I can't go on...

Without my Eggoes.

Apparently the Eggo waffle shortage will continue until mid-2010. I'm not sure I can handle it.

What food could you not live without if it suddenly came in short supply?

Don't say turkey.

A Holiday Treat

I just got the truly awesome cover art for my December re-release from Samhain.

The Soul Jar is one of my favorite stories...it's a romantic adventure that spilled onto the page so easily.


Here's the blurb:

When Bree Sennett’s search for the fabled Soul Jar of Ammonptah brings her face to face with Mason “Chance” MacKenzie, the pain of his previous betrayal mixes with the joy of finding him alive. When she discovers Chance is after the Soul Jar as well, she’s drawn back into his dangerous world and into his arms again.

Chance MacKenzie left Bree two years ago, faking his own death to save her life and his own. Now the woman who stole his heart is about to steal the Soul Jar, but a life he promised to protect hangs in the balance.

Chance can’t expect Bree to forgive him, or to still love him after what he had to do, but can he trust her to help him complete his mission before he loses her forever?

And the infamous Samhain warning: This title contains too much caffeine, just the right amount of fireworks and a heaping scoop of steal-your-heart Australian hunk.

I'll post an excerpt soon, so stay tuned.

She says it better

Allison Brennan has a truly excellent post over at Murder She Writes about self-publishing, vanity publishing, and why writers should write and editors should edit and publishers should publish. She tells it like it should be.

Kudos Ms. Brennan.

Hero search: Concluded

He got the part.

Mini-NaNo Update: Well, maybe it's more of a full NaNo. I've been writing furiously since late October. One novella finished, and TWELVE chapters on the second, plus the idea rolling around in my head for another [unrelated] story. I've also begun working on the 2nd draft of the first novella which is undergoing a lot of changes because of all the new info I discovered while writing the sequel.

Hell Breaks Loose, Film at 11:00

If you’re a member of the romance publishing community, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And you’ve probably read the equivalent of a few full-length novels worth of words on the subject over the last 48-hours.

I know I have.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on anything, but as a writer, I have a distinct inability to keep my opinions to my self when I have a forum in which to express them. So I’m going to.

Here’s my take on how it went down:

Harlequin announced the opening of their new line – a venture they’re calling Harlequin Horizons, a self-publishing option for romance writers.

Boom. The writing world fell on its’ ear and the impact was heard around the web.

Writer’s everywhere were shocked and most were appalled and they began to talk about it.

Predators and Editors called shenanigans on Harlequin and put a very fine point on what they’d done. Harlequin, the mama of romance publishing, was labeled a Vanity Press. This is major bad.
More talking, blogging, phone calls and general upset ensued.

Harlequin made some statements that sounded smarmy.

Heck broke loose.

RWA stepped up and declared Harlequin no longer part of their approved list of publishers.

Author’s everywhere applauded RWA’s swift response.

MWA – Mystery writers of American and SFWA, Science Fiction Writers of America followed RWA’s lead.

More applause from authors.

Harlequin announced it was shocked by all the bad press and decided it will strip the name Harlequin from its bastard child and call it something else.

Everyone said, “So what? It’s still a vanity press and you are trying to monetize your slush pile and gouge authors by charging them exorbitant amounts of money for things they can do much cheaper, if they want to self-publish.”

Harlequin is now gearing up a rebuttal.

Everyone is waiting to see what hits the fan next.

I’ve got my plastic poncho and a can of Lysol and I’m sitting back to watch the shit storm.

My opinion: Harlequin took a big old knife and cut off its nose to spite its face. Does this affect my writing? Nope. I write for me.

Does this effect how I will submit or to whom? Nope.

I read somewhere that
Harlequin wants more bestselling authors; here’s a new way to find them.

My response to that is, any publisher who wants to find more bestselling authors has only to look a little more closely at their submission piles. There are best selling authors there - tons of them. You won’t find a best selling author by rejecting a manuscript then charging the author to publish it. You find a best selling author by publishing the awesome books that come your way and giving their authors the marketing, editing and promotional support they need to become best sellers. And you pay for that your own self.

I’m mega sick of hearing about new ‘business models’ for publishing that put more and more money into the pockets of publishers, less money into the hands of the authors and more mediocre books on the shelves. Somebody show me a business model that lets me pay my bills and make an honest living as a full time author and I’ll get on board with it.

A welcome distraction

Ever get something in your head and you just can't stop thinking about it? Like the song you can't stop singing, or a movie quote or an image...it's a pain in the neck sometimes, isn't it?

Well, my psyche is currenly being stalked by Joshua Jackson. [Dawson's Creek alum, now starring in FRINGE].

I can't say as I mind. I think he's trying to audition for a role as one of my heroes.


He just may get the part.

New Release Day!

La Vida Muerta
by Jennifer Colgan
ISBN-13: 978-1-60272-611-6 (Electronic)
Genres: Dark Fantasy / Vampire / Paranormal


Elena Talbot betrayed her sister for a chance at immortality. Now, ensconced in the dark world of Chicago's undead, she clings to the person who helped her find herself and her sanity after the gut-wrenching, soul-stealing transformation from human to vampire. Vampire investigator Lucas Vitale has gotten used to having Elena in his home and in his bed. She's always ready for his lusty games, but she's still afloat in a sea of self-doubt and confusion about her new existence. She wants the one thing he can't give her, a purpose. When Elena's quest for fulfillment brings her too close to Lucas's long-hidden secret, he casts her out. Only after she's gone does he realize there's no point in living "the dead life" without her...........Find Out More!

Here's a snippet to whet your appetite for hot vampires:

He’d been ruthless with her, employing techniques of cunnilingus men only learned when they devoted years, and quite often large amounts of money, to learning the art of pleasure.
After using her body so well, though, he’d left her, placed a stolen kiss on her temple and slid his magnificent body from between the pristine sheets. Vampires didn’t sweat, even in the throes of passion.

She’d reached for him, her arm limp, and he’d laughed. “Easy, tiger. I don’t think you can take any more tonight. Can you?”

She forced a sultry growl from her lips. “Sure I can.” Truth was, she didn’t need more sex…well, at least not at the moment. He’d sated her base urges quite well. What she wanted from him now, she didn’t dare admit.

For more...visit Amber Quill/Amber Heat

Mini-NaNo

Well, I suppose my Mini-NaNo is officially over now - but during approximately 15 days I completed an 18-chapter novella and four chapters on the sequel.

I'm going to keep plugging away at the second story and get it finished before I go back and start any revisions. I have to say this has been the most productive two weeks of writing I've had in over a year.

Maybe next year I'll do the full NaNo and see what develops.

Dum and Dummer

So the IDIOTS at Fox cancelled Joss Whedon's Dollhouse.

When are these morons going to learn? First: Anything written by Joss Whedon is genius and needs to be seen by the entire American public, and Second: You don't mess with women who can kick yer candy-asses all over the network.

Sheesh. Some people.

I feel like Nora

Yep. Today I feel like Nora Roberts.

Why, you ask? Not because I am a multi-published best-selling author who has earned the title of Reigning Queen of Romance. Nope. [I wish]

Not because there are millions of copies of my books in prints. Nope. [I also wish]

I feel like Nora Roberts because right now, I don't want to stop writing. I read once, a long time ago, that Ms. Roberts wrote every day. She didn't take breaks or give herself a lot of down time because she was afraid that if she stopped the flow of words, she might not get it back.

That's how I feel today. I'm on a roll. With butter. Today I finished the rough draft of the novella I started thirteen days ago. Finished it.

And I immediately started on the sequel now while everything is still fresh in my mind. I'm still living in this world I created and I'm still loving it, so I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to rest on my laurels or take too much time to pat myself on the back [just a little time]. I'm going to keep plugging away until I get another novella done. THEN, I can rest. Then I'll start working on my revisions and edits and fussy persnickety commas and choosing just the right word here and the right word there, but for now, I'm sailing and I'm not going to stop because I'm afraid if I do I won't be able to start again.

Wish me luck! Mini-NaNo continues!

In the Zone

Maybe it's the time of year, maybe it's just a harmonic convergence. I don't know. But I'm totally in the writing zone.

So far my Mini-NaNo has produced FIFTEEN chapters and the synopsis for a sequel.

It's all handwritten, so I can't say how many words it is, but it's flowing like water.

Now the question is, how do I train myself to write like this all the time?

Fight the fight

On one of my e-mail loops a fellow Amber Quill author posted a link to this blog:

http://writersevolution.blogspot.com/2009/11/e-piracyyou-can-do-something.html

which contains some interesting information on how to combat e-pirates. It's worth taking a look.

Having followed a lot of discussions on how e-piracy affects authors, I've drawn my own conclusions on the best way to deal with them. Even though e-pirates are, in my opinion, stealing from authors, I tend to think the time spent tracking them down, joining their insidiouis little sites, posting cease and desist notices, getting into flame wars with them, getting banned form their sites, etc, also steals something valuable from authors. It steals our time.

As much as I hate to see authors' work [and my own] available for free on pirate sites to people who are actually dumb enough to think I'm wealthy and won't miss hundreds of dollars in royalties, I hate even more to give up my writing time, or time with family to pursue these people, many of whom are based outside the country and are technically not subject to many of the laws that govern intellectual property, not to mention common decency. My time is much more valuable than that. It's just too frustrating for me to spend hours or days hunting criminals on line. That's why this blog is interesting. It makes the process a little less intimidating and hopefully shows authors how to send information directly to the people who are better equipped to do something about the pirates.

What is your policy on dealing with pirates? Do you take time to hunt them? Do you join pirate sites so you can post cease and desist notices? Do you ignore them?

If you could do something to stop piracy that was guaranteed to work, what would you do? I would scour the pirate sites for e-mail addys and URLs of any users and fine each one of them the entire amount due to all publishers for each copy of every book downloaded. So rather than having to pay for one copy of a book illegally downloaded, a user would get hit with the bill for all the downloads from the entire site. Then let them prove which books they DIDN'T steal.

Yeah, it's a fantasy.

So that's my mini-rant for the day. Speaking of mini--

Mini-NaNo progress - NINE Chapters.

The creature in the closet

You never know what might be lurking in the linen closet. Always bring your camera with you.

Mini-NaNo progress - 4 chapters!

Best of the Best!

I try not to post twice in one day, mostly because I only have so much to say and I like to spread it out, but since I can officially annouce it now, I just had to come back and crow a bit.




The Matchmakers came in second place in the Best of the Best eBook Contest at the Editor Jennifer Blog!*


You can drop by Editor Jennifer to see what she had to say about the book, and stay tuned for info on my prize, an AudioBook version to be produced by AudioLark.

All this month Editor Jennifer has been posting the finalists in the contest. The Matchmakers was up against some stiff competition, so I'm thrilled to have been one of the final winners.

*Note: Though my name is Jennifer and I am an editor, I am not Editor Jennifer. Just sayin'.

Bummerz

It actually rained on Halloween. Not all day, but once it got dark - you know when the die hard trick-or-treaters come out - boom. Poured.

Our last trick-or-treaters showed up around 7:00 PM, leaving us with most of the candy we bought for the occasion. The kids came home with truck loads of their own loot - apprently people in the neighborhood, knowing there would not be a good turnout, were giving away handfuls of stuff.

Not that I planned to diet between now and New Year's...but there goes any possibility of losing so much as an ounce.

The upside of Halloween was that while everyone was out, and I stayed home to give out candy, the bell rang so few times that I managed to write a chapter and a half of my min-NaNo WIP. Yay me!

In other news...

A couple of months ago we saw a commercial being filmed at our local Dunkin' Donuts and today DH came across the commerical on TV. The art of video editing is pretty cool, I must say, since they removed an entire office complex from the background and put trees behind the building instead. If you watch commercials, look for the one where the guy is giving a hay ride tour and they pull into a Dunkin' Donuts.