The blog has moved…
Because of my ongoing frustration with WordPress (and my tech-idiot status), I’ve moved the blog to blogger. I’m shutting down comments here. Please follow me at http://selestedelaney.blogspot.com .
Drinking and Thinking…about Books
Last night we went out to dinner and I actually ordered a drink. Now, as much as I enjoy my adult beverages, I don’t often order drinks when we’re out for dinner. They tend to be over-priced…blah blah blah. But I’d finished a project yesterday and wanted to get something to celebrate. In the spirit of celebration, I perused the menu for something a little different and ordered a mojito–a drink that I enjoy but don’t have very often.
For me, picking something like that is sort of like going into a bookstore and grabbing a book from a genre that I don’t normally read but I’ve liked before. It makes the stories I do read there more special somehow. For instance, I read a lot of YA, but very little contemporary YA. The exception to that is Hannah Moskowitz. Love her work. I don’t read much homosexual erotica either (yes, jumping from YA to erotica…it’s what I do), but I decided to give it a chance and found that in certain ways I like it better than a lot of straight erotica (but odds are it’ll still be a less common purchase). My mainstays in reading are what I normally write–speculative. Give me some weres and vamps or spaceships or clockworks or even elves and gnomes and I’m a happy girl (as long as it’s well-written and a fun story). But in those other genres… I’m a lot more picky.
A friend once told me there’s nothing like a really good mojito. He’s right, but there’s also nothing like a really bad one. And this went beyond bad. It was horrible. It tasted like really syrupy peppermint schnapps on the rocks–a big old glass of it. Nothing against peppermint schnapps, I mean, it’s tasty in hot chocolate, but it’s definitely not a mojito. I sent the drink back, but the peppermint taste was so strong that not even my cajun shrimp could cover it.
So, imagine buying a not-my-genre book and sitting down to read it and ending up with a similar experience. Since it’s not a standard read for me, the book that leaves the horrid taste in my mouth that no amount of Kelley Armstrong and Richelle Mead with a Mark Henry chaser will kill, risks ruining the entire genre for me. That shit will make me pick my ass up and desert an entire section of the bookstore.
Now, one good thing is I’ve had a decent mojito. Hell, I’ve had a damn good mojito. I know they’re out there, so other than making sure I never order one at that particular restaurant again, I’m not going to avoid mojitos at all cost, after all, I know they can be yummy. To be fair though, odds are I won’t risk ordering one blindly. It’ll take having had one at the place before (mmmm….Pickle Barrel…) or having a friend tell me the place makes good ones. Otherwise, I’m going to stick to what I normally drink.
The same is true with books. If I pick up a YA contemporary that turns my stomach (or melts my brain), I’m still going to buy the next Hannah Moskowitz book. A gay erotic romance with no character development or discernable plot? Meh. I know there are good ones out there, but I’ll base that reading on recommendations from now on. This is, from my discussions with others, a pretty standard way of thinking. Beyond judging a book by its cover, readers often judge a genre based on the first book they read in that genre.
So every writer–traditional, digital, indie, I-don’t-care-what-the-newest-label-is–needs to keep that in mind. That means the editing, plot, characterizations need to be the best you can make them. Your book could be the first one a reader picks up in that genre. It will be the book by which all others are judged. What kind of taste do you want to leave in the reader’s mouth?
Have there been any books that you’ve read that would have turned you off to a genre if you didn’t already know there were better books out there?
One Lovely Blog
Bea at Bea’s Book Nook bestowed upon me another blog award.
It’s very pretty and all, but damn it, I want to get like a badass blogger award or something. So far I’m cute and lovely, but…. okay, yeah, enough bitching.
There are two very simple rules that accompany this award:
1. Share “7″ facts about yourself and…
2. Pass this award on to “15″ other deserving blog owners (hahahahahahahaha uh…no)
“7″ Random Facts About Me:
1) When I started college, I was an aerospace engineering major. Turned out it wasn’t just my high school physics teacher I didn’t like…I just hated physics. Jumped ship sophomore year after one aero class.
2) My first completed novel is still sitting on my hard drive waiting for the moment when I have time to do a re-write. My original beta reader has informed me it’s the story of mine that she reads over and over, so I should probably get to it eventually.
3) I tend to be very non-confrontational. I prefer not to rock the boat unless someone is in severe need of a dunking.
4) I have a very unhealthy addiction to diet pop (soda). I managed to quit once, but it was only after a huge fight with a friend where I basically stopped eating for three days. I figured I’d already gone through the caffeine withdrawal, so I’d stick to it. Lasted about three months.
5) Generally speaking, I don’t spend money easily, especially large sums of money. On the rare occasion it happens, it’s usually something I’ve secretly debated buying for months.
6) I was a band geek. Specifically, I was in marching band all through high school and for three years at Purdue.
7) When I was younger, it was very rare for me to not finish a book. In the last two years, I’ve become a serial DNFer. I have almost an equal number of half-read books in my TBR pile as I do unread. Not a comment on the authors as much as it is me. My reading is very mood-dependent and an author whose work I would soar through today could be the absolute wrong thing in a month.
Time to pass this onto 15 5 other deserving bloggers (Sorry, my brain can’t handle thinking of fifteen this morning):
3) Anne Michaud
4) Tammy Crosby
5) Danielle LaPaglia (just because I know how much she loves me when I give these to her 
)
Blues and News
First and foremost (since people have been asking), I’m doing better with the depression. I’m not back to my normal (I use that term loosely) self, but I’m getting there. Thanks for all the *hugs* and happy thoughts and love. Every bit of it helps and is appreciated 
I am a little melancholy today though. It’s the first day of school. The Boy is a fourth grader, which means in two short years he’s going to be in middle school. I’m pretty sure that means I’m old, but I’m going to try to ignore that fact and just do my thing. But…Mini-Me started first grade this year (and she got her ears pierced in celebration of becoming a big kid). She’s been doing half-days for a while now, but this will be the first time in almost ten years that I’ve been alone all day every day. I’m not really sure how it’s going to go. On the plus side, more time for writing! On the down side…yeah, we’re just going to pretend the depression thing doesn’t worry me.
In the meantime though, I have news!
Remember a couple weeks ago when I announced that Evernight Publishing had picked up GunShy and the Cupid’s Conquests series? First, I have a group of authors hard at work on more stories for the series which has me totally geeked. Second… my editor and I busted through edits, and they bumped up the release date. So scratch November. GunShy is coming…*Drum-roll*… September 16! Yes, it will be available ten days from now. I’m crazy excited and I really hope people love this story.
In other news, authors from Decadent Publishing (including me) will be at The Romance Studio chat room tomorrow night at 9pm eastern time (6pm Pacific… hopefully the rest of you can figure it out from there). Please stop by! I’m pretty sure the people in charge are doing giveaways (*hint* Check out which authors are there and have their websites at the ready to search for answers to questions… at least that’s how they did it last time )
New Cover Alert! Forever Summer Coming Soon!
Okay, I’m a little geeked about this one.
First, other than poetry, I haven’t entered a writing contest since I was in elementary school. Second, this story was my first foray into the world of *gulp* contemporary romance. So, to have it chosen as a finalist by the people in charge at One Place for Romance and then to have readers vote for it to win…it’s crazy exciting for me.
I don’t have a release date yet, but I do have cover art. Fantasia Frog Designs was an absolute joy to work with. She not only found fabulous models that really fit my characters, she kept me involved with the entire process. What we ended up with was a cover that embodies the story better than I could have hoped.
Now, as long as you, dear readers, love the book as well as I love the cover, I will feel like I did my job.
With her dreams of a career by the sea shattered by the economy, Katya’s trying to be happy with the two weeks she’s managed in the Florida Keys. But when the cottage she’s rented turns out to be infested, she’s ready to go home to Pennsylvania. At least until Jay, the handyman and filmmaker next door, comes to her rescue.
Sweet, talented and sexy, he’s everything she ever wanted in a man. Too bad he’s only hanging out with her because he’s such a nice guy.
Or is he?
Excerpt:
He followed breakfast with a walk on the beach where they stopped to admire the elaborate sand castles kids built then kicked down before the waves could get to them and stared in wonder at a large pod of porpoises frolicking just past the breakers. Her new friend changed her miserable morning into the most glorious summer day Katya had ever experienced. Sitting at a table near the sand, sipping a Rum Runner and enjoying the last of her mahi-mahi sandwich, she didn’t think anything could make the day better.
Intent on watching the ocean for more signs of the playful porpoises, she almost missed when Jay said, “Want to head out on the water for a while?”
“Seriously? I’d love to, but I’m not sure I can swing the cost.” With college graduation barely a memory, student loans loomed over her head. Her parents had given her enough grief about taking this trip at all.
Jay stretched, his muscles flexing with the motion, and drew her appreciative gaze for a second until she realized what she was doing and shifted back to the ocean. “No worries; the captain of a certain deep sea fishing boat owes me a favor or ten. What do you say? Want to go out?”
“Is the pope Catholic?”
Laughing, Jay downed the last of his beer and motioned for the bill.
He was too damn good to be true. Fixing her house, letting her stay at his place, and showing her the time of her life? Plus, his long blond hair, baby blues, and crooked grin made him hotter than hell. Everything about spending time with him screamed house of cards, and she couldn’t help but wonder which moment would be the breeze that blew it all down.
***
All morning, Jay had managed to talk to Katya without his dormant libido rearing its head. Then he got her on the boat—in her bikini—and it was all he could do not to sport tented shorts the entire afternoon. She made it worse by acting self-conscious about wearing the bikini in the first place.
Then again, he spent the whole time wishing she wasn’t in the bathing suit, too.
Her line dipped, the rod bowing as the fish pulled away. Katya handled the beast like a pro, letting it wear itself out before she tried to reel it in. Still, it wrestled with her. Happy for the excuse, Jay wrapped his arms around her and added his muscle to the fight. The fish leapt from the water, and the move allowed them to yank it onboard. With the tension gone from the line, Kat lost her balance and fell against him, both of them tumbling to the slippery deck to join the flopping tuna. She twisted in his arms, and their lips hovered precariously close, electricity dancing between them.
New Cover Alert! GunShy Coming in November!
The good news just keeps coming And good news means new cover art!
When I started this project, I didn’t really know where it was going. It seemed like just a cute little short story, but as I was writing, I realized there was more to it than initially anticipated. Even once the mythological aspect came to me, I saw it as a “one and done” project.
If you know me at all, you know how hard a time I have with stand-alones.
The minute I realized this needed to be a series, I panicked. I don’t have time for another series! Then I realized it didn’t just have to be me. There is only one over-arching component to the series which means…other people could write them too. That’s when the giddiness hit…until I realized I needed to sell someone on the concept. Turns out that wasn’t as difficult as I’d anticipated as a few places were interested. In the end, I decided to go with a house I’d worked with before but hadn’t had the opportunity to do more than a short story with (all my solo series are elsewhere).
So it is with a great deal of joy that I get to announce that GunShy, the first book in the Cupid’s Conquests series is coming from Evernight Publishing this November. With a handful of other authors already on board to write stories for the series, I hope it has a long and fruitful existence with the great people at Evernight.
Banished from Olympus with orders to restore love to the world, Eros starts with a match no one sees coming. No one but him.
Straight-laced principal Kira isn’t looking for love, especially not right after getting dumped. Then a chance encounter leads her to Jesse, and damned if she isn’t drawn to the bad-boy with a heart of gold. A night of reckless abandon leaves her confused. Was there something there, or did she imagine the connection between them?
Jesse knows lying to Kira is a mistake, but she’s the first woman in a long time to see the man and not just the rock star. When his plan to come clean goes terribly wrong, Kira bolts, leaving Jesse in the dust.
Now Eros has to nudge the star-crossed lovers together and prove to Zeus that love does exist, even among the gun shy.
Here’s the Long and Short of It
I’m not blogging here this week. Instead:
How cool is that? I absolutely LOVE Long and Short Reviews, so I’m really geeked to be there. Plus I even compare (soda) pop to sex. That should be worth the price of admission 
If you’re a regular visitor here, please pop over to the interview on Tuesday, August 16. Here’s a handy dandy link and everything:
http://www.longandshortreviews.com/WC/interviews.htm
I’m also going to be at their author chat on Wednesday, so if you have questions or anything for me, please stop by! I’ll also be announcing upcoming releases there!
Sometimes It Pours
I’ve been trying to avoid doing a post like this for…pretty much forever. As open as I am online, there are some things that I just don’t like to talk about. It isn’t that I’m trying to hide them, they just aren’t fun subjects so I don’t bring them up.
This time, I don’t feel like I really have a choice because it’s affecting too much of my life.
For those of you who don’t know, I suffer from depression. Most of the time, I can keep it under control and when it gets bad, it only gets bad for a few days before I pull out of it. At worst, I’ll disappear from Twitter and Facebook for a bit, but usually I’m of the whole “fake it ’til you make it” school of thought and put on my happy face and plow through.
This time it hasn’t been a few days though, it’s been a few months.
The worst part is, objectively, it’s been a really great few months: lots of travel (which I love), won the first writing contest I’ve entered in ages, sold a novella, got to hang with some of my best friends, kids are good, husband’s good. Basically, life is good.
That doesn’t matter to depression though.
Happy moments, no matter how big, have been fleeting at best, and everything in my life feels nothing short of overwhelming. I know some people have noticed that beyond the travel issue, I’ve been rather scarce on twitter. On my better days, I’m there a little bit, but for the most part it’s one more thing that feels like too much.
So, as much as it pains me to do it, I’m going to pull back on some things. Any blog posts and whatnot that I’ve committed to, I’ll still get done, but posts here (and at my other blog) will likely be very brief. I’m going to try to get some reviews in for Wicked Lil Pixie still, but until I get a handle on my life again, I don’t know how often they’ll show up. For now, I need to focus as much as I can on the writing part of my job (because 1-it’s my job and 2-it actually helps the depression sometimes) and my family.
I’m not going to to disappear entirely or anything, I just need to get control of things again.
I hope you’ll all bear with me. <3
Seeing Red…and Blue…and Green…
While I was away at the beach, edits came in on a recent story. It’s a short, so I figured it was no big deal and I’d be able to tackle them pretty quickly. Now, to give you some perspective, when I’m really on, I can edit a short in a day or two. Then I opened the file.
Holy highlights, Batman!
There was…a lot. And I knew without a doubt I needed more than a couple days of sneaking away from family time to get it done. Most editors who have worked with me (and talked to me while I was editing) know that I can tackle big issues pretty handily. Editor points out a problem, I slap my hand against my forehead, wonder how I could have been so stupid as to not see the problem, and I get to work on fixing it. It’s the little things that give me fits. (I’m sure Gina remembers well when I was working on edits in Italy and had one sentence that I couldn’t get right. She told me to skip it. I refused, and the answer came to me while trying to sleep on the flight home.) And almost everything I needed to fix in this story was a little thing.
My intense love for edits (yes, I’m weird) quickly turned into a lot of loud groaning about not wanting to do it. You see, I had this illusion that the more stories I had published, the easier edits would get because I’d have been learning to fix all those stupid things I did wrong. The fact is I appear to replace one stupid thing with something new. My “that” problem? Tackled. Gone. Over. (Believe me, it took a long time.) Now I have things that can’t be solved with a simple “delete”.
But you know what? I’m seeing the tail end of this round of edits now–I’ll finish them today–and as much as I hate to say it, I think it was a good experience for me. First, it made me realize there will always be something in need of fixing. That’s a really freeing thought. I’m going to screw up, so I just need to worry about writing. Second, I found that even some of the little things need to be fought for. A suggested change of wording to something that your character would never use., a turn of phrase that your betas all loved, intentional use of passive structure–all of those things can be important. The point of edits is to figure out when they’re most important, because that’s when you dig your heels in (which is hard to do when you haven’t made a bunch of other suggested changes–makes you seem like a diva ).
Now that I’ve struggled through all the itty-bitty detailed changes, I can say I still love doing edits. I’m hoping when I do my read-through before hitting send later today, I’ll be able to smile and say the changes made the story stronger. Because that’s the point of all the moaning, groaning, hand-wringing, cursing, and throwing of things–to make it better.
In the meantime, I’ll repaint the target on my office wall for the next round of throwing thi…er edits.
The Romance Is Over
Or at least the Mr. Romance competition.
Word came out last Wednesday that the people behind the Romantic Times convention have pulled the plug on the competition. I’m not going to re-hash their reasons (you can read them here –> http://readersentertainment.com/2011/no-more-mr-romance/ ). It’s no secret I’m not happy about this, but I don’t think it’s for the reason most people who know me (or know of me) think. Okay, that might be a bit of the reason, but it’s not the whole reason.
Here’s the thing…I love the Romantic Times Convention. I love the scope of it and the parties and meeting authors and, yes, meeting the models. It’s all part of this big package to me that screams in orgasmic joy. The powers-that-be at RT are saying that there will still be models there, and I’m sure some of them will be, but I’m going to hazard a guess that for the most part it will be the people who have been there before: CJ Hollenbeck, Jimmy Thomas, Mark Johnson… and maybe a few of the more recent contestants. But odds are there won’t be new blood every year. And I don’t like that…for a lot of reasons.
We’ll start with the obvious one that most people will think I mean–there won’t be the opportunity to meet new models. Yes, I like meeting and partying with (and actually talking to) men. Sure, I like talking to men I already know, but meeting new ones is fun. I’ll miss that. And if my regular dance partners don’t go? Um…the dances are going to be a lot less fun. Sorry to all my girlfriends. Dancing with you is fun, but I like dancing with guys.
Now onto (some of) the other reasons.
First is the opportunity the Mr. Romance competition provided to up and coming models. Many of the guys who competed didn’t have connections in the romance industry, and for some, Mr. Romance was their first glance into that world. There are quite a few male models who would love to get into cover modeling but don’t have the connections. Mr. Romance was a foot in the door–one that has just been cut off. Considering more than one of the competitors this year alone signed with agents and stock photo companies because of the competition, that means less opportunities for models and fewer options for authors. I don’t know about any other author, but I like the increased possibility of having models that fit what my characters actually look like.
But that’s not even the biggest issue.
That one is RT itself. As I said, I love this con and Mr. Romance was one thing that made it stand out from all the others. Without it, what makes it special? What makes it different than…RomCom or RWA Nationals or Authors After Dark or (for those of us who write genre romance) DragonCon or World Con or World Fantasy? Every author and reader has to make choices on where their promotional dollar goes, and cons are expensive. As far as registration and promotion goes, RT might be the most expensive. To be fair, someone’s going to be most expensive, and it might as well be them. But at a certain point, if RT loses what makes it unique, what is going to encourage authors and readers to spend the extra to attend?
I want to have faith that the powers-that-be have something planned to make RT stand out since they’re doing away with the Mr. Romance competition, but I don’t know them well enough to say that for certain. The best I can do is hope that something awesome will take its place, because I’d hate to see RT become just another con.