I've Been To A Marvellous Party

Life is playing a giant April fool on me. It’s snowing. Again. And I’ve caught a nasty cold. To get rid of my funk, I came up with the literary cocktail party guest list of my dreams. The only rule was the writers had to be alive. 

Welcome to my cocktail party! 

I am drinking Richard Kadrey under the table. William Gibson is in the back room, being antisocial. Kalayna Price is petting the cat. You can’t throw a party without inviting J.K. Rowling, but she’s there only on the condition that we don’t mention Harry Potter. JR Ward shows up in a dominatrix outfit. Chuck Palahniuk is giving boxing lessons in the back yard. Jodi Picoult is the person everyone wants to hang out with. Jennifer Weiner is telling the best jokes, while Jack Ketchum and Chuck Hogan are creeping everyone out. 

And we are all yelling at George RR Martin to go home and finish the next damn Song of Fire and Ice book. 

This is my brain on NyQuil. 

I’m still here! And other odds and ends...

Since I've been busy as a beaver, here's a pic of a beaver dam that I took last summer!

Good news! The new paranormal romance is off to the publisher. I am taking a minute (seriously like a minute) to breathe and then kickstarting Hell’s Belle 3 plus working on the outline for a new PNR that I hope to sell. It’s going to be a slight genre departure for me, so I am kind of excited to work on it.

Add in the day job, and my schedule was hellish this winter. I am a bit exhausted. But I’ve loved every minute that I’ve been writing, and spending more time with my characters daily has been really amazing. It simply drives home that I would love to write full time.   

Since I've been slammed, I have been neglecting this blog a bit, as well as my fellow compatriot authors. I hope to remedy in the coming weeks. I have book review coming next week, and hopefully, I can get back in the swing of the author interviews. And I have a new adventure on tap that I will announce soon-ish. (When I am through the testing phase -- I am okay with tech stuff if I have the time to devote to playing with it, and I am carving out the time now!)

So, it’s all good. I’m still here!

Oh, by the way, did you know I have a mailing list? Sign up if you want book updates, freebies, and sneak peeks at stuff I am working on! (By the way, I don't sell names. You guys are mine, all mine!) 

Tainted Blood is out, tour time begins!

Today is the official release day for Tainted Blood, book 2 in the Hell's Belle series! I've opted for 90 days exclusive with Amazon, and will release on Nook in a few months (more on this for another post).

The Tainted Blood blog tour begins today. Here's a list of my stops. Hope you can swing by these awesome blogs over the next several weeks!

October 20 Interview 

Urban Fantasy Investigations

http://urbanfantasyinvestigations.blogspot.com/

October 21 Guest blog

Jill Archer

www.jillarcher.com

October 22 Interview

Valerie Twombly

http://www.valerietwombly.com/blog/

October 22 Spotlight

Fantasy Book Lane

http://www.fantasybooklane.com/

October 23 Spotlight and review

Gizmo’s Reviews

http://gizmosreviews.blogspot.com/

October 24 Interview

Melissa's Eclectic Bookshelf

http://melissaseclecticbookshelf.com/

October 27 Spotlight

Books Direct

http://booksdirectonline.blogspot.com.au/

October 28 Guest blog

Fang-tastic Books

www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com

topic: anything Halloween related

October 29 Interview

Angel’s Guilty Pleasures

http://angelsguiltypleasures.com

October 30 Spotlight

Soaring Eagle Publicity

www.soaringeaglepublicity.com

October 31 Guest Blog

Roxanne’s Realm

www.roxannerhoads.com

November 3 Spotlight

Sizzling Book Blog   

http://chelssizzle.blogspot.com/

November 4 Spotlight 

Jodie Pierce's Ink Slinger's Blog

www.jodiepierceauthor.blogspot.com

November 5 Spotlight 

Cover Reveals 

http://CoverReveals.blogspot.com

November 6 Spotlight and review

Penny For Them...

http://pennyforthemuk.com/Tour

November 7 Guest blog and review

happy tails and tales 

http://happytailsandtales.blogspot.com/

November 10 Spotlight

Madison Sevier, Romance Author

http://madisonsevier.blogspot.com/

November 11 Top Ten

Darkest Cravings

www.darkestcravings.blogspot.com

November 12 Character Interview

Eclipse Reviews

www.eclipsereviews.blogspot.com

November 13 Interview

Author Karen Swart

www.authorkarenswart.blogspot.com 

November 14 Spotlight

Lisa’s World of Books

www.lisasworldofbooks.net

November 17 Interview

The Creatively Green Write at Home Mom

www.creativelygreen.blogspot.com 

Wait, you pay for that?

When I talk about releasing my books, inevitably the conversation turns to promotion. “Well, since it’s your day job, you must be great at promoting your own books! That saves you money.”

Wrong! 

I have a publicist set up my blog tours! (The wonderful Roxanne at Bewitching Book Tours.) 

I know that book bloggers are important. They are a wonderful, dedicated group of people who sincerely love books. And I also know that there are a lot of them. And I just don’t have time to track down the ones who read urban fantasy and do outreach to each one (believe me, I tried). So I rely on Roxanne to get my shit into the hands of the book bloggers and, hopefully, they love the book and they do something. 

However, this is where my day job helps: I know that my book is not going to be covered by the NY Times. Or the NY Review of Books. Or People Magazine. Or Oprah magazine. So there is no point in Roxanne, or myself for that matter, pitching it. If I can find a compelling reason why one of these outlets should cover it, I may pitch it myself. But honestly, there is no compelling reason. I am one of a zillion authors writing Urban Fantasy. I have been fairly successful at it, but in no way am I able to make my living solely from my books. I am not an Amanda Hocking or a Hugh Howey outlier. However,  I am earning enough to give me hope that one day I could live solely off my writing. To me, that’s kind of exciting.

To the NY Times, not so much.

But here’s the important point. I don't think their audience is interested in my books. They have never once reviewed Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books. The Times profiled her a year or two into True Blood, but never once did she get one of those coveted reviews. So, urban fantasy and paranormal romance is clearly not their jam. 

What does matter to me are the bloggers Roxanne knows. They are readers and they reach readers, and they are the rabid fans or urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Those are the outlets that matter to me. 

Clearing out the headspace

Chepachet, RI is a real place, and the farm that Nina owns in Hell’s Belle is based on a real one -- it belonged to my grandfather’s family.  

Although that farm was long gone, I spent many weekends in Chepachet as a kid. We’d visit the cemetery that holds the family remains or his oldest friend Henry (nothing like an old Yankee farmer). Then we’d get penny candy at Brown & Hopkins (America’s oldest country store in continuous operation). 

I love to take my daughter to Chepachet so she can see where part of the family is from and soak up that country air. Over the weekend, I had my first trip to Pulaski Park in about 30 years. Pulaski Park is a "day use" recreation facility (i.e. no camping) that is part of the larger (4000 acres) George Washington Management area. The park boasts are hiking trails, picnic areas and swimming in Peck Pond.

My kid and I had a terrific hike (and saw a beaver dam). Then we splashed around in the ice cold swimming hole. We had lunch at the Tavern on Main (i.e. Stage Coach Tavern, built in the early 1700s), and did a little antiquing. 

It was an awesome day. And I walked away with some ideas for book three, which I really need to get cracking on.

whirlwind

Phew. It's been a wild few months since Hell's Belle went exclusive on Amazon. A number of blog reviews landed, and they were amazing. I did a whole bunch of guest posts. And through the process I met a host of really wonderful, passionate bloggers from all over the world. It's been really fun. More promo coming in October, when Hell's Belle hits the other e-tailers. I am looking forward to the next round.

I am about 35,000 words into the Hell's Belle follow up. This one is moving a lot slower than the first, and according to my very wise Yoda-like editor, the second one moves much more glacial than the first. So I am trying to power through molasses, but every day I eek along some forward progress. I don't know that it will be ready for a June 2014 release, which is what I was hoping. But we'll see.

There are a lot fewer action sequences in this one, which I think is part of the reason why it feels so sluggish. I need to sit down soon and just write one punishing fight scene after another. Poor Nina. But she's a tough broad, she can handle it.

And I can tell you that the second book is tentatively titled Tainted Blood.

I am also working on a true horror novel. I have a few thousand words in and I am pretty happy with the characters I am creating. I am taking a horror writing class with Jack Ketchum too, so I hope to get this one sufficiently frightening by the time that one is over. 

And I finally found my YA novel idea two nights ago. I am crazy excited about this one, but feel like I have a bit of a learning curve with YA. But we'll get there.

So, all this and the work commitments with the day job have me spectacularly crazy. But I do hope to get my blogging rhythm back again. I have noticed a bunch of new traffic to the site, and want to hang out with you guys!