AND THE BAND PLAYS ON...OR NOT

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Fresh Flowers, Good Coffee, and Conversation--Life is Good!

My guest is romance author Addison Fox. She discusses the divergence of expectations and reality. There is also a chance for a commenter to win a copy of her latest book in the Zodiac series, Warrior Enchanted. I can tell you she writes a great story!

I always had this very grand vision about being a writer. I saw this delightful version of myself sitting in a coffee house, earbuds in my ear with some beautiful classical piece playing and endless hours with nothing but my keyboard for company as I wrote my books.

Um….yeah.

So I love coffee and almost always have a cup next to me when I start my writing day (then switch to hot tea around Noon). But the few times I’ve tried writing IN the coffee house….I got about 6 words written.

Six. Maybe ten if it was a good day.

And the music…..well, in THAT part of my grand vision I forgot the fact that I hate having earbuds in my ears. Hate, Hate, HATE….like “I wish I could pull my ears off” sort of hate.

So there goes that lovely thought, too.

And the whole “oodles and oodles of time” concept….well, I haven’t seen “oodles” since I was about four. And even then, there were play dates with my sister and Sesame Street watching parties and a great new Dr. Seuss to catch up on. You know, I was busy.

But here’s what I learned when I stopped thinking about my “vision” of writing and actually began “sitting-in-the chair” and writing. I discovered that the idea we have about things are seldom the way those things actually are. (I think there’s a bigger life lesson in there, but I suspect that’s a whole ‘nother blog!)

The wonderful and wacky things that make us who we are don’t change when we pursue various interests in our life.  While I consider myself a very social person, I don’t like having people around me when I’m working.  And I’ve had sensitive ears since I was a small child, so voluntarily putting things in my ear canals…yeah, not so much. And the whole time crunch. No one has lots of time – we make time for the things that matter.

Instead, the big takeaway I learned is that you need to forget your vision for something and get to the place where you’re DOING the thing instead. And funny enough, you’ll figure out exactly HOW you’re supposed to be doing it.

Your way. The way that makes you feel comfortable and productive and happy.

I very rarely write outside my home. Instead, I park myself behind my desk, a small lamp nearby and not a shred of music playing anywhere. And whether I have thirty minutes or eight hours, I enter my zone because I’m in a place that feels private and comfortable and quiet and all mine.

And that is exactly the way it’s meant to be.

• So what about you? Where have your expectations not matched reality and you discovered what a good thing that was.  

One lucky poster will win a copy of my new release, WARRIOR ENCHANTED.

BUY ONLINE: AMAZON, B&N, POWELLS

WARRIOR ENCHANTED Addison Fox Available in stores and online.


Pisces warrior Drake Campbell and his zodiac brethren have driven themselves to the edge. He'd love to take comfort in the arms of the woman he cares for, if only she would lift her emotional barriers to him.

White witch Emerson Carano has more to worry about than the Pisces warrior. Their affair may be red-hot, but she keeps the sexy man at arm's length to avoid getting hurt. When her estranged brother, Magnus, suddenly reappears—wielding a dangerous dark magic—Emerson has no choice but to ask Drake and his brothers for help.

Long-buried secrets and dangerous alliances will threaten the very foundation of the warriors while striking at the heart of Emerson's carefully constructed world. Can she put aside her fears to join forces with the only man who can help her—even if her own family must pay a terrible price?

Addison Fox is the author of the Sons of the Zodiac paranormal romance series for NAL as well as the upcoming Alaskan Nights contemporary trilogy, which launches with BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE in November 2011. You can find her at her home on the web, www.addisonfox.com, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Addison lives in New York City.

Most Magical Place on Earth

It’s my pleasure to welcome paranormal-romance author, Addison Fox, to Over Coffee. I hadn’t read any of her books and then I read an interview where she talked about her Zodiac Warrior Series and Warrior Betrayed. I decided to order the first in the series, Warrior Ascended. I glanced through it and had to exert all my discipline to keep myself from going beyond the first chapter until I finished the book I’m reading for review. Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy, lol!


Addison joins us to talk about another life long love of mine, libraries. Don’t you just love the smell of a library? Many a happy hour has been spent in my local library exploring exciting worlds and people. I’ve never been able to go into a library and check just one book…




Sia - thanks so much for inviting me to guest today on Over Coffee! I’m really looking forward to spending the day with everyone!


I know the blog is about sharing the laughter and the tears, but I’m a lifelong “look-on-the-bright-sider” so I’d much rather talk (or type!) about the laughter and the triumphs. I had the most wonderful experience this week and wanted to share.


Although I’ve been writing through most of my adult life, as I tell anyone who will listen, I’m a reader first and have been since I could turn the pages in a book. I have books scattered all over my house, in my purse, on my night stand, in my work bag….you get the picture! As a crazy book lover, I’m also a huge library lover. As far as I’m concerned – and no disrespect to the Mouse - libraries deserve the moniker “Most Magical Place on Earth.”


I had the opportunity to speak to a group at the Clarendon Library in Brooklyn this week and it has been one of my most enjoyable experiences to date as an author. To sit and share my love of books and writing with a group of people was such a wonderful experience. To engage and interact with fellow book lovers in an environment that’s devoted to words and learning was just amazing.


It’s also gotten me thinking about libraries in general. What a truly awesome thing – that we have these places in our communities filled with books and knowledge and access to information. For everyone. All at the swipe of a card. As an author, the thought that my books can be included in “the collection” is some serious happy-making.


As an author, I am privileged to have stories living in my head. These amazing, heroic men and women show up in my brain and let me hang out with them for several months as their story unfolds in my mind. Sure, there are moments it’s nerve-wracking. And sure, there are days the words feel like their locked in cement. But when I’m writing, I get to visit worlds only as grand and fun and unique as I can imagine them. As a lifelong reader, I know the joy that I’ve taken in countless hours of reading through the years. To think that my words might give that same sort of enjoyment to another is the deepest honor I can think of.

• So what about you? Have you been to the library lately?

If not, maybe the next time you have a free weekend you may want to go over and spend an hour or two getting lost in the stacks. I promise – it’s magic!

WARRIOR BETRAYED May 2011

Millennia ago, the Goddess of Justice created a race of fierce Warriors, each imbued with a special power of the Zodiac, charged with protecting humanity from the darkest of evils.

Forty years ago, Eirene, the Goddess of Peace spurned her position to run away with a mortal. Furious with her daughter, Themis set a curse upon Eirene’s unborn child; to one day replace her mother on Mount Olympus.

Montana Grant lost contact with her mother many years ago. Now as she struggles to lead her late father’s shipping company, she’s also dealing with the sudden reappearance of her mother. The frail woman is spouting nonsense about Mount Olympus, immortal warriors, and long-standing curses. But after suspicious activity puts the company’s future – and possibly Montana’s life – at risk, she decides to take her mother’s last bit of advice…

When Montana asks Quinn Tanner for help, she confronts the sexy security executive about his secret identity: He’s a Taurus Warrior. Quinn denies it, but he can’t deny his powerful attraction to the high-powered heiress. With worldwide peace in the balance, it’s up to Quinn to help Montana rise to her destiny – even as they’re falling in love…Excerpt

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders Available e-format and mass paperback

~*~*~

Addison Fox is the author of the Sons of the Zodiac paranormal romance series for NAL as well as the upcoming Alaskan Nights contemporary trilogy, which launches with BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE in November 2011. You can find her at her home on the web, www.addisonfox.com, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Addison lives in New York City.

A Complete and Utter Fraud

My guest today is debut author, Jessa Slade. She discusses the changes that come with going from unpublished to published. The feelings of disbelief and the need to pinch yourself because you can't believe it's no longer a dream but reality. The checking to see if what is felt is excitement or terror--perhaps both?

Thanks so much, Sia, for giving me a chance to blog with you. I’m especially happy to be here because sometimes I still feel like it’s impossible that I am here.

Last month, I attended the Romance Writers of America national conference in Washington DC. Although I’ve been to writers’ conferences before, this was my first time as a published author. I was so excited to be going since I got to wear a First Sale ribbon, which I’d longingly admired on new authors over the many, many years of my writing apprenticeship. I donned the name badge with eager pride. The ribbon—shiny and pink—fluttered at the bottom like a challenge to a very small, somewhat effeminate bull.

Bull, as in bullsh!t.

The Bull of BS has long been my nemesis. I picture it like the red bull from Peter S. Beagle’s THE LAST UNICORN. The Bull rears its pointy-horned head whenever I clamber over the fence that divides me from my dreams, when I take a few steps outside my comfort zone, when I start to think maybe—finally—I know where I’m going, and maybe—finally—I have the right to be there. The Bull of BS has an unerring eye for uncertainty, scents fraudulence on the breeze at one part per billion, and eats eager pride for breakfast.

And the Bull of BS had me in its crosshairs.


I’m not ashamed to say I ran. (Okay, I’m a little ashamed, but eager pride goeth before a poking in the backside by the Bull of BS.) I ran back to the bar, back to the safety of my writing friends because I knew they’d understand.

Fellow paranormal romance author Annette McCleave whose first book DRAWN IN DARKNESS comes out in September, drank a spiked hot chocolate with me and captured the sentiment best: "I'd been unpublished a long time. I was good at it. Now [after selling a book] I feel like I fell off a cliff. I'm starting over." She included a dramatic hand gesture, which mimed a Wyle E. Coyote-style 90-degree plummet over a precipice.

Selling a book doesn’t make you a master; it makes you the apprentice, back at the bottom again.


During the conference, fellow writers congratulated me on the first sale, and inevitably they added, “You must be so excited!” Hmm, let me check... Elevated heart rate, dilated pupils, breathlessness, sleeplessness... That’s either excitement, or terror!

Maybe both as I hop the fence into the field of dreams, into the fray of being a debut novelist. From my first big outing as a published author, I learned a few things that maybe someday will boost me from apprentice (again) to journeyman:

• There’s always something more to learn, and in the learning comes confidence. Going to workshops and talking to other writers—and this time, talking to my editor and agent—I realized I have indeed learned a few things since the days when I accidentally told parts of my story from the dog’s point of view. That’s progress equivalent, for example, to an apprentice blacksmith not nailing his pants to a horse’s hoof. Yay me! Except there’s always something more to learn so I imagine I’ll never quite get to the end no matter how many times I get to The End.
  


• It’s not as serious as I thought. Seriously. I can’t play the wise and thoughtful writer. Not even on TV. Nobody’d believe it, what with the Bull of BS drooling over my shoulder. Taking my writing seriously but not myself so much has eased some of the pressure. This flies in the face of confidence-building how-to articles that tell you to fake it ‘til you make it, but every time I admit to someone that I secretly suspect I am making this all up, they completely understand. And most feel the same! Turns out, there are a lot of us sneaking along the Bull’s fence, wanting to take the risk. Turns out, a lot of us have jumped the fence only to slip in a cowpie. Talk about instant friendships...
  


• I might have to hear it, but I don’t have to listen to the voice of doubt. This seems simple and obvious, I know, but with the Bull looming right there it’s really hard to meditate on those positive affirmations. Usually the best I can do is pretend, but that counts for a lot because I’m a fiction writer, and we make things up all the time.

Of course, I’m excited to finally have a story I can share with others. I’m also happy, grateful and determined. And terrified. Selling a book didn’t make me a faster writer (sadly), or more self-assured or less introverted. I didn’t suddenly become the brave and graceful toreador, meeting the Bull’s charge with my crimson cape flying. Nope, I only have a pink ribbon. And that’ll have to be enough.

Well, that and a cup of spiked hot chocolate and writing friends.

Has there ever been a time when you thought everybody could see right through your façade? How did you deal? Afterward, did the experience give you more confidence to pursue your dreams?

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Jessa Slade has always adored doggerel verse, overwrought imagery and hyper-extended metaphors. She tries desperately (and often hopelessly) to rein in these dangerous impulses.On the plus side, she only rarely writes about herself in the third person.She lives in Portland, Oregon, with a musician who feeds her, a shelter dog who walks her, and a pair of nocturnal geckos that keep her company during the wee writing hours.



You can visit Jessa: http://demonrepent.com/