Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Eeeks!

The cover for Ink in the Blood is in the Clash of the Covers over at Embrace the Shadows blog this week. And it’s going up against two other gorgeous covers, one of which is from Larissa Ione’s newest book, Ecstasy Unveiled. She’s one of my all time favorite authors. If you haven’t read her, I highly recommend you giving her work a chance. It’s dark and edgy and just fantastically written. Actually, I have the Embrace the Shadows blog to thank for introducing me to her stories. I won Desire Unchained, the second book in her Demonica series, from them by commenting on a blog entry about a year ago, and I fell in love with the series.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I have Embrace the Shadows to thank for many of the authors I’ve started reading over the past year. I guess that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about being in the clash this week. Another reason I’m excited? The Clash of the Covers has always been my favorite part of the blog. Don’t get me wrong, I love the interviews and the guest blogs, but I really look forward to the clash every week, and I can’t remember the last time I missed one.

If you’d like to check out the Clash of the Covers here’s a link to the blog.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Is it really Monday?


It is? That means one week from today Ink will be available to buy and download—Yay! To celebrate I’m starting a contest today. On March 1st I’m going to give away a download of Ink in the Blood and a bag of Ink swag (pictured on the right side of this post) to someone. All you have to do to enter is post your favorite food in the comments section of this blog entry before Midnight central time on Feb 28th. Then, on March 1st, I’ll randomly choose a comment and post the winners name. So make sure you check back on March 1st to see if you’ve won. I’ll try to post the winner as early as possible.

I’m going to get the ball rolling. My favorite food is cheesecake. I can’t resist the stuff. Once, my husband and I got a cheesecake for our anniversary. We both had a piece for dessert and then put it away for the night. The next day he went off to work and I snacked on a half a piece for breakfast, a half a piece for a mid-morning snack, a half a piece for lunch…well, I think you can see where this is going. When he came home, I was horribly sick. It didn’t take him long to figure out why. He went into the fridge and saw I’d eaten half the cheesecake. After that, I wasn’t able to look at cheesecake for a year or so, but I’m all better now.

Now it’s your turn. Are you a sweets kind of person, savory? What’s the food you can’t resist?

Sunday, February 21, 2010

My Website Has Been Redesigned…

And that makes me happy! My original site was serviceable, and all the links worked, but it wasn't dynamic. It was actually a hassle to update, which is why it was never updated. It also wasn’t very polished, in my opinion. So my husband did a complete redesign for me. Isn’t he great?

I have to say, I love the site. I love the colors and the pictures and the excerpt link that has the book cover on it. But the thing I love the most, most people will never see. My husband, knowing I’m not the most computer savvy person, designed a custom content management program just for me. It’s so cool. I have a table for my news, my works, and my links. Whenever I want to update, I just open the program, edit it, and then FTP into my site and upload the new info. It’s so cool and I'm very grateful for it.

In other news, Ink is being release a week from Monday. Yay! In celebration I’m going to be having a contest. It’ll start tomorrow and will run to release day, so check back on the blog tomorrow to get all the details. In the mean time, if you have a moment and want to check out the new site, you can either click on this link, or click on Ink's cover in the side bar.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Community

My husband came home a couple months ago and told me that a friend of a friend was an erotic writer. My response, “Really, what’s her name?” Let’s face it it’s a relatively small community and, although I don’t write erotic (because it takes a very good writer to write erotic and I’m just not there yet) I do read it and I know several people who write it. And if I didn’t know her, chances were I knew someone who knew someone that did. Six degrees and all that.

He told me her name, and I didn’t recognize it.

“Well,” he said, “I think she’d just starting out and my friend made it seem like she didn’t really know many people. My friend was actually wondering if she could pass along your name and e-mail to her. I told her it’d be fine.”

I loved that he didn’t have to ask, that he already knew the answer. Of course it was fine. It was better than fine. After all, the community I’d discovered had become my favorite aspect of the writing journey. Yes, the first contract I was offered was great, and getting to see covers with my name on them had been indescribable, but none of that would have happened without the guidance and support I’d received from the other authors I’d met along the way.

“She seemed to think her friend thought other authors didn’t help each other out very often. That it was very competitive.”

That statement saddened me because it’s simply not true. I mean, I'm sure there’s competition when an anthology call goes out, and yes there’s always the hope I’ll make the cut at a certain house, but I’d do whatever I could to help out another author and when I tell them I’m cheering for them and wish them good luck, I honestly mean it. And I think the other authors I’ve met along the way feel the same.

Yes, I want contracts, but I want to earn them because my story’s the best, or because it resonated with an editor, not because there weren’t enough submissions to fill a quota. And when I’m rejected it stings, but I know I was rejected because my story wasn’t good enough, not because other authors had submitted works. I settle in to make it better and then resubmit it elsewhere. It’s one of the ways I work at becoming a better writer.

The exchange made me thankful for the community I'd discovered and reminded me to be grateful for all the help I'd been given. So, huge thank yous to Barbara Hancock-whose amazingly supportive words and deeds are too many to list, Nicole Dennis-who’s read my work and given me priceless feedback, My writers group, which includes Robyn Bachar and Ghostsnapper,- who forced me to sit down and write my first sex scene, Suzanne Rock-who’s shown up at blogs and events and cheered me on, Moira Rogers (both of you) for your kind words and repeat tweets, Cora Zane-for your encouragement (especially back in the days when I was Neoindra), E-love-for your unfaltering support, Aubrie Dionne-for coming to visit me at my blog and for the offers of reviewing my work, Sandra Sookoo for your wonderful words about my cover and offering me a guest spot on your blog, and well, I think you get the idea. I don't honestly think I could thank everyone who's touched me over the last two years, and I think that says more than this whole blog does. There are no words to express how much I appreciate everyone’s support and guidance as I stumble along this journey.

BTW she never e-mailed me. That saddened me, too. It’s my sincerest hope that she’ll find a community she’s comfortable with and that it helps her on her journey, as I would be lost without mine.