January - Books That Took Me There! In a good way...

Hello all,

My, my how time flies. It's 22 days into the new year and I haven't managed one blog post. I was just joking with a writerly friend of mine, Sage Spelling, about needing a publicist. I'm sure she wouldn't put up with me, as most can't when it comes to timelines. But, alas, what can I say? I gotta be me, right?

I didn't really pop in to talk about my aversion to keeping up my blog. I had something a bit more fun in mind. Let's talk about books!
The first book I read this year, in its entirety was Vanilla on Top by C.J. Ellison. Now, there is a rich guy and also a girl trying to overcome some of her shyness, well, more like her 'doormat' mentality. Boy meets girl, girl becomes more dominant - in more ways than one - and they live happily ever after. You would think that would be it, right? Well, on the way to the happily ever after there was  so much that the heroine discovered about herself. She didn't forsake her friends to do it either. Loved this book.

This next book wasn't released this month, but I just made my way to it on my TBR pile. Le sigh. Anyway, I digress. I loved A Convenient Bride, by Cheryl Ann Smith. It was strong enough to evoke feelings from the readers, and that's always great.

Finally, I read Ti Amo. It was a multicultural read and the sex scenes were exquisite. I strongly encourage you to head over to an eBook publisher and find it. The author is Sienna Mynx. Awesome writing.

Well, I hope this is enough to get you started towards your 2013 reading goals.

Until next time, NaNu NaNu!

Take care!

It's New Year's Eve! Time to Clean the House. . .

Hi all!

I trust you are having an excellent New Year's Eve. Me? I'm finishing up my semi-annual 'Spring' cleaning. It's tradition in my family, it may be my culture, to clean the entire house from top to bottom, do all the laundry and to take down the Christmas décor. The overall goal is to never take clutter and unnecessary things into the New Year. It's supposed to be bad luck.
I don't know about all that, but every year, like clock work, I go on a back breaking, deep cleaning house tour.

The best thing - on New Year's Day, I can do whatever I want. It's usually nothing related to house keeping.

In addition to my manual labor, all morning I've been thinking of resolutions. So far, it's about five of them, but I'm hoping that I can maintain them throughout the year. I'll be sure to keep you posted!

1. To be mindful of other's time - since I can be a little lax, I will ensure that when others are involved to be a bit more timely.
2. To write more - My muse can be a bit lax as well. I will tame her this year and set aside time to write each day. At least a hundred words a day.
3. To be more social - writers are introverts by nature. It can be difficult to maintain a social life. I will be sure to get out of the house at least once a month. And not just for drinking!
4. To be more healthful - I'm going to limit my fast food to twice a week or less.
5. To let the people that I love 'see' that I love them - after all, love is an action word.

Hopefully, I 'll keep to this. And you'll keep to yours, as well!

The best thing about this blog is it gave me a much needed break from my cleaning. :-)

Be sure to comment and leave me your resolutions, or traditions, and thank you for dropping by today.

All best, and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas, Baby!

This won't be a long post, considering most of us are in carbohydrate-stupors right now. While you're here, let me share a few of my highest ranking wishes, and I hope you'll share some of yours as well.

1. I wish the families of Newtown, victims and survivors, peace. May they feel the arms of love and prayers from all over the world tonight.
2. I pray for peace. The world is a pretty scary place at times and I hope that one day, it becomes a little less horrifying.
3. I hope that the people who believed in the Mayan prophecy didn't spend all their money and are able to have a good laugh about it now.
4. I wish all the children of the world a wonderful holiday with food, shelter and love.
5. I wish the lawmakers joy and rest, so that they may prevent the fiscal cliff from consuming us all.

Maybe, the Mayan prophecy was all about the fiscal cliff. Hmmm. . .

Anyway, to all of you, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

From my family to yours.

Goodnight.

More Fun with Blog Tours!

There are so many wonderful books being released this month and along with them, awesome blog tours!  For instance, one of my Soul Mate Siblings (we used to say Soul Mate Sisters, but now we have men! Hooray!) has a wonderful Christmas story available.

Winter's Magic by Cynthia Gail.

Guess what else? Her 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway is going on right now!

Among other things, you can win a copy of our Christmas anthology, A Soulmate for Christmas!

Take a moment to visit her site and play to win!

And don't forget to visit my Upcoming Events tab to find out where I am right now!

Have fun and Happy Holidays!

NaNoWriMo: An Exercise in Endurance. . . and Insanity

At this very moment, there are a few hundred thousand (I'm guessing. There is nothing scientific in that number.) are sitting on our beds, in our living rooms, at a cool steel table in a local greasy spoon and writing our hearts out. For the month of November has been dubbed the month of crazy, or National Novel Writing Month. It's a time when so many of us attempt to get 50,000 words on paper.

It may not be coherent or logical and in some cases, is a serious of multiple stories. But the point is to sit your butt down and to get your fingers on those keys.
I've only made it once. When I did, I was elated and couldn't stop talking about it. It was similar to the feeling that runners get when they finish a marathon - I would imagine, since I've only been on binge eating marathons before. :-)

For the next 15 days (we should have about 25,000 words on paper so far - I only have 15,000), I will scramble for my life to catch up, by any means necessary. I may miss the Twilight opening, I may not clean my house for several more days, but I vow to kick NaNoWriMo's ass once more this month.

Wish me luck! And it's perfectly fine to call me a crazy ass for taking a fool's mission! And to all you other NaNo-ers

In case you want to know more, take a look at their site or review on Twitter with hashtag #NaNoWriMo!

 Oh, and I have a short story coming out this month! A SoulMate for Christmas is an anthology featuring 5 (including me) wonderful authors from Soul Mate Publishing.

Stay tuned for the buy link and our Blog Tour to celebrate the release. I'm excited and I hope you are too.

Disarmed - Book Trailer

I wanted to share with everyone my new book trailer. It's very snazzy, thanks to Novel Prevue for putting it together for me.

I hope you like it, and more importantly, buy/read/love the book in December.

Disarmed
Published by Soul Mate Publishing.

"...You" Titles

I'm not sure about you guys, but I have been loaded down this month of October with '...You" titles. It's really all a little bit odd, if you think about it. Makes me almost want to do a Google search of all the NYT Bestsellers that have had something-something You as a title.

Titles don't routinely attract me to a particular novel, and I've never courted a book based on name alone. Oh no, my approach is a little more scientific than that (involves a Ouija board and cauldron). Except for this month. Having just finished 'Reflected In You' by Sylvia Day, I think I was on the hunt for something similar and found "Down To You" by M. Leighton.

This post isn't meant to discuss whether these books were good or bad (although both get a thumbs up from me), but more what's in a title. Lately, it seems that we authors play a little game by questioning what is something distinctive about a very popular book and we play that up in our own work. Not necessarily the theme of the story or the characters, but something more cosmetic - the opulent rich shit of the male lead shown on the cover (cuff links, Mardi Gras masks, titanium key chains, etc), or a really hot guy's chest - and play it up. I'm willing to bet that there are times when titles are designed to be similar in order to attract the readers attention. I know, some of you publishing-marketing type folks are saying "DUH!". Forgive me, but I'm a little slower than some folks, especially after two days of intense editing and an all out, near cold-turkey coffee avoidance (down from 3 cups to 1 cup a day).

So, let's play a game. I'll take old titles (the more classic the better), add "To You", "In You", or "On You" to the title and you let me know if that makes you want to read it more, and in the event that you have read it, whether the 'new' title makes you want to read it again?

Let's begin, shall we?

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
New Title: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings In You

To Kill A Mockingbird
New Title: To Kill A Mockingbird On You

Dracula
New Title: Dracula In You (I personally want to read that one!)

The Grapes of Wrath
New Title: The Grapes of Wrath To You

Beowulf
New Title: Beowulf On You

Kind of makes you think, doesn't it? Oh, if only these books were written in these modern days of technology (and happened to be romantic fiction).

Until next time,  read a good You book!