Those Special Moments

I’m pleased to have suspense fiction author, Steve O’Brien, as my guest today. He’s written several books, including the award winning Elijah’s Coin.

I’ve been around Thoroughbreds growing up and have had family who has worked with racehorses. My brothers will tell you these are phenomenal horses, intelligent and full of heart and fire, and highly competitive. They want to win. I love animals in general and horses in particular. I have three. When I saw this book, I knew I had to read it. A hint, don’t start reading this just before bedtime unless you don’t care about sleep. :-)  It touches the emotions and I have to tell you, I wanted to hurt these villains, oh so bad.

I finally was able to hunt Steve down, lol! I invited him to visit Over Coffee. I love his topic and with a teen myself, I had to laugh as I read his article. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.  

Special moments accompany the lives of authors. Undoubtedly, the first is holding the finished product in your hands. Heck, it could even be an ARC copy, but there is a distinct feeling of satisfaction and completion at that moment.

Another special moment is receiving that first review. Somebody read it, liked it, and wanted to tell others about it.

Other special moments could be receiving a literary award, seeing the book on Amazon and BN.com or doing book signings.

I experienced a few other unique author moments, with unexpected twists however.

Recently, I was browsing through a nearby Barnes and Noble store. My wife tells me I spend way too much time in bookstores. I can’t help it. I’m a serial browser. As I cruised past the “new fiction” section, an image caught my eye.

My book!!!!   In the new fiction section!!!

A rush of emotion overtook me. I wanted to scream out “hey, everybody! My book is here in the new fiction section!”

With great restraint I was able to avoid making a scene. But I felt compelled to pull out my i-phone and snap a picture of my book and its placement. (I did have to ask a customer to move slightly to the left, so I could get the pic. She, of course, figured I had recently escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane, and quickly moved over a section or two).

Months and months of work, edits and re-edits, nights pounding on the keyboard, my book was finally getting equal billing with mega authors like James Patterson and Jodi Picoult. I was breathless. (Okay, they will still outsell me a billion to one, but there I was).

I did not have to walk from the store, as my feet were nowhere near touching the ground.

When I got home, I was nearly bursting with excitement. I was just waiting to pounce on that stock question “anything interesting happen today?” But I couldn’t wait. I whipped out my I-phone and showed my wife. As she was viewing it our sixteen year old daughter walked into the kitchen. I handed her my phone and casually said, “do you recognize anything in this photo?”

She grabbed the phone with both hands and in an instant was awe struck. “Oh, my gosh.” I could feel my chest puffing out slightly and a smile crept across my face. “Oh, my gosh,” she gasped. So cool that she will be able to tell all her friends, I thought.

She looked at me and exclaimed, “Snooki’s book is out!”

Snooki’s book is out?

In a nanosecond, my zeppelin sized ego, came crashing down in flames. I had to point and say “No, honey, don’t you see? Two rows above (gulp) Snooki’s book, is my book?”

“Oh, yeah. Cool.” She handed back my phone and walked out of the kitchen.

Okay, maybe I deserved that. My raging sense of significance needed to be checked. No one can dampen that self absorbed emotion faster than one’s own teenager.

At least I could take comfort that she didn’t reply “whatever.”

Now, to be fair to my daughter, she has been a huge advocate of my writing. (I guess the Snooki book sighting was just too much for her to pass up). My all time favorite text message was not even sent to me. It was sent to my daughter.

Last summer we were relaxing at home and her phone buzzed. It was a text from one of her classmates.

The message read. “Dude, your dad’s book is number three on I-Books.”

Greater words were never written. (Truth be told, the book was number three in the Children and Teens category, but hey number three is still number three).

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect my favorite text message to start with the word “dude.” But it does.

So, for today’s Over Coffee blog, tell me about your special moment, either as a writer or in any occupation. Then tell me about a time your ego was cut down to size. It’s okay, we’re all friends.


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Bullet Work Cover Blurb

When facing our darkest fear, one question remains.

Are we willing to bet everything?

Behind the glamorous exterior of horseracing lies the gritty reality of the backside. Within this fiercely competitive world of owners, trainers, vets, and jockeys something has gone terribly wrong. As opening day approaches, one racehorse is poisoned, another has her leg crushed by a lead pipe and a third mysteriously disappears. Shock and horror grip the racing community.

Then it all makes sense. Greed.

The extortion demands are revealed. Stables are forced to pay protection money to ensure the safety of their horses. Despite all security efforts, the brutal killings continue. For Dan Morgan it becomes personal when his precocious two-year-old filly is targeted. Dan befriends AJ Kaine, a lonely, “horse whispering” young man. AJ is a hotwalker, the lowest of jobs in the backside food chain. But AJ has a secret–perhaps a secret that can corner a killer. With AJ’s help, Dan must crack the extortion scheme or risk becoming the next victim. Excerpt

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, Indiebound

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Steve O’Brien is a lawyer and fiction writer. His first novel, Elijah’s Coin was the recipient of nine literary awards including the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Best Novella and Best Young Adult Fiction by the National Best Book Awards. His second novel, Bullet Work was released March 22, 2011. O’Brien lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two children.


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The Mystery of Egypt

My guest is award winning author who describes herself as a woman with a varied and checkered past. And boy, oh boy, she has. Nina Bruhns writes about dangerous passions whether it is in her romantic thriller trilogy Passion For Danger series (Berkley Sensation), Nocturne, or romance for Silhouette and Harlequin. It’s her trademark or brand, if you will. She does an excellent job with it.

Nina admits, “…I like to push the envelope in my stories. I think much of the appeal of romance is the seductive fantasy it allows women to indulge in safely. A woman whose days are filled with diapers or spreadsheets, PTA or sales meetings, wants to be swept away in a romantic fantasy for a few hours, into a world where she can quench her thirst for love and romantic adventure, and fulfill her dreams of a man who instinctively satisfies her deepest yearnings. I love writing about feisty heroines who do things I would never dare to do in real life. My heroes are dark and dangerous men who ooze sensuality–but who know how to treat a lady.”

I had the opportunity to attend a workshop she was part of about writing danger. It was a lot of fun and I learned so much. Applying the knowledge is a bit more difficult, but I’m getting it down. I had the opportunity to meet Nina. She has a lovely smile, a savvy knowledge of writing and the market. Nina is also a fun person to talk to with a great sense of humor—which is also reflected in her writing.

Nina says the trilogy she’s written for Nocturne is one she’s wanted to write for sometime. And by the way, she really is an archaeologist (an Egyptologist).


Thank you so much to Sia for having me as a guest here at Over Coffee!

Many of my readers don’t know that I am an Egyptologist—-I’d say in real life, except that it’s kind of the other way around. Writing novels is my real life these days, and despite the three college degrees, traveling around Egypt doing archaeological digs and surveys has been relegated to the realm of my imagination. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing...

This week the second book in my IMMORTAL SHEIKHS trilogy, SHADOW OF THE SHEIKH, was released by Harlequin Nocturne (book 1, LORD OF THE DESERT, came out in August).

The series takes place in modern Egypt, in a setting filled with all sorts of fun mythological and paranormal elements. These are truly books of my heart. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to write these stories! But when I first started writing romance my editor would not even look at ideas with exotic settings, let alone ancient gods, immortals, and shape-shifters. Wow, how things have changed!

In this series, I have absolutely loved being able to use my knowledge of this amazing ancient culture to bring it back to life for my readers...with a cool twist. It is all still happening today. My strong, independent heroines, three American sisters, become immersed in the mysterious world of the last surviving Egyptian demigods. And boy, do they find things they never imagined existed. Including, of course, love.

Did I mention the vampire?

When I was on my first archaeological expedition to northern Sudan (which was part of Egypt in ancient times) we stayed in a tiny village on the Nile. The area around this village was supposed to have the most vampires in all of Africa. Okay, then. Freaked out? Me? Just a little.

Trust me, I’m no vampire expert. But when my editor suggested I make one of my lead characters a vampire (the hero of book 3, VAMPIRE SHEIKH, coming in February, who appears in all three books), I remembered that village (who could forget!), and thought how interesting it would be to incorporate the incredibly sexy archetype of the vampire lord into the ancient Egyptian pantheon. So I took the few references I found to vampirism in Pharaonic times and shaped them into a plausible addition to the existing mythology, which I then used to build the paranormal world in the trilogy.

The result is a blend of vamp and Egyptian mystery which I think make the stories really unusual and interesting. When you combine that with three hunky shape-shifting sheikhs and three sizzling hot romances, I think my readers will really enjoy this trilogy!

I hope you’ll let me know what you think!
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Series Premise: The Immortal Sheikhs…

The three Haliday sisters are not afraid of mummies. Nor of silly ancient Egyptian curses. Get real. This is the twenty-first century! Besides, anthropologist Gemma, historian Gillian, and archaeologist Josslyn Haliday spent their childhoods sharing their sleeping tent with mummies and telling each other stories of fantastic shapeshifters and vampires, as they accompanied their Egyptologist father on his digs…ever since the fateful day their mother mysteriously disappeared into the sands of Egypt twenty years ago.

Brave, modern women all three, it would never occur to any of them to fear the dead…or the living dead.

But that is all about to change…

Shadow Of The Sheikh Back Cover Blurb:


Sheikh Shahin Aswadi—the harbinger of death, a ghostly figure who rides the wind in the form of a powerful black hawk. No mortal has dared approach his hidden oasis encampment for nearly a century. They are all terrified by the ruthless legend of al Shahin.

All but intrepid anthropologist Gemma Haliday. Determined to find her missing sister, Gemma has foolishly disregarded the dire warnings of local villagers…and walks straight into a trap Shahin has laid for her.

He takes the beautiful mortal captive, determined to use her, then gift her to his vampire lord, Seth-Aziz, as a blood sacrifice.

But one taste of Gemma’s lips and he knows he must possess her for fully and for all time. And he wants her to burn for him as he burns for her, with a desire as hot and vast as his desert home. Excerpt  TRAILER



Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters Indigo.ca

Is an avid world traveler and adventurer with two graduate degrees in archaeology -- all great fodder for her stories, giving them broad dimension, vivid settings and characters that are out of the ordinary. Her novels have earned two RITA nominations, and won numerous other awards, including three prestigious Daphne du Maurier Awards of Excellence for Overall Best Mystery Suspense Novel of the Year, five Dorothy Parker Awards, several RT BookClub Awards and a National Readers Choice Award.

A native of Canada, Nina grew up in California and currently resides in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina.

WRITING IS A JOB

My guest is Lisa Brackmann. Her Debut book will be available June, 2010, from Soho Press. Be on the lookout, I will be reviewing this book for the blog soon.


Lisa is a friend and she's like the fifth friend of mine that received a contract this past year. It's been quite an eye opener to watch all the work that Lisa and other friends have had to do after they've sold the book. I hear about it from them all in varying degrees.


Why do I say that? Simple. Most writers are focused exclusively on the work involved in writing the story, editing and polishing the manuscript. Then they embark on the querying process and creating the right query letter. Looking for an agent and publisher. Granted, there is a lot of work involved in this part of the process. Somehow, you get the idea this is the brunt of the work. Once you sell, it's just a matter of waiting for the book to be released. Oh so wrong.


One of the benefits of having friends selling their books is seeing another aspect of work involved and just as hard, but in a different way, as the creating and selling it that book. Wow. If you think it's easy street after the sale, think again. It's a lot of hard work.


Lisa explains what it's been like for her.



A few years ago, back when I first seriously started writing novels, I came across Stephen Pressman’s book “The War of Art.” Pressman talks a lot about overcoming resistance and facing your creative fears, but for me what really resonated was one simple principle: writing is a job. The first rule of a job is, you show up. Whether you feel like it or not.

For whatever reason, viewing my writing this way was a huge breakthrough for me. It wasn’t about waiting for a Muse, or having to be in the mood. It was about putting my butt in the chair, opening up the document and doing the work. Discipline alone could nourish talent and inspiration. I liked that.

Seeing my writing as a job to do, while perhaps not the most glamorous or inspirational perspective, certainly has come in handy on the road to publication.

Last summer, my novel, ROCK PAPER TIGER , was acquired by Soho Press , for Spring/Summer 2010 publication. That is actually a pretty fast turnaround in the publishing world, and it meant that I had a lot of things to do in a fairly short amount of time, with lots of deadlines.

Acquisition and publication processes vary greatly from house to house, so some of my experiences may not apply to every situation. But I hope to give you a sense of what your job, as an author will be like, once you score that publishing deal and have signed your shiny new contract.

Generally you will have editorial revisions, requests for changes concerning story and character. Sometimes these come in the form of an editorial letter, where the concerns and suggestions are outlined. Without going too much into the specifics of my experience, I’ll just say that my editor was awesome and this was not a huge deal for me (for which I am seriously thankful).

At the same time, you’ll have to deal with a number of “housekeeping” issues – things that have to be done that are not directly connected to writing and revising.

The wonderful publicist at Soho (excuse me if I run out of superlatives, but everyone I have dealt with there has been fantastic) told me the single most important thing an author can do in terms of publicity is to have an easily findable web presence. That means a website that comes up when people search your name and the name of your book(s). So, mine is lisabrackmann.com , and in addition, Rock Paper Tiger permanently redirects to the page about the novel on my website (try it! You’ll see!).

Unless you are a web/graphic designer or someone with a lot of talent for design, I strongly recommend that you bite the bullet and hire a pro to design your site. Yes, it costs some money. But you’re going to need tax write-offs anyway, and a professional-looking website signals that you are a professional author. Which, once you sign a contract, you are.

Show the world that you’re a pro. It’s worth it.

Likewise…you’ll have to get an author photo. Yes, you really will. Even if, like me, you are a fairly publicity-shy sort of person. It Must Be Done.

Again, while you may not need to hire a professional photographer (I did, and I’m glad), your photo needs to have a certain amount of polish – in other words, a good portrait, not a casual shot of you and the kids and the dogs and/or cats. Think about your genre too. What sort of “look” helps promote what you are writing?

You will need a short bio.

While I was never asked to write a synopsis (and for that I am extremely grateful!), at many houses, you will be. I definitely have needed blurbs – thankfully I’ve been generally been able to use variations on my original query.

You might be asked to fill out an author survey. Again, this varies a lot from house to house. The purpose of the survey is to identify potential markets for your book and to provide information that will help Publicity and Marketing sell it. Any authors you can compare your work to, whose readers might like yours? What are the most original features of your book? Who might you be able to enlist to review or publicize it? Are there conventions or conferences that might be relevant? In what cities do you have particularly good networks?

You may be asked for a list of authors who would be appropriate to blurb your work, including authors you might actually know and can personally ask.

I found the Author Survey to be one of the toughest things I did. It forced me to think of my book in ways that don’t come naturally to me (I’m notorious for writing stuff that doesn’t quite fit neatly into genre categories).

Meanwhile, what about that book you wrote? You did your editorial revisions, the MS has been officially “delivered and accepted” (which you love, because that means you get Part 2 of your advance!). So you’re done, right?

Uh, no.

Here’s another instance where different houses have different processes. In my case, I next worked on a line edit. This involved minor editorial changes (clarifications, fact checks, fixing awkward prose) and copy edits. After that, the copy editor did another pass.

Then come the galley proofs.

This is kind of exciting, because the “galleys” are the typeset version of your book – what your book will look like when it’s published. But it’s also a challenge, at least for me – by this point, I had read the book so many times, I worried about my ability to catch mistakes. I strongly recommend that you come up with a careful system of checks and double-checks, because this really is your last chance to fix problems and make small adjustments in the text.

(Well, sort of. In my case, a proof-reader did an additional pass and had a few questions, plus I had a little issue that I just had to address. Again, procedures differ; your mileage may vary!)

Finally, your book is off to Production. Does that mean you’re done?

Well, I’m not.

I’m just a little over two months away from my publication date. I’ve had letters and essays to write for various promotional efforts. Bookstore events to calendar (and I guess I’d better start thinking about what I actually might say when I get there!). Interviews to conduct, conventions to attend, blog posts to write. Like this one!

So, yes. Being a professional author is a lot of work. It’s a job. And like any job, there are deadlines, and tasks that are kind of a pain in the butt.



But you know what? It’s the best job I’ve ever had.

ROCK PAPER TIGER:

Iraq vet Ellie McEnroe is down and out in China, trying to lose herself in the alien worlds of performance artists and online gamers. When a chance encounter with a Uighur fugitive drops her down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, Ellie must decide who to trust among the artists, dealers, collectors and operatives claiming to be on her side – in particular, a mysterious organization operating within a popular online game.

“Few writers would be up to the challenge of blending the worlds of urban China , Iraq , and a virtual online kingdom–but Lisa Brackmann wildly succeeds. Prepare to taste the smog, smell the noodles, and rub the Beijing dust between your fingers. Rock Paper Tiger is a fresh and vigorous work that vividly captures the roller coaster that is life in modern China .” –Eliot Pattison, THE SKULL MANTRA

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Lisa Brackmann has worked as an executive at a major motion picture studio, an issues researcher in a presidential campaign, and the singer/songwriter/bassist in an LA rock band. She still takes pride in her karaoke-ready repertoire of bad pop hits and an embarrassing number of show tunes. A southern California native, she lives in Venice CA and spends a lot of time in Beijing, China. Her three cats wish she’d stay put.

Blog: Papertigertail

Getting There

Debut author, Joanne Kennedy, is my guest Over Coffee today. Joanne writes romantic suspense with a little bit of humor stirred in to keep it interesting. She lives in Cowboy country so it's no surprise her debut is about those tough and sexy American icons, the cowboy.

Joanne's talks about the need to love what you do. Reaching your goals when you love the work is a joy. When you love your work, climbing the steps isn't a hardship. Each level brings new goals to achieve and even when you *get there* you still have steps to climb.

The road to publication is a long road, paved with rejections and frustration—but I made it. I’m finally “there” – but now that I’ve reached my goal, I’m surprised to find that, in the words of Gertrude Stein, “there is no ‘there’ there.”
When you first start writing, you think to yourself, “If I could just finish this…”

You finish it. Then you hope to win a contest. Then you begin the long process of submission, aiming for goals like getting requests for partial manuscripts, then fulls, then getting offers of representation from agents.

When I signed with my agent, I really thought I was “there.” And I was close—closer than a lot of writers get with their first agent, because I was lucky enough to strike gold the first time out and sign with a really good agent who’s also a fine human being (actually, I think she’s a goddess). But even with her knowledge and contacts, it took over a year, many revisions, and finally a second manuscript, to make a sale.

And now that Cowboy Trouble has hit the stores, there are still goals ahead of goals and more goals. I hope the book sells well. I hope it gets good reviews. And if it does get good reviews, I’ll be worrying about the next book—will it live up to the first?

I can always find something to worry about.

But in some ways, that’s a good thing. No matter how well the book does, I’ll always be reaching for the next milestone. Bestseller lists. Awards. Making a living if I’m lucky, and then a better living.

The striving never ends—and that’s good. Life loses its flavor when you have nothing to aspire to.

But that realization showed me that the ultimate reward writing offers doesn’t lie in any of these achievements. The real reward is in the writing itself—the good days when the words flow freely, the triumphs when I solve a particularly gnarly plot problem, the weird, almost mystical joy of creating a world and characters who inhabit it and make it real, and even the satisfaction of knuckling down and getting the job done on a difficult day.

If you don’t take joy in the simple act of doing what you love, forget the other goals. Because if you think achieving any of them is going to complete your life, you’re wrong.

Whether your talent lies in writing, painting, teaching children, or running a business, you’re lucky if you’ve found what you were meant to do. Doing what you love is a privilege and a joy.

In the all-consuming quest for success, it’s easy to forget the biggest blessing of all: you have a talent that only you can offer. You have a place in the world.

So for all you aspiring writers out there, and everyone else who is always aiming for some elusive goal, take heart. When you sit down at your desk or your piano or your word processor, take a deep breath, and light into the day’s work, you’re already “there.”

What do you love to do? What are your goals, and how would achieving them change your life?

COWBOY TROUBLE

Fleeing her latest love life disaster, big city journalist Libby Brown's transition to rural living isn't going exactly as planned. Her childhood dream has always been to own a chicken farm—but without the constant help of her charming, sexy, cowboy neighbor; she'd never have made it through her first Wyoming season.

Handsome rancher Luke Rawlins is impressed by this sassy, independent city girl. But he yearns to do more than help Libby out with her ranch…he's ready for love, and he wants to go the distance. When the two get embroiled in their tiny town's one and only crime story, Libby discovers that their sizzling hot attraction is going to complicate her life in every way possible…

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Joanne Kennedy has worked in bookstores all her life in positions ranging from bookseller to buyer. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and won first place in the Colorado Gold Writing Contest and second place in the Heart of the Rockies contest in 2007. Joanne lives and writes in Cheyenne, Wyoming. For more information please visit http://joannekennedybooks.com/.