We’ve had a bunch of great guest bloggers for this series, and with a number of more awesomeness to come, but I gotta admit my inner fan-girl let loose an extra sqeeee! when Carolyn said she’d participate.  Her two Historicals–THE SPARE and LORD RUIN will be removed from my keeper shelve when someone blows a hole through me to get to them.

Nuff said.   (Needless to say I’m jonesing for SCANDAL–Feb 2009 [/plug]

Did you know she also writes paranormal romances?  A Darker Shade of Crimson–her contribution to the Crimson City multi-author Series-was pretty kick ass.  Now she’s started a series of her own with  My Wicked Enemy. 

 A desire that can’t be controlled…Carson Philips is a witch on the run. For years, the notorious mage, Alvaro Magellan, has held her as his psychological prisoner. But once Carson gets a glimpse of the true extent of his evil, she flees Magellan’s mansion–stealing a stone talisman of unimaginable power on the way. Her only hope for survival is a demon who ignites a voracious hunger in her she can’t deny, a longing she can’t resist…A hunger that can’t be sated…Nikodemus is a warlord with a mission: Kill Magellan and his green-eyed witch at any cost. But when he meets the desperate Carson, the pull of her magic takes his breathe away. He’s not sure he can trust this tantalizing woman–she is his enemy–and less sure he can keep his hands off her. But Magellan will stop at nothing to reclaim what belongs to him. Can Nikodemus stop him before his desire for Carson destroys them both?Read on to find out Carolyn’s inspiration for this latest release. ~*~ As Jack London famously said, “You have to go after inspiration with a club.”This is something I do on a regular basis, just so nobody thinks I sit around waiting for the muse to arrive and drop a most excellent story on my lap. Well, ok, yes, I do wait for that because it would be awesome indeed if that were to happen, and I like to think I’m ready just in case. No luck yet. No bon bons either.

While I’m waiting for that, I have to chase inspiration around with that club Mr. London was talking about. But to be perfectly honest, Inspiration tends to arrive at my house along with her BFF, Panic. It’s not a fun thing, but panic boots out my analytical side and lets the creative bits take over. And suddenly, I’m never quite sure how it happens, a pesky problem gets solved. Or the book actually gets finished.

My ideas generally come to me in very small packages and usually focus on a very specific emotional incident that intrigues me. But there’s a very very long journey between that vague notion about two characters in
an interesting situation and a 100,000 word novel. The novel at the end, I have to confess, usually has almost nothing to do with that vague notion.

I am a character-driven writer. That is, my characters drive the story.  I have to write my characters to discover who they are and how they relate to each other and from those discoveries, a plot slowly evolves.
I tend to work with a short event horizon. I’m not looking toward the end, (except in a broad sense) but at the complication currently facing my characters. One of the downsides to this approach is that I throw away a lot of scenes as my characters become more and more rounded. But I’m looking for inspiration each and every day.

With My Wicked Enemy (Grand Central Publishing, Forever, August 2008), the seed idea came from a scene deleted from A Darker Crimson, which I called the Possession Sex scene. In that scene, the vampire hero has sex with the heroine while he is possessed by a demon. The fascinating question for me was, who was the heroine making love to? The hero or the demon? A very interesting situation, no? And just the kind of thing I
love to explore.

At the request of my very wise editor, Chris Keeslar, that scene was substantially changed to eliminate the sex. Given the story, he was absolutely right. But I didn’t stop thinking about the notion of our expectations of our lovers. We do expect that the person looking at us when we are intimate is the same person as the body we are touching. But what if it’s not?

Because of the way I write, the story I ended up with after deciding I would like to tackle that issue is pretty remote from that original what if. And yet, the story does indeed explore some issues of mental and physical boundaries, and I don’t mean than in the sense of limitations on what a person might do. Rather, I mean that in the sense of what if the mental and physical boundaries are more fluid than we believe? The fiends in My Wicked Enemy, are shape shifters of a sort. They also have the ability to enter the minds of others, an ability that is not always used for good. So, one of the central “what ifs” for My Wicked Enemy became, what if you fell in love with someone who had a completely different set of boundaries? What if the body you made love to could, and does, change? And what if your lover had the ability to cross into your mental space? Or, even, someone else’s mental space? What would that be like? Those questions, and the answers, were the inspiration for My Wicked Enemy.

… or not.

So booktrailers are the thing to some people. And some folks are less than impressed by them. I am just enough of a procrastinater to avoid writing and sit down to find pics and music to create one. And actually it is quite fun (for me). Especially when you have a piece of music that hits a cert pic right at the right moment . . .  I get all goosepimply!

In my honest, yet not sought out opinion, I think: what can it hurt to get another avenue of advertising out to the world? As long as you actually do get some writing done (which I have) and possibly get some reading done (which I will) and don’t have anything you’re taking yourself away from to create one (which if I did, I sure wouldn’t admit it).  And as I didn’t pay someone to do it–found royalty free pics and music, my own cover copy–I am out no money. BONUS!

I don’t know that I could pay someone to do it for me regardless of how much better it would look by a “professional”. I am still a tightwad when it comes to certain things–like not shoes or clothes–or pens

So I have forged again into the fray of techno-gal and created a trailer for TRADING FACES:

Whether it’s good or not, I can’t say for sure (and if you hate, I REALLY don’t want to know), but as for fun, YEP.

Besides, I can’t let my 13-y-o have all the fun on Youtube!

I was going to blog. Really. But I left my jump drive at home. Don’t ask. Trust me.

*waves white flag*

Pleeze send martinis

Hopefully back this evening with a post…unless I have to go home and clean.

I had a strange experience recently.

Yeah, I know, nothing unusual about that, but bear with me anyway…

A couple of weeks ago, I received a rejection on a requested partial.  The what and wherefore of it isn’t really important.  It was a rejection.
Now, those of you who are out there in the trenches are probably thinking, “Phfft!  And?  What’s so strange about that?”

It was my REACTION that was somewhat unusual—for me, at least.
It was a kindly rejection, sort of a “this project doesn’t work for me, but would be willing to look at anything else” thing.

It came in the form of an e-mail.
I read the e-mail.
Silently acknowledged it to myself.
Deleted said e-mail.
And went about my business as usual.

Now, I don’t know about YOU, but I always have SOME sort of response to a rejection.  It can range from feeling slightly blue to wistful to angry to depressed to determined to do better.

But there was NO REACTION.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

I’m doing the wip as usual, going to sucky day job as usual, and cleaning cat litter, as usual.  It might never have even happened.
Am I neurotic to think there’s something a little wrong with that?  Gawd, does this mean I’ve become ACCUSTOMED to the damn things??

How do you generally respond to rejections?

When I pick up a romance novel, I’m looking for an irresistible hero. One who’s gorgeous, intelligent, challenging and confident. If he’s gaga over the heroine by the tenth page, I’m bored. I like to WATCH a hero fall in love. On the flip side, I’m looking for a likable heroine, one I can identify with. A woman who isn’t so cold, standoffish or self-absorbed she can’t recognize a good thing when she sees it. Well lately, one of my favorite authors hasn’t been delivering. I’m tired of her clones … er … I mean, her characters. To be brutally frank, her cookie-cutter protagonists (mainly her heroines) make me want to slap the sh*t out of them.

(more…)

Mea culpa!

It’s my day to blog and I totally forgot, in part due to some catastrophes I’ve had to deal with in last couple of weeks.

(Tree roots burst a main pipe in the basement and flooding ensued followed by two days of very limited water use and a big-ass bill from the plumber – which was only a mere two weeks after the big-ass bill I received to fix a leak problem around the 11ft wide picture window and front door…. by replacing both!)

I won’t even get into the other stuff I’ve been juggling. 

But through it all, I was also working on balance: trying to stay positive/upbeat, eating better,  getting enough sleep,  getting to the gym and most importantly—writing.

I’m also reading more, which I think is some of the best on-going education an writer can have. Not that you should be reading as a primarily tutoring mechanism, but there’s so much that you absorb/observe on a subconscious level when reading.

So to give this post a bit more forcus, what are ya’ll working on, or if you’re not writing, what are you planning to write, or if you’re not a writer, what are you reading? I’m working on another contemporary romance. 

My love for Gordon Ramsey is no secret, so my hero is a bad-tempered/foul mouthed chef fallen from grace. The heroine was his little sister’s best friend many years ago. But she all grown up now and she reckons it’s about time he noticed!  There’s more to the story of course—revenge, betrayal, guilt, redemption, guilt, love and sexoring (heh), subplots, etc—but that’s the basic set up.    

As for reading, last night I finished a Hamish Macbeth Mystery (by M.C. Beaton), DEATH  OF A DENTIST.  This cozy series is one of my comfort reads. I just love it, and I remember watching the series on TV with Hamish played by Robert Carlyle. I might have to see if I can get my hands on the DVD collection. 

So how about you guys, watcha reading/writing?

TODAY IS THE DAY!

TRADING FACES releases today from Samhain Publishing. WOOHOO!

There are worse things than winding up dead…

With her ex-husband’s death, Elyse Cabot thinks she’s permanently off the emotional roller coaster…until he turns up posing as his twin brother—the real victim of foul play—at his funeral. Before she can get any answers out of him, he’s gone, leaving her with more questions than closure.

And a fortune in loose diamonds.

Seeing Elyse again brings back a lot of hot, sweaty teenage memories for Jack. Then she opens her mouth and out comes some cockamamie story about her ex, diamonds and double crossing. So much for rekindling an old flame. Still, he just can’t seem to resist the lure of this dame in distress.

He just hopes he can solve the case before he does something stupid—like fall in love.

Sooo…. to celebrate it’s release, I’m going to give away one e-copy of the book. Leave me a comment and at the end of the day I will pull one name out.

EDITED 8/6/2008 : 

Drumroll please . . . . . . . . .

The winner of the free e-copy is: AMY S. 

email and format info in the comments. Congratualtions ~

Since the national conference is the news of the week, I thought we’d run with that.  Toss out a ‘what-if’ and see what the responses might be…

So you’ve been designated a keynote speaker for the national conference.  You’ve been told that your audience will consist of a few newbie authors who want to know what they can expect as they begin to pursue their dreams of publication.
You walk into the room, and there are two hundred bright, eager faces waiting to hear what you’ll have to say.
What will you tell them?

Guess I should start it off, huh? (gulp…).

Okay.  For the room full of wannabees—once I curb the urge to hurl because I’m in front of such a large audience—I think I’d have to tell them to be prepared for the rollercoaster ride of their lives.  Some of those shining faces will write but never attempt to be pubbed.  Some will win contests, and live with the lure of that.  Some will hang out online and talk about writing rather than doing it.  Some will be picked up by publishers immediately.  Some only after years of intense effort.  And some, bless them, won’t make it no matter what they do.

But I’d tell them if they want to write, for God’s sake, write.  Even if Petey the parakeet is the only one who’ll read it on the bottom of his cage.
The frustration of being unpublished can be heartbreaking.
But it’s nothing compared to the pain of denying the creative part of you that’s dying (literally) to express itself.

Sounds good, anyway…

Your turn.