ODDS AND ENDS aka BITS AND PIECES.

Especially after my week!

I seem to have misplaced a blogger or two, or perhaps they’ve misplaced me. Not really surprising with busy life styles and writing deadlines, is it? In today’s busy world there are times we would lose our heads if they weren't conveniently attached (My mom told me that so I know it's gotta be true). 

I’m not sure how your week was but mine has been filled with deadlines, meetings, bureaucracy galore,in other words, chaos. And I seem unable to have a quiet day at home. You know, that free and quiet time so you can reflect, catch up on things, and god forbid, maybe even read?

Yeah, well, not happening here. Hope y’all have had better success with that than me.

Some winners:

Laila won a $10 Amazon gift card at Loucinda McGary’s launch party last Friday.

Jo Wake and Tracy Dent won a copy of The Lady of the Storm by Kathryne Kennedy. I do have your email addys but I will need your physical address to forward to the publisher so the books can be sent to you.

A good book I read recently:

You remember IsabelCooper visited the blog a couple weeks ago—WITH TIME ON MY HANDS and her book, No Proper Lady. Well I ordered the ebook. It was a great book and I finished it swiftly. I couldn’t wait to see how everything played out. A historical and yet not as it has a touch of paranormal and scifi. Loved the time travel aspect of it—traveling back in time to save the world for the future. Joan is a skilled assassin and lives in a world so very different from England of 1888. Her adjustment to a relatively safe and normal world (except for corsets which she considers torture extreme) where there is plenty of food, wildlife, and shock, the world is full of green forests. It was fun to see her transformation from soldier (you would not believe where she hides all her weapons—she’d shock the leading ladies) to a lady who would fit into the Ton so she could get close to her target. I also loved the fact that the hero is a magician and his sister is a minor one. Both Simon and his sister have trouble wrapping their minds around what happens in 200 years.  Simon also has to come to grips with Joan’s language and sexuality—so different from the women of his time. On the last page, last scene, I was like, what do you mean this is the end? No, I want more, dammit! I really enjoyed reading this book. You should check it out.

 

A fun book trailer:

Another thing I thoroughly enjoyed is AlexCavanaugh’s newest book trailer, CassaFire. It’s high definition and well done, great voice over, scenes from the book, seamless animated content. 

I loved his first book and trailer, which is how I met up with him. For those of you who haven’t seen it if you click here  it will take you to it.

Check out his site too!  

A great movie:

My son, Jake, and I had a great movie night last weekend—popcorn, some chocolate raisinettes, and multiple kittens to snuggle with.  We saw Fast Five. I loved it. Lots of action, fast cars, and amazing scenarios with precision drivers—good guys win and bad guys lose and major slimebag first gets his butt kicked financially and then his just reward. 

Oh, yeah. Love kick ass and take name movies. An added bonus was Vin Diesel and The Rock. Sigh…They sure were purty to look at. I want to see it again.






Blogs I learn from or entertain me:


Beth Hill—The Editors Blog. Beth has some fabulous craft articles with good examples. She is also an excellent editor for story presentation, grammar, etc. She knows the market well. Check out her archives.


Olivia Cunning Musings From an Erotic Romance Author  Olivia is just plain fun and talks about writing, her work, polls, and other fun stuff.
  

So, there you have it friends.

Your turn to share.

• Any good books you've read? 
• Fun book trailer links? 
• Any good movies?
• Any good news?

C’mon, tell me all about it!

.  

WITH TIME ON MY HANDS—Isabel Cooper

My guest is debut author, Isabel Cooper. She writes historical paranormal romance. 


I warn you, her article cracked me up. I love her sense of humor. I'll also tell you I read the excerpt and promptly bought the book.


Isabel shares with us how she came to write this story and The Call. My understanding is Leah suffered no lasting hearing loss. 

So I wrote this novel: No Proper Lady. 


It was the first romance novel I’d written, and perhaps not-so-coincidentally the first novel I’d written that actually stood up to a second reading. (I’d written a couple in college, since I needed something to think about during class, but going back to all of them was less “hey, I can fix this” and more “what was I thinking?”) I had a lot of fun in the process, since I got to write about weird dystopian futures and fancy dresses and really cute guys, and I kept myself occupied on a number of vacations and train trips. As I’d read you should do, I put the manuscript away, or at least closed the file, and waited six months to start revisions.

Six months later, it was January of 2008. My day job, reasonably enough, decided that “editorial assistant” was not exactly an essential position, considering the impending societal collapse and transition into Mad Max-style chaos. 

I had some time on my hands, is what I’m saying.

Some of this time, I used to look for another job—the endless train of hate that is pantyhose, interview skirts, and cover letters. Everyone knows it; nobody likes it. I facilitated communications! I synergized win-win situations! I got my nails done and then had to get them done again, because my lifestyle is not compatible with manicures that last more than an hour. I did some temp work, which mostly took place in tunnels under Harvard Business School, and pretended to be a Morlock. I spent a lot of time hating the weather, the T, everyone on the T, and everything in general.

But I also spent a lot of time writing. I think every friend who expressed any tangential interest in No Proper Lady got a look at the manuscript, and then had me pestering them about it a day later. (“What do you think?” “Well, my house was on fire, and a spider’s eating my face right now—“ “Yeah, but did you like the book?”) I put in scenes. I took out scenes; I actually took out a lot of scenes, since the first draft was something like a hundred and three thousand words. A background in fantasy had convinced me that a novel had to be long enough that you could use the hardback version to kill large insects, and I hadn’t researched length requirements in romance nearly enough before I first wrote.

I realized that I’d spelled the heroine’s name—or at least her alias--two different ways throughout the book, and hated everything. My computer broke, and I hated that too. My boyfriend let me use his computer, so I didn’t hate him so much.

I revised. I wrote cover letters. I wrote other cover letters. I realized that my job application cover letters were bleeding into my romance cover letters and vice versa. “Dear Ms. Jones: I am applying for a position as a heroine with nothing to lose in a world she never made.” “As passion grows between them, they will become valuable team players with an eye for customer satisfaction.”

I played a lot of music, fairly loudly, and tried to pretend that this was just a montage of hardship and would be over soon. I prayed that I wouldn’t get cavities or appendicitis.

I went on interviews, and more interviews, and developed a nervous tic any time someone asked me what my greatest weakness was. (I seriously considered answering “Kryptonite” or “the color yellow” later on. As far as I could tell, it would probably have worked out the same either way.) I started going out to lunch with friends after the interviews, because why not?

I had to get a new cell phone, because my old one succumbed to a deluge.

And then I came home from a post-interview lunch and found an email from Leah Hultenschmidt asking me to call her about No Proper Lady.

The first thing I did was make myself some tea. This seemed important. This didn’t keep me in any way from squealing like an anime schoolgirl when Leah offered to buy the book. She was very nice about the hearing damage and everything.

In the time since, I’ve gotten a new day job, written the sequel to No Proper Lady, and gotten to meet some incredible people in the romance field. It’s been awesome—and it totally makes those months in 2008 worth it.

Though I would still have preferred a montage.

NO PROPER LADY BY ISABEL COOPER – IN STORES SEPTEMBER 2011

It’s Terminator meets My Fair Lady in this fascinating debut of black magic and brilliant ball gowns, martial arts, and mysticism.

England, 1888. The trees are green, the birds are singing, and in 200 years demons will destroy it all. Unless Joan, a rough-around-the-edges assassin from the future, can take out the dark magician responsible. But to get close to her target she’ll need help learning how to fit into polite Victorian society to get close to her target.

Simon Grenville has his own reasons for wanting to destroy Alex Reynell. The man used to be his best friend—until his practice of the dark arts almost killed Simon’s sister. The beautiful half-naked stranger Simon meets in the woods may be the perfect instrument for his revenge. It will just take a little time to teach her the necessary etiquette and assemble a proper wardrobe. But as each day passes, Simon is less sure he wants Joan anywhere near Reynell. Because no spell in the world will save his future if she isn't in it.EXCERPT

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Indie Bound 

Debut author Isabel Cooper lives in Boston and maintains her guise as a mild-mannered project manager working in legal publishing. She only travels through time the normal way and has never fought a demon, but she can waltz. Her next book, No Honest Woman, will be in stores in April 2011. For more information, please visit http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com.