if they are artists, then wouldn't that make any professional in the industry an artist as well (just perhaps not as renowned)? If one of those "master photographers" was to take a photo like this--of a famous person or an unknown--would that make a difference?

As I said, I'm not harping on the people who said the images were too racy for teens. I wouldn't have asked for opinions if it wasn't an area of concern to start with. But since then, the question has plagued me. When it comes to nudity (or near-nudity), where is the cut-off between it being sexual and not? Art and not?

Humility Is Important

2012-02-28T14:34:00.002-05:00

I was asked today how I felt about authors who do things like announce their standings on best seller lists. It was an interesting question because this is something that I think can be done really well. And it can be done in a way that is arrogant and off-putting. You see, most readers don't care (in theory) how well your book is selling--they care about the product. So how is an author to do this well and how can they screw it up?

Examples of the former:

An author friend's book was on sale at Amazon for like 99 cents. During the time it was on sale, she ran a contest on her blog. Basically, you told her on the blog that you bought her book and you were entered to win, but... the giveaway was tethered to the book's Amazon ranking (brilliant contest). If it hit the top... 100 (I think), she would give away a $10 gift card. If it stayed there for a week, she'd up it to $25. If it made the top 10, I think she was upping it to $50. I saw her tweet and facebook her standing a couple times--along with links to the contest. Anyone who was in the contest would be vested in those numbers as well, so it was less bragging and more sharing.

In other situations, I've seen authors hit the top 100 somewhere and post it with something like "OMG, you guys, "Book Title" just hit #87 on the B&N best seller list. To everyone who bought it or helped promote it, THANK YOU!" In this case, it's less bragging and more appreciative. (Also, the other author I mentioned? More often than not, she said thank you in her tweets/posts too.)

And that's the key. If you're going to throw that stuff out there (as anything more than a "Whatever bestseller" with the cover on your website), you need to make it about the reader. Be excited, but remember to be humble too.

As for how to do it wrong, I'm going to tear into someone who isn't an author, but is a recording artist whose work I love--Adam Lambert. I read an interview with him where he basically went off about fans who yell things to him like "I voted for you!" He comes across as believing that they didn't do anything, he made his career all on his own. Ummm... well, yes and no. Had people not voted for him on American Idol, he may not have stayed on the show very long and could have ended up back where he started--still on the road to stardom, but walking the long way instead of taking the shortcut provided by AI. Saying that is not to dismiss his talent at all. The guy is a brilliant vocalist (IMO) and deserves to be where he is, but he wouldn't be there yet if it weren't for people voting for him and buying his album and buying tickets to his performances.

Artists (of any sort) live and die by their fans. If no one cares about you or buys your work, it doesn't matter how brilliant you are.

So tweets and posts that just say "Woot! "Book Title" just hit #_____ on the bestseller list!" and nothing else? I get the excitement behind them, but as a reader, I ignore them because they don't mean anything to me. Connecting with fans even via adding a "Thank you" to those posts would make me more likely to sit up and take notice though because I'd see the author as one who cares about his or her fans. When people buy an artist's work, they are choosing to spend their hard earned money on what that person created. A little appreciation and humility goes a long way--and might even make someone new to their work take a second look.

No Post...Enjoy This Instead

2012-02-21T23:44:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the lack of a post today. We just got back from a long weekend with the extended family (ski trip) that included severely bruised shins for me and a very expensive but ultimately unnecessary trip to the ER for the Boy. I am tired and just trying to get caught up again. So please forgive the lack of a post, and instead enjoy this public service announcement.

Okay time to go curl up with Jensen... er a good book.

What Makes a Man Swoonworthy?

2012-02-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

You hear a lot of people talking about what makes famous people or fictional characters swoonworthy, but those attributes aren't usually things that translate well to real life. I mean, I know guys with the rock hard abs and huge guns and perfect hair and... I don't think I could ever live with one of them. (Granted, I could be wrong but, as a happily married woman, I don't anticipate finding out any time soon.)

I've been married over fifteen years now, through all the ups and downs and sideways (I know you wanted me to say the ins and outs, but this isn't that kind of post). And the daily grind wears at a relationship after a while and the swooning... yeah, not so much.

I remember when hubs and I were dating. We got into a HUGE fight--like throwing things and running out and screaming fight. It was ugly. When we finally calmed down enough to talk and I apologized I said, "I know I'm a hard person to live with." His response, in typical male fashion, started with "Yes," but continued with, "but you'd be a harder person to live without." It was, to this day the sweetest, most romantic, most swoon-worthy thing he's ever said to me. Sure, he did other things throughout the years, but that moment is the one that plays over and over in my mind.

And it happened before we were married. So, in fifteen plus years, he hasn't topped it. He's tried, but I think the reason those times failed and came across like cargoship filled with aged cheddar is that he was trying. Swooning happens in real life for the moments that just are, and as you go along in married life they tend to get buried in other things. We forget that we're supposed to swoon.

But then, the day comes when we get reminded.

My hubs has been sicker than sick for a couple weeks now. He spent the second half of last week home from work because he was too miserable to even think about going. And Friday night was the Father-Daughter dance that Mini-Me (6 1/2 years old) had been looking forward to since the new year. Thursday night I told her that if Daddy couldn't go, I'd take her. She wasn't happy about it, but she understood because he'd been so sick. Friday came, and I mentioned it to hubs. He told me that he'd go if at all possible "because it's important to her, and that means it's important to me."

Yeah. Total swoonage. That is my husband, reminding me all over again why I love him and why no guy with washboard abs or a Colgate smile is going to ever tear me away from him. They'd be too busy working out or flossing to make sure Mini-Me had her night.

I love you, Honey. Always.

<3 Happy Valentine's Day <3

Happy Valentine's to you too, dear readers. If you'd like to share, I'd love to hear what your significant other has done to make you swoon.

Also, just a heads-up. I have not one, but two, backlist giveaways this week. Find me at Alex O'Hurley's blog and at Demonlover's Books tomorrow!

Getting Ranty Up In Here

2012-02-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

I try not to get ranty on this blog very often. When it's writing related, I can do that over at the Evil League of Evil Writers, so I save my writerly rants. This time though, it isn't about writing. It's about the media and public perception.

I don't watch the Superbowl. Generally speaking, professional sports don't get me excited, so unless I cave and go to a party, the Superbowl passes without much notice around here. However, I do pay attention when people mention commercials that they loved. This one came on my radar Monday morning.

Now, in all fairness, my first thought (after "what a cute dog") was that it was a funny commercial. It didn't take all that long though before the ad started to bug me.

You see, there's an issue in this country (and in other parts of the world) about body image. (Yes, there is also a problem with obesity, which I will touch on as well.) The images portrayed in the media (especially to women, but to men as well) as "good" and "attractive" and "right" are thin. Yes, they might have curves to go with, but they are thin. That's the ideal preached to the masses--including children. And now we're using a dog to do it.

I'm not saying thin is a bad ideal, but it's not the only "good" or "attractive" or "right" body shape. For a lot of people, thin is not attractive. And for a lot, it's not natural. You heard me right. I didn't say it isn't attainable, I said it's not natural. In the whole of humanity, there's a wide array of body shapes and sizes. Being skinny doesn't mean you are necessarily healthy and being big doesn't necessarily mean you're not. (The opposite, obviously, is true as well.) I have friends who are size 0s and 2s who can eat me under the table. (and I'm not talking about when I'm trying to behave, I'm talking ALL the time.) They are naturally thin. This is okay, but it's also okay that I'm not.

Back to the dog though...

Bolt, the star of the Volkswagen commercial is a mixed breed, specifically a St. Bernard/Australian Shepherd mix. A Saint Bernard is a dog that measures (on average for a male) about 31" at the withers and weighs 200 pounds. It is a big, bulky dog and it was bred to be that way. The Australian Shepherd, on the other hand, stand 21-22" (average for a male) and between 55-60 pounds. Ten inches in height difference and 140 pounds. It was bred to be that way. And both breeds are working breeds. St. Bernards are used to be guard dogs, rescue dogs, herding dogs and draft dogs for farmers in the Alps. Whereas Australian Shepherds were (obviously from the name) bred to herd sheep, which requires a different set of features and skills than the Saint Bernard. Neither one is "wrong" and neither one is "unattractive". They are what they are.

Bolt was put in a doggie fat suit to film the first half of that commercial--a move that made him look much more like his Saint Bernard half. At the end, he's out of it and racing through the street, looking much slimmer... and like an Australian Shepherd. If a person was to starve their long-haired Saint Bernard to make it look like Bolt, people would be up in arms screaming about abuse.

Yet we have no problem at all looking at someone whose genetics built them bigger than the "ideal" and suggesting a similar plan.

I'm not saying obesity is good. However, there are a lot of people out there who DO eat properly and DO exercise but genetics gave them a slower metabolism and a larger body size. Just like there are people out there who do the same things and because of their very rapid metabolism and smaller size, we label them as anorexic and tell them to eat a cookie. This needs to stop.

We need to stop equating size with health. We need to stop with the labels and the judgement. Find whoever you want attractive, but in so doing, you don't need to make others feel "less than". As for Bolt, he's a beautiful dog. But if you look at the pictures up there, so is the Australian Shepherd. And so are the Saint Bernards. And so is a Greyhound, and a Mastiff, and a Vizsla, and a Shar pei, and...

Cupid's Conquests News!

2012-01-31T21:48:00.000-05:00

After several months of debating how to bring more Cupid's Conquests stories to the world, I spoke to the owner of Evernight Publishing, and the decision was made to open the series up for submissions!

This is a multi-author/shared-world series, but we're doing things a little different. Because it's more than just "here's this set-up, run with it", there are steps prospective authors need to go through. There's this general information about the series on the Evernight site.

Cupid's Conquest is a new multi-author, shared world series unique to Evernight Publishing.
For more information on requirements and how to submit, please contact: Seleste deLaney at selestedelaney@gmail.com and include "Cupid's Conquests" in the subject line.
The series focuses on contemporary romance between unlikely pairings or those kept apart by forces internal or external who are brought together by the magic of Cupid's arrows. We're looking heroes and heroines readers will want to see overcome the odds against them.
~~*~~
Cupid's been a bad boy...
After years of letting love languish on Earth, Cupid has been banished to the surface until he teaches humanity to love again. One couple--or more--at a time.
~~*~~
15,000-35,000 words.Evernight Heat Level 2 or higher (erotic romance, not erotica)M/F, F/F, & M/M Combinations of above considered.
HEA required.

That's right, I'm the contact person! Woot! If you're interested (based on the above) to write for the series, you get in touch with me and we'll talk a bit about what the shared world entails and if your story will be a good fit. Then we're off to the races.

People have already shown an interest and I'm super excited that more Cupid's Conquests stories should be in our future really soon. And by all means, if you're interested in writing for the series, please contact me!

My Nice Neat Orderly Desk

2012-01-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend, I was poking around Facebook and came across a link from Heroes & Heartbreakers that led me to Jennifer Cruise's blog in which she laments the perfection of Susan Elizabeth Phillips's office. Go ahead and look--it's a very pretty office.

Not my desk, but you get the idea.

But, I have to admit, I thought the post itself was funny. Cruise talks about how everything is put away and Phillips will never find random stuff because it's so neat and tidy.

I swear I had a picture of my desk. In the picture it looks all nice and organized and pretty too. You know why? Because I took the picture before I ever used the desk. When I clean it, it looks almost that good again (sadly, I cannot find said picture--boo--so we'll use the one to the right instead since it looks a lot like my old desk...when we first set it up.). The reason I'm not just going to grab a snapshot of my desk now is I would never ever post a picture of what it looks like on a normal day.

You see, for me, an author's desk is a little like an author's mind. Somedays it's all nice and neat and orderly, kind of like our books are when they're released. The books have been through a thorough cleaning and all the extra junk (empty pop bottles, scrap papers, random bits of what-the-hell-it-this) removed or at least made shiny (you know, if the random bits of what-the-hell-is-this are actually important.

Also not my desk but more like what mine usually looks like, complete with drugs, bandaids, and knitting.

The rest of the time an author's desk is in creation-mode. It's ideas spread everywhere fueled by the power of the imagination and the gods of caffeine. It's indecipherable book notes and papers from the kids' school, and a half-eaten lunch because in the middle of chewing the author had an epiphany about how to fix a plot issue. In short, it's nothing a normal person would recognize as order. It's not pretty, but it's real.

This could be a problem as I am allergic to cats...

If the time comes that I'm ever interviewed for some big magazine, I will clean the hell out of my office (and probably move the exercise equipment out so it doesn't look so crowded in here) because no one wants to see what it looks like normally. And they certainly don't want to read an interview where I let my brain go into creation-mode. (If you ever want to see a group of authors in that state, you should check out my tweets about our virtual write-ins at the Rebel Outpost. The conversations we have in there are a perfect scrapbook about why so many authors are not normally suitable for public consumption--and I totally include myself in that.)

So yes, if you ever see my office in photographs, it's going to look all neat and tidy and pretty. That's even the picture I'd send my author friends. In the case of the public perception, it's so people don't think things along the lines of "Oh my God! How can she live like that? Someone call the health department and make sure their aren't dead bodies under the desk!" For my author friends it would just be to prove that I can pretend at falling in line and being normal--I just don't like to stay there.

Woot and Woohoo! And Why It Matters

2012-01-17T13:57:00.000-05:00

A lot of an author's job is done in relative solitude. We write alone, we edit under direction but essentially alone, we pimp and we promo while sitting at home at our desks/kitchen tables/sofas... alone. Our human interaction is generally of the digital sort. That's the sort of connection we have to others in the business when we start freaking out that our work sucks. And I don't know an author who doesn't go through the "my book sucks ass" phase at some point. So we run to the other people who have been there.

But in the back of our minds, there is always this little voice that reminds us how easy it is to lie on the internet. That doesn't even touch on the fact that authors are career liars.

So, while the conversations have the climb down off the ledge effect, we still make a mental note of exactly where that ledge is because we know we'll be back. Then the book comes out and reviews start coming in (possibly before release even). This stage of the game is like peri-menopause on crack. They loved it! They totally got what I was going for turns into Oh my God! They hated my main character and said she was too stupid to live with the next review. And it's up and down like that at every turn. This one swooned over my hero!!! ...Oh no, this one said the romance was completely unbelievable.

And I say all that while loving reviewers for giving my books their time anyway. (We will not get into the reviews are not for authors thing here. I know it, you should know it, and I don't even rant in private about reviews. I just panic a little.)

But even if the vast majority of reviews are of the "liked/loved it" variety, authors know that the point has come when stuff is completely outside their control. I can't make anyone buy my book anymore than I can make a reviewer like it. I want you to buy, sure, but I can't make you. So, we stand there (virtually) with a tray of goodies, waiting to see if anyone wants them. We don't shake, we don't stutter. At least that we let anyone see. Inside, we're a quivering mass of nerves.

That's how the publishing game goes. You have to be a little bit of a masochist to love that feeling.

But every once in a while something happens that stops your heart for a second and makes you jump up and down screaming "They like me! They really like me!"

While I was in Disney, I found out I was up for Book of the Year at The TBR Pile. The first round of voting was reader-driven. My readers had to go there and vote to get me in the finals. I told people about it, but it was... nerve-wracking. There were some great books in that group, and I didn't know if I could squeeze into one of those top three slots. My fans came through though, and I was a finalist! Woot!

Honestly, I thought it was over then. The finals were judged at The TBR Pile and based on some formula that I don't know the ins and outs of that dealt with the initial review, sales numbers and I have no clue what else. So, I wrote off the competition then, and thanked everyone for their support.

Now I have to switch over to a different part of the story (which I was told I could share). While the person in charge of notifying the winner was waiting for the results, she decided to clean her house (I so know that excited cleaning thing). In the midst of cleaning, she ran across a DVD of an old Sandra Bullock movie. The name of the movie? Gun Shy. She got the results right after that and contacted me to not only tell me my own GunShy had WON Book of the Year but to share the story too.

Yep, you read that right. Cupid's Conquests #1 won Book of the Year. (It even says so right over there in the sidebar.) This award means the world to me as I've been struggling with some decisions regarding my writing career, and it helped remind me that I might not know all the people who love my books, but that's kind of the point. If reading my words touches one stranger, brightens their day for even a little while, that is why I'm in publishing and not just writing for my close friends.

Thank you, TBR Pile, for the honor and for the reminder. :)

New Year, New Goals

2012-01-10T00:18:00.003-05:00

Happy 2012! Sorry I didn't post last week. We were at Disney World and I wasn't around to talk to anyone, so I figured it was kind of silly to post.

Anyway... I'm back!

2011 was a big year for me. My first Carina Press release plus (counting YA-me) five others. This year is starting off a little slower, only in that I have no announcements right now. I will have some soon though! To add to that, my little girl started first grade, so I've been adapting to the home-alone thing all day. It's been... interesting.

But it's a new year and I'm freshly back from a vacation where I got to meet one of my tattoos in person and flirted with my favorite alien. All in all, I'm feeling good with the start of 2012. It's already shaping up to be a lot of work, but I'm okay with work. I just need to set goals for myself.

You see, I don't really believe in resolutions. Resolutions are things people say they're going to do and most fail within the first month. So my only resolution is eternally something along the lines of "be the best me I can be in the new year." I can't fail at that.

But for more tangible things, I have goals. I'd like to sign with an agent (either as this me or YA-me, preferably both), but I'm picky. I don't want an agent just to have one, so this might not happen this year and I'm okay with it. Plus, I don't have total control over that process. Sort of like I don't have total control over "I want at least five releases again this year." But those are more dreams and wishes than goals--powered by faith, trust and pixie dust. Goals are powered by hard work and dedication.

So my goals revolve around how much I write since I can control that. As of this moment, I have a full-length contemporary to revise, along with *gulp* two YAs and the second Badlands book. Then I want to write another Cupid's Conquest story. But the big projects are what are taking up the most space in my brain. I have two adult and two YA novels I want to write this year. Figuring them at an average of 80,000 words, that's 240k. Totally doable since I wrote around 350k in 2011. But I need to make sure I have a plan and stick to it. That all means I need to get more stringent about what I'm doing when I'm on my computer (especially since I want to get back to more consistent workouts again too). I'm excited and terrified by the prospect, but I hope all of you will help keep me honest.

Here's to 2012, may it be epic in it's apocalyptic goodness.

X-M@$ Is Fun, Really

2011-12-27T16:26:00.003-05:00

Since the in-laws arrived for their holiday visit today, I'm a little behind and crazed. So, in lieu of a blog post, please enjoy this lovely video. (It seemed appropriate :P)

Sometimes My Experiments Actually Don't Explode

2011-12-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

So, I have this thing where every year during my holiday baking, I try a new recipe. I've found a lot of meh and a couple okay cookies, but this year? I think I might have a new favorite cookie. And as a special holiday gift from me to you, I'm sharing the recipe :)

German Honey Bars (Lebkuchen)

(recipe from Holiday Food Fun)

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teas ground cinnamon

1 teas baking powder

1 teas baking soda

1/2 teas salt

1/2 teas ground cardamon (for those who don't bake a lot, be prepared, this is a fairly pricey spice)

1/2 teas ground ginger

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup dark molasses

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3 tablespoons butter, melted (I used salted, either is probably fine)

1 egg

1/2 cup chopped toasted almonds (optional--I didn't use, but I'm debating adding some almond extract next time)

Glaze

1 1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon lemon zest

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 15"x 10" jelly-roll pan and set aside.

2) Combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cardamon, and ginger in a medium bowl.

3) Combine honey and molasses in medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes.

4) Stir in brown sugar, butter, and egg.

5) Place mixture in a large bowl. Gradually add flour mixture and beat at low speed until dough forms.

6) Stir in almonds with a spoon, if desired.

7) Spread dough evenly into pan. It will be VERY sticky--I recommend wetting hands or scraper to spread.

8) Bake 20-22 minutes or until golden brown and set. Remove pan to wire rack and cool completely.

9) Prepare glaze by mixing all three ingredients and stirring until smooth.

10) Spread glaze over cooled cookies. Let stand until set (about 30 minutes). Cut into 2"x1" bars.

11) Store tightly covered at room temperature or freeze up to 3 months.

***Note: These cookies would also probably work well rolled and cut as well. ***

I Am Not a Muppet

2011-12-13T00:02:00.002-05:00

First and foremost, the winner Stockings and Suspenders

from the blog hop is Judith Hulley! Congrats, Judith!

Now, onto the rest of today's post. On Sunday, I made my husband a very happy camper when I said we could go see The Muppets. He's been waiting patiently for me to decide it had been out long enough that it wouldn't be filled with screaming kids (and we still ended up with a lot of talkers in our theater...). We took our kids and went, and... he loved it. The Boy loved it. Mini-Me liked it a lot. And I... didn't hate it. The continual singing and muppetry that followed the movie, however, had me ready to run the car into a tree.

When Mini-Me asked, "If you could be a Muppet, which one would you be?" I couldn't answer. I don't want to be a Muppet, at all. They're just too freaking happy for me. Don't get me wrong, happy is good, but that level of happiness doesn't fit in my reality (or any of my alternate realities).

The people who read my work regularly know that most of what I write doesn't fall easily into romance. There's always romance in what I write, but a large chunk of my work is "strong romantic elements" instead (this is especially true of YA me). One of the reasons for that (or for steampunk romance, sci-fi romance, paranormal romance) is that I like action and suspense. Always have, always will.

I'm a written-word danger junkie.

And I cuss like a sailor if I don't keep close tabs on myself.

Those things and the Muppets just don't gel together. I mean, I'm the girl whose favorite holiday movie is Die Hard. But getting back to romance...

The project I wrote for NaNo (and am still writing) is a contemporary romance. Not a romantic suspense, mind you, straight contemporary. I have a love-hate relationship with this manuscript. I love the characters and I think their story is one that needs to be told, but... I want to blow something up. I had to take a break from the manuscript and write a piece of flash fiction just so I could kill someone.

Which means I am neither a manly Muppet nor a Muppet of a man.

And while it may make my little family sad, at the end of the day, I'm okay with it. After all, I never much wanted to have strings someone could pull anyway.

Just Keep Swimming

2011-12-05T23:59:00.001-05:00

Every once in a while, I get really excited about a project and impose a timeline on myself that is... less than realistic. (Okay, I do it all the time). This time though, I figured I was on a roll. I finished my 50k for NaNoWriMo on November 23--a week early! So, it seemed perfectly logical that if I continued writing at that speed, I could have the first draft done sometime between Dec. 5-10.

It was a no brainer. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming...

Except, there's one thing people don't tell you about NaNo (and especially about what happens if you finish the day before Thanksgiving). As an author, 1667 words a day is not a lot. On a good day, I can do that in an hour. On an average day, it takes 1 1/2-2 hours, but you get the point. As long as I'm rolling, that is totally attainable. But, anyone who has done NaNo a few times can tell you--the world doesn't always cooperate with your schedule. That means you try to get ahead, because you don't know when you're going to get sick, have sick kids, have guests, have another project that people are paying you for so it has to take precedence...

So I was cruising along at at average of about 2250 words a day through the 23rd. Again, not an extreme amount--a couple hours of solid work a day. But doing it day in and day out takes a toll. Not because it's a large amount but because there's a deadline, and you're in a race, and whatever else causes you to panic. So when you "win," all this weight falls off your shoulders and you can breathe.

And you let yourself have a day off (and in this case, it was Thanksgiving...hello...). But when you're dealing with a holiday weekend, and/or a manuscript that is something you aren't used to or is giving you problems, a day off easily turns into two. Or three. Or hell, at that point why not take the whole four-day weekend like everyone else is? You deserve time off for good behavior too!

The thing is for me as a writer, time off makes it harder to get back in the swing. Words don't come easy, if at all. Characters I loved annoy me with their stupid decisions. I start to want to inhabit a different world--any other world. So, my long weekend "off" turned into a week and a half where my writing was off. I think I'm back on my game now, but I've trimmed my expectations back from the 2-2.5k a day to the 1667 of NaNo. Yes, my calendar still has goals in 2k increments, but that's just easier for me to keep track of.

All this means that the manuscript will not be done this week. Maybe next week. Hopefully for sure by Christmas. Definitely by New Years. But yeah... not this week.

12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop--Day 5

2011-12-03T00:38:00.007-05:00

Welcome to DAY FIVE and my part of the Twelve Days of Christmas Blog Hop!

We're talking about Evernight Publishing's Holiday anthology, Stockings & Suspenders, a set of steamy stories, including one form me! Each of the contributing authors are talking about their stories leading up to release day on Friday, Decmber 9.

My predecessors:

Day 1: London St. James

Day 2: CR Moss

Day 3: Jezebel Jorge

Day 4: Lila Shaw

If you haven't already, please visit their blogs for more blurbs, more excerpts, and more chances to win (see the end of the blog for prize info!).

I get to tear stocking number five off our cover. Look at those biceps! Rawr! I do so love a man with great arms, don't you? Well, enough about the hotness on the cover. Let's take a peek at what you'll find inside Stockings & Suspenders:

~~*~~

As the temperature drops, the women in this collection of stories find naughty and delicious ways to warm up for the holidays.

A boss with a proposal to make her sweat, a promise from an Italian assistant, a cabin in the middle of nowhere with two men waiting to cater to her every desire, a special surprise for a lonely solider...

All of these encounters and more from ten talented authors. Get ready for some holiday loving...Evernight style.

~~*~~

My story is number five in the collection, and it's called "Making the Naughty List" (Something some of us strive for every year, I'm sure.)

Blurb:

Daisy gave up on her wish to find the elf who rocked her world with a kiss so long ago. This year, all she wants for Christmas is time with her best friend, but he keeps leaving theNorth Pole to be with his girlfriend. Still, when Santa gives her a special assignment—get Gage Thomas off the naughty list—Daisy doesn’t exactly jump. Then again, once the old man makes a decision while you’re under his employ, you don’t get much say.

She figures meeting Gage will fill in all the blanks Santa didn’t bother with. Too bad the guy with the steely blue eyes and brilliant smile seems anything but naughty. At least until the two of them end up in her hotel room alone. Then it isn’t so much a question of whether or not Daisy can get Gage off but at what point she’ll cross the line and make the naughty list herself

Excerpt:

“Look, Daisy, we can just hang out or call it a night if you want.”

Damn. Damn. Damn. I can build an XBox360 from a box of scraps but screw up what has to be the world’s easiest seduction. “No, I don’t want you to go. I just…”

He closed the distance between us and, shaking his head, tipped my chin up. “Breathe. I’ll stay.”

I exhaled, not realizing I’d held my breath when I stopped talking. With his hands on me, I couldn’t think though. I needed space. No. What I needed was for Santa to send a fucking sign of how to play this. I slipped from under his touch and moved to the bedroom. “I’ll be right back…”

As soon as I had the door between us, I could focus. I suck at interrogation. But the seduction thing isn’t off the table, right? I just need to woman up and try not to lose myself in the sex. Then I turned around. Goddamn mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch. Santa sure as hell didn’t believe in subtle signs. I yanked the leather corset, boots and whip off the bed and threw them in the closet.

With the dominatrix outfit off the table—or the bed—I felt better, like the pressure was gone. Just talk to him. Let one thing lead to another. Get him to spill everything he’s doing wrong so I can fix it.

In the other room, he stood by the window, his reflection showing worry lines still. I eased up next to him and laid my head on his shoulder. “Sorry about my freak out.”

He turned, his steely gaze meeting mine as he brushed my hair back. I forced myself not to flinch when his fingers brushed against the tip of my ear. “We just met. I get it. But it is nice to know that you’re as attracted to me as I am to you.”

“I am. I most definitely am.” The same stupid heat and electricity I felt every time I was too close to him flowed through me again. Damn it. I didn’t want to seduce him for information. I kind of just wanted to seduce him. Were Santa’s wants really more important than mine?

Then he turned and wrapped his arms around me. “Then why don’t we just see where the night takes us and not try to push it there?”

Before I had time to think about a response, I stood on tiptoe and brushed my lips against his. I froze an inch from him. My lips felt alive; every kiss until that moment faded as if they’d never existed.

Then he moved in and pressed his mouth against mine. The old kisses had faded before, but this… this made the world disappear. Gage and I were the only things that existed. His hands tangled in my hair, and I opened to him. Lips, tongue, fingers, skin… all I knew was his touch, and what I knew was incredible.

Oh yeah, that was the moment when I thought the one thing guaranteed to get my name on the naughty list right next to Gage’s. Fuck what Santa wants.

Letting that go freed me in a way I never expected. The next thing I knew, we were against the wall again, my hands clawing at his t-shirt until I could get my palms underneath. His skin was so hot, like he’d been lying out in the sun all day. It melted the sliver of North Pole chill I still carried, warming me to my straight to my core and then some. I wanted his heat, yearned for it. His shirt was off and tossed to some corner of the room or other. I pressed the length of my body against his, savoring the sensation along with the feel of his growing erection.

“You’re so warm,” I murmured against his neck as I trailed kisses against that gloriously fiery skin. I teased his nipple with my tongue, the light salty taste of sunshine and sweat did nothing but make me want more.

“And you are making it nearly impossible to behave myself. All I want to do is take your clothes off, throw you down on the bed and take you.”

“Not happening.” My hands slid along his back while his stopped inches from anywhere interesting.

He gave a throaty moan when my hips ground against his. “Why not? You’re sure as hell acting like you want it as much as I do.”

“Because you missed a step.” I nipped at his chest. Whatever it was about this man, it drove away all those silly concerns about what I did or didn’t know how to do. All that remained was the heat, the electricity, and the want. “If the rest of your clothes stay on, all your other plans are pointless.”

A low growl rumbled through his chest as he fisted my hair and tugged my head back until I met his eyes. “Any other complaints about my plan?”

“Only how long it’s taking you to get to it.”

The muscles in his arms bunched, and he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. My instinct from years growing up on the streets was to kick and yell, but I’d asked for this. Fuck. I wanted this. He kicked open the door to the bedroom and flopped me onto the king-sized bed.

The chill hit me an instant before the panic. Without his heat around me, everything I was doing roared back—disobeying Santa, having sex with a man I barely knew… A really wonderful, sweet, incredibly sexy man who made me forget about everything else.

Then he was on the bed next to me, teasing open the buttons of my blouse as he kissed me. When I tried to take over, to get closer, he pinned my hands over my head. “Oh no. I let you lead out there. My turn. I figure it’s the only way to be sure I control how fast things go.”

He let me go and in my attempts to do what he asked, my fingers brushed against something, making metal clank against metal. Gage lifted his head from my neck and I wanted to scream. Then with a beautifully evil smile, he reached up near the head of the bed and lifted a pair of handcuffs. My breath caught. “I… I… I…”

“And you said I was naughty.” He dipped his head and gave me a phoenix kiss—all feather-light and on fire. “Thanks for giving me a way to be sure you don’t try anything funny.”

Before I could put up more than the tiniest protest, that I wasn’t sure I really felt in the first place, Gage had shifted me up the bed, and the cuffs snapped around my wrists.

All those years on the street and my first time in handcuffs was in a posh hotel in Florida. If this was the naughty list, I never wanted off.

~~*~~

Please leave a comment (with your email address) for a chance to win prizes from the drawing on December 10 (the twelfth day of Christmas!), including a copy of Stockings & Suspenders and a $15 Evernight Publishing gift certificate (for more details, visit the Evernight blog). I'd also love it if you felt so inclined to join my blog with Google Friend Connect in the sidebar.

Tomorrow is DAY 6. I really hope you'll visit Carolyn Rosewood to read more about her story, "A Very Naughty Christmas." (See? We all want to be naughty.) Plus, you'll get another peek at that yummy cover model.

Day Late...

2011-11-30T12:43:00.004-05:00

Sorry, this should have gone up yesterday. No excuse other than I forgot and when I remembered it was late and I was feeling lazy.

Since tomorrow NaNo is over, I'll leave the final NaNoReb check in for my other blog (where I haven't posted hardly at all this month). For today, I want to give people a heads up about something.

Starting tomorrow and running through the month of December, my Blood Kissed novella The Ghost of Vampire Present is Decadent Publishing's Read for a Cure book.

What that means is for every copy purchased in December, Decadent is donating all of their proceeds to the American Cancer Society. In addition, I'm donating fifty cents from every copy to my sister's Relay for Life team (in addition to my regular donation, which any other money I might earn from sales helps to fund :P) This is a LOT of money that can be earned for cancer research.

If you're buying someone an e-reader, please consider including The Ghost of Vampire Present with it. Or if you get one as a gift. Or encourage people you know to buy it. They get a book and can possibly help save a life.

For more information on WHY I volunteered to do Read for a Cure (along with a giveaway of the first Blood Kissed story and a vampire-themed care package), check out the 30 Days of Decadence blog: http://30daysofdecadence.blogspot.com/2011/11/family-mattersso-does-cancer.html

Also, be on the lookout for a special Saturday post here. I have another holiday short in an anthology that comes out next Friday. On Saturday, you'll get a blurb, an excerpt, and a teaser of the cover. Talk to you then!

NaNoReb(el)s: Three Weeks In--Time for Some Wins?

2011-11-22T00:03:00.003-05:00

***In case you didn't see it in last week's post,

due to a troll crashing our party we have a new chatroom.

It's password protected, so you'll have to DM me for the password,

but we're moving to: http://us2.chatzy.com/49399082410494

Please ignore the other room. Thanks. ***

It's the 22nd, and I know at least a couple of our people who still had the 50k as their goal (or more) are nearing the mark. This is the week to let us know if you've hit it.

As I write this, it's midnight (yay procrastination!), and I'm barely at 43,500. Still ahead of the game, but I really wanted this puppy fully drafted by month's end if nothing else came in for me to deal with. I'm hoping once the post is up, I'll push on for another hour and hit the magical 45k before bed. I doubt it, but I'm going to try anyway. I'm at a scene that I've envisioned so many freaking times it should be pouring out of me, but for some reason...it's just not.

I think I've been letting too many things slide this month, and I think it's starting to affect my productivity. I'm finally feeling better, so there's no excuse on the exercise thing anymore. I'd go work out now, but it's midnight, and if the hubs hears me, he won't be very happy about it, so that's my #1 goal tomorrow after I get the kids off to school.

Then it's hitting 47,500 :P

So? Have you won yet?

NaNoReb(el)s: Two Weeks In--Update time!

2011-11-15T12:31:00.007-05:00

***Note: The chat room for write-ins will ALWAYS be http://us2.chatzy.com/38968453185748***

***Not sure how to strike that out,

but due to a troll crashing our party we have a new chatroom.

It's password protected, so you'll have to DM me for the password,

but we're moving to: http://us2.chatzy.com/49399082410494

Please ignore the other room. Thanks. ***

Two weeks into the madness, and I'm busy as fuck (Hell, I didn't even say how I was doing last week I was so swamped). So...this is going to be a quickie (hehe...quickie).

Anyway, I'm still about 3 days ahead of the curve. Not where I want to be, but two bad and several mediocre writing days over the last week killed my 2500 a day average. I'm still around 2k a day, but I need to have a couple REALLY good days to make up for it. Plus I just got back final read-through on Making the Naughty List, so I need to find time to do that.

In other news, I'm going out tonight, so if I want to stay on track AT ALL, I need to write now. Fill us in, how is your NaNo going?

NaNoReb(el)s: One Week In--How You Doin'?

2011-11-08T00:09:00.001-05:00

Last night ended the first week of NaNo! If you are doing the full 50k, that means you "should" be at 11666.

But we're rebels. Fuck that shit. I don't care where you "should" be. I care where you are.

So spill. Remind us what your goal was and let us know not only how you're doing, but how you're feeling about where you're at. Have you hit stumbling blocks? Walls? A really hot minor character who you've started falling for and really want to write about because he's smoking and deserves a HEA too? *cough* That's...uh...just an example. *cough*

I want to kind of do a weekly goal too. This is where I am now, this is where I want to be at check in next week. (Do not make this crazy, the point of being a rebel is to remove some of the pressure.)

Also, we are still doing the nightly write-ins. Chat room opens around 9:30-ish eastern time. Please, if you WANT a write-in at a different time, post it here. I will advertise and help get people to show up, even if I can't make it!

The NaNoRebs:

Julie Particka(Seleste deLaney) / @Selestedelaney

Gareth / @FalcataTimes

Noelle Pierce / @NoellePierce

Danielle LaPaglia / @Dannigrrl5

J.A. Campbell / @PFirewolf

Terri / @Angbuf

Tammy Crosby / @CrosbyWrites

Misha (CanadianSportsChick) / ?

Katee Robert / @Katee_Robert

Kelly Metz / @bwlrgrl300

Rae Lori / @RaeLori

Chrissey / @ArcadeStarlet

Donna / @DBReynoldswrite

Todd DeSilva/@todddesilva

Janelle Alexander / @janellealexandr

Sean Hayden / @ShaydenFl / eastern

The unofficial Rebs who sneak into our write-ins and steal our vodka (but we like them anyway):

Skyla Dawn Cameron

Dina James

Mel Hay

Suzanne Lazear

NaNoReb(el)s: Start Your Engines

2011-11-01T10:06:00.010-04:00

Last night's chatzy write-in went swimmingly. We'll be doing it again nightly (10pm-midnight eastern time) for the foreseeable future. Since I may not always be around to open it, watch the #NaNoRebs feed on Twitter for the specific chatroom link!

It's here! It's here! It's NaNovember and I'm already ten hours behind. It feels weird to not have frantically started my project last night at midnight, but I was busy frantically finishing the last one. And I have a bunch of blog posts to get done today, so those are happening before I jump on my NaNoRebellion.

This week, for me, is all about doing the revisions on Badlands 2 and

getting it sent off. I'm hoping to get a jumpstart on the new novel too, but submissions have to take precedence. So. I'm giving myself the next two hours for blog posts. One hour for new novel prep-work, and then I'm diving into edits. I want to get a bunch done so I can write for at least an hour tonight at the write-in.

Speaking of, not too many people commented on their schedules at the other blog last week. So, I ran with the times I had. Our first virtual write/edit/whatever-you're-doing-in is TONIGHT, 10pm-midnight eastern time. I'll be opening a room in Chatzy at 9:30 and I'll link here and twitter. Remember, our new hashtag is #NaNoRebs. Also, if I'm not following you, please @mention me (@Selestedelaney) that you're a #NaNoReb and I'll follow back.

Starting next week, this is the blog where we'll do our status checks and everyone re-posts their goal (whatever it is) and how they're doing (word count, pages edited, whatever). I want to discuss more options for write-ins at tonight's, so if you can't make it, please include your input here so I can have a list ready to go for Thursday's post at the other blog. And remember, you don't need me to run a write-in. Anyone can step up and say "I'll start the chat page. We're doing a write-in on __(day)__ at __(time)__.

Until tonight, that's it and I wish you words :)

(If I missed you, please let me know!)

Julie Particka(Seleste deLaney) / @Selestedelaney

Gareth / @FalcataTimes

Noelle Pierce / @NoellePierce

Danielle LaPaglia / @Dannigrrl5

J.A. Campbell / @PFirewolf

Terri / @Angbuf

Tammy Crosby / @CrosbyWrites

Misha (CanadianSportsChick) / ?

Katee Robert / @Katee_Robert

Kelly Metz / @bwlrgrl300

Rae Lori / @RaeLori

Chrissey / @ArcadeStarlet

Donna / @DBReynoldswrite

Todd DeSilva/@todddesilva

Janelle Alexander / @janellealexandr

Sean Hayden / @ShaydenFl / eastern

NaNoReb(el)s: One Week Countdown

2011-10-25T13:20:00.007-04:00

REBEL CHAT at 9:00pm est (10/26/11)! Click here!

Hi all! It's less than one week to NaNoWriMo 2011. Do you have your plans ready?

For those not in the know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing

Month, and it takes place every November. The goal is, within the month of November to write 50,000 words on a novel. Some of the #NaNoRebels here have actually signed on for that. Others have signed on to do something a bit different (lower word count, finishing a story for submission, editing...). But we wanted a place where all the Rebels who wanted could gather together, plan some virtual write-ins, offer support on Twitter, etc. So, I volunteered my blogs: this one and JulieParticka.com. I'll be posting stuff here on Tuesdays, there on Thursdays.

What I want to do right now is talk about Twitter (by the way, if you haven't yet, go ahead and follow this me, @SelestedeLaney, just so I keep everyone nice and organized). A lot of us use it and love it already. Some use it and hate it. Others have accounts but don't use it at all. And some of us just haven't gone there yet. There was a request for me to do a quick Twitter class. Since life grabbed me by the metaphorical balls and didn't let go, I lost track of time and now we're down to a week before. So... Twitter class will be tomorrow, Wednesday, October 26, at 9:00 pm eastern time at Chatzy. I will put a direct link to the room here tomorrow evening. Please make sure you have created a Twitter account in advance of the class and please download tweetdeck. I don't normally use regular Twitter, so it'll be a much more productive class if we're all on the same page.

For those of you who know what you're doing Twitter-wise, just remember to use the hashtag so everyone sees your tweets. And... speaking of the hashtag. *sigh* #NaNoRebels is already an official NaNo thing. So, by all means use it too, but I'm shortening ours to #NaNoRebs just so we have a thing just for those of us in the group. (Yes, it's an open group and everyone can join, but if we're all talking, I don't want it to get lost in a larger twitter feed).

*Big exhale*

Okay, now that that's out of the way, how about we all talk about what our goals are for NaNo? Is it the 50k? Or is it something else?

And if you haven't signed up to join us, click the NaNoRebels thing in my right sidebar and comment there.

Happy Ever After? No. Happy Anniversary!

2011-10-18T00:06:00.001-04:00

No, I didn't say blogoversary. Honestly, I don't keep track of such things (and since I moved, when do I start counting from?).

Anyway, tomorrow I will have been married for fifteen years to a wonderful man who puts up with all my idiosyncrasies and madness. Hell, he even puts up with my friends! People often ask me why I don't write more blatant happily-ever-after stories (at best the HEA is usually implied). The answer to that is simple, I don't believe in them.

I can hear you now "Wait a minute, Seleste, you just said you've been married how many years?"

Yes, I've been married a decade and a half, and I hope beyond hope that we last a lot longer than that. But it isn't going to be because we met, fell in love, the stars aligned and everything was sweetness and light from there on out. That shit only happens in fairy tales. Real people work to make a lasting marriage (or union or whatever you want to call it). There are happy days and happy moments, but there are also a share of times that suck ass. I honestly worry about people who say they've never had a bad moment in their marriage (and seem to mean it). That either means they've never been tested by life (and can't even pretend they'll know how to handle it if they ever are) or--and you can refer to my as Dr. House for the rest of the post--somebody's lying.

I've said many times that I like my stories to reflect reality. And in my experience, reality doesn't involve happily ever after. It involves fights about money and in-laws and kids and sex and what to watch on television. But it also involves working through those things to come out stronger in the end. I don't want a happily ever after for my characters because I wouldn't want one for myself. Happily ever after is a surface beauty that will crumble with the first crack. I'd rather have something strong--forged in fire and beaten into shape. I want something that will last.

I like to think that's what I have with Shane. He drives me crazy and occasionally makes me want to throw things, but at the end of the day, I want to go home (or stay home, because, you know, I work here) to him.

Happy Anniversary, honey. Here's to not killing each other before the next one.

In other news...starting next week and running through November, this blog and that of my YA counterpart will be devoted to a NaNoWriMo project called #NaNoRebels. Please check out http://julieparticka.blogspot.com for more details and to decide if you want to be a Rebel too.

Too Smexy

2011-10-11T03:01:00.001-04:00

*Note: This is not a commentary about the person who made the initial comment, rather a commentary about the concept in general as other things have come out recently, such as a push to have erotica removed from the top 100 lists at Amazon.*

/rant on

An interesting topic came up last week regarding the fact that Carina Press (and some other publishers) don't use "heat ratings" on their books. They have "erotica" as a sub-category, but not all books with steamy sex get labeled as erotica.

Badlands was used as an example. It's not erotica because the story isn't driven by the sex. In fact, there are a total of two sex scenes in the novella. One lasted a page and a half, the other was a page. Now, to be totally fair, it is true that I don't pussy-foot around sex scenes. The main character in this story isn't the type to put up with that. There is one stand-alone novel I have partway finished where that wouldn't be the case, but in general my heroines don't shy away from their sexuality. That doesn't make it erotica.

If a reader were to walk into a brick and mortar bookstore, there might be a section for erotica. (I'm not sure, since I normally buy my erotica digitally.) Everything else would be shelved in its genre category. And even there, the genres are much broader than those you'd find in an e-book store. Paranormal romance, steampunk romance, historical romance, romantic suspense, etc. are all shelved under romance. Other genre fiction gets shoved pretty much in either Mystery or Sci-fi/Fantasy (and Inspirational sometimes gets its own spot, but don't even get me started on the YA section.) So, when a book is in paper form, the reader is left to "guess" as far as violent or sexual content.

Most readers I know have certain expectations of some sub-genres. Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy isn't required to have sex, but I think most of us expect it. Conversely, sex is not expected in Inspirational Romance. Everything else is kind of a gray area, though I would suspect that Historical (I don't really read any, so I'm guessing) is more chaste than say Sci-Fi Romance. But even within those genres, I'm sure there are exceptions.

As kind of a mix between Historical and Sci-Fi, Steampunk falls into a really gray area. Readers of Historical will bring their own expectations, as will Sci-Fi fans. And, in all fairness, I would agree that when you set a steampunk in Victorian England with a prim and proper heroine, it would surprise me for there to be graphic sex. I wouldn't necessarily hate it if it fit the story, but it would surprise me.

Ever... is not that heroine, and the Badlands is certainly not Victorian England. In the very first scene, Ever is fighting half-naked. It gives a clear picture that the women of this world are not conservative with regard to their bodies (hell, sex is discussed on the very first page) and they are a violent lot--Ever more so than most. (And that is the scene that is listed most places as an excerpt, so anyone can read it.) The graphic sex shouldn't come as a shock. Really it shouldn't.

But regardless, in a brick and mortar bookstore (that miraculously carried novellas), Badlands would be shelved in either the Romance section or the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section (depending on who made the call). As would pretty much everything else I've ever written. The same with Cindy Spencer Pape or countless others.

Why do some readers expect more division than that out of their online sellers? And do we really want it? Badlands has two short but graphic sex scenes... and it has violence and blood. So let's say a conservative publisher gave it a heat level of 4. Some readers would look at that and say "Oh my God, that's got to be a lot of sex!" and would pass it up for a less scary three. Or conversely, someone could look at a liberally rated 2 and say, "Ugh, I just don't get a modern romance that doesn't have sex." when in reality it has sex, it just isn't graphic enough to warrant a higher number.

The numbers are as likely to do a disservice to all involved as they are to help. The only exception to that I've seen is when the cover art or blurb don't match what's in the book. I know of one F/F romance that has two naked women on the cover...it's a heat level 2 (of 4). Without the heat level, yeah, I'd expect a lot of sex there. Does Badlands cover or blurb scream sex? No, but the blurb mentions "growing attraction" and "desires", so it doesn't whisper of virgins either. Had there been sex every chapter, I could see the disconnect.

I guess the point of my little rant is just as you would in a brick and mortar store, check out what you're buying and don't expect the publisher to vet things for you. Read the blurb, read the excerpt. I want people to love Badlands, not be shocked into hating it, but I don't think Carina and other publishers who decide not to utilize heat levels are doing something wrong.

/rant off

And with regard to the latest Amazon nonsense, I think people need to get a grip and stop buying just because something makes a list. Decide if you want it first. Read the blurb. Look at the cover. And if the cover is too racy for your innocent eyes, you can scroll past it really fast. I promise, it won't scar you for life.

/rant off for real this time

In other news, because I can't get enough talking about sex in, I'm hitting a couple other places the rest of the week. Please join me at Cookies, Books, and Bikes tomorrow for "Do You Think It's Sexy?" And on Thursday, I'll be at Sex Marks the G-Spot with "It's Not My Kink...Except in Fiction." I hope you'll join me :)

Birthday Winners!

2011-10-03T12:29:00.000-04:00

First, I want to thank everyone who stopped by my blog during the last week. I got swamped with regular life and didn't manage to come back and comment (which I normally try to do :( ). I hope some of you will stop by on Tuesdays (starting again next week), which are my regular blogging days here. I also hope you all took advantage of the great sale on Saturday--I know I did :)

Now, to what you really want to know, we'll start with the winner of GunShy...

Nay Nay!!!!

Congrats! If you're around to comment, you can let me know if you would prefer PDF or EPUB format, otherwise, I'll be sending you an email today.

Next up, the $5.00 gift certificate from Evernight Publishing...

Anna Keraleigh!!!!

Evernight has your email, so you should be hearing from them soon.

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for, the grand prize winners...

Uh...

I've been scooped on this one. *sigh* To find out if you won the grand prizes, you need to go to Evernight's blog. Congrats to the winners here (and there), and Happy Birthday, Evernight!

Happy Birthday Evernight Publishing

2011-09-24T20:10:00.000-04:00

As a mom, my kids' first birthdays hold a special place in my heart.

My son wanted nothing to do with his cake. He didn't want to touch the frosting. We had to dunk his fingers in the frosting and actually smear it on his face for him so we could get that required first birthday picture. To this day, he still doesn't eat frosting--he scrapes it off cake.

My daughter, on the other hand, was a sugar-junkie from the beginning. The main reason she had so little frosting on her face was because it all went in her mouth. It's at the point where the two of them basically split cake when we have it. He eats the cake, she eats the frosting.

Saturday, October 1, is Evernight Publishing's first birthday, and I can't wait to see how the party turns out. If you've paid attention to the books they put out, I'm pretty sure Evernight is going to be the kind of toddler that savors every delectable bite of that cake...and you can bet it'll be rich and chocolatey.

With this party on the horizon, it is my pleasure to announce that I've signed my third contract with Evernight. The follow-up to last year's holiday story, Yes, Alana, There Is a Santa Claus, will be included in this year's holiday anthology. Making the Naughty List will be part of this year's anthology Stockings and Suspenders.

This story follows a different narrator, an elf named Daisy. She's not exactly your stereotypical elf. Brady picked her off the streets of Detroit years ago, and now with him dating Alana, she feels left behind. So, Santa sends her on a mission of the utmost importance. She needs to get a man named Gage Thomas off the naughty list...by whatever means necessary.

So, in celebration of Evernight's birthday and my new sale, I'm giving away a copy of my latest Evernight release, GunShy. (I'll be choosing a winner on Friday.**** CORRECTION: The contest runs through the weekend. Winner will be drawn on Monday!****)

And... Evernight is also going to choose a winner from commenters here for a $5.00 Evernight gift certificate.

AND...every time you comment on one of the birthday blogs, you're entered for the grand prizes as well.

In order to enter for all of those goodies, just follow my blog and post a comment (and don't forget to include your email). It's a birthday party, so tell me your favorite memory of a birthday, favorite party game, favorite kind of cake... I'm pretty open as long as it has to do with birthdays :)

Oh yeah, and on their birthday, Evernight will be marking down ALL of their books, including GunShy, by 75%! That means even if you don't win, you can still get it at a great price.

Drinking and Thinking...about Books

2011-09-19T20:01:00.000-04:00

Last night we went out to dinner and I actually ordered a drink. Now, as much as I enjoy my adult beverages, I don't often order drinks when we're out for dinner. They tend to be over-priced...blah blah blah. But I'd finished a project yesterday and wanted to get something to celebrate. In the spirit of celebration, I perused the menu for something a little different and ordered a mojito--a drink that I enjoy but don't have very often.

For me, picking something like that is sort of like going into a bookstore and grabbing a book from a genre that I don't normally read but I've liked before. It makes the stories I do read there more special somehow. For instance, I read a lot of YA, but very little contemporary YA. The exception to that is Hannah Moskowitz. Love her work. I don't read much homosexual erotica either (yes, jumping from YA to erotica...it's what I do), but I decided to give it a chance and found that in certain ways I like it better than a lot of straight erotica (but odds are it'll still be a less common purchase). My mainstays in reading are what I normally write--speculative. Give me some weres and vamps or spaceships or clockworks or even elves and gnomes and I'm a happy girl (as long as it's well-written and a fun story). But in those other genres... I'm a lot more picky.

A friend once told me there's nothing like a really good mojito. He's right, but there's also nothing like a really bad one. And this went beyond bad. It was horrible. It tasted like really syrupy peppermint schnapps on the rocks--a big old glass of it. Nothing against peppermint schnapps, I mean, it's tasty in hot chocolate, but it's definitely not a mojito. I sent the drink back, but the peppermint taste was so strong that not even my cajun shrimp could cover it.

So, imagine buying a not-my-genre book and sitting down to read it and ending up with a similar experience. Since it's not a standard read for me, the book that leaves the horrid taste in my mouth that no amount of Kelley Armstrong and Richelle Mead with a Mark Henry chaser will kill, risks ruining the entire genre for me. That shit will make me pick my ass up and desert an entire section of the bookstore.

Now, one good thing is I've had a decent mojito. Hell, I've had a damn good mojito. I know they're out there, so other than making sure I never order one at that particular restaurant again, I'm not going to avoid mojitos at all cost, after all, I know they can be yummy. To be fair though, odds are I won't risk ordering one blindly. It'll take having had one at the place before (mmmm....Pickle Barrel...) or having a friend tell me the place makes good ones. Otherwise, I'm going to stick to what I normally drink.

The same is true with books. If I pick up a YA contemporary that turns my stomach (or melts my brain), I'm still going to buy the next Hannah Moskowitz book. A gay erotic romance with no character development or discernable plot? Meh. I know there are good ones out there, but I'll base that reading on recommendations from now on. This is, from my discussions with others, a pretty standard way of thinking. Beyond judging a book by its cover, readers often judge a genre based on the first book they read in that genre.

So every writer--traditional, digital, indie, I-don't-care-what-the-newest-label-is--needs to keep that in mind. That means the editing, plot, characterizations need to be the best you can make them. Your book could be the first one a reader picks up in that genre. It will be the book by which all others are judged. What kind of taste do you want to leave in the reader's mouth?

Have there been any books that you've read that would have turned you off to a genre if you didn't already know there were better books out there?

One Lovely Blog

2011-09-12T20:01:00.000-04:00

Bea at Bea's Book Nook bestowed upon me another blog award.

It's very pretty and all, but damn it, I want to get like a badass blogger award or something. So far I'm cute and lovely, but.... okay, yeah, enough bitching.

There are two very simple rules that accompany this award:

1. Share "7" facts about yourself and...
2. Pass this award on to "15" other deserving blog owners (hahahahahahahaha uh...no)

"7" Random Facts About Me:
1) When I started college, I was an aerospace engineering major. Turned out it wasn't just my high school physics teacher I didn't like...I just hated physics. Jumped ship sophomore year after one aero class.

2) My first completed novel is still sitting on my hard drive waiting for the moment when I have time to do a re-write. My original beta reader has informed me it's the story of mine that she reads over and over, so I should probably get to it eventually.

3) I tend to be very non-confrontational. I prefer not to rock the boat unless someone is in severe need of a dunking.

4) I have a very unhealthy addiction to diet pop (soda). I managed to quit once, but it was only after a huge fight with a friend where I basically stopped eating for three days. I figured I'd already gone through the caffeine withdrawal, so I'd stick to it. Lasted about three months.

5) Generally speaking, I don't spend money easily, especially large sums of money. On the rare occasion it happens, it's usually something I've secretly debated buying for months.

6) I was a band geek. Specifically, I was in marching band all through high school and for three years at Purdue.

7) When I was younger, it was very rare for me to not finish a book. In the last two years, I've become a serial DNFer. I have almost an equal number of half-read books in my TBR pile as I do unread. Not a comment on the authors as much as it is me. My reading is very mood-dependent and an author whose work I would soar through today could be the absolute wrong thing in a month.

Time to pass this onto 15 5 other deserving bloggers (Sorry, my brain can't handle thinking of fifteen this morning):

1) Michelle Muto

2) Laura Horwitz

3) Anne Michaud

4) Tammy Crosby

5) Danielle LaPaglia (just because I know how much she loves me when I give these to her :P)

Blues and News

2011-09-06T07:06:00.000-04:00

First and foremost (since people have been asking), I'm doing better with the depression. I'm not back to my normal (I use that term loosely) self, but I'm getting there. Thanks for all the *hugs* and happy thoughts and love. Every bit of it helps and is appreciated :)

I am a little melancholy today though. It's the first day of school. The Boy is a fourth grader, which means in two short years he's going to be in middle school. I'm pretty sure that means I'm old, but I'm going to try to ignore that fact and just do my thing. But...Mini-Me started first grade this year (and she got her ears pierced in celebration of becoming a big kid). She's been doing half-days for a while now, but this will be the first time in almost ten years that I've been alone all day every day. I'm not really sure how it's going to go. On the plus side, more time for writing! On the down side...yeah, we're just going to pretend the depression thing doesn't worry me.

In the meantime though, I have news!

Remember a couple weeks ago when I announced that Evernight Publishing had picked up GunShy and the Cupid's Conquests series? First, I have a group of authors hard at work on more stories for the series which has me totally geeked. Second... my editor and I busted through edits, and they bumped up the release date. So scratch November. GunShy is coming...*Drum-roll*... September 16! Yes, it will be available ten days from now. I'm crazy excited and I really hope people love this story.

In other news, authors from Decadent Publishing (including me) will be at The Romance Studio chat room tomorrow night at 9pm eastern time (6pm Pacific... hopefully the rest of you can figure it out from there). Please stop by! I'm pretty sure the people in charge are doing giveaways (*hint* Check out which authors are there and have their websites at the ready to search for answers to questions... at least that's how they did it last time :P)

New Cover Alert! Forever Summer Coming Soon!

2011-08-29T20:04:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm a little geeked about this one.

First, other than poetry, I haven't entered a writing contest since I was in elementary school. Second, this story was my first foray into the world of *gulp* contemporary romance. So, to have it chosen as a finalist by the people in charge at One Place for Romance and then to have readers vote for it to win...it's crazy exciting for me.

I don't have a release date yet, but I do have cover art. Fantasia Frog Designs was an absolute joy to work with. She not only found fabulous models that really fit my characters, she kept me involved with the entire process. What we ended up with was a cover that embodies the story better than I could have hoped.

Now, as long as you, dear readers, love the book as well as I love the cover, I will feel like I did my job.

With her dreams of a career by the sea shattered by the economy, Katya's trying to be happy with the two weeks she's managed in the Florida Keys. But when the cottage she's rented turns out to be infested, she's ready to go home to Pennsylvania. At least until Jay, the handyman and filmmaker next door, comes to her rescue.

Sweet, talented and sexy, he's everything she ever wanted in a man. Too bad he's only hanging out with her because he's such a nice guy.

Or is he?

Excerpt:

He followed breakfast with a walk on the beach where they stopped to admire the elaborate sand castles kids built then kicked down before the waves could get to them and stared in wonder at a large pod of porpoises frolicking just past the breakers. Her new friend changed her miserable morning into the most glorious summer day Katya had ever experienced. Sitting at a table near the sand, sipping a Rum Runner and enjoying the last of her mahi-mahi sandwich, she didn’t think anything could make the day better.

Intent on watching the ocean for more signs of the playful porpoises, she almost missed when Jay said, “Want to head out on the water for a while?”

“Seriously? I’d love to, but I’m not sure I can swing the cost.” With college graduation barely a memory, student loans loomed over her head. Her parents had given her enough grief about taking this trip at all.

Jay stretched, his muscles flexing with the motion, and drew her appreciative gaze for a second until she realized what she was doing and shifted back to the ocean. “No worries; the captain of a certain deep sea fishing boat owes me a favor or ten. What do you say? Want to go out?”

“Is the pope Catholic?”

Laughing, Jay downed the last of his beer and motioned for the bill.

He was too damn good to be true. Fixing her house, letting her stay at his place, and showing her the time of her life? Plus, his long blond hair, baby blues, and crooked grin made him hotter than hell. Everything about spending time with him screamed house of cards, and she couldn’t help but wonder which moment would be the breeze that blew it all down.

***

All morning, Jay had managed to talk to Katya without his dormant libido rearing its head. Then he got her on the boat—in her bikini—and it was all he could do not to sport tented shorts the entire afternoon. She made it worse by acting self-conscious about wearing the bikini in the first place.

Then again, he spent the whole time wishing she wasn’t in the bathing suit, too.

Her line dipped, the rod bowing as the fish pulled away. Katya handled the beast like a pro, letting it wear itself out before she tried to reel it in. Still, it wrestled with her. Happy for the excuse, Jay wrapped his arms around her and added his muscle to the fight. The fish leapt from the water, and the move allowed them to yank it onboard. With the tension gone from the line, Kat lost her balance and fell against him, both of them tumbling to the slippery deck to join the flopping tuna. She twisted in his arms, and their lips hovered precariously close, electricity dancing between them.

New Cover Alert! GunShy Coming in November!

2011-08-23T08:40:00.000-04:00

The good news just keeps coming :) And good news means new cover art!

When I started this project, I didn't really know where it was going. It seemed like just a cute little short story, but as I was writing, I realized there was more to it than initially anticipated. Even once the mythological aspect came to me, I saw it as a "one and done" project.

If you know me at all, you know how hard a time I have with stand-alones.

The minute I realized this needed to be a series, I panicked. I don't have time for another series! Then I realized it didn't just have to be me. There is only one over-arching component to the series which means...other people could write them too. That's when the giddiness hit...until I realized I needed to sell someone on the concept. Turns out that wasn't as difficult as I'd anticipated as a few places were interested. In the end, I decided to go with a house I'd worked with before but hadn't had the opportunity to do more than a short story with (all my solo series are elsewhere).

So it is with a great deal of joy that I get to announce that GunShy, the first book in the Cupid's Conquests series is coming from Evernight Publishing this November. With a handful of other authors already on board to write stories for the series, I hope it has a long and fruitful existence with the great people at Evernight.

Banished from Olympus with orders to restore love to the world, Eros starts with a match no one sees coming. No one but him.

Straight-laced principal Kira isn’t looking for love, especially not right after getting dumped. Then a chance encounter leads her to Jesse, and damned if she isn’t drawn to the bad-boy with a heart of gold. A night of reckless abandon leaves her confused. Was there something there, or did she imagine the connection between them?

Jesse knows lying to Kira is a mistake, but she's the first woman in a long time to see the man and not just the rock star. When his plan to come clean goes terribly wrong, Kira bolts, leaving Jesse in the dust.

Now Eros has to nudge the star-crossed lovers together and prove to Zeus that love does exist, even among the gun shy.

Here's the Long and Short of It

2011-08-15T08:35:00.000-04:00

I'm not blogging here this week. Instead:

How cool is that? I absolutely LOVE Long and Short Reviews, so I'm really geeked to be there. Plus I even compare (soda) pop to sex. That should be worth the price of admission ;-) If you're a regular visitor here, please pop over to the interview on Tuesday, August 16. Here's a handy dandy link and everything:

http://www.longandshortreviews.com/WC/interviews.htm

I'm also going to be at their author chat on Wednesday, so if you have questions or anything for me, please stop by! I'll also be announcing upcoming releases there!

Sometimes It Pours

2011-08-08T20:38:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to avoid doing a post like this for...pretty much forever. As open as I am online, there are some things that I just don't like to talk about. It isn't that I'm trying to hide them, they just aren't fun subjects so I don't bring them up.

This time, I don't feel like I really have a choice because it's affecting too much of my life.

For those of you who don't know, I suffer from depression. Most of the time, I can keep it under control and when it gets bad, it only gets bad for a few days before I pull out of it. At worst, I'll disappear from Twitter and Facebook for a bit, but usually I'm of the whole "fake it 'til you make it" school of thought and put on my happy face and plow through.

This time it hasn't been a few days though, it's been a few months.

The worst part is, objectively, it's been a really great few months: lots of travel (which I love), won the first writing contest I've entered in ages, sold a novella, got to hang with some of my best friends, kids are good, husband's good. Basically, life is good.

That doesn't matter to depression though.

Happy moments, no matter how big, have been fleeting at best, and everything in my life feels nothing short of overwhelming. I know some people have noticed that beyond the travel issue, I've been rather scarce on twitter. On my better days, I'm there a little bit, but for the most part it's one more thing that feels like too much.

So, as much as it pains me to do it, I'm going to pull back on some things. Any blog posts and whatnot that I've committed to, I'll still get done, but posts here (and at my other blog) will likely be very brief. I'm going to try to get some reviews in for Wicked Lil Pixie still, but until I get a handle on my life again, I don't know how often they'll show up. For now, I need to focus as much as I can on the writing part of my job (because 1-it's my job and 2-it actually helps the depression sometimes) and my family.

I'm not going to to disappear entirely or anything, I just need to get control of things again.

I hope you'll all bear with me. <3

Seeing Red...and Blue...and Green...

2011-08-02T09:09:00.000-04:00

While I was away at the beach, edits came in on a recent story. It's a short, so I figured it was no big deal and I'd be able to tackle them pretty quickly. Now, to give you some perspective, when I'm really on, I can edit a short in a day or two. Then I opened the file.

Holy highlights, Batman!

There was...a lot. And I knew without a doubt I needed more than a couple days of sneaking away from family time to get it done. Most editors who have worked with me (and talked to me while I was editing) know that I can tackle big issues pretty handily. Editor points out a problem, I slap my hand against my forehead, wonder how I could have been so stupid as to not see the problem, and I get to work on fixing it. It's the little things that give me fits. (I'm sure Gina remembers well when I was working on edits in Italy and had one sentence that I couldn't get right. She told me to skip it. I refused, and the answer came to me while trying to sleep on the flight home.) And almost everything I needed to fix in this story was a little thing.

My intense love for edits (yes, I'm weird) quickly turned into a lot of loud groaning about not wanting to do it. You see, I had this illusion that the more stories I had published, the easier edits would get because I'd have been learning to fix all those stupid things I did wrong. The fact is I appear to replace one stupid thing with something new. My "that" problem? Tackled. Gone. Over. (Believe me, it took a long time.) Now I have things that can't be solved with a simple "delete".

But you know what? I'm seeing the tail end of this round of edits now--I'll finish them today--and as much as I hate to say it, I think it was a good experience for me. First, it made me realize there will always be something in need of fixing. That's a really freeing thought. I'm going to screw up, so I just need to worry about writing. Second, I found that even some of the little things need to be fought for. A suggested change of wording to something that your character would never use., a turn of phrase that your betas all loved, intentional use of passive structure--all of those things can be important. The point of edits is to figure out when they're most important, because that's when you dig your heels in (which is hard to do when you haven't made a bunch of other suggested changes--makes you seem like a diva :P).

Now that I've struggled through all the itty-bitty detailed changes, I can say I still love doing edits. I'm hoping when I do my read-through before hitting send later today, I'll be able to smile and say the changes made the story stronger. Because that's the point of all the moaning, groaning, hand-wringing, cursing, and throwing of things--to make it better.

In the meantime, I'll repaint the target on my office wall for the next round of throwing thi...er edits.

Plotting a Career

2011-07-21T05:50:00.000-04:00

The Romance Is Over

2011-07-18T20:40:00.000-04:00

Or at least the Mr. Romance competition.

Word came out last Wednesday that the people behind the Romantic Times convention have pulled the plug on the competition. I'm not going to re-hash their reasons (you can read them here --> http://readersentertainment.com/2011/no-more-mr-romance/ ). It's no secret I'm not happy about this, but I don't think it's for the reason most people who know me (or know of me) think. Okay, that might be a bit of the reason, but it's not the whole reason.

Here's the thing...I love the Romantic Times Convention. I love the scope of it and the parties and meeting authors and, yes, meeting the models. It's all part of this big package to me that screams in orgasmic joy. The powers-that-be at RT are saying that there will still be models there, and I'm sure some of them will be, but I'm going to hazard a guess that for the most part it will be the people who have been there before: CJ Hollenbeck, Jimmy Thomas, Mark Johnson... and maybe a few of the more recent contestants. But odds are there won't be new blood every year. And I don't like that...for a lot of reasons.

We'll start with the obvious one that most people will think I mean--there won't be the opportunity to meet new models. Yes, I like meeting and partying with (and actually talking to) men. Sure, I like talking to men I already know, but meeting new ones is fun. I'll miss that. And if my regular dance partners don't go? Um...the dances are going to be a lot less fun. Sorry to all my girlfriends. Dancing with you is fun, but I like dancing with guys.

Now onto (some of) the other reasons.

First is the opportunity the Mr. Romance competition provided to up and coming models. Many of the guys who competed didn't have connections in the romance industry, and for some, Mr. Romance was their first glance into that world. There are quite a few male models who would love to get into cover modeling but don't have the connections. Mr. Romance was a foot in the door--one that has just been cut off. Considering more than one of the competitors this year alone signed with agents and stock photo companies because of the competition, that means less opportunities for models and fewer options for authors. I don't know about any other author, but I like the increased possibility of having models that fit what my characters actually look like.

But that's not even the biggest issue.

That one is RT itself. As I said, I love this con and Mr. Romance was one thing that made it stand out from all the others. Without it, what makes it special? What makes it different than...RomCom or RWA Nationals or Authors After Dark or (for those of us who write genre romance) DragonCon or World Con or World Fantasy? Every author and reader has to make choices on where their promotional dollar goes, and cons are expensive. As far as registration and promotion goes, RT might be the most expensive. To be fair, someone's going to be most expensive, and it might as well be them. But at a certain point, if RT loses what makes it unique, what is going to encourage authors and readers to spend the extra to attend?

I want to have faith that the powers-that-be have something planned to make RT stand out since they're doing away with the Mr. Romance competition, but I don't know them well enough to say that for certain. The best I can do is hope that something awesome will take its place, because I'd hate to see RT become just another con.

No. You Buy It Like This...

2011-07-11T20:26:00.000-04:00

There's been a lot of talk from authors online about how to buy their books. Basically the push is something like this: buy in print, buy at an indie bookseller, buy it the first week. Basically, the argument is that those things will help drive sales and increase the likelihood of hitting the NYT bestseller list.

*shrug*

Maybe I'm silly, but to be honest, I'm just happy people are buying my books. Buy it wherever you want. Buy it in print or digital. Buy it on release week or buy it a year after it releases. No matter how you buy it, I make royalties on it. Now, to be fair if everyone waits until a year later to buy a given book, you can bet that publisher isn't going to want anything else from me. So if you want more books from an author, that is something to consider, but as long as everyone isn't waiting that long, it doesn't really hurt me as an author.

Again...I'm just happy that you're buying my books.

However, in an effort to be totally upfront with people about what an author makes, I'm going to break some things down for you with regard to how it works for digital publishing. Keep in mind that you can care about this information or not. Some people have asked me in the past where they should buy to make me the most money, so I figure rather than doing this individually, I'll put it all here.

- A digitally published author makes the most money if you buy directly from the publisher's site. It can be as much as twice as much money for the author.

- Depending on how a contract is written, third party sites vary in how much an author makes back from a sale. Some of my contracts, I make a percent of the cover price (a lower percent than at the publisher's site). Other contracts give me a percentage of what the publisher gets back from the third party site. Since the sites dictate what percent they keep, my sales at Amazon under those contracts make me a different amount than my sales at, say, All Romance eBooks.

- The author profit on print-on-demand books is very low compared to cover price, and is in fact lower than their profit on digital copies of full-length novels. (This one shocked the hell out of me, but after it was all explained, it made a degree of sense.)

Yeah, there are things readers can do to ensure the author makes as much money as possible when they buy an ebook. But you know what? Buy it however you want. As an author, I'd rather you buy my work from wherever the heck you want, as long as you're buying it. (Pirating is another issue and goes back to a similar issue as everyone waiting to buy an ebook until a year after its release--no one makes money off pirating and if no one makes money a publisher isn't going to want more from that author.)

So, thank you to everyone who has bought my books, wherever and whenever you chose to buy them. I hope you enjoyed them, and I appreciate the support. I'm pretty sure most authors I know feel the same.

Home Again...for a Little While

2011-07-05T10:21:00.000-04:00

For those of you who didn't know, I got to tag along with my husband on a business trip last week. Since I had to cancel the convention I'd planned to attend later this summer due to an eight-fold increase in costs, he hoped this would make up for it a little bit.

Our first night in Frankfurt, while stumbling around, hunting for food, we stumbled on the last night of a street festival celebrating Spanish-Germans. A rather interesting mix, in my opinion, but really, who can argue with bratwurst, pilsner and chorizos? Plus the music was fabulous :)

The next day we wandered... a lot. We saw a church, the museum of natural history...a whole bunch of stuff, but probably my favorite was something really kind of simple and "quiet". On the Eiserner Steg Bridge, there were padlocks everywhere. To be honest, I've seen a lone lock or two on a bridge before, but never so many (there were hundreds all together). Apparently this is a common thing that people in love do to symbolize their affection.

The next day we were off to Baden Baden, where the hubs had to go to work. I took a lovely walk through town (in sweltering heat while hoping for the A/C to kick on in the hotel--no such luck...horrible A/C there). But I found this lovely view along the river.

The heat in Baden Baden killed me (I do not like heat, especially not humid heat), so I don't have a lot of great pics from there. Then we left to hit some sights on the way to the airport. Our planned stop at Mummelsee didn't work out, but we did make it to Heidelberg Castle. It had the biggest keg I've ever seen :P

[caption id="attachment_749" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Yes, it was so big that there was no angle where I could get the whole thing in the picture."][/caption]

(Apologies. Wordpress has decided I'm no longer allowed to center things. *grumble*) The highlight of my first full day in Poland was definitely the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Over the years, the miners have carved art into the salt and it is quite simply breathtaking.

[caption id="attachment_750" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The largest of the chapels in the mine. The picture doesn't begin to do it justice."][/caption]

Back in Krakow for the night, we went out to dinner and then made our way to a bar to sit outside and people watch. Of course, the view didn't hurt either.

The next day we went to Wawel Hill to tour the castle and grounds. There were a ton of things to look at there, but my favorite was the Dragon's Lair. There's a legend about the dragon of Krakow, and we all know what a sucker I am for legends...and dragons.

[caption id="attachment_752" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Sadly the picture I have of it breathing fire looks weird because of the wind :("][/caption]

Then it was off to the airport to go back to Frankfurt. While we did sleep there, we decided to go back to Heidelberg the next day since we wanted to see more of it than the Castle. Most people know I'm not a history buff, but at Heidelberg University we found the single coolest historical site I've ever seen. It's called the Student Prison, and I could have spent hours there (and curse myself for all the German I've forgotten since high school).

[caption id="attachment_753" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="I really want to write a story about a place like this--as soon as I find the time. *sigh*"][/caption]

We'd run into a woman that morning who was heading to the "Philosophers Way" for a walk. After doing some shopping and sightseeing, we decided we'd do it on our way back (basically making a circle of Heidelberg). There's one thing none of the maps and stuff tell you about the Philosophers Way. There is an easy way to get there and a hard way. The easy way is this nice gentle slope up the mountain. The hard way is called the Winding Path as it takes you on a nice steep, twisty trail up the mountain. We...took the hard way, so by the time we got to the top I wasn't feeling very philosophical, just very asthmatic :P The view was fabulous though.

[caption id="attachment_754" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="View through the trees of Heidelberg Castle, Old Bridge, and some of the surrounding area."][/caption]

After that, we returned to Frankfurt for our last night. It was the end of some women's soccer/football thing, so in the midst of our Frankfurt bar-hop, there were also fireworks. It was a fabulous way to end the trip!

[caption id="attachment_755" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="One of several bars we visited that last night. "][/caption]

Apparently I'm Versatile

2011-06-27T20:52:00.000-04:00

The Flash Queen (that's flash fiction...get your minds out of the gutter for a second) and my fellow OWG Rebel, Danielle LaPaglia, has apparently decided I'm versatile. Crazy as it sounds, that is one of the best compliments she could have given me. As someone who writes all manner of speculative fiction, if I'm not versatile, it means some of what I write I'm just not very good at. Plus she complimented my critiques, which always makes me smile.

So anyway, the crazy woman has bestowed upon me the Versatile Blogger Award. The award rules state that recipients must name 7 interesting facts about his or herself and then pass the award along to other bloggers. To make my life infinitely more interesting, Danielle gave the award to both halves of my split personality. That means I need fourteen interesting things. O.O In my attempts to be interesting on both blogs, this will (naturally) be my more "adult-oriented" seven. If you want the (more) innocent seven, check out www.julieparticka.com/blog on Thursday.

Okay, here we go...

1) (Not really adult-oriented, but apparently a point of interest...) The choice of Seleste as my pen name was an easy one. I've been known as Selestial online since my Everquest days, and Seleste is my pagan name as well.

2) I have an arrangement with my friend Heather that if one of us dies suddenly (and our spouse dies with us or is too grief-stricken to take care of it), the other is to raid their house and remove all items from the "toy box" before Mom descends to "help" clean out our stuff.

3) My first foray into buying adult novelty items was for my friend Diana's sweet 16 party. Her mother promptly confiscated said gift and never did return it (interestingly enough, that same mother paid for a stripper to come to her home for Diana's bachelorette party five years later).

4) I was date-raped in college. The first time I was ever told I should submit something for publication, it was by my English Comp professor regarding a paper I wrote about the aftermath.

5) I'm more than willing to call my erotica porn if it convinces men to try my books.

6) My first piece of sexy lingerie was a gift from two ex-boyfriends for Christmas. One I had broken up with two months earlier, the other I would start dating that New Year's Eve. Oddly enough, I'm still friends with the one who never got to see me in said lingerie, but not the one who did. (Or maybe that isn't odd, but I'd like to think it is. :P)

7) I have never been convicted of a crime. (Which either means I never committed any or I was never caught. You decide.)

Now the fun part, bestowing this madness on some suckers...er deserving bloggers.

Deanna Wadsworth: The woman who introduced me to M/M romance, pitch-slut, and the best roomie ever. (Plus she has all kinds of yummy men on her blog).

Kelly DemonLover Oakes: Kindred spirit, lover of the male form, & fantabulous reviewer (though one of these days she's going to finally review me and tell me I suck and then I'll have to remove that particular descriptor :P).

Ken McDaniel (aka BulletWisdom): Fellow OWG Rebel, instructor in all things weapon-related, and all-around bad-ass.

Putting in the Work

2011-06-20T20:25:00.000-04:00

So, a few weeks ago, I was getting a story ready to submit. I told my editor that she'd have it as soon as I'd finished with revisions. At that moment, it was out with my wonderful betas for a read-through so I could fix any glaring issues before I sent it in. She said (paraphrased), "You don't revise until after I edit it."
<--My face looked something like this.

Then, at a totally separate time, I was talking to a fellow author (who shall remain unnamed) about one of her shorter works. She basically said that she didn't put as much time into it since it was just supposed to be a quickie--a break from her novels.

<--That time, my face looked a bit more like this.

Needless to say, I was...confused.

You see, I have a process I go through before I send anything in for publication. I write. I revise. Maybe twice. For longer pieces, I might post part in my online writing group and wait for critiques (to revise again). I send to my betas. I wait for their comments. I revise. Then, if the revisions were big, I send it back to them to make sure it's solid. If not, I revise again. Then...sometime after that, I send it in.

I do this for my novel-length stories. I do this for my novellas. I do this for my short stories. Hell, if I'm worried about it, I do something similar for my flash fiction before I post it on the blog. I cannot imagine sending my rough drafts to my editors. Even thinking about it has me breaking out in a cold sweat right now. You see, as much as I love my editors and think they're awesome, I want as many eyes as I can reasonably get on my manuscript before it goes out. And I feel that way about all my stories; I don't differentiate by length (though, I will say that just because they are longer and therefore have more room for "issues", novel-length stories tend to go through more revisions than shorts).

Based on similar comments from both an editor and another author, however, I'm starting to think I might be in the minority with regard to these habits. I know in digital publishing, output is important. If you can't churn out stories fast enough, you can be forgotten as new authors pop up. But the idea of putting anything out there that is less than the best I can make it bothers me...a lot. This isn't to say that other people don't write crazy-good first drafts with no inconsistencies or weak spots or grammar issues because I'm sure some people do, but I'm not at the point yet where I can delude myself into thinking I'm one of them.

So, if you've been waiting on Badlands 2 or the next Blood Kissed story, consider this my apology for the delay. I want to get those stories to you. I just don't want to cut corners to do it, and for me it would be cutting corners (believe me, my betas are phenomenal and not at all afraid to tell me when I suck). Please forgive the delay, and hopefully I can work on that whole prolific thing in the meantime.

It's the Little Things

2011-06-14T19:29:00.000-04:00

Writers get asked about inspiration all the time. Where did the idea for the story come from? What inspires you? I think the questions bother some authors, but usually those are the easiest ones for me to answer since I tend to be able to pinpoint the birth of all of my stories.

Every once in a while though, the inspiration is such a small thing that it's hard to explain. For instance, my trip to Scotland and London last week. In part, the trip was research-based. I want to write a story set somewhere else, and when the opportunity came to head to Britain, I jumped at it. The thing is instead of some sweeping a-ha moment of brilliance, I got little bits and pieces of inspiration from a lot of different places.

There is the barred over window in the secret room at Glamis Castle...

...and the haunted squatters' tunnels under Edinburgh...

...and the caged graves in the cemetery around Greyfriar's Kirk...

...and the ruins of Dunnottar Castle...

...and the mists that float like living things through the valleys...

...and then there's the dragon ;-)

I'm not sure which of these things will stick to make a story or if somehow I'll be able to work them all into something really epic. One way or another though, there's a story here and it will be written. Because there's a thing about Scotland. Even with the rain and the dreariness, it sinks under your skin and touches your soul. It's a magical place and, if you're lucky, when you leave you get to take a little piece of the magic with you.

Summer Trips, Summer Movies

2011-06-08T21:26:00.000-04:00

As many of you know, I'm in Scotland with a couple girlfriends this week. But I hate when I don't leave a blog post, so in case you're looking for something to do, may I suggest the following movie? I'm missing the opening, but I plan to see it when I get home! Plus, I might be working on a superhero story soon, so I've got men in tights and capes on the brain ;-)

Just curious. How is your favorite superhero? And what super-power would you want if you could have one?

Budget? I Don't Need No Stinking Budget.

2011-06-02T18:32:00.000-04:00

Yeah, turns out I actually needed a better one.

For those of you who don't already know, I had to back out of Authors After Dark for this year. This was a very hard decision, and I tried to find a way to make it work, but the point came where I had to let people know so they could fill my slots. I'm very upset about this both because I feel like i let people down and because, damn it, there were a lot of people going that I really wanted to meet or see again.

The problem is, when you have a travel budget and you stretch it, that doesn't leave a lot of room for contingencies. Since my writing is not making me huge bank yet, I had to rely on my wonderful, supportive husband to front all of my travel costs. He gave me a dollar figure and said "Do what you want." (Because he's awesome like that.)

And there should have been plenty there for everything. I knew RT would be a pricey trip (and LA is a pricey town), so I actually budgeted in a little extra for that, hoping I'd have some left over. Sadly, it did all get used up. No worries though, because I still had enough for the other two trips on my agenda. I booked my flight to Scotland (which ended up about the same price as my flight to LA when all was said and done) and--Yay!--staying with a friend there, so really the flight is the only major expense for that trip. I'd already paid my fees for AAD, and it looked like we would have frequent flyer miles for the flight so it was basically paid for too. In budget with a little spending money too!

And then...it wasn't. We didn't have enough miles for the flight, and then other rocks came tumbling down where it was going to be more money (and not a little more...a lot more). I could have wiggled the flight into the budget, but not the rest (the flight was less than half of the unexpected cost). When it all came down to it, what I'd budgeted as the least expensive trip only needed one more thing to go wrong and it would be the most expensive. All of the creative math in the world couldn't make up the difference.

So last week, I sent letters to the people most affected to let them know I wouldn't be there. I want to be very clear that this decision is not a negative about Authors After Dark. I've heard nothing but great things about it as a con and had really been looking forward to attending. It's entirely my own fault for not planning for all the contingencies that I could foresee. I didn't, and several of them bit me in the ass.

To the people I was supposed to work with: I'm sorry for leaving you one woman down.

To those I was supposed to meet and hang out with: I suck, I know :( Hopefully the next con.

To Stella: Thanks for your understanding, and I hope I didn't screw up panels and such too much.

To everyone else (hell, to everyone): A piece of advice...plan for things to go wrong when you're budgeting. Lots of things. That way you don't run into this mess, and if everything goes right, you have extra spending money (which is always handy).

Me-yow...

2011-06-02T09:41:00.000-04:00

Cougar.

Love the cat, and to be honest, I don't hate it as a slang term either.

A couple places I frequent on the interwebs have been discussing cougars of late. Why the sudden surge of interest? I'm not sure. Maybe it's cyclical and I've just missed the cycles until now LOL. Really though, it's led me to do a lot of thinking. The first time it popped on my radar was with regard to romance books, and specifically erotic romance. Are cougars hot or overdone? How much of an age difference until it moves from sexy to squicky? Etc. etc. etc. And then, the terminology came into question. If you're not in your 40s, you aren't a cougar. (In your 30s, you're apparently a puma. Not sure what this means for women in their 50s or older.) Then someone said that if you weren't a woman who actively hunted for younger men, you weren't a cougar either. (Okay, so in a way, this makes sense, but then is there a different term for women who just happen to sometimes date or end up falling for a younger guy?)

All of this led me to a couple questions of my own.

First, there's a name for women who do this, but what about men? I mean, sure some of them get the dirty old man title, but in general do they have a name? Because if they do, I can't think of it.

Which leads me to wonder why women have one, and why we're always such sticklers for fitting people into niches. Because it isn't just the cougar thing and different people's ideas about that. Here are some other things you'll regularly hear from women about other women (and from men too, but...)

- "You're not curvy, you're fat."

- "She's too pretty to be smart."

- "That chick is too old to wear that."

- "Someone give that girl a cookie, she must be anorexic."

I will admit, I'm guilty of this as well, but when we talk about feminism and women supporting women, we need to start being realistic. Women are hard on each other to a crazy degree.

A few weeks ago, a woman started bitching about #BoobieWed on Twitter. Now, this is a campaign where people switch their avatars (if they choose) to a picture of boobs or cleavage and remind people to do their self-exams. It is for breast cancer awareness. Does it raise money? No. But it does get the message out that self-checks are important. My sister found her cancer through a self-exam and has been a survivor for ten years now. But this woman was adamant that it was about sex.

Who.

Gives.

A.

Rat's.

Ass?

If some jerk wants to look at my boobs on Wednesdays because he or she likes boobs--whatever. That doesn't matter to me. What does is the one chick who says seeing my cleavage reminded her to do a self-exam. Flashing my cleavage (which I do a lot anyway) is a price I'm totally willing to pay if it might save a life.

And who is that chick to judge me for it?

So, here's my question to all the cougars, pumas, kitties, whatever furry animal you associate yourself with (or even if you don't)--why do we do this to each other? Why all the judgments and rudeness?

Just a Thousand More Words Please

2011-05-26T18:52:00.000-04:00

Word counts are the bane of many writers. Your first novel is over 100k? You might want to look at some trimming. Under 70k? Only if you're writing middle grade or younger. There are guidelines all over the internet on what constitutes a good word count for just about any genre of fiction. That's not what this post is about though.

One of the greatest things about digital publishing is beyond the "are you insane, even Tolkien was smart enough to make three books!" word counts, digital publishers are embracing all kinds of lengths. In fact, the first piece I had published was Of Course I Try at barely over 5k. Over the course of the next seven months, I released one around 10k, another between 15 and 20k, another at about 33k, and my YA which clocked in at just about 86k. I loved every one of those projects.

Right now, however, I'm working on a contest entry and realized that I've grown so used to the "any word count is a good word count" mentality that I really had a hard time with the 5-7k word limit. Like...really hard time. The first story I started for the contest is already well over that count and isn't close to being done (BTW, TriggerHappy won for band name for that particular story, tentatively titled GunShy). So, I set it aside and tried again. At first I wondered if I could possibly make this new story stretch to 5k. I just didn't think there was enough there (of course it doesn't help matters that it's a brand new genre for me, so a lot of guessing and O.o was involved in the writing). Then, once I crossed 5k, I had an "oh shit, I only have 2000 words left to play with" moment.

I finished it, and it's within the word count requirements. I'm really not sure if the ending was rushed though. I have less than 200 words to play with to make it the best it can be and that scares the crap out of me.

The funny part in all this is I used to do writing challenges with 1000 or 2000 word total limits all the time. Meeting 5-7k should be a breeze. But it's not. Not if you're out of practice at least. So, I'm sitting here tonight, dreading the feedback I'm going to get from my betas. I want them to be hard on me because I want it to be good...but I don't want it to suck because I don't have it in me to make another attempt at this by the deadline.

Oh yeah...there's a deadline. What the hell was I thinking? Oh, I remember. It was an excuse, just like those old challenges, to try something new and push myself out of my comfort zone. Yeah. I think I left that behind well over 7k words ago.

So what about you? What word counts do you write in and do you find it hard to switch it up? Or do limits make you happy since you know exactly what you have to work with and how close you are to done?

Name That Band!

2011-05-11T20:09:00.000-04:00

First and foremost, I'm starting a new feature on Mondays. Sometimes it'll be more in depth than others, so please stop by and check it out (Hint: ManCandy).

Anyway, the heroine of Badlands 2 is being obstinate about telling me her tale, so I took a short break to work on (appropriately enough) a short story. It's going pretty well, but the hero is a member of a rock band and I need to give the band a name. Bantering around on FB and Twitter has gotten me several suggestions, but I can't decide. So, I decided to have a nice little poll here. I'm going to list the options that I liked for the band name, and I want you to vote on your favorite. Easy-peasy! (If it helps, think of the band as kind of Shinedown-like in nature. If you don't know them, I'll even provide you a video to help give you a feel of the kind of music they play.)

Band name options are:

Poets & Pornstars (Added after 3 votes and Psynde telling me not to skip it :P)
Taboo Coalition
Targets and Taboos (TnT)
Targets and Triggers (TnT)
Triggerhappy

Just mention your favorite in your comment, and thanks for voting :)

Asking for a Little Help for Badlands, Diabetes, and the South

2011-05-05T08:49:00.000-04:00

Today's blog post has a three-fold purpose. I'm here to talk about Badlands 2 and the Brenda Novak Auction for diabetes research and the Help Write Now campaign. Basically, what today boils down to is me asking for your help in a variety of ways.

We'll start with the one that is on my mind right now. I've started work on Badlands 2--Henri's story--for Carina Press, but right now that is the title, and it kind of sucks. So, yeah, I'm begging for title help here. Now those of you who've read Badlands (and if you haven't you should...or you should maybe skip this paragraph, but I'd rather you read the book), know Henrietta. She's a scientist with an attitude, but you also know how Badlands ended. She hasn't lost her fire, but that's kind of messed with her a bit. She's trying to deal with the mess left behind by her father and becomes the unwitting pawn in a game between the United States government and the New York mafia...and somewhere in there, she might just stumble on love, if she lets herself. Contrary to what it sounds like, much of this novella will take place in the Badlands (I have plans for a few scenes that are just Henri and Ever). So...anyone have any brilliant title ideas? (Or series title ideas for that matter?)

Now...onto my more philanthropic requests:

A while back, a bunch of Carina Press authors got together (led by the wonderful Julie Rowe) to donate to the Brenda Novak Auction for Diabetes Research. There's a loaded Kindle and a loaded Nook on our auction page as well as an RWA lunch, a mentoring package, and a bunch of critiques (including one from me). We're off in our own little section, so some people are missing the opportunity to bid on crits there. In addition to the Carina Press section, there are a TON of fabulous offerings in the auction. Please, take the time to look around the auction site and see if there's anything there you might want to bid on.

In addition to my critique donation there, I've also donated one to the Help Write Now campaign to benefit southern storm relief. My critique is not up yet (I'm not sure when it will go live as they are doing 14-15 items per day), but again, there are a lot of great donations there. Please check it out, and when I do show up, please bid! LOL

Self-Esteem, Bullies, and Glee

2011-04-28T06:12:00.000-04:00

I know there have been complaints that Glee hasn't been as good this season as last, but I'm not sure that's true. I will admit, overall I'm not as excited about the music as I was last year, but the stories (for the most part) are better. Sure, they are still over-the-top and include stuff that would never fly in a real school, but I like that they are dealing with Kurt and Santana's sexuality and how it relates to their lives at school, drinking, and this week's bullying episode. Within the craziness penned, there is always a heavy thread of truth.

This week, they did a great job of showing the importance of self-acceptance, including among the adults. Or should I say adult? Because really, Will's acceptance of his cleft chin was something of a joke. But Emma admitting her OCD was well done. I wish they'd have gone further among the adults though for the simple reason that no matter how okay with ourselves we might be, everyone I know has something that they don't like about themselves (or at the very least question). I think they kind of missed a teaching opportunity with that.

But even more so, the lack of any Sue Sylvester story paralleling the Lauren Zizes/Quinn Fabray bullying story was a mistake. I know that Sue sub-plots tend to take over (if for no reason other than Jane Lynch steals every scene she's in), but if ever there was an episode that needed her, this was it. Whether we like it or not, bullying doesn't stop in high school. It doesn't even stop in college.

Sad fact of life: bullying never stops.

One example? The Judy Mays (Mrs. Buranich) mess. The woman, who has taught high school English for twenty-five years, is being persecuted by a group of parents because she *gasp* writes erotic romance. According to a quick Amazon search, she's been publishing for seven years, but it seems now it's an issue. It's not. A group of bullies just wants to make it into one. That's a nice blatant example, and it's caused a chunk of the writing industry to stand up and get behind her (in less than 24 hours the "Support Judy Mays (Mrs. Buranich)" Facebook page has garnered nearly 4500 "likes").

There are other, less obvious things than that. Another author had someone call her out on one of her youtube videos as being narcissistic. Um...really? Based on youtube? Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure most people who post themselves on youtube either think well of themselves or fake it for the camera. The author in question posted on her blog about her right to be whoever the hell she wants to be. She shouldn't have to do that. She's a human being and doesn't have to fit into anyone's mold of "right" but her own.

But she isn't the only one who's dealt with stuff like this. There are certain people out there who have at times chosen me as their target. Thankfully, I know better. I put up with bullies throughout school. These people have nothing on Brian from third grade, or the girls from fifth, or... Back then, I took the bullying really badly. Now? I kind of find the whole thing funny. Do I still react? Sure. I'm human. But in the end I just laugh because really the only thing those people are proving is that they can't get past school-yard mentality.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about making my own Gleek-tastic t-shirt...just as soon as I'm not busy writing.

What the Hell Is a Manwhore?

2011-04-25T10:02:00.000-04:00

If you follow myself or my fantastic crit partner Katee Robert on Twitter, you'll have seen us mention how we're really the same person...just separated by most of the country and about fourteen years. Recently, you'll also have seen us tweeting about something we're calling Seleste and Katee's School for Manwhores. This new project came about after several discussions about men we know who have earned the title Manwhore but don't necessarily know how to be good at it. Posts here for the school are likely to be laden with profanity and innuendo (I can't say the same for Katee's blog, but if it's the case there too, I'm sure she'll let you all know herself ;) ). If you don't like profanity or innuendo, I strongly suggest you skip my every-other-week Monday posts and go poke around here instead.

For those of you who stuck around, without further ado, I give you Seleste and Katee's School for Manwhores.

Lesson #1: What is a Manwhore?

To the uninitiated, the word manwhore looks like an insult. It seems like the kind of thing a woman would say with a sneer on her face and venom on her lips. This, however, is not the case. Sure, like any other word, some women could attempt to turn it into a slur, but a true manwhore will simply laugh them off because they love who they are and aren't afraid to show it.

Simply put, a manwhore is a man who loves sex, flirtation and the chase. He might love it more than he loves breathing, and this love most likely has gotten him in trouble a time or two.

"But, Seleste, all men love sex." (I can hear you saying this to me right now. Really. It's getting kind of loud in here.)

I can't say all, but yes, most men love sex. For a manwhore it's different though. For them, it's like food, or water, or (as I mentioned) air. Without it, they wither into something less than what they are. They understand this about themselves and embrace it. They tend to be very confident and fairly alpha in their demeanor. They are the men who walk into a room and own it without even trying. Most of the manwhores I know have wicked senses of humor and sharp tongues--they are often fans of snark.

Those are the most common signs of a manwhore. Beyond that, if you aren't used to seeing them, they can be rather hard to spot. Part of the reason for this is anyone can be a manwhore. Old, young, skinny, fit, hefty, single, divorced, dating, married...none of their other "definers" matter. Well, okay, it is impossible for a woman (who is not transgender) to be a manwhore (more on this in later weeks). What this means though is everyone out there probably knows a manwhore (likely more than one), you just might not know that you do.

After reading all this, some of you are probably wondering precisely why I said "manwhore" isn't an insult. The reason for that is simple. A manwhore owns his title. While he may not admit to it in certain circles, that's only because he's smart enough to know it wouldn't go over well. He's not ashamed of it--at all.

I'm the type of person who respects people who are real--no facades to hide behind, no glamours to see through. Because of that, I have a certain respect for manwhores, especially those who do it right. Which brings us right back to the reason for the school. Plus, for those of you who aren't fans of the manwhore, you might learn enough to avoid them ;-)

So, how many of you will own up to it? How many manwhores do you know? Are you one yourself?

Next week, we'll be at Katee's place. I do hope you'll stop by there as well.

Unexpected Alliances

2011-04-21T10:30:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_646" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Ah, Jack, haven't you learned yet? Size really doesn't matter."][/caption]

We see it in literature all the time: the arch enemy comes in to aid the hero in his hour of need. Or at the very least stays his hand to keep from killing the hero. Vader saving Luke from the Emporer. Barbosa joining up with Sparrow. It isn't quite as common as "boy meets girl", but it's definitely not a rare thing. Like most genre fiction tropes, I tend to look at it from the "does this shit ever really happen?" perspective.

.

Turns out...yes, yes it does.

.

There is this person I know. We're not friends, never really were. At best we're acquaintances who have each other's phone numbers. For a while, our interaction was borderline hostile. Worst enemy? Probably not, but far from someone I ever expected to "save the day" if I fell into damsel-in-distress mode.

That was until last week. My mother-in-law was on her way to my house. I had thirty minutes until she was at my door, and someone had just thrown me into a screaming, crying rage. I wanted to break things and hurt people (yes, I have a violent temper--get over it). Considering my husband's mother was about to arrive...this was not a good place to be. I knew I needed to talk to someone, but every single friend I could think of would want to know what was wrong. In detail. And it would have just made me spiral deeper in the wrong direction.

So...in a fit of panic, I called the one person who I figured wouldn't give a shit what was going on. (See above) Why? Because sometimes I don't want my hand held. I don't want to hear that it'll be fine (which is bullshit as often as not). And I certainly don't want to re-hash everything. I just want a distraction. And what better distraction than randomly calling someone who you don't really get along with? Assuming they don't hang up (a risk to be sure), the worst that will happen is you'll end up in a fight...which is still a distraction.

Imagine my surprise when I said, "I just need you to talk to me; I don't care about what," the person on the other end did just that. By the time my mother-in-law showed up, I was not only laughing instead of crying, but I didn't want to get off the phone. We ended up talking for almost an hour before I felt like I had to go and be a civil hostess.

Sometimes, help does come from corners where you'd least expect it.

Oddly enough, as I started typing this post, that same person texted me today. Are we friends now? Maybe. I'm really not sure. For all I know, there are ulterior motives on the other end of things. Reality is I'm okay with that--I kind of expect it. But if there aren't? That'd be great too. I'd love to be able to say the enemy to friend thing does happen upon occasion.

Thanks for the positive energy. Hope I can pay it back sometime :)

Is This Thing On?

2011-04-14T05:00:00.000-04:00

Hey all, I'm back from RT. Sadly I came back sick (whoever got me sick...I'm not very happy with you). So, I'm not doing a big blog post here this week. Today I'm at From the Shadows doing an interview about Badlands, and tomorrow I'll have my RT roundup go live at Wicked Lil Pixie's. Hopefully next week I'll be back to my old self and have something mind-alteringly brilliant to post here :P In the meantime, please visit my other haunts this week.

<3

Find me at RT!

2011-04-04T07:06:00.000-04:00

I've been talking about it for a while, but tomorrow I finally take of for the Romantic Times Booklovers' Convention in LA! This is my first con as a published author and I'm really geeked. Not only will I get the chance to meet a lot of my author friends I only know from online, but I get to meet people--real people!-- who read my books. Crazy excited about it. So, if you are one of those readers who wants to meet me, I'm going to give a list of activities I'll definitely be at (bolded) and others I'll probably be at so you can find me.

Tuesday:

8pm (I think)--Decadent Publishing's field trip to the Viper Room to see Run Devil Run.

Wednesday:

Morning--at the agent/editor pitches, seeing who I can see :)

Afternoon--various panels

3:25 pm -- I'll probably at least pop into the Carina Press publisher spotlight

6:30 pm-- Saucy Siren's through History

9 pm -- Ellora's Cave Bollywood Party

Thursday

Morning--at the agent/editor pitches, seeing who I can see :)

Afternoon--various panels

8:30pm--Venetian Masquerade Faery Ball

Friday

Morning--unknown

1:30pm--Club RT briefly for Decadent Publishing spotlight

2:45pm--Steampunk Social

4:00pm--E-book Expo (signing)

6:00pm--Avon's Dusk to Dark Mixer

8:00pm--Vampire Ball

Saturday

11:00am--Giant Book Fair (Signing as YA writer-me, Julie Particka)

5:00pm--Mr. Romance Competition

8:00pm--Carina Press Cocktail Hour

9:00pm--Harlequin Hollywood Glam party

If you're going to be there, I hope you pop by and say hi at some point!

Who is Spencer Pierce?

2011-03-31T20:02:00.000-04:00

When I set out to create my characters, I usually have a pretty good idea of the type of person they are and what they look like. Backstory and quirks and that sort of thing are where the real work comes in. But the basics usually fall into my head fully formed. That was definitely the case with Spencer Pierce, captain of the Dark Hawk in Badlands.

The first thing about Spence is that he isn’t a big guy: muscular and strong sure, but more on the skinny side (wiry is the nice way of putting it). And then there are his eyes. Spencer’s eyes are one of his most telling features. No matter what kind of front he puts on for anyone, his eyes are haunted and speak of a past he’d rather forget. Right around the time I was “casting” Spencer, White Collar came on TV. Matt Bomer fit in a lot of ways, but he just didn’t have that dark edge I wanted for Spencer—he was too “cute”. It didn’t take long to realize the guy I kept seeing when I pictured Spencer wasn’t playing a nice guy on TV. He was playing one of the most deliciously sarcastic and bloodthirsty vampires on TV. Ian Somerhalder is very much the physical embodiment of Spencer Pierce. Of course, if they ever made a movie of Badlands, he’d have to bring a haunted past to the character of a really nice guy. Is he that good of an actor? Hmm…

But as for the character, that’s all Spencer. The closest thing in most of my TV/movie watching to a dirigible captain are from science fiction, in particular spaceship captains give the best parallel. But if you look at most of them, you’ll see some trends.

- Star Trek

Kirk is a devil-may-care ladies’ man. (So very not Spencer)

Picard is straight-arrow, proper and…yeah (Love him, but not Spencer)

Janeway’s uh…a girl (honestly, this is when I got bored with Star Trek and stopped watching)

- Star Wars

Han Solo is a smuggler and a cad. Sure he turns into a great guy, but he starts out as kind of a jerk (Not Spencer)

Lando Calrissian takes us right back to Kirk.

Sigh. Spencer’s his own breed of guy. But then I thought, what about someone who’s close? Surely one of those captains would be able to sit down and have a drink with Spence without trying to rob him, kill him, or take his woman. Not really. The only ones who wouldn’t probably wouldn’t have a drink with him in the first place.

I could think of one guy who would though. Sure, he’s a smuggler and he’s got attitude to spare. However, he’s not the kind to start off with aggression nor is he the kind to shit on a fair deal. So, if you recognize a little bit of Malcolm Reynolds in Spencer, there’s a reason for it. They aren’t the same character by a long stretch, but I like to think they’d get each other and maybe even be friends.

In addition to the contest that is going on with this post as part of the treasure hunt for The Romance Studio, I'm also offering a digital copy of either of my Blood Kissed stories to a random commenter here (winner's choice of Of Course I Try or The Ghost of Vampire Present).

Arrogance, Men and Romantic Times

2011-03-24T10:04:00.000-04:00

Because if that title doesn't get me hits, I don't know what will.

Just kidding. Today's blog is going to be a bit of a mishmash, so please bear with me. Maybe by the end it'll all come together in some brilliant epiphany about the meaning of life.

Yeah. I kind of doubt it too.

One of my beta readers loves to point out how arrogant she thinks a particular character of mine is. I actually find it funny, because I see him as more...childish than arrogant, but she detests him because of it. This led me to thinking about arrogance in men in general, and I came to the conclusion that for me very few guys can pull off arrogance. Most look like complete assholes, but every once in a while it works (generally when accompanied by some sort of insecurity, but that's another story). So last night I asked twitter if they found arrogance appealing in the opposite sex, whether real or fictional people. The results weren't surprising, but were a little interesting.

Nicole said:

Is arrogance sexy/appealing? Not to me. Not even if it's deserved or understandable.

Andrea agreed:

No... not at all. One of the most off-putting qualities. Pretty much insures I'll hate them. Real and fictional...

Danielle was a little more forgiving:

It can be, but you have to be careful not to cross the line into asshole territory.

As was PJ:

A little arrogance at the right time can be insanely sexy. Too much and it gets to be a turn off real quick.

Laura differentiated between fictional and real:

I think arrogance is more appealing in a fictional character than in reality. Confidence is better in RL. But it's a fine line to walk.

Renae said much the same thing:

Appealing? No. Much more forgivable in fictional characters, but, I'll never say "if only he was more arrogant, he'd be hot"

Kelly was the most in tune with arrogance:

I usually go for the alpha guys in real life and in fictional characters. Arrogance is part of the package

Interestingly enough, all of the answers I got from men said no.

From Ken:

Confidance, snark, and a sharp wit = yes. Arrogance crosses the line and is generally a no.

Of course, I had to ask if acknowledging one had the first three by default made them arrogant. Apparently that could go either way. Hmmm...

But like everything, it seems people can't all agree on the appeal of arrogance. I debated doing a second poll with the same people asking them to rank their own arrogance, but that seemed even less scientific than the initial poll, so I quit while I was ahead.

On the topic of arrogant men, however, I'm getting ready to get my male model fix for the year. I know, I know, they aren't all arrogant--some are just really, really, really confident. Anyway...I leave for RT in twelve days. My last RT post, I had seventeen weeks! Now I'm down to less than two. All those fabulous promo plans...uh...not happening this year. What I want to do frankly cost too much to pull off with the revenue only coming in from a few shorts. Maybe by Authors After Dark this summer, but not for RT. I will have at least one project ready to pitch, maybe two (one adult, one YA). Even though the panel I'd planned for didn't happen, the lovely ladies at Steamed invited me to be part of the steampunk social on Friday, so I'm very geeked about that.

Right now though, I'm at the point I'm just trying to keep my head screwed on straight so I make sure everything is done and ready to go when I take off to drop the kids at my mom's house. Because once I leave here, if I've forgotten it, I just have to do without, which won't make me a happy camper.

So...what do I need to remember to take with me? (One of my lovely editors arranged for another of my lovely editors to pick up my vodka for me in advance, so WOOT! there will be booze!)

Arrogance, Men and Romantic Times

2011-03-24T09:58:00.000-04:00

Is arrogance sexy/appealing? Not to me. Not even if it's deserved or understandable.

Andrea agreed:

No... not at all. One of the most off-putting qualities. Pretty much insures I'll hate them. Real and fictional...

Danielle was a little more forgiving:

It can be, but you have to be careful not to cross the line into asshole territory.

As was PJ:

A little arrogance at the right time can be insanely sexy. Too much and it gets to be a turn off real quick.

Laura differentiated between fictional and real:

I think arrogance is more appealing in a fictional character than in reality. Confidence is better in RL. But it's a fine line to walk.

Renae said much the same thing:

Appealing? No. Much more forgivable in fictional characters, but, I'll never say "if only he was more arrogant, he'd be hot"

Kelly was the most in tune with arrogance:

I usually go for the alpha guys in real life and in fictional characters. Arrogance is part of the package

Interestingly enough, all of the answers I got from men said no.

From Ken:

Confidance, snark, and a sharp wit = yes. Arrogance crosses the line and is generally a no.

Are You an Author or a Writer?

2011-03-16T20:35:00.000-04:00

Before I became published, I had business cards that said "author" on them. Some other aspiring authors were really bothered by that. After all, I hadn't sold anything. I had a tiny freak-out moment, but I got over it pretty quickly. I mean, what was I going to do? Hide my business cards?

To be honest, there's a lot of talk (old and new) on the internet about the difference between being a writer and being an author. It's something I've looked at way too much. With RT rapidly approaching and things hitting crunch time, I've had a sudden moment of clarity. One of those moments when had I been thinking about it, I might have understood the meaning of life. Silly me was thinking about being an author instead, but I'll take what I can get.

Here's the thing, everyone who writes is a writer. Unless you haven't started writing there is no such thing as an "aspiring writer". I suppose those could be the "I've been thinking about writing a book" people, but the minute they sit down and get to it, they graduate to writer. But most people who question the writer/author thing are past that stage. Most of them have stories under their belt, whether shorts, novels or something in between. So what should they call themselves?

This is where things get a little trickier. Of course they are still writers--writers write. Here's my opinion on the matter. Once you start doing the legwork and submitting, you've "graduated" to "aspiring author". Notice there's a big difference between "aspiring writer" and "aspiring author". The first is someone thinking about/trying to write. The second is someone trying to move ahead to that elusive "author" title.

If it was tricky before, it's a mess now. So, you've submitted, you've been accepted and signed with an agent or a publisher...you're an author, right? Uh...not so fast.

You see, I've realized that being an author means a lot of things. First up? Revisions. Whether your agent or editor, someone is going to ask you to revise, and only when they ask you to change something you don't want to let go do you earn author points. (No, there is not really a system of "author points" I'm just using it as a goofy little name.) Because one way or another, you have to step up and deal with that revision. You're either going to argue to keep what you wrote, or you're going to change it--maybe both. But you can't just gloss over it. It's no longer writing group or crit partners who you can ignore, now it's work. More author points? Dealing with bad or even mediocre reviews. There are a lot of ways to handle this, but you do have to handle it otherwise you turn into one of those people who rant on the review site and basically make everyone go O.O. It's work, you have to treat it as such, even if that means staying away from the watercooler (ie--not reading reviews). Lastly is the issue of promo. Authors must promo if they want to sell. Whether that means building a readership on your blog, or on Twitter, or on Facebook, or guest blogging all over the universe, or doing book tours and signings, you must promo. How willing you are to learn and adapt is part of that. Your blog isn't driving sales? Adapt. Try something new. Take offers. Take advice. It's your job to sell books, time to put in the work.

If you notice, I mentioned work a lot in the last paragraph. That's because being an author isn't just about writing books, that's just the first step. Writing can be a hobby. Being an author is a job. It's a career. And if you don't treat it like one--if you aren't willing to bust your ass and do the work, or worse you whine or make excuses--you're not an author.

And in the end, it isn't so much a question of what you are...it's a question of what you really want to be.

There are probably a lot more examples of things authors need to deal with that writers don't (based on my above explanation), these were just the top three that came to mind. I'm sure you have others. Hit me with them :)

HELP!!!

2011-03-10T07:17:00.000-05:00

First, I'm on a #FridayFlash hiatus. I owe people comments from last week still. Things are just too busy this month for me to commit to doing anything extra, so the flash has to go for now. I'll be back with some in April after RT is over :)

For now though...

Con season is basically here (EEP!), and I'm doing some last-minute scrambling. I have magnets and a few t-shirts and stuff for the Blood Kissed series, but because of some rather inconvenient (but understandable) rules, I don't have much promo material for Badlands. So, I'm planning/hoping to do some romance trading cards. The thing is I'm not sure what all to get.

Here's the deal. I'm asking a friend of mine to do some art for them, and I don't want to put her under too much pressure. Plus, I can only afford to do so many at a time. So, I'm looking to limit it to four cards. Obviously I want to do Ever and Spencer, but I'm not 100% sure what else. My first instinct was to go with Zeke and Henrietta, but then I thought "Oooo the Dark Hawk is kind of a character in her own right." Lots of things came up in a quickie, impromptu Twitter poll, but it was suggested I ask here.

I need a decision quickly (probably by the end of the weekend), so what I need from you is this: other than Ever and Spencer, give me two more Badlands trading cards you'd like to see. (If it matters, I will probably add to the collection when I sell the next story, so this isn't the "end" of the cards, just the beginning.)

THANKS!

Friday Flash: There's No Such Thing

2011-03-02T19:25:00.000-05:00

First and foremost...drumroll please...across the little blog hop giveaway, we had quite a few entries. I want to thank all of you for sharing your stories. They meant a lot to me. But, there can be only...uh, two...winners, and random.org helped me out a little here. Congratulations to Becky Hancock (from Bea's Book Nook post) and Sarah (from the post at Katie Reus's blog). I'll be tracking the two of you down to send you your copies of Badlands.

Thank you again to everyone who commented and tweeted!

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I'll be honest, I wrote this piece a bit off the cuff because of a conversation with my daughter today. It features Elle and Cass, the foster sisters from Pretty Souls (my new YA release under the name Julie Particka).

There's No Such Thing

Things had been quiet in Portage this summer. Cass and I got in the habit of patrolling, but after the first few nights, everyone seemed to get in line. Which was great, except no supernatural issues meant our lives had fallen into a pattern of TV, pretend to sleep, patrol, sleep, wake up, eat, run, screw around, eat...and do it all over again.

We'd run through our Supernatural DVDs and had moved on to a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Cass hated the similarities: blonde, cheerleader...vampires. I tried to get her over it by reminding her that Buffy was human, but she wasn't biting. (In case I haven't mentioned it, it was also the summer I developed a love of bad puns.) We'd made it to season four and were settled in, watching the Halloween episode.

Everything was going fine and we were sharing quite a few laughs. Then...Anya, the re-habilitated demon, showed up in a bunny suit. Cass grabbed the remote and pushed pause. "She's afraid of...bunnies? What the hell. That's the stupidest thing ever."

"Oh, come on. It isn't like the show is exactly realistic. I mean you don't get funny ridges on your face when you vamp out either. The bunnies are a joke, just take it that way." I reached for the remote, but she snatched it away.

"Even if it's a joke, it should make sense, which means bunnies would have to be scary on some level." She jumped off the couch and held her hands up in front of her, hopping around the living room. "Tell me. How is this scary?"

I can't help it, she looks so ridiculous, I burst out laughing. "Fine. Fine. But you'd make a cute little bunny. Imagine if some huge, evil, muscle-bound demon turned into a rabbit. Like John Cena turning into a wererabbit with giant bloody teeth and claws. That'd be kind of scary."

Cass planted her hands on her hips and made a face at me. "Maybe, but there's no such thing as a wererabbit. As one of the things that stalk the night, it's kind of hard to be afraid of a figment of my imagination."

Looked like TV time was over. Once Cass gets on a roll, it doesn't stop until she's done. I stood and went into the kitchen to hunt up some food. "How do you know there's no such thing?" I stuck my head in the fridge and pulled out an apple.

"Because it's moronic."

Her voice was so close behind me, I jumped and hit my head on a shelf. Rubbing it with one hand and polishing the apple on my shirt with the other, I kicked the door closed. "No. What's moronic is this discussion. It's a TV show."

"Maybe, but couldn't they at least pretend to have it make sense?" Her lips quirked to the side. "I am sorry about your head though."

A headache was building, but I shrugged it off. "It's okay." The doorbell chose that moment to ring, the chimes resonating through the house. "I mean, I wouldn't be afraid of a giant bunny either."

She followed me to the door, her "I told you so" trailing close behind. I rolled my eyes and jerked open the door, freezing as I stared at the biggest pair of buck teeth I'd ever seen. That they were on the face of a six foot tall old guy didn't escape my notice either. Cass stood right next to me, stock still, like she was frozen in place.

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat, the weight of the door growing heavier against my hand. "Can I help you?"

"I'm here to speak to Eric."

"He and Jennifer went out to dinner." I sized him up, just in case.

His nose twitched back and forth like he was sniffing for a lie. "I'll just give him a call later then. Thank you." He turned around, and I noticed a strange lump in the back of his pants. I tried not to stare, but I couldn't tear my eyes away until I'd shut and locked the door.

"Elle?"

I shook my head and walked back into the living room. "It was just our minds playing tricks on us."

"How can you be so sure?"

Settling in on the couch, I set my jaw and hit the pause button again, Buffy the Vampire Slayer coming back to life. "Because there's no such thing as wererabbits--just like you said."

Too bad in my mind, I saw the old guy's buck teeth again, only this time, they were stained with blood.

Badlands Release Party!

2011-02-27T19:01:00.000-05:00

For those of you who didn't know, Badlands was actually the first story I sold (way back in June :P). At the time publication seemed so incredibly far off, but then it was February and the date just kind of snuck up on me. So here we are on release day, and I hope all of you will rush out to Carina Press and buy a copy this week (assuming you didn't already pre-order).

And considering I'm all over the blogosphere this week with guest spots and such, I'm not going to do a huge post here. Instead, I'm going to ask that you stop by one of the other places I've been in recent days. There's a huge list on my last post, but I'll narrow it down for you...

Feb. 25 - Manic Readers with a guest spot about the inspiration behind Badlands

Feb 27 - Para-Posse for Six Sentence Sunday

***Feb 27 - Katie Reus's blog with a guest spot about danger and secrets***

***Feb 28-Bea's Book Nook for an interview.***

***March 1-Featured at the Carina Press blog talking about strong female characters***

***March 2- Tia Nevitt's blog with a post on how I developed the matriarchal monarchy of the Badlands***

However, before you go chasing me down, you should know that the ***s next to some of those posts are important. In celebration of release day, I'm offering up not one, but two digital copies of Badlands. Here's the twist. You can enter at any of the starred blogs and/or here. If I remember correctly, on the other blogs, you need to tell me about a strong woman in your real life (Double check on the blogs though because I may have done something different on one or two :P)

With that in mind, what I want to talk about very briefly here is inspiration. If you went to Manic Readers, you'll get the low-down on where all the seeds for the story came from, but first and foremost was the piece of artwork that inspired the character of Ever. Without seeing that picture, this story would never have happened.

So to enter contest HERE, I want you to tell me about something specific that has inspired you in some way (this doesn't have to be writing inspiration, it could be just an inspiration to do with life). The key is to be specific--I want to be able to bask in your stories for a few minutes :)

Blog Hopping Across the Universe...

2011-02-24T12:05:00.000-05:00

Okay, so maybe not the universe, but a lot of places. With the release of Badlands quickly approaching, I'm going to be doing a lot of guest blogging and interviews. What that means is at least for this week (and last, but I was away last weekend, so that was a different issue) there will be no #FridayFlash. Instead, I'm going to fill you in on all the wonderful places I've been or will be in the upcoming weeks. Where I know what I'm blogging about, I'll let you know.

Feb.7 - AD Blackburn's blog for an interview

Feb. 18 - Sarah-Jane Lehoux's blog for an interview

Feb. 25 - Manic Readers with a guest spot about the inspiration behind Badlands

Feb 27 - Para-Posse for Six Sentence Sunday

Feb 27 - Katie Reus's blog with a guest spot about danger and secrets

Feb 28-Blogging HERE for release day with a giveaway! (UPDATE: This giveaway will include commenters from a few places, so I'm upping the number of copies to two. :) )

Feb 28-Bea's Book Nook for an interview.

March 1-Featured at the Carina Press blog talking about strong female characters

March 2- Tia Nevitt's blog with a post on how I developed the matriarchal monarchy of the Badlands

March 4- Julia Knight's blog with a post on the trials and tribulations of promotion

March 9- Para-Posse with my regular monthly post, this one is on writing and drinking

March 11- Julie Campbell's blog with a post on what it's like to write both adult and YA

March 16- Alexandra O'Hurley's blog with a post on sex between the heroine and someone other than the hero

March 18- Fierce Romance with a post about... (I don't know what yet LOL)

March 25- Here Be Magic with my regular post (TBD)

March 31- Daily Dose of Decadence for Three-way Thursday (Thinking, Thankful & Thirsting)

April 4 - Emma Shortt's blog post (unknown topic for now)

April 8- The Book Boost post on either writing stresses or book titles

April 13- Para-Posse with my regular monthly post

April 19- JoJo's Book Corner with a reading from Badlands and maybe a little bit of other stuff.

After that, I think I'm going to try to breathe for a little while. Because breathing is, you know, healthy...or something.

2 AM Fix

2011-02-10T06:47:00.000-05:00

2 AM and she calls me ‘cause I’m still awake. “Can you help me unravel my latest mistake…” ~ Anna Nalick “Breathe (2AM)”

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I’m staring at the flickering lights on the television, certain they make pictures but not coherent enough to care what they are. Blue. Red. Yellow. White. Black. Colors without form, without meaning. In the midst of taking a drink, the phone rings and my hand shakes, making the ice clink against the sides of the glass. The tang of vodka rises and I suck in a deep breath before setting it down to get the phone.

“Hello.”

“JC, it’s me.”

Dust puffs into the air as my head falls back against the seat cushion. “It’s two in the morning, Lacey.”

“I messed up. I need your help.”

Of course you do. Why else would you call? I raise the glass of vodka, staring into its depths as it reflects the firelight, bending it into shapes…into ghosts. My lips twist into a sneer and I drain the glass, banishing the dead back to the Hell where they belong. “Where?”

“315 Parson Street. Thank you.” Her sigh of relief skips from cell tower to cell tower until it breathes in my ear.

I want to reach through the phone and strangle her. With what she’s asking of me, she shouldn’t get to feel relief. I sure as fuck won’t. But I can’t deny her, and she knows it. Bitch saves my life once and I pay forever. “On my way.” I click off the phone before she can say anything else.

More vodka would make this so much easier, dull my senses, but I can’t risk it. I don’t know what she’s sending me up against. I could have asked, but the less I know, the better I’ll sleep.

My bag slouches next to the door like it’s trying to hide—to disappear through the floorboards. As if that would make a difference. No can do, Lacey. You see, my tools…they just up and vanished. Can’t help you this time. If I said that, I’d just end up with new stuff—things that didn’t fit my hands as well. I shrug on my coat, pick up the simple black bag, and head into the night.

Snow gathers in my hair and the wind bites at my exposed skin as I stand outside 315 Parsons Street. There is a gentle glow from inside, like the entire house is lit by candles. What sort of creature lurks in the near dark?

As I realize the answer, a chill finally settles into my bones. I drag a cross from the bag and drape the chain over my head before fishing out a stake and some holy water. Lacey really did it this time. I stare at the door, wondering how to best enter, and realize I’m probably not going to survive this time.

My heartbeat slows and the chill dissipates as a smile crosses my face. This is for the best. I’ll go out fighting and finally be free of this stupid bond. Time to be bold then.

I race at the door, throwing my shoulder against it. The lock pops open and I fly into a dimly lit foyer. It is indeed candles lighting the front room. The man seated there rises to his feet, consternation writ in the line across his forehead. The simple wrinkle gives me pause.

“What are you doing in my house?” His voice is clear and strong. Dangerous.

I meet his eyes, allowing malice to fill mine. “Lacey Burton sent me.”

He has the audacity to look surprised as I leap at him, both our bodies falling against the couch and overturning it. The holy water slips from my hand, the bottle shattering on the floor. With a snarl, I raise the stake, but before I can strike, he’s flipped me over onto my back.

And then a greater fear than death hits me. What if he turns me? Life eternal. Haunted by ghosts forever.

Faces flash through my mind before I finally settle on the angry gray eyes of the man leaning over me.

No. I can’t.

Adrenaline courses through me, snapping everything into crystal clarity as I wrestle my arm free. His mouth is opening as I plunge the stake home.

His body rolls off me and I lie there for a second, panting. Then I go to my knees, wondering why he hasn’t turned to dust. Or is that just a myth? I kneel in the pool of blood to check his teeth. White, with one slightly crooked incisor, but definitely not abnormally pointed.

But he is also definitely dead. I’ll have to ask Lacey what he was so I know what else dies from a stake through the heart.

A small scuffing noise reaches my ears and I turn around. A child, no more than seven, crouches in the doorway, a worn stuffed bear dangling from her grip. One of its eyes missing, the hole sewn over in a jagged X. “Daddy?” she whimpers.

I swallow hard and will myself to disappear. I don’t have to ask Lacey now. I know the answer. A stake through the heart will kill a man, no matter what he has in his house to protect.

And I know there is one ghost that I’ll never be able to banish with a thought. The wide gray eyes staring at me from the doorway, so like her father’s, will haunt me forever.

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Other than the first line, the song doesn't correlate to the story, but it is beautiful. Give it a listen here or buy it here (though I honestly recommend the whole cd).

Please Welcome A.D. Blackburn!!

2011-02-07T04:56:00.000-05:00

Today we have a visitor, the lovely and talented A.D. Blackburn! She was part of the same Christmas anthology I wrote a piece for ('Twas a Dark and Delicious Christmas) and her first full-length novel came out just last week. I hope you enjoy getting to know her as much as I have.

Hi, A.D., can you tell us about your new release?

Possession is about James Gunn, president of the Diabolus Venator Motorcycle club and demon hunting bad-ass. Without giving away too much, he faces more than a few struggles in the book and in the end he has to make a choice which is more important to save; his own soul or the love of his life. No easy choices there.

Your hero, James, is a demon-hunter. With the trend towards "monsters" as heroes, what made you decide to go the other way?

I have a genuine affinity for bad boys but I've long maintained that not all bad boys have fangs. In the same vein, not all bad boys are really bad. James is terrifying. He's tall, extremely dark, heavily tattooed and he's shed his fair share of blood, but there's a humanism to him that just drew me in. I enjoy fleshing out the softer side of harder men...take that how you will.

What do you prefer to write: emotional scenes, fight/action scenes, or sex scenes? Why?

I enjoy writing them all and writing a steamy sex scene makes my day but to be honest, I love writing fight scenes. I get seriously worked up when my hero is facing a foe and they are getting ready to get dirty. There's something primitive about writing the fight scene that just makes me want to write a hotter sex scene. I know, I know, I need therapy lol!

On your site, you mention your smoking hot husband, so I'll admit, I had to check him out. *wink* Since you also like to write hot men, what do you find attractive in a guy (fictional or otherwise)?

I am such a pig because I stare at my husband all the time. He's 6'3, dark haired, light eyed and cut to pieces. Yum. He's so rugged. I couldn't have written him any better. Fictional or otherwise, I cannot resist a man who works with his hands. The dirtier the better. Blue collar gets me everytime. Not to say that a doctor or a lawyer wouldn't float the same boat, so long as when they doff the suit and tie or the lab coat, they get greased up under the hood of a muscle car that works better than a BOB. Caveat to this is that I want him to have a brain in his head. Ornamental and functional is the name of the game :)

Yes, brains are a must. Who is your favorite hero not of your own creation (TV, movie, literary)?

Oh THUD. This one is hard. I have a few favorites. If I have to put it down to one solitary hero, it would have to be Captain Jack Sparrow. I love that dirty pirate, Savvy?

I do indeed *evil grin* What is the sexiest thing you've ever done to get a guy's attention?

I was plodding around the house in one of my husbands long sleeved button down dress shirts and he was chatting outside with some friends...I opened the door, and threw the shirt to him...may not sound all that sexy but it damned sure got his attention.

LOL nice! Speaking of things done to get a guy's attention, you and I have talked corsets a time or two. Describe your perfect corset.

OH EM GEE...over bust with a sweetheart neckline, grommets at the back with red leather ties...red and black brocade but the pattern would be skulls and flames. Word!

I found a skull corset recently (sequins though). Sadly hubs vetoed it. *sigh* With that in mind, do you like the idea of sticking your paranormal romance heroines in corsets or is your first thought "How could she fight in that?"

Oh she'd fight in a corset and LOVE IT...then again, a heroine in my books that fought anything would have to be tough as nails so the boning in a PVC get up would suit her to a tee :)

What's up next for you?

Currently, I am working on Possession's sequel and I am finishing another dark paranormal romance that I hope to have submitted in the near future. Mainly, I just want to keep writing. I've been so lucky to have this opportunity and with any luck I can keep going.

Quick Six

For your hero:
Boxers or briefs? Commando...wait, that wasn't an option. Erm, boxer briefs.
Harleys or horses? Harleys, no question.

For your heroine:
Stilettos or sneakers? Stillies all the way.
Leather or lace? Leather

For YOU:
Wine or whiskey? Wine...I am a self-proclaimed red wine snob!
Sex or seduction? Seduction. It is truly an art form!

Is there anything else you'd like to share with readers?

Thank you. Without readers, I wouldn't be a writer and I will never forget that. I've had a few readers from the anthology email me and it was the most heartwarming experience. Being a great storyteller means nothing if there is no one to tell your tales to, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!

ABOUT POSSESSION
In the epic battle between Heaven and Hell, there are angels and demons…and then there’s James.

Tall, dark and deadly, James Gunn is the President of the Diabolus Venator motorcycle club, a group of one time outlaws turned gun-toting, sword-wielding ass-kicking demon hunters. His no-holds-barred style of dispatching hells darkest minions has earned him quite the reputation, but when he fights a low-level demon that warns him that his soul is in danger, he laughs it off…until he discovers that they mean to steal his heart to obtain it. When James realizes that a high-ranking demon has marked him for a prime spot in hell, he pulls out all the stops to protect the one thing he loves more than his own soul – his one- time girlfriend Maddy.

What James doesn’t count on is that this particular demon knows a little bit more about the art of possession than the average minion and he’s forced to make the ultimate choice between the love of his life or his own soul.
ABOUT A.D.
A.D's first romance was with every male character Jude Devereaux ever put on paper. A literary sap from the gate, A.D. bought notebooks and scribbled alternate endings to her favorite stories - always placing herself as the heroine of course. The happily-ever-after bug was firmly planted into her brain, but she needed something more than bodice ripping and white horses that galloped into the sunset. She needed something darker and far more sinister, so she turned to the genre that she now calls home...paranormal romance. Within the bendable walls of the fantastic and the down-right different, she finds that the sky is the limit when it comes to what happens with her characters, and thats just how she likes it.

A.D. lives in the small little mill town of Lincolnton, North Carolina with her amazingly supportive and smoking hot husband, three wonderful albeit loud children, a dog that thinks its a pig and two cats that defy description. When she is not writing, she likes to make huge messes in her kitchen, read, and feed her DIY network/QVC addiction.

Song of the Sea

2011-02-03T08:16:00.000-05:00

Death came for me not on black wings, but white. Sunlight reflected off the water and forced my eyes mostly shut again. The infernal gull didn’t care if I was awake or not. Apparently, breathing and heartbeat didn’t matter—I was as good as dead. So it poked at my head, searching for some tasty morsel.

When it targeted one of my eyes, I swung at it. The bird flew off, but the motion upset the wood keeping me afloat. It flipped and sent me under the water, a swell arching over my head as I clawed for the surface. Sputtering, I broke through to the air again. I clutched the wood with both hands and cursed the heavy skirts tangling about my legs, weighing me down.

The ocean stretched in every direction—blue and empty. If any of the others survived the wreckage, I couldn’t see them. In fact, I couldn’t see the deadly rocks either.

I didn’t care.

I was free.

And they deserved to die.

Sadly, God might well have the same fate in mind for me.

I drifted in the middle of the sea, unable to swim, clinging to an unstable float. And weighed down by skirts I couldn’t remove without releasing the board and sinking into the water where I would drown. With every passing second, my thirst grew and the sun beat down upon my once alabaster skin. My flesh tightened painfully and turned an angry shade of red.

But that agony dulled beside my desperate thirst. I tried holding seawater in my mouth, hoping it would help. Even without swallowing, all it did was fuel my craving. I spat it out and cursed the vast, undrinkable ocean.

The sound of my voice made my skull throb and I closed my eyes again. When my head began to spin, even in the darkness, I forced myself to stare at the sea. I couldn’t afford to fall asleep or faint. So I focused on a tiny speck on the horizon that bobbed into view with the undulations of the water.

Another survivor?

The rocks?

I didn’t hear any singing, but that didn’t mean anything.

Over the hours, the speck grew smaller then larger once more—its size ebbing and flowing like the tide.

White flakes began to dance in my vision.

Snow.

I stuck my tongue out, desperate for the tiny drops of moisture.

Nothing.

When my tongue began burning in the sun, I gave up. Everywhere I turned, I saw snow, but none of its chilly wetness touched me. My lips cracked as a hoarse scream wrenched from my throat. Blood welled in the cut; I sucked on it until it stopped flowing. Not enough. The only thing the salty-sweet taste managed was to remind me what moisture felt like.

I stared at my arms. I couldn’t release the board, but perhaps…

Without allowing time to reconsider, I bit down on my wrist as hard as I could. The pain was just one more agony on top of so many others. My teeth tore at the burned flesh, releasing fluid from beneath the blisters. I lapped at it until I’d consumed every drop.

No denying it. The speck on the horizon had grown. I blinked, trying to clear the snow from my vision, but it only served to make the world tip again.

Too tired to try for another section of my arm, I sealed my lips around the wound, praying a few more precious drops would coat my tongue. I stared at the water, watching as it lapped at the edge of my board, caressing it then withdrawing—the bizarre mating ritual of boat and sea.

The snowy expanse of ocean blurred at the edges and sinuous creatures burst from the water, their bodies dancing to a whispered song. Their tails splashed as they dove back in, dousing me in salt spray. Mermaids. The people of the deep. They’d lived in my dreams since childhood—appropriate they would be with me now.

I smiled and allowed my eyes drift shut, fading to almost-sleep on the strains of an imagined song.

The board shifted under me, and my eyes flew open. A ship passed so close its gentle wake pushed my float aside. Then another block of wood splashed next to me—this one attached to a rope.

Rescue.

I reached for the wood but slipped into the sea. A grinning face flashed past mine, followed by a stream of glittering scales. Then a surge pushed me back to the surface just as my lungs threatened to burst. I clutched at the wood, wrapping my burnt arms around the rope. It jerked, and I found myself flying through the air to land on a rough wooden deck.

Glancing up to thank my rescuers, I gaped at the sight of unwashed bodies, shining earrings, missing teeth, and the odd eye patch. Pirates.

Not more pirates.

Fingers bit into my arms and yanked me upright. “Aye, lads, I’ve told ye before—ye ne’er know what you’ll fish out of the drink.” The captain’s putrid breath washed over my face. “So how’d a morsel like you find its way here?”

I peeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth and tried not to breathe. “I was taken by another ship intent on selling me to slavers.”

The captain raised a brow. “Not our plan for you, is it, boys?” A chorus of grunts told me exactly what their plan entailed. The captain rubbed at his beard, his eyes glittering hungrily. “That other ship still around, lass?”

The curious song met my ears again, and I caught the shimmer of scales in the water, heading away from the setting sun and toward the rocks I’d lost sight of until now. My lips split anew as they spread in a quiet smile. “Yes. When I last saw them, they were headed that way.” I pointed toward the rocks and the sirens waiting among them.

Eek! No Flash

2011-01-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

I'm traveling this weekend, so without the time to pimp a #FridayFlash post or read other people's work, I'm skipping a flash fiction post.

So, instead, I'm leaving you with a video. Last week, I introduced you to Ever, the heroine of my upcoming novella, Badlands. This song was one of many on my playlist for the story, and is one that fits the characters in the story in many ways. Plus, a little Winchester-brother-time is never a bad thing ;-)

Thanks to MillerQueen72 for the fabulous video :)

Friend or Follow?

2011-01-23T19:01:00.000-05:00

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There is a nifty thing (called Friend or Follow) where you can put in your Twitter handle in and it will tell you which of the people you follow don’t follow you back. But…that isn’t what this post is about.

I have been on Twitter in one form or another for about two years now. In that time, I’ve “met” a lot of people I consider friends. Some of them I’ve physically met, others I only know online. I don’t really differentiate between the two unless someone asks.

However, on one account I have over five hundred followers and close to two hundred fifty on the other. While I appreciate every one of those people and talk to many of them, I don’t consider them all friends. This isn’t a judgment on any of them. Given the opportunity, we might become besties for life, but it just hasn’t happened yet.

You see I don’t consider people friends unless I would confide in them to some degree. This doesn’t have to be deeply personal stuff, just stuff I wouldn’t post publicly on Twitter for all the world to see. These are the people I can text or call or instant message or email when I get bad news or awesome news or just need someone to talk to.

It’s come to my attention recently that other people don’t look at it that way. They see all their Twitter followers as friends. I’ll admit I’m tremendously confused by this. I’ve been told in the past that I’m very open on Twitter. That’s true. I figure if people are using Twitter to get to know me, they may as well get to know the real deal. However, I’m just not comfortable with the idea of treating Twitter like a conference call with a group of my girlfriends. There are just some things that don’t get aired publicly.

But the people I know who refer to all their followers as friends don’t do that. Their Twitteraction might be playful, but it isn’t an in-depth look into their life. It’s more like a tiny surface sample of their personality.

So is it me? Am I the one who has a skewed view of friendship? Are all your Twitter followers friends? Or do you differentiate between those you share more with and those who just get the “surface you” (however deep that surface goes)?

But hey, Nathan Fillion, if we’re friends, let’s get together for drinks when I’m in LA this April…

Acceptance: Just a Man

2011-01-20T19:35:00.000-05:00

This week marks the last in my series on grief. The timing on this is perfect for me, and oddly enough, the character I chose (weeks ago) for this installment is one whose general attitude about life is one I aspire to. She’s Ever, the heroine of my upcoming steampunk/alt-history romance novella Badlands.

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Acceptance: Just a Man

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Ever paced the length of her mother’s rooms, a faint cloud of dust from her clothes following in her wake. Her eyes flicked to the window, judging the length of the shadows outside, and she clenched her jaw. She had work to do. Whatever this was about, it had better be important.

At last, her mother swept into the room in a swirl of sheer skirts, her face a stoic mask. “Everette, your clothes. Could you not--"

“I was on duty, Mother.”

A sigh shuddered from her mother’s mouth and she laid her palms on her dresser and leaned against it. “Close the door, please.”

Ever sucked in a deep breath to hold back the irritated retort threatening to escape her lips as she strode over and sealed the room. “All right, Mother, what is it that requires such secrecy?”

“Not secrecy, dear,” she said, her voice tired and quiet. “Privacy.” She squared her shoulders and crossed the room to take Ever’s hands.

Ever stared at their entwined fingers, hers rough and callused from years hunting on the borders, her mothers soft…beautiful.

“It’s about your father.”

Jerking her hands back, Ever narrowed her eyes as rage bubbled up inside her. “He’s back?”

“Do not make that face. Your father is…was a good man.” Her mother raised a trembling hand to brush Ever’s long waves back from her face. “He’s dead.”

“Tell me what information we have on his murderer.” She strode toward the door. This at least made sense. She hunted criminals every day. One more would be no different. “I’ll get one of my squads on it immediately.”

Gentle pressure on her shoulder stopped her before she opened the heavy door. “Child, he was not murdered. His horse threw him. He hit his head on a rock and…” The words were strangled by a sob.

Ever shook her head, confused. “And you wish me to…kill the horse?”

Her mother stepped in front of her, blue eyes searching hers. For what, Ever didn’t know. “He died, Everette. I want you to stay with me. To mourn with me.”

“Men die in the Badlands every day, Mother. Many of them by my hand. Why should I mourn this one?”

“He was your father!”

“And still just a man. One I barely knew. He was never part of my life.” Not a complaint, merely a statement of fact. Like other men not residing within the confines of prison cells, her father had worked in the fields or the mines, or…somewhere. Ever didn’t care. She hadn’t wanted anything from him since he left.

Her mother’s hand caressed her cheek. “But he is part of you. Isn’t that reason enough to mourn his passing?”

Pain rose in Ever’s skull as she frowned and stepped toward the door. “You may do what you wish with his memory, Mother, but I am still here and whole. I have lost nothing with his passing.” Wood scraped on wood, protesting as she yanked the door open. “I have work to do.”

As she rode her horse over the rough, desert terrain, Ever’s mind drifted back to her childhood.

She was playing with a pair of wooden horses when a shadow darkened the doorway and drew her gaze. “Papa!

Her father opened his arms wide, and Ever raced to him, throwing herself against his broad chest. His arms wrapped around her, warm and strong as he kissed her hair. “I cannot stay anymore, child.”

Ever’s face scrunched. “What do you mean?”

His voice whispered like a breeze through her hair. “I told you one day I would have to leave, that I couldn’t stay with you and your mother forever. It is not the way things are done.”

Balling her hands into fists, Ever shoved against him. “No”

“I am sorry, Ever. I didn’t want to go without saying goodbye.” He leaned down to kiss her again.

“No!” She raced back into the room, certain if she didn’t say goodbye, he wouldn’t leave.

Sadness darkened his face as he backed out of the doorway.

Ever tried to shake off the memory, but her head began to throb. She pressed the heel of one hand against it; she needed her wits about her. One of the criminals sent across the border had been terrorizing a group of settlements. Her troops had been searching for him for two days, and he was far more likely to kill her than surrender. At last, a familiar shape caught her attention and she swung from the horse, urging it toward the others with a swat on its hindquarters.

The curvy brunette she had spotted stepped from between the boulders and strode forward. “Commander.”

Ever nodded at Catherine, her second-in-command. “Has he been captured?”

Catherine shook her head, tendrils of hair catching in the desert breeze. “No, but we are closing in on him. The women should have him flushed out of hiding by nightfall.”

“Good. We have wasted too much time on this one already.”

Before the last word had left her mouth, Ever caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Bulk, moving fast, with something raised overhead. Without thought, she pulled her pistol, whipped around and fired.

The man’s eyes were wide as the axe tumbled from his fingers and he fell backward, blood pouring from the hole in his face.

Ever crossed the ground between them and kicked at the fallen man’s body. “This is him?”

From the other side of the dead man, Catherine said, “He matches the description. I will fetch someone to confirm.” With that, the brunette was lost in a swirl of dust.

Her head throbbing, Ever examined the man. Perhaps fifty, with hair graying at the temples, tall, muscular build—much like her father would have had by now. He stared back at her with pale green eyes that mocked her darker ones.

Hands pressed to her temples, she backed away as something wet formed a path down her cheek. She glanced at the bright, clear sky, blinking against the sunshine.

Another wet trail blazed down her skin and she wiped the teardrop away, staring as it evaporated in the heat. The pain in her skull abated slightly as another tear fell. She glanced at the body lying in front of her, seeing not a criminal…just a man.

She squared her shoulders, the ache in her head abating. “Goodbye, Father.”

Then she turned to await Catherine’s return. Her heart at peace.

Book Sex Versus Real Sex

2011-01-07T19:22:00.000-05:00

Advance warning that I'm going to talk about sex in this post. Should have been evident by the title, but in case you didn't get it...there will be sex. And at points there may be TMI involved. Feel free to read this paragraph, cover your eyes and go running for the hills (ie hit your back button or close the window or whatever). I promise not to be offended.

If you stick around, I hope you won't be offended.

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Good, now that we've got that cleared up we can get down to business. Here's the thing. I've decided I need to write a contemporary romantic comedy.

I can see some of my friends staring at the screen and blinking really slowly before they scroll up to make sure they're at the right place. Yeah, it's still me, and I know both contemporary and rom com are totally outside my comfort zone for writing. Hear me out though. The sex I write in my spec fic? It isn't real. I'm not sure I've ever had sex like that. You know, the kind that goes perfectly right. No awkward embraces, every touch sets something on fire (and not in a bad way), everyone has a rock-my-world orgasm.

Yeah. Not that those things don't happen, but I can't say I've ever had them all happen at the same time. Where everything was perfect.

Real sex just isn't like that. Real sex involves things like leg cramps and dryness and too much saliva and one person being done way before the other one. Occasionally, real sex even involves accidentally kicking your partner in the head*, leaving you both laughing so much it's hard to get back to what you were trying to do in the first place. Real, honest to goodness sex is often funny. Someone tries to say something sexy and it comes out sounding ridiculous, or worse, they belch in the middle of it.

But that doesn't make for a sexy love scene.

So I've decided, just once, I want to write a story about real people and real sex.

You know...just to see if I can.

The real question is this: would you read it?

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*No spouses were harmed in the making of this blog post**

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**At least not permanently.

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Addendum at the request of my husband: Just to clarify, I have actually had wonderful, mind-blowing sex. In fact, I was having some recently...until my mother-in-law knocked on the door. Yep. That's real sex.

Anger: Over You

2011-01-06T12:05:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I'm back to my series on the stages of grief. This one passed with one of my awesome OWG Rebel friends, so I figured I should post it before I started second-guessing myself. Unlike the rest of the pieces, this one comes from a character in the YA urban fantasy novel (Pretty Souls) I have coming out soon under my other name. This story actually takes place right around the beginning of what would be book 4 in that series (and might even end up included in the manuscript when I get that far). I had to be really careful not to include stuff that would be spoilery for the novel. I hope you enjoy this taste of Elle, my favorite teenage werewolf :)

Anger: Over You

I clicked the phone off and threw it on my bed hard enough it bounced twice before landing.

“Still no answer?” my foster sister Cass asked from the desk as she poked at keys on the laptop.

“No. He isn’t picking up. Isn’t responding to texts. It’s been two weeks.” I stalked across the room, wanting to throw something else.

Cass lobbed a stuffed rabbit at me, and I snatched it out of the air. “I get that you miss him, Elle, but he warned you he’d be off the grid for a while.”

I wanted to rip the damn bunny’s ears off. Instead I chucked it at the wall with all my strength. It hit our striped wallpaper with an unsatisfying thump and slid to the floor, still grinning. Mocking me. “He’s been gone for almost two months, Cass. Two months! All that time I got vague phone calls and texts that said nothing. He’s fine. He’ll be back soon. Of course he misses me. Maybe it’d be different if we’d been in a great spot when he left, but he wasn’t exactly all here then either.”

“Stop it.” She shoved the chair back, legs rubbing against the carpet, like nails on a chalkboard to my werewolf hearing. The next thing I knew, five-foot-nothing of platinum blonde cheerleader was right in my face. “He’s loves you. He just needs time to deal with—”

Still wanting to lash out, I balled my hands into fists to keep from shoving her out of my way. “I gave him time, Cass. I gave him three months. And then he left. He walked out.”

She laughed and her lips twisted into a sneer. “His grandmother was dying. Of course he left. You need to stop this. You’re being stupid. He loves you.” Like it would do any good, she reached out and ran her hand up and down my arm.

My voice came out tight and quiet. “Then why doesn’t he say it?”

“What?”

I bit my lip, trying to keep from crying. I didn’t want to cry over him anymore. I was done with that. “In all this time he’s been gone, not once, Cass. Not in a call, or a text, or an email. Hugs and kisses maybe. If I’m lucky. But love? I think he stopped loving me a long time ago. I’ve just been too blind to see it and holding onto him anyway.”

Cass dropped her hand and took a step back, tipping her head up like she needed to see me clearer. “Elle, what did you do?”

As I stared at the phone on my bed, all I could think was that people who said breaking up long-distance was easy were full of shit. Unless they’d never cared at all. Then maybe it wouldn’t hurt. “I decided to see again.”

Her fingers brushed my arm as I turned and headed out the door of our bedroom, but she didn’t try to stop me.

The beast inside me howled a mournful song as she guided me out of our neighborhood. I didn’t fight her; I was still too hurt to see straight. All this time I’d believed in him, believed in us. That we were strong enough to move past the stupid roadblock thrown our way. But he didn’t want to. He’d made that abundantly clear by taking off. For all I knew, he’d already moved on to someone else out west and was just waiting to come back and break it to me. Maybe making plans to go to college out there. I squeezed my eyes shut against the image of his face and crooked smile.

When I opened them, I found the beast had led me to the park. With a sigh, I sat down on one of the swings. The chains creaked overhead, the sound an angry screeching in the calm spring air.

“Need a push?”

I almost jumped at the voice behind me. Neither the beast nor I had heard him approach, but the guy I’d seen pounding up the court during basketball season stood right there, all sandy brown hair and green eyes. Cass had introduced us once, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name. Kane. Lane…

“Hello? Earth to Elle. We met after regionals? I’m Zane.”

That was it. “Hi, Zane. Sorry, you just spooked me.” I twisted the swing around to see him better, tugging long strands of hair from my face. Like me, he wore only a t-shirt and jeans, even though it was definitely chilly enough for a jacket, his muscles long and lean as they held the chains over my head. For some reason that made me shiver.

He smiled and it lit up his face. “Don’t get spooked often, do you?”

A laugh bubbled up inside me. “No, I don’t.” Then the wind shifted, and his scent hit the beast and me full force. My nostrils flared and eyes went wide as I met his unblinking gaze.

Rosemary. Grass. Trees. Dirt.

Werewolf.

He leaned down, his face hovering an inch away from mine. “Got you again.”

And he had too. I was frozen under the weight of his twinkling eyes and the headiness of his scent.

I gave my now ex-boyfriend a fleeting thought but clenched my jaw tight against it. If he was moving on, then damn it so could I. Screw him. And screw the tears the tried to spring up in my eyes.

With the beast already straining toward his scent, I closed the distance separating me from Zane.

Worse Than Death

2010-12-30T19:28:00.000-05:00

My attempts at the next part of my series were...not working, so I decided to step away and do something different. Thanks to @Fictdoodles for the prompt! (Oddly enough, this is going to prove useful in my other writing too :) )

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Worse Than Death

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After digging out the last shard of glass from my heel, I stalked through the kitchen and into the living room. Bloody footprints trailing behind me like morbid breadcrumbs. More blood dripped onto the off-white carpet from the knife in my hand.

The stains didn’t matter. Odds were no one was in the house to care—most houses were empty now. The only ones interested in the blood were those who followed me. Fresh blood drew them like flies to honey.

If I’d had shoes left, I could have gone farther without drawing them in. Too bad my last altercation had forced me to choose between my shoes and my life. I’d kicked the sneakers off without a second thought. Anymore, pieces of glass outnumbered blades of grass, even in suburbia—my feet never stood a chance.

Time was something I couldn’t afford to waste, and I prayed luck had brought me to a house with bandages, shoes near my size, and bullets. Bullets would be good. The gun tucked into my jeans didn’t weigh nearly enough for my taste. Filling the clip or finding a new weapon tied in importance with my need for something to cover my bloody feet.

The first door in the hall opened to a bathroom. The peach towels and bright yellow tile screamed of happy times. Times too far in the past to remember without pain.

Then a flash of joy so profound I wanted to kiss someone hit when I found salve and gauze wrap in the medicine cabinet. My feet were covered as quick as I could manage. The bindings weren’t pretty, but they’d hold for a while. I tucked the rest of the salve into my pocket.

A low moaning met my ears through the window I’d cracked open. It might have just been the wind, but as fortunate as I’d been with the bandages, I knew my luck wasn’t that good. There’d been too much blood.

“Move. Find the shoes.” I stood, wincing—the pain somehow more intense now that the blood wasn’t an immediate issue.

I poked my head out of the bathroom, looking both ways and sniffing. Nothing yet. Maybe I had enough time to get out of here. Hell, maybe there was a car in the garage with gas left. No. I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of that much hope.

The next door opened to an office…with a gun safe. I staggered to it and jerked on the handle. It swung open, not latched the last time someone went into it. Too many times, I found them like that. As well as how I found this one inside—empty. Grabbing the guns as a last hope, and maybe never even having the chance to fire them before…

I shook my head hard. There were no guns or ammo. Time to move on.

Opening the third door in my search for shoes, I found something else. The missing shotgun—pointed right at me.

“What are you doing here?” The old man’s voice was steady and strong…and human.

“Oh shit. I didn’t know anyone was here. You have to get out. They’re coming—“

“Get out of my house! I won’t let you lead them to me!” Fire and fever blazed in his eyes and his hands shook, sickness and panic making him jumpy.

He needed my help even more than I needed his. When they came, he wouldn’t stand a chance. “We need to go…” I reached for the gun, and he jerked back, pulling the trigger.

My ears rang with echoes of the gunshot as I stumbled, hand pressed to the hole in my stomach. Blood gushed from the wound with other, more solid pieces of me as I fell. The stench of rotting flesh hit me as I lay in the doorway. Liquid burbled up in my throat as I tried to tell the man to shut the door and hide, but no sound came out.

Eyes wide and clear for a moment, he knelt next to me, his ear close to my face. “What’d you say?”

And then it was too late. The zombies didn’t run, but they didn’t shamble either. The man must have finally smelled them because he tried to move, but with my body in the doorway, they were on him before he even raised the shotgun again.

The screams couldn’t drown out the growls and squelching of their teeth rending his flesh. Then one of them turned and noticed me lying there. Its one remaining eye locked on me, and I knew they wouldn’t pass me over as dead. Like the old man, I’d feel them eating me.

As the zombie stood, I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. With blood filling my mouth, I raised the knife, and slid the blade across my throat.

Bargaining: Devil's Bargain

2010-12-16T16:46:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to my #FridayFlash posts and thanks for coming.

If you're new to my stuff or you didn't remember, I'm doing a series for five weeks showing the five stages of grief, each one from the perspective of a different character.

The third stage is bargaining. Only two characters came immediately to mind for this stage. Both characters come from my Blood Kissed series (Of Course I Try, The Ghost of Vampire Present, and future tales), but one of their stories would have greatly spoiled the end game of the series, so the decision was easy. We're sharing another visit with Max, but for this one, we're traveling back in time about a hundred years.

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*****

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There are certain things they don’t tell you about the military when you sign up. For instance, when you’re in battle, you follow your commanding officer’s orders, even if he’s sending you to your death.

The hardest part about that is simply the knowing.

The machine gun fire ripping through your body follows as a close second.

Lying in a pile of corpses praying for death to take you isn’t too far behind either.

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When darkness fell the first night and I still had some strength left, I tried to drag myself back toward the allied lines. My staunch refusal to accept that I was dying lasted until I passed out from the pain, blood filling my mouth from how hard I bit my tongue to keep from screaming.

I woke the next day to more gunfire. Always more.

Only now I’d ground dirt through my shredded uniform and into the wounds that oozed a constant stream of blood. Had I pulled myself into the damnable Somme, at least the blood would’ve run clean again. And I probably would have drowned rather than lying there, waiting for infection or blood loss to take me.

Soon, the smoke and dirt and blood blurred in my sight and images of Lily took over. My wife—standing in the kitchen over a sink full of soap bubbles, sunlight glinting her blond hair as she sloshed water all over her apron and burst into laughter.

That was the moment I realized I couldn’t die. I had to get back to her. Back to the life I’d promised when we’d said “I do.”

As the sounds of fighting quieted a bit and darkness descended again, I began whispering prayers. “God, just let me get home to Lily—let me tell her I love her one more time—and I promise to be a better man. Just let me live.” I didn’t know how long I lay there saying the same things over and over, begging for another chance at life.

Then a lightly accented voice came from right next to me where only the dead had been a moment before. “Will you really do anything to go on living?”

I opened my eyes to a night lit by the glow of the moon and the flash of gunfire. There wasn’t much to see on the ground besides shadows, but a man with long hair completely at odds with current fashion knelt beside me, utterly calm in the madness of the battlefield. “Are you an angel?”

He shifted, and I swore I could hear him smile. “Something like that. What is your name, soldier?”

“Shaw. Sergeant Maxmillian Shaw.”

“A pleasure, and you may call me Remus.” He settled on the ground next to me. “So would you truly do anything to live again? Because I must tell you, you have about five excruciating hours left otherwise.”

I didn’t bother to ponder how he’d come up with the number. “Yes! I want to go home to my wife,” I cried, my voice so weak I didn’t think he could possibly have heard me.

“It is somewhat complicated. I can save you, but you’ll have to spend some time with me before I can send you home.” He leaned closer, the soft blackness of his hair tickling my neck.

“As long as I can see her again. Make her happy.”

Remus laughed and the sound danced in the night like fireflies. “I’m afraid it won’t be quite as simple as you want. You’ll get back to her, but you will never have the life you lived before again. You will have to hide things from her, from everyone you know. Everything will change. Are you certain it’s a sacrifice you can make?”

An icy chill started to seep into my veins, burning its way through my body, and shivers wracked my frame, making every pain flare to life again. And I said what he demanded, even though I knew I’d never lie to her. “I love Lily. Of course, I’ll sacrifice whatever I have to for her.”

“I’ll say this much for you Americans, you have strange ideas about what love means. But so be it—I will save your life.” Fire lit the sky as he threw his head back. And though he may have had the face of an angel—long black hair framing sparkling, intelligent blue eyes—I found myself staring down a demon. His fangs flashed in the light, and before I could say anything, he was on me.

His teeth pierced my flesh, and for a moment new pain blossomed there, and I felt certain it had all been a trick. Some test to get into heaven that I was sure I’d failed. Then, even as I felt my heart slowing, a rich fluid filled my mouth, salty, but sweeter than anything I’d ever tasted. The moment it hit my tongue, the darkness of death retreated, leaving only hunger behind. I latched onto the thing pressed against my lips and drank and drank.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, but with every swallow, the pain lessened, and my strength returned. When at last I opened my eyes once more, I found myself not on the battlefield, but in a cave, the sun casting a circle of light near the entrance. He’d done what he promised—I was whole again. Pushing to my feet, I reached toward the light. Before the glow even touched my skin, the flesh on my fingers erupted in flames. I yanked my hand back, batting the fire away.

“Lesson number one—“ the melodic voice said from behind me, “—daylight is no longer your friend.”

Turning, I found the demon, Remus, in the recesses of the cave. His fangs gone, but the gleam in his eyes the same as I’d seen as I lay dying. And in that moment, I knew I had indeed failed the test, because I’d wakened in hell.

Holiday Story Time!!!!!

2010-12-16T03:42:00.000-05:00

Okay, so my vlogging debut is live. Eep!

If you've been playing along, you know the deal, but just in case...

In each of the videos, the Decadent Publishing logo will be visible somewhere. If you find it, email the author and tell them where it is to be put in the drawing for a free digital copy of their story (for example, me: selestedelaney@gmail.com). Also, Book Matrix Media (who did my author photos, which I love) and Tilvee have donated prizes too! Those logos are each only in one video. If you find either (or both) of those logos, email pjschnyder@gmail.com and let her know where they are to be entered for those prizes!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video! Click here--> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMFA6sB7MBk

This Week's Schedule...

2010-12-12T13:50:00.000-05:00

Today (Sunday): I have a post up at 30 Days of Decadence about some of my favorite off-beat holiday things. Come check it out, I'm giving away a copy of The Ghost of Vampire Present and something special for one Max fan.

Monday: Day off unless something changes (woohoo!) However, Holiday Story Time starts today at Robert's place.

Tuesday: Interview at the blog of the wonderful and funny Deanna Wadsworth(POSTPONED UNTIL NEXT WEEK!). We'll be drinking and laughing and having a good old time. Join us! AND Deanna is also doing her Holiday Story Time today!

Wednesday: I'm going to be at the Harlequin author post-party chat. I'll be popping on periodically from midnight until 10 pm so stop in and say hi :) Also today, PJ is up for Holiday Story Time!

Thursday: It's my day up for Holiday Story Time! There'll be a video of me reading an excerpt from The Ghost of Vampire Present and giving away a copy to one lucky commenter!

Friday: I'm at the Daily Dose of Decadence with ten interesting things about the Blood Kissed series. Also posting my next Friday flash in here (psstt..... it's a Max story, don't miss it!) And, Clarissa is up for the last of the Holiday Story Time videos.

Saturday: I'm on video again and babbling about the holidays over at 13 Wicked Days of Christmas. (Have I mentioned I hate being on camera? I'll probably hide under a rock again until next year LOL.) Another giveaway here of digital copy of either The Ghost of Vampire Present or 'Twas a Dark and Delicious Christmas.

Huge and busy week. I hope you are all willing to stick with me and check out all the posts and giveaways! I promise to tone it down for the rest of December ;-)

The Good, the Bad and the Sickie

2010-12-11T08:22:00.000-05:00

No real post this week, sorry. Things have just been crazy. If you noticed, there was no Friday Flash, no Tuesday Teases...nothing. Yeah...

Anyway, the long and short of it is I've been sick for about a month now, still fighting this cough, intermittent fever, and other stuff, and it all finally caved in on me this week. I managed to get a couple video blogs done that'll go up before the holidays without any choking fits (WIN!), but other than that and a couple promo things, this week was a wash on me and the blogosphere. Hope you'll forgive me, but odds are I'm just going to use Tuesday Teases to point you to the other places I'm going to be during the week for the rest of December. With the holidays and stuff, I figure that's more than enough keeping up with me for people to do. I'm going to try to get back on the Friday Flash bandwagon next week though so keep an eye out for those on Thursday or Friday.

There is actually a lot of good news though. As I mentioned last week, 'Twas a Dark and Delicious Christmas is out AND it is also available in print. And just a couple days ago, The Ghost of Vampire Present came out. Both have gotten reviews already--YAY!

In other Blood Kissed news. I've received the last of the feedback from my alpha reader, so I have what I need to get started on the first round of revisions. The bad news? Until at least a little more of the sickies leave my brain, I'm not sure about tackling them yet. Don't know how long I want to leave them sitting though either. Anyway, it's one step closer to being done, which is a good thing.

So...that should update you on what's going on here. Now I'm off armed with many cough drops to see a movie with my kids.

17 Weeks to RT!

2010-12-03T23:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay, I know 17 weeks is kind of a long time, but with everything coming up, I have to start wrapping my head around this stuff in advance. You see, last year when I went to RT it was just for the con experience and pitching opportunities...and I still wasn't prepared.

This year? Now I'm a published author and I need to look at the convention in terms of promo as well as fun and opportunity. I'm slowly gathering some promo items to take with me, but I need more. The thing about promo is everyone's doing it, so I want my stuff to stand out. This is proving more difficult than anticipated since I also need to factor in cost and weight since I'll have to take it all on the plane with me or ship it in advance. So, with that in mind, I'm actually running out of time depending on what I go with.

But I also still need to prepare for pitches, and that means finishing novels not intended for my current publishers. This is harder than it sounds because in my mind I should be on the next Badlands story and doing something else for Evernight and plotting the next Blood Kissed, and that doesn't even take into account my young adult stuff. It's more than a little mind boggling. But I'm hoping to have stuff finished, polished and ready to pitch (especially since I have the experience from last year under my belt).

It's looking like I might be part of a panel this year too, which is huge. It also involves another set of stuff to prep. I'm incredibly geeked about it, so I hope like hell it pans out.

Then there's the fun and games portion of things. Hello? Outfits! Faery Ball, Vampire Ball... I love the madness. I'm on the lookout for bits and pieces to my costumes (still hunting for the perfect corset for the Vampire Ball).

Soooooo much to do and think about, and that's not even taking into account the little things like remembering to bring a power strip so my roommate, PJ Schnyder, and I can both get ready for events at the same time.

Basically what this post boils down to is a heads-up if you plan to attend an event like this. Yes, you can prep for it really quick if you need to, but I recommend putting some thought into things beforehand if you can. Now though? I need to get back to my novel-writing :)

Depression: What Have I Done?

2010-12-02T18:24:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to my #FridayFlash posts and thanks for coming.

If you're new to my stuff or you didn't remember, I'm doing a series for five weeks showing the five stages of grief, each one from the perspective of a different character.

The second stage is depression. This was one that I battled choosing a character for because so many of them could fit this at different times. In the end, I decided to go with the best known one: Jocelyn. This takes place immediately after the events in Of Course I Try (available from Decadent Publishing and other online retailers). If you're looking for backstory but don't want to buy, the final scene of OCIT was re-done from Max's point of view in The Cost of Love (my first #FridayFlash) on Danielle LaPaglia's blog

Depression: What Have I Done?

I make it out the door and to my car before the shakes hit me. The keys tumble from my grasp as I try to put them in the ignition, clinking against the steering column before they fall onto the floorboards. Denial takes a breath and screams, “He’s not really dead!” But I know better—I felt his body disintegrate beneath my hands. I don’t get the luxury of pretending.

My eyes turn toward his house—a place that had been my refuge for when the rest of the world became too much. More than the house though, he’d been my savior, my protector, my everything.

“Oh God, what have I done?”

The only bad thing Max had ever really done was hide the truth. He lied. And I hadn’t even given him a chance to explain himself.

The pain and horror choke me, sucking the life from my body more thoroughly than Max ever did. I claw at the door handle, wanting to go back inside, absurdly thinking I can take it back somehow. My body sags against the door, the glass cool on my cheek as I realize I have no right to go back in his home. I’ve betrayed everything it stood for.

I am alone…and it’s my fault.

A sob catches in my throat, I’m too weak to even cry. Light and color are leeched from the world with every breath, bathing me in darkness and despair. I stare at the house, willing it to come back to life, but knowing in my heart it can’t happen. I killed the only man I’ve ever loved, took the very life that gave everything in my life meaning.
With him gone, I want to die too.

Daylight comes and darkness falls, and still I sit and wait. Death is too good for me now.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up

2010-11-30T13:52:00.000-05:00

So another NaNo has come and (almost) gone. If you are still working, get to it! *cracks whip* If you're done, congratulations. Honestly though, congrats to everyone who took on the challenge. Even if you didn't "win", I hope you still ended up with words. I "won" a couple days ago and I'm now trying to put the finishing touches on the draft since my editor really seems like she wants it...yesterday.

Here's the thing though. I'm not sending it to her yet.

The only person who has seen more than little snippets of this piece (those are available on the Blood Kissed Facebook page--I'd love it if you liked me there) is my incredibly awesome alpha-reader, Katee. She's been one of my betas since my second novel, and she gets me like no one else. This time she stepped up to the plate and has been reading Kiss of Death in it's most raw form so that once I'm done with the draft, I can revise with a plan in mind. Which means I can get it to the crazy people who are willing to speed-beta for me hopefully by the weekend. And then I can revise again next week and get it to my publisher.

Some of you are probably shaking your heads and saying, "OMG, is she nuts?" To which I answer, "Yes. Yes, I am." I wouldn't normally work like this. My usual course of action is to finish the draft, let it sit for a couple weeks, revise, then if I'm okay with it, send it to betas. As often as not though, I still don't think it's ready for them and I'll let it sit longer and revise again before sending to them. Then, with their feedback in hand, I revise again (maybe more than once). So normally, after the rough is done, it's a minimum of a month before I send it out to agents/editors. Did I mention minimum?

So while I am demonstrating that the usual way doesn't always work (crazy deadlines), my methods are still similar. I'm still doing revise, beta, revise before I send it out, because I don't want people in charge to see something that isn't the best I can make it (in the time allowed).

And you shouldn't either. I know I have readers here who aren't published yet. I know a zillion people did NaNo this year. And what I want to tell you is your stuff is not ready to send. The big-time authors I know who do NaNo don't send their NaNo drafts to their agents/editors, and none of us should either. Every manuscript needs some sort of real critique before it gets sent out, and every manuscript needs revision (beyond spell-check, though that's important too).

Every year agents complain about the amount of unpolished NaNo work they get every December/January. Don't be part of the problem. Revise it until it's shiny. Do your homework on agents and how to query. Do everything you can to make it as perfect as possible.

And for heavens sake, don't follow my example this year. Remember: I'm nuts.

Worth the Wait

2010-11-26T23:59:00.000-05:00

About a week ago I got my paperwork from Carina Press with my official blurb and stuff. It listed my cover artist as Frauke Spanuth. Since I still didn't have my cover, I had to go hunt up some of her work. Turned out she had designed some of my favorite Carina covers. The ones that I looked at and just said "Wow."

Since that email, I've kept clicking to my inbox, hoping for my cover art to arrive. Wednesday night while I was out to dinner, it did. Can I just say it was worth the wait? She captured the stark feel of the landscape and Ever's calm demeanor perfectly. I know there will be some people who have issues with the lipstick, but I love the way it draws attention to her face. More subtle aspects, like the way her hair fades into the sky almost looking like wispy clouds and the way the Dark Hawk almost glows in the sunlight are just gorgeous. I hope you like it just as much as I do :)

[caption id="attachment_478" align="aligncenter" width="518" caption="Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited "][/caption]

Denial: Sea Born

2010-11-25T18:24:00.000-05:00

When trying to decide whether to continue with #FridayFlash, I realized I wouldn't stick with it without a plan. Last week's character study gave me an idea though, and I've decided to take a page from my friend, Danielle's, book and do a series for five weeks showing the five stages of grief, each one from the perspective of a different character.

The first stage is denial, and who better to show this than the woman whose dream she gave up her life for was torn away by the very home she left. With that I give you the scene that precipitated my mermaid novel-in-progress, Surrender to the Tides.

Sea Born

From a chair ten feet past the high tide line, Liera watched as waves licked the shore. The salty tang on the breeze brought back memories of seashells and coral reefs and she smiled, wishing she could frolic in the water with Joshua and the kids. Andrew dunked his sister, and Alicia sprang up, water spraying in a cascade as she flipped her long auburn hair. They were glistening, beautiful, like they belonged to the sea. Liera’s lips curled into a smile at the thought.

“Liera!”

She turned toward the voice, catching sight of a round little woman waddling up the beach, her salt and pepper hair sprayed so heavily the breeze didn’t touch it. “Sonya, hello.” Brushing herself off, Liera embraced her. “Looks like your arthritis is doing better today.”

Sonya shrugged from her arms. “Better than most. Why are you on the sand again? You should be in the water with your children. They won’t be young forever.”

As much as Liera agreed with her, joining them in the ocean was impossible. “The sea frightens me too much. I don’t want them to live in the shadows of my fear, so I stay here while they have their fun.”

Shielding her eyes from the glare, Sonya frowned. “But you trust them out there? Even though you’re afraid?”

“Joshua’s with them. I know he won’t let—”

“Andrew, no!”

The scream turned Liera’s blood to ice. Her head twisted in slow motion as if her spine had frozen in place. She saw them just as the water covered her son’s head and Joshua dove under after him. Alicia was nowhere to be seen. Hand clutching at her heart, Liera staggered toward the surf as a young man--a lifeguard--threw himself into the water.

Liera’s toes crossed the high tide line and curled against the sensation while a battle raged in her head.

It isn’t safe here.

I have to go.

Someone else will save them.

They’re my family.

Not if you go in the water.

The warning didn’t matter. Liera was halfway down the beach before hands grabbed her, hauling her away from ocean that had come an inch from licking her toes. A horrible keening rent the air, like the song of the sirens if heard true. Through her thrashing, Liera vaguely realized it came from her throat. Her lungs.

She remembered feeling water rush into them when they'd formed, the searing pain and pressure as she tumbled in the waves, searching for the surface.

Her body crumpled as the seconds ticked by, the terror replaced by something quieter, something deadlier.

“No. Not my babies.” She shook her head, staring at the crashing waves. “This can’t happen to them. They were born for the sea.”

But you denied them that birthright when you became human, little mermaid. You cost them their gills and flippers.

Liera trembled in Sonya’s arms, trying to banish the inner voice as the old woman rocked her back and forth and slid a hand along her hair.

“No. They aren’t gone. They can’t be gone. They are my children,” She whispered, still staring wide-eyed at the water. “Swim, little mers. Swim for all you’re worth.”

In Liera’s mind, slits formed in her children’s necks, letting the water rush out from their bodies even as scales erupted from their skin, sealing their legs together in long, glorious tails. They weren’t dead. Couldn’t be.

She sighed as certainty took hold. It was simple then. If Joshua couldn’t be saved, she’d return to the sea and find her children. Reject the very wish that had brought them to her and go back from whence she came. A tear caressed her cheek as she thought of Joshua and the years they’d shared. Not nearly enough, but he’d given her the life she’d dreamed of and two beautiful children who even now waited for her in the sea’s depths.

Soon, she would join them. No one would question her disappearance. They’d be a family again and she would introduce Alicia and Andrew to all the wonders of the ocean. They would survive this.

Relaxing in Sonya’s arms, she gazed anew at the water as they head of the young lifeguard broke the surface, seafoam coating his body like glitter. Someone ran into the water toward him, reaching out…

And lifting the limp body of her daughter in his arms.

Her eyes shifted back to the lifeguard, who hauled her son’s still form ashore.

Liera’s screams carried over the surf, touching the ears of the denizens of the sea and making them mourn along with her.

Tuesday Teases: Jenny Schwartz

2010-11-22T15:07:00.000-05:00

I'm really excited for this one. Before I became a Carina author I had the opportunity to review this author's first book, The Price of Freedom. It was a really good read and a great take on angels and djinn. The one downside of signing with Carina is I don't get to review their books anymore, which is killing me because the second in the series, Angel Thief, promises to be even better than the first. Guess I'll just have to read that one for fun. Without any more rambling from me, please welcome the wonderful Jenny Schwartz!

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Hi Seleste! It's lovely to visit and chat about writing and life.

In my mind (which is a weird and wonderful twilight zone) I make a distinction between a writer and an author. A writer writes, an author is published. Yet despite having a couple of books digitally published (and short stories and even poems) I still consider myself a writer, not an author. I'm still learning.

A few years ago, I made the decision to write, which to me meant that instead of occasional attacks of scribbling, I'd commit to finishing things. I couldn't control whether an editor would publish my work, but I could finish, polish and submit it. I was scared, but determined.

I still am, though since then I've learned that:

editors are human, friendly, supportive and funny;

"writing" isn't some elite activity—it includes blog posts and tweets and comments on friends' blogs and reviews;

rejection stings, but it doesn't kill you; and,

there's a wonderful online community of writers and readers and it's fun to join in.

But has being a writer changed me?

Do you know the single biggest, most ridiculous change is that I can now tell a joke—and people laugh. Before I challenged myself to write, I used to mess up jokes. I'd stutter, stuff the pacing and forget the punchline. But with repeated attempts to create my own stories, I learned to recognise and memorise the key points of other people's stories, their jokes. Amazing.

Writing really is a craft. There's no shortcuts. Just practice. Butt-in-chair and write. Read, too. Maybe one day I'll even consider myself an author ;)

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[caption id="attachment_449" align="alignleft" width="291" caption="Copyright ©2010 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited"][/caption]

Angel Thief, releases Nov 29, from Carina Press

http://bit.ly/AngThief

She’s breaking the rules. Again.
An archivist in the heavenly library, Sara must follow protocol when it comes to curating the knowledge of the universe. But "liberating" an ancient text from the collection of a human—an Australian drug lord—could save a boy’s life. Sara has no way of knowing that one of the man’s other treasures is a sexy-as-sin djinni, bound by a wish to guard the estate.

He’s only following orders.

Filip is compelled to turn over intruders, even celestial ones, to his master. When he catches Sara in the library, he isn’t above indulging in some sensual kisses with her, or using her to trick the mobster into wasting a wish. It’s what he must do to preserve his facade of freedom and protect his heart.
But the kidnapping of the drug lord’s daughter forces Sara and Filip to work together—bringing out the hero that lurks within the soul of the djinni, and the passion within the angel.

.

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***

You can find Jenny:

at her website http://www.authorjennyschwartz.com/

blogging http://www.acquiring-magic.blogspot.com/

or on Twitter @Jenny_Schwartz http://twitter.com/jenny_schwartz

Sleepy Saturday...

2010-11-20T06:09:00.000-05:00

It's been a very busy week,what with NaNoWriMo eating my brain and doing edits on The Ghost of Vampire Present. (Did I mention edits are done? Yeah. Madness, but they are done.) So, since I'm not entirely coherent, I'm just going to let you know that I did a post on Blood Kissed over at Daily Dose of Decadence. Please check it out.

Also, I'm going to be doing a kind of crazed blog tour in the first half of December.

On December 1 I'm at Romance Author Hotspot, then I might have some time off (lol, it won't last, so check back for updates)

December 3 'Twas a Dark and Delicious Christmas releases

December 8 We're having a party to celebrate the release of the anthology at the Book Boost. Lots of prizes and fun will be had! (I also have my monthly post at the Para-Posse that day, so make sure you stop by!)

December 12 I'm doing a holiday post at Decadent's holiday blog. Again...prizes!

December 14 The fabulous and funny Deanna Wadsworth is interviewing me over at her blog. We met last year at RT and the two of us always have fun with each other.

December 15 I'm at the eHarlequin Open House, specifically the Carina Press post party. It's an opportunity to meet lots of current and upcoming Carina Press authors, so please pop in sometime during the day

December 16 is the day I will be doing my Holiday Storytime! There will be video of me reading from The Ghost of Vampire Present. For those of you who know me, you are aware getting me on video doesn't happen very often. There are also prizes with this, one every day from Decadent Publishing, and a couple extras from Tilve and Book Matrix Media. Make sure you check out all my friends' vlogs this week too.

December 17 I'll be on the Decadent blog sharing some interesting things about me or Blood Kissed (I haven't decided yet)

December 20 I'm scheduled for an interview with Got Romance

AND I'm planning a short holiday story for one of my characters at Got Romance (date TBD) and an interview with Wicked Little Pixie (date TBD). After all that I might just sleep for a while. In case it isn't clear, all of this means my REGULAR blogging isn't going to happen unless the mood strikes. Hope you'll join me for the blog hop!

All We Knew

2010-11-18T10:41:00.000-05:00

Last week I had the pleasure of doing a #FridayFlash post at Danielle LaPaglia's blog. I enjoyed it so much, I've decided to participate as the mood and ideas strike. But since I'm so focused on my novels right now, I don't want to stray too far from those characters. Therefore, I've decided to use my #FridayFlash time for character studies, delving a little more into their emotions and histories. These will be very inconsistent and only go up when I have the inspiration, but I will always put them up on Thursdays if I have one.

Because I don't want to split my energies (or confuse my new #FridayFlash friends), I'm not separating the YA from the adult stuff. It'll all go here. This week I'm focusing on Elle, one of my teen characters. This would be between books one and two of the series (maybe later, but for now, I'd say there).

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All We Knew

The air hits my back, pushing against me unevenly and I tumble. My lungs burn as I struggle to breathe. There is nothing around me but the darkness, I only know down because I feel the pressure as I fall. My heart thuds in my chest, terror taking hold.

I reach out, grasping for something—anything—to slow my descent. Hopeful fingers brush against flesh that is not mine, and I latch onto you. Without warning, you pull me in and wrap me in your warm embrace, sheltering me from the biting air. With you there is light. Looking into your eyes, I see friendship…love…hope…

In your arms, the fear evaporates; here I am strong. Everything else disappears into the darkness, leaving only us and the falling. Your touch draws out pieces of me better kept hidden, but in your light they are beautiful.

Then the darkness grabs hold of you, wrenching you from my grasp. I scream your name as you fade into the black.

My arms are empty and the air buffets my body once more, all pretense of safety gone.

.

All we knew was falling.

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And now I fall alone.

Tuesday Teases: Leslie Soule

2010-11-16T02:31:00.000-05:00

We have a very special guest this week. Fellow Decadent Publishing author Leslie Soule is here, but she isn't here to talk about her own upcoming novel, Fallenwood. Instead, she's dedicating this day and much of her time to promoting another work, one that touched her life greatly. I hope you'll join her on this journey into The Temple of the Heart.

A Simple, Sacred Life

I wanted to write about my stepfather's novel The Temple of the Heart, but I didn't know where to begin. So I decided that the best route would be to take on something huge, something we all have to deal with, like the meaning of life. What is all this for? There are many answers out there. Everyone must find their own. I can only say what life means to me. To me, it is a sacred personal spiritual journey. I did not always think so.

The universe must know that I enjoy theatrical drama, because it sent me an epiphany in a most dramatic fashion. I was walking down a street in San Francisco, fooling myself into false contentment with a lifestyle that was ultimately unfulfilling. The sky was cloudy. I had arrived before daybreak and found myself walking down a steep hill. All of a sudden, the sun came up over the clouds and struck me with the force of the divine. It was the sort of thing I thought only happened in novel or movies - or maybe to the really fortunate. It was the first and only epiphany I have ever had in my life.

I have come to realize that the media, and society in general, teaches us some very harmful philosophies. Fashion magazines and television ads show young women in their formative years that they are not good enough. We are taught to measure success by wealth in America, and we neglect our souls, caught up in the struggle as capitalism leeches our humanity. Last night I was in the martial arts studio, reflecting on the psychological challenges of begin a female martial artist, of wondering how people will see me (overly agressive? weird?) because I too have been programmed over the years in ways that I struggle to comprehend. My reawakening of spirit has seemed a long time coming.

Without my stepfather's spiritual guidance from the age of nineteen on, my young adult years were subject to the unholy influences of a very misguided world. Grief made things immeasurably harder as I struggled for identity and inner peace. My kind stepfather was Richard Albert Anderson, a man of many talents. He was - at various times throughout his life - a Navy man, an art teacher, a state worker, and a Buddhist monk. But beyond his personal background, he was a shining, noble soul - one of those brilliant shooting stars that blazed across the sky and faded all too soon.

He wrote The Temple of the Heart, a semi-autobiographical tale about leaving the monastery to pursue life in all its richness and glory. In dealing with this crazy world, reading it reminds me of my spirit, of the strength of noble compassion and trying your best. Reading his work reminds me not to neglect my soul.

My stepfather's manuscript is now available from Decadent Publishing, with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the American Diabetes Association.

Excerpt:

When Joseph Banquo saw that girl come through the gate, it was the end of his life in the monastery.

He had seen her years before in a more innocent time and silently had cast his furtive glance. Now she appeared again. Dressed in a sky-blue sari, she stood by the water on a trellised landing, absorbed in her thoughts. Joseph found himself absorbed in her. Smiling coquettishly, she turned to walk away upon catching his stare and it seemed as if Divine Mother Beauty herself had taken human form. If only he could talk to her, but he was too shy, too hung-up with austerity and discipline, rules and monkish restraint.

What delusion is this? It was a burning desire but seemed so much more, and he wouldn’t admit the power of the physical over the spiritual.

She was forbidden, woman oh woman, but he had begun to notice the female form once more, to not turn his eyes away, to see the languid curve of the supple spine. And the outrush of thoughts after two youthful celibate years had caused him to lose his edge—the wisdom and discrimination that protects the monk. In making progress, in overcoming his strong sexuality, he had relaxed, thinking he had won and that was the end because he found that he no longer had the desire to fight.

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Clicking and Cover Art

2010-11-13T01:37:00.000-05:00

First, I got the cover art for the Evernight Publishing holiday anthology. It's so pretty....

Okay, now that I've teased you with something that won't be out until December 3, I have a new story available free...right now. As you know, Danielle LaPaglia shared her flash fiction with us on Tuesday (if you haven't read it, check it out), and yesterday I was on her blog. "More Max" has been something I've heard since Of Course I Try came out. "The Cost of Love" is my answer to that plea. WARNING: If you haven't read Of Course I Try, this story is very spoilerish. Proceed with that in mind. (Click here to read "The Cost of Love")

Tuesday Teases: Danielle LaPaglia

2010-11-09T02:22:00.000-05:00

You are in for a special treat today, but only if you are 18 or over. Got that? Adults ONLY, so all you dirty-minded teenagers, move along.

Anyway, Danielle LaPaglia, one of my fellow Rebels from writing group is honoring us not only with the pleasure of her beautiful company, but also with an excerpt from her erotic story Should Have Said No. Danielle is a master of flash fiction, specializing in horror, and her series on the seven deadly sins isn't to be missed. She participates in Friday Flash every week, and this Friday is being kind enough to allow me to post a piece of flash that will be recognizable to anyone who has read Of Course I Try (those of you who wanted more Max, he'll be there). Please check out her flash fiction on her blog and follow her on Twitter. She's funny and brilliant, and a little scary sometimes (but only in the best way). Without further ado, here is her excerpt from Should Have Said No.

REMINDER! NO ONE UNDER 18 PERMITTED BEYOND THIS POINT!

Should Have Said No – Excerpt – by Danielle La Paglia

It was painfully clear that she wasn’t getting back to sleep so she tossed the blanket aside and went to wash her face. Her long hair pulled back in a low-ponytail, she slipped on her sports bra, shorts and running shoes. The beach was only two blocks down; a morning run was just the thing to clear her mind. She chugged a half a Gatorade from the fridge, stretched and headed out the door, not bothering to leave a note.

The street was quiet, the air cool against her skin, but the run would warm her in no time. A wide sidewalk stretched between multi-million dollar homes and the open beach. She turned South, toward Balboa, and took off. Later in the day this same stretch would be crammed with bicycles and roller-bladers, but for now she was alone. A few surfers waited in the water, but the beach was deserted. Pale light edged brighter between the homes on her left, turning the sky a beautiful pale blue as it pushed back the twilight.

A light sweat broke across her skin, cooled by the breeze coming off the ocean. She ran, not thinking about the man from the bar last night, or her heart-broken friend passed out in her room. She concentrated on the rhythm of each step slapping against the sidewalk, each breath passing in and out. Everything faded, the houses on her left, the ocean on her right; it was her and the pavement and nothing else. Forty minutes later, she was standing beneath a stream of hot water. It poured over her skin the way his gaze had the night before. She closed her eyes and saw him again, standing confident and gorgeous before her. Instead of reaching for the chair, this time he reached for her. His fingertips trailed across her skin.

Mimicking her vision, she smoothed her hand across her body, up her arm, across her shoulder and down to cup one breast. Despite the heat of the shower, her nipple was a hard bud. She rolled it between her finger and thumb, teasing it. Her other hand trailed lower, gliding across her stomach and down between her legs. She parted them slightly, allowing better access for her finger to slip between the soft folds.

Her breath caught. She squeezed her nipple almost to the point of pain, and drove her finger inside, imagining it was him, the beautiful stranger from the bar. She could almost feel his breath on her neck, his cheek against hers. Her movements became more rapid, urgent with the need to climax. It built inside; she slid her finger up, circling her clit again and again. A white heat burst between her legs, flooding through her core and into her limbs. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.

The sensation ebbed; her muscles relaxed and she gave a final stroke, sending a last jolt through her nerves. One hand on the wall, she leaned into the spray. It poured down her scalp, caressing her tingling flesh before disappearing in the drain.

.

.

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Danielle is an urban fantasy junkie whose favorite fix comes from the likes of Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine, and Patricia Briggs. She writes horror of every kind: ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and even monsters of the human variety. She is a member of Kelley Armstrong’s online writing group and participates in #fridayflash on Twitter where she posts weekly flash fiction on her blog. She is completing edits on her first novel, The Watchers, and is hard at work outlining her next urban fantasy project. Danielle is also the last Jedi warrior to study under the nearly extinct Scotnadian Yoda.

Announcement Time! (sort of)

2010-11-06T11:48:00.000-04:00

As promised, I have an announcement, but because of circumstances outside my control (and lousy planning on my part), I don't get to do it in my normal fashion. Anyway...

Sometime in September, I saw a call for an anthology with a new digital publisher. I was working on The Ghost of Vampire Present at the time and working on the idea for my NaNo project, but I looked at my calendar and wondered if I didn't have time to put something together for this one too. The people who have been following my craziness on twitter or facebook know I stayed busy right up until NaNo started on November 1. I literally took Halloween off, finishing my outline the night before.

But I didn't really take Halloween off. You see, in those couple weeks between finishing The Ghost of Vampire Present and starting on Kiss of Death for NaNo, I penned and submitted a little story called Yes, Alana, There Is a Santa Claus. I received my first round of edits from Evernight Publishing on Halloween and made sure I got them in before NaNo actually started at midnight. The story will be part of their upcoming erotica/erotic romance anthology 'Twas a Dark and Delicious Christmas.

The only sad part is I don't have a cover or release date to share yet. Trust me, when I do I'll be sure to post. Which leads me to announcement number two...

I've finally realized that trying to blog three times a week per blog is killing me. Even with throwing in "easy" blogs, I'm just stretching myself too thin and it's making me enjoy it less. So, Thirsty Thursdays are gone and won't be replaced. My "official" blog days here will be Tuesdays and Saturdays, saving the occasional Thursday for when I have announcements that won't fit (due to guests or planned posts) on the other days. I hope you weren't just here for the drink recipes and will come back for whatever I give you the other days.

And I hope you'll keep an eye out for 'Twas a Dark and Delicious Christmas!

Thirsty Thursday: Butt Plug

2010-11-04T03:16:00.000-04:00

For the month of November, I'm doing drinks to celebrate NaNoWriMo. That means alcohol AND caffeine--the best of both worlds. So, don't let the names confuse you, these are all designed to keep you happy and awake while completing your 50k.

Butt Plug

6 oz. Red Bull (I used diet, just because)

1/2 oz. vodka

1/2 oz. blue curacao

Fill an old-fashioned glass 1/2 way with Red Bull. Separately, fill a shot glass 1/2 with vodka, 1/2 with blue curacao. Drop shot glass in the other glass and shoot.

Okay, I'm bad about reading directions. I just mixed everything in a glass and added ice.

Review:

Me: First it is a really pretty emerald green color, and I am a fan of pretty drinks. What's more is this isn't half bad. It has a very tart fruity taste (mind you I've never had Red Bull before, so maybe that's all I'm tasting). I could definitely sit back and enjoy this sometime when I need to stay awake (hoping it helps for that at least). 8/10

Hubs: Tastes kind of like the off-minty medicine the doctor used to give you as a kid with zero kick. It'd be better if it had more alcohol. 6/10