Samhain Publishing Ltd. Weblog

A Long Awaited Release

Brody and Lana’s story available today!

Brody Nash has been in my head for a long time. He started off as the ex-boyfriend and occasional lover of the female lead in a book that went nowhere. Then when I needed a second man for my menage novella Chasing Sunset, I decided to bring him in. Really, I was quite happy to have him, so to speak.

That Ahhhhhh.... Moment

We all have them. You know what I mean. It can happen anywhere and at anytime. Sometimes when you least expect it. That single moment in time where you are watching something happen and when it does you get that gooey feeling inside…that silly grin on your face and you heave a big sigh of Ahhhhhh…

Silly? Not really. We all have them. Even those big tough guys we all know. Their Ahhhhhh… threshold maybe higher or different than ours, but they have one. And what makes you go Ahhhhhh… is different for everyone.

For example, I’m a sucker for Hallmark commercials. I’ll tear up in a heartbeat over something as silly as a kid making a valentine for his teacher, or a puppy trotting over to a young bride with an “I’m sorry” card from a repentant husband.

This blog came to be when I found one of the best Ahhhhhh… moments I’d ever seen online. It is a marriage proposal. One of the best I’ve ever seen and once it was done, I was Ahhhhhhing all over the place as were most of the people watching. Check it out…

Tools for Writers (and anyone else who works from home).

Lying in bed one night, thinking about what I’d do if my computer corner were destroyed by flood, fire or plague of electronics-eating locusts—is it just me whose imagination tends to the paranoid?—I found myself making a shopping list of the things I’d have to replace as soon as the desk, chair and computer were back in situ.
And I realized it’s actually quite a useful shopping list for any writer—or anyone who works from home. So I’m sharing it, together with the offer to join in my late-night paranoia.

*GASP!* Romance In Sci-Fi??

I’m addicted to the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog (honestly, I think there needs to be a support group). I religiously devour every post every day and – on the odd occasion – actually muster up the courage to pull myself out of lurkdom and comment (I am, by nature, quite a shy person. S’true.) Anyways, one of their more recent posts investigated and responded to the ludicrous statement made by one disgruntled male that science fiction has been ruined by female intrusion of the worst kind – romance.

Romance in sci-fi?? Golly, gee! No! What an atrocity! What will happen next? Boys and girls going to the same school?

Slow Rider

Make that Slow Writer. Now change the word “slow” to something more accurate. Meticulous, maybe. Or conscientious.

If your favorite authors don’t show up with good books as often as you wish they would, there’s a reason for that. They might be slow writers. They might be writers who won’t let go of a manuscript until they’ve assured themselves it’s as good as they can make it. They don’t want some sub-standard book appearing on the shelves with their name on it. A book that readers will ho-hum through, if they even bother to finish it. A book that will let down even one fan. If you read enough fiction you will soon discover that mediocrity runs rampant in the publishing world. The good books can sometimes be hard to find.

There could be a hundred reasons why there’s such a huge chunk of time between a writer’s last book and the next one. Writers are human beings and just like in your life, things happen. Family crises. Health issues. Computer crashes. Vacations. Rejections. Sometimes, life simply gets in the way of creating the next good book, even if that’s all a writer wants to do.

Where Do You Find the Time?

The other day at school I mentioned that I found some old friends on Facebook and another teacher asked me when I found the time. Another teacher asked me recently how I have time to watch so much TV. I’m not sure if I’m insulted or just curious—what do THESE people do with their time that they don’t have any?

Learning Curves

OMG! Pinch me! The first release of my novel KNIGHT DREAMS is today!

When I sold my first book to Samhain Publishing, I didn’t know it at the time, but a different journey into the writing world had begun. Heck, I’m a writer. This was my third completed novel. Surely, it was an easy ride from here. Right? Hah!

I Write Normal

“What do you write?” could be heard around every table at a writing conference I attended a couple weekends back. A great question, but it always left me with a grin. We’d go around the table — historical with paranormal elements, sci-fi romance, vampires, erotic paranormal, werewolves, dragons, paranormal thriller…and then they’d all be looking at me. “I write normal.” It gets a laugh, which I tend to go for in my books too, but it’s the truth!

I love to read paranormal stories, but my brain doesn’t work that way. I’ll leave it to those who understand the history of vampires…and dragons (who knew there was so much to know about dragons? The conference had a whole class on them.) Me, I’m sending people to yoga and out for doughnuts.

People often ask where a writer gets their ideas. We don’t know, so it’s hard to answer. Everywhere, I think is the common response. But really, a writers stories are just there, twisted in their mind until they unwind themselves onto the page. My stories are classic romance themes with a modern twist (I’m quite excited that my Pride & Prejudice meets Beauty & the Beast story, Pride & Passion, was just contracted!)

I love the indulgence of traditional romance, spiced up but not taken seriously. Hence why I write about Cinderella and unrequited lust. This time of year I am always tempted to write some kind of ghost story, but I resist the urge. Someday I might dip my toe in the paranormal pond, but for now, I write normal.

Would You Like My Book? Are You Sure?

Before a recent family get-together, I got a brief e-mail from my brother-in-law asking me to bring along a copy of one of my books so that he could take it to my husband’s aunt. Now leaving aside the sort of obvious response to that—“Gee, Bob, can’t you afford to buy my book?”—I could see other, more long-range problems. My husband’s aunt is an 87-year-old unmarried lady; once upon a time, you might have called her a spinster. While I may not be too sure of Aunt Beth’s tastes in literature, I’m fairly sure she wouldn’t like my stuff.
This is a sensitive question for a lot of us. We write romance because we like it. We read it. We support it. Catherine Wade had an interesting post on her blog about this a couple of months ago, pledging that she would no longer apologize for writing romances and asking the rest of us to do the same. I’m with her all the way. But at the same time, I know some of my friends and relations won’t like what I do because they’re not fans of the genre. I’ve already had a friend tell me she liked my first book “except for all the sex.” If you read romances, the fact that my books have a lot of sex scenes shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. If you don’t, it may be a bit of a shock, to say the least.
So what do you do when your grandmother wants a copy of your book? Or your grade-school teacher? Or the pastor’s wife? Or your colleague at work who reads mostly literary fiction? Samhain requires its authors to write warnings that are posted with the book description at the Samhain Web site. These are mostly good-humored (hey, we try to be witty about it), but they also serve a serious purpose. Samhain doesn’t want readers buying books with content they’ll find offensive. So how do you head off a friend or relation who might be similarly upset by what you’ve written?
So far I’ve tried the straight-forward approach, telling anybody who asks that, yes, my books do include fairly explicit sex scenes, but no, I’m not writing porn. I have no idea how erotica writers handle this, but I’ll bet they’ve had to come up with ways to alert their maiden aunts before they buy their latest books.
The problem for all of us may be that reading and liking romance is still regarded as a guilty secret by a lot of people, even though it’s one of the best-selling genres in publishing. It’s always possible that my husband’s aunt has been reading romances for years and would look at mine as just another on her TBR stack. But she’s never mentioned it, and I’m not sure how to ask her. So for now, I’ll just tell my brother-in-law that I don’t think my book would be right for Aunt Beth. And then the next time I visit her, I’ll check her bookshelves for copies of Nora Roberts or Danielle Steel or even Barbara Cartland.
And if I find them, I’ll be sending her autographed copies of my books—ASAP.

The Voice

One of my favorite poems starts off –

There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
“I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.”

Shel Silverstein made it sound so simple. But what do you do when the voice inside you starts speaking in tongues?