10 things…

23 Feb

you didn’t know about Sheet Music:

10) I began Sheet Music while in college after worming my way into a backstage pass at a Peter Gabriel concert. (No, David Tallis is in no way based on Gabriel.)

9) It took me 15 years to get around to finishing the version of the story that became this book. What can I say? I’m a slow learner!

8) My now ex-husband originally turned me on to Ellora’s Cave (who ultimately published the novel) in 2002, shortly after they arrived on the publishing scene. I didn’t submit a query to them until December of 2009. Again, I’m slow.

7) Of all my heroes, I trust David Tallis the least (the scoundrel), but would sleep with him first. The man has MAD skills!

6) I didn’t picture writing a sequel to the book until a crit partner mentioned having the hots for David’s ex MI-5 security specialist, Gunter Faust. (Undercover Lover is coming soon from Ellora’s Cave!)

5) The book is my third novel, but my first accepted for publication.

4) While the plot resembles nothing of Notting Hill, several readers have commented on the similarity in “feel” between Sheet Music and the movie. Notting Hill is, in fact, my favorite movie, and I never mentioned anything of the sort. Eerie.

3) I interviewed several male friends in order to be able to vividly write the steamy love scenes that occur from David’s point of view. I’m amazed their wives still allow them to speak to me.

2) David is the only character I’ve written who has openly argued with me as I wrote, trying to direct and control every aspect of his story. Arrogant man.

1) I fully intend to have a drink at the Ritz Rivoli bar the next time I’m in London. A delusional little corner of my mind expects David to ravish me in his hotel suite afterward. Hey, a gal can dream!

Organizing, How I Love Thee

22 Feb

So, I’m not a great housekeeper. I’m just not. I forget to clean things regularly, and generally only clean them when I can tell they need it. Like dusting. I don’t dust unless I’m sneezing a lot, or if I touch something and my finger comes back white. Then I think to myself “huh. Time to do that again.”

But organizing? I love it. I love labels and sorting and discarding and rearranging. So when Hubs took Tot out of town for 5 days, it was my chance to bust a MOVE on some projects I’d wanted to do!

Like the linen closet…

 

And the freezer…

 

And several more projects. But those were a few that I have photographic evidence of. It’s therapeutic, seriously, to just go through and take something apart and put it back together in a more enjoyable fashion!

I might be a nerd, but I’m okay with that! So, use this as your inspiration to start planning your Spring Cleaning, and go organize something!

KJ

Writer Basics: The Hook and The Line

19 Feb

No matter what technological changes occur in the publishing industry, good writing is still what an editor needs to see and what makes a reader choose to pick up another book by that same author. A veteran editor once told me she usually made a decision about a manuscript’s marketability by page 3, but a great hook could get her to hang in there for the whole first chapter.

I am very proud of the fact that one of my hooks made its way into several seminars and at least one how-to-write book that I know of. The following is the first line of my steamy revenge thriller, PRETTY MAIDS IN A ROW –

“Mizz Wallace, did you, or did you not, willingly take Senator Ziegler’s penis into your mouth on more than one occasion?”

* * * *

Of course, the real trick is to get that editor to keep on reading beyond the end of Chapter One. This is where The Line (or two) comes in. Basically it’s a hook at the end of a chapter to ensure the reader keeps turning those pages.

Here are a few of the chapter endings, in no particular order, from the same book –

* * * *  Stretching luxuriously, she felt Jerry stir beside her. As she did first thing every morning, she reached for her glasses and switched on the lamp. Holly turned back to wake her future husband with a kiss, and froze.

The dark-haired man lying naked in her bed was a complete stranger.

* * * * A week ago, she had never even heard of the Little Sister Society. Now, a group of virtual strangers could connect her to a violent murder.

* * * * “You see?” He whispered the words against her mouth. “I can be nice. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

She raised her lashes and met his gaze. They both knew just how wrong he was.

* * * *  There was no turning back now. She would be David Wells’ mistress…and he would be her instrument of revenge.

* * * *  David saw Butch’s bullet-ridden body as he stepped over the threshold. But he also glimpsed two agents pressed flat against the walls on each side of him.

“Shit!” was the last thought he had before all hell broke loose.

* * * *  If it was the last thing he did, he would make Wells regret the day he tried to steal Philip Sinkiewicz’s woman.

* * * *  Philip kissed the top of her head. “You’re all I have, honey. I’d do anything for you.”

 So, fellow writers and readers, what are some of your favorite hooks and lines?

 And by the way, if I’ve tempted anyone into reading the rest of PRETTY MAIDS IN A ROW, thank you for the support - Buy Link

 Happy creating,

Marilyn Campbell, www.marilyncampbell.com

facebook: AuthorMarilynCampbell; twitter: marilyncampbel3

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Guest Blogger: Cynthia D’Alba

17 Feb

*This post is proudly a stop on the TEXAS TWO STEP Blog Tour. For a complete listing of all stops on this tour, please visit here. All contests are for U.S. residents only unless otherwise noted. Comments left on this blog will be counted toward the Texas Two Step Faithful Follower Gift Certificate. To see a complete listing of Blog Tour Prizes, click here. Be sure to check out the freebies. Yours for the asking as long as they last.*

Thank you to Brandi Evans for hosting me. I sure miss our Starbucks runs!

Today I want to talk about telephones and that oh-so-important first call from “him.”

When I was growing up, cell phones didn’t exist, which may be impossible for some of you to imagine. Girls were known to sit home waiting by the phone for “him” to call. (I confess to waiting for some boy to call me!) And trust me, girls would circle like a hawk around the house phone. No one was allowed to make a call in case “he” tried to call. Heaven forbid if “he” got a busy signal. What if “he” never called back? And if some family member had the audacity to receive a call (and thus tie up the single phone line), the powerful evil eye delivered by the household teenage girl could end that call quickly. My house didn’t even have call waiting, so no way could this oh-so-important boy ring in.

And privacy for that call when it finally came? Forget it. No private telephone in my room. No personal telephone number just for me. If I wanted to whisper sweet nothings in “his” ear, I had to carry the entire phone with its 30 ft cord down the hall and get in the closet. My parents at least put a 30ft cord on the receiver of the kitchen wall phone, but I could only make it to the stairs leading to the basement. Not a lot of privacy there. And forget getting a phone call at my grandparents’ house. They were on a “party-line” phone, which meant they shared the line with other houses. Anyone could (and did) listen in on calls.

Fast forward to today. Some of you have had cell phones for as long as you can remember. You never had to deal with the long phone cords that were necessary for privacy. You have no idea what a “party-line” is (which is a shame as those were quite interesting.)The idea of staying home “in case of a phone call” sounds like a joke. Today, you toss your smart phone into your pocket or purse and go. Heck, “he” doesn’t even have to call. “He” can email, text, Facebook or Tweet you and your phone will get the message.

Texas Two Step, my debut book, begins almost ten years after my hero (Mitch Landry) and my heroine (Olivia Montgomery) meet. To build up to the release, I’ve written a few vignettes from their early dating years. Today’s snippet from Texas Two Step-The Prequel is The First Phone Call. Click HERE to read it. If you are just joining into Texas Two Step-The Prequel, links to the first three short stories can be found with today’s installment of The Prequel.

Now, let’s talk about that first call you got from “the one.” Were you on a cell phone? At home? At the mall? Were you nervous? Excited? Giggly? Did your stomach flip? Your mind go blank? Tell me about “that” call.

Today’s TTS Blog Tour Prize

Many guest bloggers can offer a copy of a backlist book to be given away as a potential prize for a blog commenter. As a debut author, I don’t have a backlist. But I do have some awesome author friends who have stepped forward and offered one of their books as a prize.

Today’s TTS Blog Tour Author Sponsor is Turquoise Morning Press author Keri Ford. Keri will send Uninhibited in Apple Trail, Arkansas Vol. 1 to one lucky person who leaves a comment. To find out more about today’s Blog Tour Sponsor, you can visit her website, Twitter or Facebook.

To learn more about me check out these links: website , Facebook. Twitter, Group Blog , and Personal Blog.

And if those aren’t enough, Sign up for inside scoops and special contests by receiving the newsletter I share with my blog buddies.

Remember! Leave a comment for a chance to win Keri’s book!

Texas Two Step is available for preordering at Samhain, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble and I will be forever in your debt if you would buy it!

The Blog Tour Continues on Monday with The Date, Part One.

How do you rate when it comes to face recognition?

16 Feb

Blindfolded

I can’t pick a picture of my own face out of a pile of snapshots that show only faces. I have prosopagnosia, a genetic disorder that impairs my ability to perceive the difference between the unique features of one face and another. There is no cure at the present, or at least not one that worked for me. That was my inspiration for writing my newest novel, Blind Heat.

I know it’s hard to imagine, but trust me when you’re SO drops by work to surprise you and you don’t recognize him, it’s a pretty big issue. When you don’t remember someone they think it’s because they aren’t important enough to matter to you. Add to this that a lot of people with the disorder don’t know they have it and it’s a recipe for lots of relationship issues with friends and lovers. I was well into adulthood before someone said to me they thought I was face blind. I’d never heard of the condition. On taking a Famous Faces Test, I got 2 faces out of sixty right. I couldn’t even get Oprah right. I thought George Bush was Jimmy Carter. I was depressed about the whole business for a long time. It was hard to find a way to make lemonade out of those lemons.

But then I got to thinking that animals don’t use facial recognition abilities to tell each other apart and that this was a perfect conflict for one of my Pantherian shifters stories. From what has been a major frustration in my real life, the tale of Allie and Marcus was born.

Blind Heat Blurb:

Allie was groomed for a life of crime by the man she believes is her father, a small-time crime boss. But Allie’s determined to build an ordinary life in a small town where people have respectable jobs and respectable dreams. To survive she needs to be the sort of woman no one notices. She has a generic job, lives in a generic apartment, and thinks maybe one day she’ll find an ordinary Joe who wants an average Jane sort of woman.

Marcus, is anything but an ordinary Joe. Even if humans don’t know that he is a shifter and millennial being, he’s the sort of man women notice. A night spent with Marcus is a night any female, human or Pantherian won’t forget.
But Allie does forget. She repeatedly fails to recognize him, even after an intense sexual encounter. Marcus isn’t satisfied until he discovers the source of her problem–face blindness, a genetic disorder with no cure. Science might not have a cure, but Marcus does. He can use erotic rituals to teach Allie to see with more than her eyes. What he doesn’t count on is that she will see past the man and recognize the beast within.

I just got the contract offer on this, so I don’t have cover art yet. Hopefully I can share a cover and a book trailer next time I blog here. I’m really excited by this story. I wish Marcus’ cure would work for humans–it was fun imagining.

If you’re curious about your own facial perception abilities, take the Famous Faces Test and let me know how many famous faces you could name in comments. When I did this I used a made up name on the form. How honest you are about your personal info is up to you.

**If you get a low score don’t panic. Very few people score as low as I did and even as bad as I was, visual perception training and knowing the cause have helped me cope.

Image: Blindfolded by isadaft_trollop, on Flickr

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Your “ideal” Hero

15 Feb

I know, I know. I blog about him a lot–the hero in romantic fiction. I think about him constantly and why not? I happen to think in these types of books it is all about him after all. Sure, readers have to relate and root for the heroine. She can’t be too weak, too whiny, too dependent, too…a lot of things. And she also can’t be too perfect. It’s a fine balance, but the reader has to find him attractive, think he‘s totally hot, believe he‘s absolutely right for the her and fall a little (or a lot in my case) with him. That’s kinda tough, you know, for a writer because everyone has different tastes.

I was having a conversation on Twitter recently and people were identifying celebrities, models, rock stars, actors they thought hot, hero material. Me? I couldn’t come up with a single one. LOL. Not. A. One. Well, not a real person anyway. I’m just not wired that way. I can appreciate aesthetics, but they’re not necessarily up to the level of “hero” in my eyes. Perhaps that’s why I create fictional ones because the only one that came to my mind was Christian, the hero in book 3 of my new series. God, I sigh every time I think about him.

Anyway, I digress :) . Do you know who came close recently though? Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Seriously! I’ve always thought him a little too muscled. Yeah, OK I’m seriously fussy, but you know what really won me over to him? It was another convo on Twitter where a bunch of writers were having some fun constructing a story line and identifying real life guys to play roles. One of them was The Rock and the plot was that the heroine could have him and another hero. Why choose? Then HE responded with – “I fight for and protect the woman I love – but I can’t share her. Ever. ” He was having some fun, but how freakin’ awesome is that? It’s that base sentiment that I strive to create in every single one of my stories and my heroes. Double sigh…

So…do you have an ideal hero? A guy who epitomizes what you think a hero should be? Who looks like what you envision a hero to look like?

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What to do when your Valentine is away

14 Feb

Honestly, for a romance writer my life is pretty UN-romantic. Why you ask? Well Mr.C is away on business. *sigh* No Valentine nookie for me. :( But let’s not dwell on that, let’s get back to my lack of romance. Even when Mr.C is in the country we don’t celebrate Valentines Day. It’s been that way pretty much the whole time we’ve been together. Oh sure we occasionally buy each other some little trinket or gift but we’ve never gone in for the whole wine’n'dine’n'pressie bit. And while I see the value in having a day like today to remind us to appreciate the one we love I’m not so sure I need it. After 24 years appreciate each other rather well. We might be in to all the hearts and flowers but we certainly manage to keep the love alive in other little ways. I don’t need to pressies or the flowers or the fancy dinners or the chocolates……oh wait, back up a step. Okay, I’ll take the chocolate. :)

The one and only time we did something big for Valentines Day was when I won a contest and we got to spend a night at a luxury hotel with a fancy 9 course dinner. It was a great evening worth well over a grand but to be honest I doubt that I would ever spend that much money on one night. It’s not that I’m cheap, I’d happily spend over a grand on romance books. :lol:

So what do you think I’m going to be doing tonight? I’ll give you a clue. It involves words and pages. :) What have you got planned for the one you love tonight?

Rhian Cahill

www.rhiancahill.com

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