She Did it Again!

Jodici outdid herself once again. Check this out.

http://www.newoa.com/jcolgan/

It's good to get back to work. Though my weekend away wasn't entirely stress free it was a nice break from the constant call of the computer, the laundry, the dishes and the endless stream of household tasks. Even 24 hours away from responsibilities can be revitalizing.

This week will revolve around edits, critiques, contest scoring, and work on some short stories for upcoming anthologies. It seems like there's never enough hours in the day.

At least I had time to pose for this picture. LOL.

Some Good News!

First off, I have a new website! My fellow NCP Author and Romance Diva Jodici Belle redesigned my website for me and she did a phenomenal job! I'd been really needing a professional looking site and Jodici went above and beyond the call to make something extraordinary for me.

Click here or on the link on the sidebar to take a look.
http://www.newoa.com/bgardner/

Jodici will also be redesigning Jennifer Colgan's website as well, so stay tuned for even more amazing stuff!

In other news I wrote my two favorite words today. THE END! I finally finished the first draft of my paranormal WIP. When I say FIRST draft, I mean it. It still needs a lot of work but I have to give it a short rest to cool off before I dive in and start more edits. It's still a long way from completion and since I plan to submit it to agents, I'm terribly nervous about it.

It worked out well that this weekend DH and I going on a mini-vacation. We're just staying at a nice hotel, going to dinner and maybe a movie and doing some shopping, but it will be a pleasant break. It worked out as sort of a celebratory weekend off after finishing my story - though I'm packing a notebook so I can start working on my NEXT book, just in case some ideas strike me while I'm away.

I've got lots of hosework in preparation for my mother staying over with the kids, so I've got to get back to work.

Thank you!

Thank you to all the readers and authors who participated in my Author Day at the Amber Heat Readers Group yesterday. I had a wonderful time.

Don’t forget, Starlight Serenade Week is still going on, so if you love sexy sci-fi stories, drop in and say hello to a group of wonderful authors.

Reminder!

Don’t forget to drop by the Amber Heat Readers group tomorrow, Tuesday February 21, for my Author Day. I’ll be discussing my new release, Ken’ja and hosting what I hope will be a fun contest.

If you can’t make it tomorrow, stop by any day this week to hear from other authors in the Amber Pax: Starlight Serenade Vol. II collection. I’ll be dropping by as often as I can to chat with fellow authors:

Laura Bacchi
Grace Draven
Caitlyn Willows
Brit Blaise

We’ll be having a blast all week!

Tagged by Annalee

Five Guilty Pleasures

{Annalee picked chocolate, but the general consensus is we should not feel guilty about loving chocolate because it’s good for us so…}

1. Books. I spend a lot of money on books and right now I have more books to read than I will get to in a year or more. Because I write, I don’t get to read as much as I’d like to so my TBR pile is pretty huge and I just placed an order at Amazon.com. Can’t help myself.

2. Writing. Like Annalee, I list writing as a guilty pleasure because even though I consider it my career now, I still feel guilty about it. Who am I to get paid for doing something I love? Writing consumes me sometimes and I feel guilty for not being maniacal about the housework and not being a gourmet cook and not wanting to go outside and do yard work. Maybe we need to start a ‘guilt support’ group for writers.

3. Cheesy TV shows. I love sappy romantic adventures. I bought the entire series of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World on DVD and devoured every episode, I just got the first disc of Remington Steele season 1 from Netflix, I was a sap for Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Tales of the Gold Monkey, The Tomorrow People, Blakes 7…anything with a little suspense, a lot of romantic tension and junky special effects.

4. Petit Fours. Okay, this is sort of in the candy and chocolate category, but the flavor doesn’t even matter. Every Christmas I buy myself a huge box of assorted petit fours and I sneak two or three every time I go in the kitchen until they’re all gone. I like Marzipan too, though I don’t buy it as often.

5. Craft Stores. Let me loose in Rag Shop, AC Moore, Michael’s …anyplace that sells fabrics, candles, beads, etc, and I’m dangerous. I’m always interested in starting a new hobby and I don’t need much of an excuse to go and buy supplies. Yesterday, my friend Jessie gave me a crochet kit and taught me the basic stitches. Bad news. I’m already thinking about making some projects and wondering if I should stock up on yarn…

New Release!

Ken’Ja released last night as part of the Amber Pax Starlight Serenade Vol. 2 It's hot, hot, hot!

Here's a very short excerpt. . .








“What’s wrong?”

She followed him a few steps up the bank and touched his broad back. He shivered at the contact and his flesh rippled. Lightning fast, he had her wrist in a vice-grip. His touch burned, sending an electric stab of awareness through her body. She wanted more.

“It’s not safe,” he said, looking at her from under lowered brows. “We should eat what we have and move on. The farther we travel, the less likely a collection team will find us.”

“What about a rescue ship? If an Allied patrol was following the prison ship—”

“The Ketomir will arrive first. When the danger has passed, we can return to this place.”

He released her wrist, leaving her feeling cold and needy. Her body tensed when he hesitated a moment, his eyes lingering.

Suddenly bold, she took a chance and threw herself against him. He caught her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, reveling in the warmth of his sun-warmed skin against her breasts.

His arms tightened around her. He groaned, a lost sound, feral and raw. She felt the iron-hard shaft of his sex against her thigh and wondered if Thalians’ resemblance to humans extended to their sex organs. He certainly felt human…

One of Those Days

Yesterday was one of those days, when being a writer is just as difficult as being anything else.

I’m nearing the end of my WIP, and being a pantser, my ending is still somewhat of a mystery to me. I know how the characters will end up, but exactly how they get there is still fuzzy. That being said, every line I wrote yesterday took me forever. The day was full of false starts, second guessing and a lot of self-made interruptions. When my writing time was finally over – and I did stick to it until the bitter end – I discovered I’d managed to write 10 pages. That’s not a record by any means, but considering those pages were written one painstaking sentence at a time, not too shabby. Today I wrote even less, but I’m still plugging along. I’ll get to the end eventually, even if I have to do it one letter at a time.

More Good Stuff!

Yesterday was one of those rare days when stuff actually goes well. In addition to finding Conjured in Flames on the CAPA nominee list, I found Fresh Blood listed on the Fictionwise Best Seller List at #17 and on the NCP Best Seller List at Fictionwise at #10.

Over at Romance Divas, The Rebound Guy, my short contemporary erotic-romance, finaled in the Best First Meeting Contest along with some fabulous Diva authors.

To cap the day off, my hubby sent me 18 long-stemmed roses in shades of pink and yellow and salmon.

My steamy sci-fi short story, Ken'Ja will be released at Amber Quill with the Starlight Serenade Amber Pax on February 19th and I'll be having an Author day over at the Amber Heat Readers Group on February 21st! Come over and join me for excerpts and prizes!

A Valentine's Gift!

I came across this exciting tidbit today:

Conjured in Flames has been nominated for a CAPA award at The Romance Studio in the Fantasy Romance Category!

http://theromancestudio.com/capa.php

The final awards will be posted on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th! Congratulations to all the nominees. There are tons of fabulous authors from New Concepts, Amber Quill Press and members of Romance Divas, including Annalee Blysee for Starlit Destiny!

The View from My Front Door

For once the hype was not exaggerated. We got over a foot of snow in less than 10 hours and it’s still snowing. Good thing I’ve got plenty to read. Galleys for Wolfsbane, a couple of critiques, some editing of a short story for EC and if I get bored, I can always go out and shovel some more. NOT.

Tagged Again!

Karen tagged me with this:

Currently. . .

current clothing: gray sweats, lavender unicorn t-shirt.
current hair: almost back to my natural mouse color, new haircut, short layers, needs some highlights
current mood: pensive – will we get that blizzard their predicting?
current refreshment: Sprite
current annoyance: that the housework never seems to go away
current avoidance: cleaning out the dresser drawerscurrent smell: strawberry VO5 shampoo
current thing you ought to be doing: rewrites
current thing or things on your wall: calendar, my cork board with my 5 ANGELS/recommended read from Fallen Angels prominently displayed
current IM/person you're talking to: I don’t have IM
current jewelry: 10-year anniversary ring
current book: You’ve Got Male, by Elizabeth Bevarly
current worry: DS has a bad cold and feels miserable. I hope he gets some rest tonight.
current favorite celebrity: Josh Holloway of LOST
current obsession: getting several manuscripts completed and submitted
current love: vanilla cappuccino with a peppermint twist
current longing: my royalty check showing up in the mail ;)
current disappointment: the new dishwasher left me some spotted plates this morning
current lyric in your head: The first cut is the deepest. . .
current music: Nada
current favorite book: The Matchmakers [my current WIP] ;)
current favorite movie: Love Actually
current wish: finding an agentcurrent happy thing: Hershey’s kisses
current undergarments: ?? Clean and relatively un-holey thank you!
current desktop picture: the shot I took in Disney World of the new mountain that’s going to be an attraction at Blizzard Beach
current plans for tonight/weekend: maybe watching Zorro and waiting for the snow to start

So what are you currently doing?

Word Clouds

One of the Divas posted a link to this site today http://www.snapshirts.com/preview.php
If you put in your blog address, the site creates a word cloud for you like the one above. Cool huh? You have the option to change out some words after the cloud has been created. I thought of removing ‘laundry’ from mine, but hey – laundry is a big part of my life so I suppose it would be wrong to exclude it.

In other news, did I mention the other day that I was doing really well on my WIP? Well, I’ve got to stop doing that. I jinxed myself and hit a wall at 325 pages. My plan for the next few days is to go back and reread from the beginning, work out my time line [which is the root of the problem] and see about laying in some secondary POV. I also found out that Ellora’s Cave is accepting submissions for the 2007 Ellora’s Cavemen anthology so my next project is to polish up a couple of stories to submit to them. Then I’ll be ready to move on to my next full length novel.

I suppose I’m actually accomplishing quite a bit, though I often feel like I’m swimming through molasses. Slow and steady wins the race as they say, but my natural impatience gets in my way a lot.

Cool new gadget

I just got the coolest gizmo. It’s a drawing tablet that comes with a cordless mouse and a ‘pen’ that allows you to write on the tablet and translate what you write onto the screen in Notepad or into Word.

The amazing thing is you can write in script on the pad and have it translated into TYPE on the screen. I thought this was phenomenal. You don’t even have to write perfectly neatly, it’s incredibly accurate. My DH picked it up for me at a computer show this weekend after I told him I was playing around with the Write Pad feature on my computer at work and I was wondering if there was a way that I could actually hand write something and have it be typed onto the screen.

Since I write faster than I type, and then I have spend a lot of time transcribing my handwritten work into the computer, I thought something like this would replace sliced bread as the greatest innovation of the millennium [or any millennium]. Ta da!

It takes a little bit of practice, and so far I can write faster than the tablet can translate, but it’s great for making notes and even critiquing or editing. I can use a ‘red pen’ right on the screen and print out a marked up copy on my color printer. Definitely cool. It may not replace Track Changes for a clean crit, but for a quick and dirty mark up it’s awesome.

On that note, I wrote a good twenty pages today [not using the tablet], but I’ll work up to it. Things are flowing so well with my WIP I don’t want to mess around. The next story will probably be the experimental one. I can’t wait.

The Unique Title

The Unique Title seems to be one of those impossible, elusive things that only comes along once in a great while.

Not long ago in a blog post over at Romance Divas, I lamented the fact that the title Hunter’s Moon belonged to more than half a dozen other published works when my novella hit the electronic shelves. Oh well. Titles can’t be copyrighted, so it’s not as though having the same title as an existing work is amoral in some way, it’s just not ideal.

Sometimes titles come to me, like flashes of inspiration and I think, “Oh Wow! I’m an absolute genius!” Then I hurry to my web browser to look them up just to make sure no one has already taken them and 9 times out of 10, I’m crushed to find that my genius isn’t all that unique.

This happened with my second manuscript – a still unfinished historical I titled, The Baron’s Bride. It sounded so good, since the story is essentially about a young girl who becomes the bride of – you guessed it, a Baron! Of course, it’s been done. The book of the same title is quite old by publishing standards so a new book with the same title surely would not have rocked the boat, but nevertheless, to me that means, try again for something better.

A few weeks ago I was toying with titles and came up with a great medieval/historical title, Only for a Knight. Now there’s a title that begs for a great story. Well guess what? It’s already been done. Sigh.

The other morning round about 3:00 AM a brilliant flash of inspiration gave me Betty and the Beast. I even got out of bed to write that one down and then discovered it’s already a title at Ellora’s Cave. The plot idea I had was way different, but nevertheless, the title’s been used. Another deep sigh.

Oh well. I suppose I should be amused that my brain works well enough to come up with these little gems. I must be just as clever and smart as these other authors, I’m just a little bit slower on the uptake.

So here I am

What's harder than writing a blurb or a 12-word one-liner? Finding a decent photo to put on the blog.