Category: Life

Life, writing romance

Insight into the mind of Tucker from ONE NIGHT WITH A COWBOY

I’m a woman. I’m a civilian. I’m not a testosterone-fueled man. I’m not career military personnel. In light of all of those points, I do one thing to help me write my military characters…I talk (on IM, by phone, on Skype, etc) to active duty, career military personnel as often as possible. Below, paraphrased because I don’t always take notes during these conversations, is what I’ve heard some of them say… 1) “They came by the shop today asking for volunteers to go be door kickers in Afghanistan. If I was 10 years younger I would have volunteered to go.” …Let me interpret this statement for you. This was about 4 or 5 years ago, before the troop reductions had begun. This active duty Marine, nearing his 20 year mark, was safely stationed  in the US. Someone from the Corps came to his squadron to ask for volunteers to go to Afghanistan and become part of a team whose job was to literally kick down doors to inspect the residences and search for insurgents, and men were going, while others who didn’t volunteer wished they could. 2) “I had to pull one of my guys off the Afghan det. He’s […]

Life, writing romance

Beware: deep author introspection ahead

Mark Coker of Smashwords, a man I hold in the highest esteem, whom I’ve listened to at conferences, read word for word in emails, and have followed the advice of, recently posed this question: why would any author want to traditionally publish for 25% when there’s so much more to be made by self publishing and reaping a 70% or more royalty per sale? I can tell him why–because I’m finding the percentage of readers and reviewers who are writing about my first Kensington Brava book that they’d never read me before staggering. And we’re only at the Advanced Reader Copy stage right now. I have about 3 dozen titles for sale, most through one of the larger small presses, and some through self-pub. My top sellers at digital first publisher Samhain have sold over 20,000 copies each and have topped category bestseller lists at all the big outlets. These reviews from new readers are coming from people I see on Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook, and even live and in person at conventions, but still they never read me until I signed with a NY publisher and they picked up an ARC of that NY book. Don’t get me wrong, it […]

Life

More Gifts for Writers…

Yesterday over at Confessions of a Romance Writer I gave a little insight into what I consider perfect gifts for the writers and shut-ins in your life. I posted that and then had to actually go out somewhere, which made me realize something. There were a few more things I needed to add to that original list. So here it is, part 2 of Gifts for the Writer, these for when we must leave our writing den and venture into the cold cruel world. Touch Gloves– I LOVE these things. I have no idea how or why they work–they feel and look just like plain old wool gloves–but the magic fingertips make it possible for me to swipe my iPad, and use the mouse on my laptop while wearing the gloves. This makes it much more comfortable to work while I’m waiting in the car with the engine and the heater off, which happens more than you can imagine. My gloves also happen to match my new writing sweater. Bonus! Power Converter– While we’re on the subject of working in the car…I live in fear of a dead battery on the iPad and the Mac and my cell. I haven’t […]