Which one?

I've been digging through my stories trying to decide which I'd like to share. I finally narrowed it down to two, When Souls Collide and Clone. When Souls Collide is a bit on the dark side but has a HEA. The other is a love story, but it doesn't have an HEA. There was no way I could justify it. Before you start throwing things, let me explain.

Eva is a sociopath, an anti-heroine. She's suffered unspeakable evils, isn't stable, strikes out on instinct and doesn't act like your typical romance main female character. The end of this story is all about her redemption and I could write no other ending for it. Nothing else fit.

I think sometimes, we romance writers have novels that we know we can't sell because they don't follow the protocol of a love story but we also know they have to be written. Clone was one of those novels. It's a love story above everything else, but it's also about trust, betrayal and human nature. It digs deep into the human soul and where we come from. It's a story about revolution of a woman and the freedom of a people who were born to be spare parts and slaves. It's a story about greed and how society can so easily be infected and lose sight of who they are and what is right and ethical. It's a story of monsters.

There are triumphs and there are things that will break your heart. Eva is Eva, a product of her enviroment and her freedom doesn't change her past or who she is and what she choses to do. She commits horrible deeds against those who deserve it and also against two who don't.
So, now that I've told you all of this--you'll understand why I chose the other.

When Souls Collide

All rights are the intellectual property of the author. No part may be copied or reproduced without the permission of the author.


***Warning. The following story contains erotic elements, explicit language and violence. Read at your own risk.***


Prologue

“They’re only a few hours out. What do you want us to do, Your Highness?”

King Zarros, of the High Imperial House stared at the screen. Lights indicated an Armada moved toward them. “How many?” He squinted. The blips seemed to merge into one glowing blob, making it impossible to tell by visuals alone.

“Hundreds of thousands. They outnumber us fifty to one. We’ll be annihilated. We need to evacuate the planet.”

Another planet. When would the running stop? Zarros took a deep breath. Now was not the time to panic. If they fled, they’d die in space. The Kori wouldn’t let anyone escape. After one hundred and eighty planetary cycles, the Kori empire had found them and wouldn’t turn away. His people would die for the price of a murdered princess a millennium past.

“Gather every ship, civilian and military, anything that can take flight.”

“Shall I start evacuation?”

“No. I want you to destroy the ships, anything that can be used to escape. If anyone tries to leave, I want them shot down.”

“Sir?” His commander shifted his gaze from the screen and back to the king. “We have to evacuate. We can’t stand against them.”

“If we run, they’ll pursue and destroy us. They’re faster, they have better technology and that’s exactly what they expect. They won’t destroy the planet if what they want is on it. Our best chance is on the ground. It’s time to stop running. The people must commit, even if I have to force them.”

“This is suicide.”

“No, this is survival.” He ran a hand through his hair and studied the converging lights. “Gods help us. We shall make our stand here, every man, woman and child that can hold a weapon.” Zarros strode over to the window and studied his city. “They’ll not forgive me, but this is all I can give them. A cornered animal will fight to the death.”

The commander nodded. “Then it shall be done.” He spun on his heel and marched through the door, barking orders.

Thanks for stopping by,
D L

It's Friday...

And I have no idea what I'm doing today! Ooh...RT, I had a blast and enjoyed spending time with Annie Nicholas. It was our first time meeting in person. Pictures, here you go:

Okay, I didn't take any, not a single one. I stood in line all of 5 minutes for a signed copy of a very publicized release and eventually gave my ticket away to a reader who was far behind me and she was ecstatic. I just couldn't give more time to that venture with so many great authors around. I'll get a copy later.

I stayed over Sunday for the first time to relax and enjoy the pajama party as a reader, but I got pulled out of line to help as an author with the mix and match game. The pj party was excellently hosted by Resplendence Publishing and they showed the Twilight movies (I'd seen both and still enjoyed them the second time around.) By the way, I'm camp Edward.

They always have such great giveaways, but here's the list (I know you're dying to know *grins*) of what I bought at the Saturday book sale.

I bought a book totally out of my normal reading fare! F. Paul Wilson's The Touch, from his Adversary Cycle, and I can't wait to read it.

Cat Grant's Triad, book five from The Courtland Chronicles. She does really delicious men! And you have to see the cover of this book:

I got Patrice Michelle's Anticipation and Seduction, two books in one--I just love her stories. And I have Cindy Spencer Pape's Djinni and the Geek.

So, I've got lots of good books for the summer and only need to find time to sit on my porch, enjoy my flowers, and READ!

Until then, I intend to: Growl and roar-it's okay to let the beast out.-© J. Hali Steele

I Only Look Like I Know What I'm Doing

Hey there! My name is Sara and we'll be spending Thursday's together from now on here at Paranormal Romantics. So pull up a chair and the caffeine drug of choice (black coffee with one sweetener for me) and get cozy.

I write wherever my brain takes me. To say I'm an organic writer is a gross understatement. I never have a plan or course of how a writing day will take me. If a character from a book wakes with me, they'd done so for a reason and I'll spend the time necessary with them to get out what they have to say. I learned a while ago that this actually helps my brain purge growing ideas in order to work on others. For instance - earlier this year I finished up, and submitted, the next book in my Rebirth series, Blood Fever. I had a few notes scribbled on paper and 25K words already written for the next book I wanted to tackle, the second book in my Star Runner series (the first of which. Midnight's Ghost, releases on Monday, May 10th - WOOT!). So I sit down in front of the computer one morning and started to write. Only, I'm not writing what the notes sitting next to me talk to. I don't recognize what I'm writing but suddenly I've got 2K words.

And it's good.

So, I keep going. Learning about the people I'm writing about. I put away the notes and close the file on the 2nd Star Runner book. A month later and I'm looking at a finished book and I have no idea where it came from. It's not anything I'd usually write. It's not paranormal. It's not fantasy nor science fiction. It's...normal and I like it - a lot. *G* So, I let other people look at it and they like it too. This book came out of nowhere and the reaction to it is great! Which, if you know me at all, is a feat itself. It's hanging out in cyberspace for the moment. ;^)

I crack my knuckles because now it's time to dig back into the next Star Runner book. For a week or so everything is great. I even re-read Midnight's Ghost and pick up on a few things that still need to be dealt with and start dealing with them because I purposefully leave some unanswered questions at the end of Midnight's Ghost.

And then the characters start in. Only, it's characters from my Rebirth series - not the Star Runner one.

I fight and hold out. Determined that I will get more than just the bare bones of this book laid out. It will start to look pretty. Well, at least prettier than it does. However, my Rebirth characters are stubborn and determined. (Dealing with vampires and Fae - what did I expect?) So, I've given up. I shut down the Star Runner file and cracked open a file that had a "last save date" of Sept 2008. It won't change - it will always have that date because I also opened a crisp, shiny new file. Things in book 1, Flash of Dark and book 2, Blood Fever, have been changed from my first drafts and book 3 will have to be torn apart, chopped up and assembled before I wrap it all up in a shiny package - like a tasty piece of sushi.

Now I get to add the wasabi. :^)

Death or Taxes, Take Your Pick!

Happy Wednesday, everyone. I'm pleased to tell you that today's the day my book Demons and Stilettos Are A Girl's Best Friend releases!

Blurb: Anne Jenkins never believed there was a heaven or hell but when she’s rescued from a runaway horse by a guy who claims he’s a demon, her freak detector goes off. She demands proof and the leather-clad biker sets some local wildlife on fire. She starts to trust in a hurry.

Gregg Carter, bound to the Devil for all eternity because of an audit gone wrong, seizes the opportunity to take possession of Anne’s soul as a way to please his boss. What he didn’t count on was the fact that his libido would take the one-way bus to crazy town as he gets to know her better.

Trouble is, Anne and Gregg spend so much time trying to hide their true selves from each other, they can’t escape the attraction that builds between them. But everyone knows demons and humans don’t mix, and neither can two people who have no futures.


Excerpt: Anne glanced around, looking for hidden cameras just in case her friends were attempting to punk her. Seeing nothing but red and gold leaves that shook in the slight breeze, she turned back to the biker. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“You bet. Now, I need you to sign here testifying that I did indeed save your life and prevented the early termination of such. Because I did, the payment for my deed is one human soul, to be rendered due and payable within thirty days of the receipt of said services.” He held the pen out to her. “I do have other clients today.”

“I can’t just give you my soul. I don’t even know exactly where in my body it’s located or how a person goes about parting with it.” She took another drink. “Besides, don’t I need my soul in order to function? I’m pretty sure it’s not like an appendix or something.” Flutters filled her stomach when the smile he’d flashed earlier morphed into something smoldering and sexy.

“A human soul is only valuable if you know how to use it. To sweeten the pot, I’m prepared to give you three wishes.”

Anne snorted while she took another drink. Water shot through her nose, and tears stung her eyes. Not exactly the sort of thing that would impress a bike-riding minion from hell—not that she wanted to impress him. Damn, I must be desperate if I’m trying to catch the interest of an alleged demon.

Wiping the drops from her face with the back of her hand, she stifled another round of laughter. “Three wishes, huh? Like a magic genie?”

“No, it’s an added bonus, an incentive. Think of it as a supplement to the contract in order to cushion the blow of my taking your soul. You have thirty days to accept the offer, but be aware there are some conditions.”

“Is saving me from impending death one of the wishes?” The whole conversation felt so weird and beyond normal that Anne suddenly knew how Alice felt in the Lewis Carroll story.

“No, but at least you’re paying attention.” A smile curved his lips. “You can use the wishes on yourself or others, but they must be used in the time allowed. You can’t save them. Also, until you exhaust the wishes or they expire at the end of the specified term, I will be your constant companion—”

“I thought you had other clients?”

He huffed his disapproval. “I have a very loose schedule. Anyway, if you do not use the wishes by the end of the thirty day period, you forfeit them, and I still take your soul.”

“That doesn’t sound very fair.” Anne frowned. Fear made her insides clench. “What if I don’t agree to any of it? I mean,” she snorted from the absurdity of the notion, “it really is pretty unbelievable.”

A shadow of annoyance crossed Gregg’s face, and his expression grew dark with anger. “It doesn’t matter. I saved your life. Therefore, you owe me. I can reset recent events and leave you to die, or I can take your soul, and you’ll still die, but at least you will have lived it up for thirty days. What’s not to get?”

Publisher’s website: http://www.thewildrosepress.com/demons-and-stilettos-are-a-girls-best-friend-p-4009.html

Book video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y03FhClKV_Q

I hope you'll add this book to your digital library. It was a blast to write and you'll even chuckle out loud :-)

For those of you wanting a chance to win a special Demons & Stilettos prize, I'm having a launch party at Penelope's Romance Reviews http://www.pennyromance.com/ I'd love to have you stop by!

My Pledge to You

Recently, I had the great pleasure of reading a book by a new author, well new to me, that I had not read before. I made my customary remarks on Goodreads.com and was pleased to find in my inbox a response from someone who I am friends with on that sight that it was one of her favorite books where she directed me to read a free read that was located on the author’s website which continued the story.

I immediately did so and was glad to find the story.

All of this got me thinking about how much everything having to do with writing has changed in this day and age of social networking and how much I have been guilty, I think, of making some mistakes.

Daphne du Maurier who is one of my favorite authors for her book entitled ‘Rebecca’ once said: “Writers should be read - but neither seen nor heard.”

This is unreasonable in this day and age. Readers expect to hear from you and they expect to be able to reach you too. I’m not complaining. Let me clear. I LOVE hearing from my readers and to start a day with an e-mail from someone who has enjoyed my books literally makes my day.

So please keep e-mailing me.

But I realized that maybe I’m sharing too much about my writing process with all of you. You really don’t want to hear about my doubt in writing. Yes, the subject of last week’s blog or what I did today on Facebook.

Do you really want to hear that? Do you really want to hear that I suffered through writing chapter eight? I don’t want to hear that from authors I read and I find that the authors I read and really respect are not doing what I’ve been doing.

So here is my pledge. From now on you will not hear me whining about any writing issues. They’ll be my issues. I’ll keep them to myself.

I’m only going to write about things that I would want to read about and I’ve had about as much reading about writing complaints that I can take. Especially from me.

What I learned at RT

Happy Manic Monday! It’s a very slow start for me. I’m on my third cup of coffee and can’t get my body to move but my mind is racing with new writing ideas.

The Romance Times convention was last week in Columbus Ohio and I attended it with J. Hali Steele. It was my first time and didn’t know what to expect. Seminars, workshops, parties, costumes, and Mr. Romance contestants were some of the things to experience.

My first day, I spent trying to orient to the large building and meeting people. I knew others who would be attending but never met them face to face before. Finding them was not the easiest thing. Ask poor Joann who had to play hot and cold with me at the Ellora’s Cave party over the cell phone as I tried to find her table. LOL

Most of the classes I attended on Wednesday were about marketing.

• Have a website that is easy to navigate

• Have a blog and do blog tours

• Swag (promo items) is not for selling your book but to drive the readers to your website

• Cross promote such as if your book contains racing you can try doing a signing at the race track

I think the most important thing I took from those classes is than you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression and your website is usually the first place someone gets to meet you. They didn’t encourage spending money on the site but to keep it clear and express exactly what you are about. Writing. Also professionalism was discussed. What is said on the net, stays on the net forever. Even aspiring authors should be careful. Agents and editors do google you on the net to see if you have professional attitude toward your career.

Thursday I focused on the craft of writing and attended a wonderful class on plot. This class changed me. I wish I could have recorded it. James Scott Bell spoke about the acronym L.O.C.K.

• Likeability of your main character

• Objective

• Conflict

• Knock out ending

I will focus a blog on this class in a few weeks.

On my last day, I decided to attend the erotica panels run by editors, agents, and writers. It was interesting to see all their points of view. In my opinion, it sounded like NY is becoming more accepting of the genre, steam punk is growing, and it doesn’t matter what genre you write they all want a WELL WRITTEN story.

The most important thing I took from this convention is a renewed love for writing. I live in a rural area and never get to talk shop with other writers except on the net. What a treat to spend three full days with both writers and readers discussing what we loved.

I’ll be posting more pictures on my personal blog http://www.annienicholas.blogspot.com/ with a few more stories.

Contest - Get your name in the Special Agent Fang Series!!!

Kathy Fanfulla came up with a great idea for a new series that I'll be starting within the next couple weeks. So, here is the contest I'm offering.

Details of the novel - It is a spin off of the Devil's Kiss - Magical Sword Series Book 3. The main character is Hadley, a Vampire who is a Special Agent with the FBI. The story will of course hold danger and a mystery, but there will be two love interests here, one a powerful Vampire and the other a human male who works alongside Hadley at the bureau. Both men are set to meet her every desire.

The contest - come up with the two names of the men in the book.

The winner - There may in fact be two winners here, which will be fine. What I offer you as your prize is to get your name in the book. Might just be a side character, but still, how cool would that be!!

Have fun with it! I love strong unique names so that might be a good hint for you!!!

Use this link for your entry - http://www.facebook.com/notes/stacey-kennedy/contest-get-your-name-in-the-new-series-special-agent-fang/117087894980979

Winners will be announced May 7, 2010 @ 8 p.m.

Change is a constant in life

Happy Friday everyone. I'm blogging in place of Joann today since Joann's at the Romantic Times convention.


Every once in awhile, I'm aware of different aspects of my life changing, growing. It's much like shedding a skin, moving up a staircase, changing my clothes.

We outgrow behaviors, people, things, or in my case the way I write. When I first started seriously writing 2 years ago, my writing was weak. Now, it's much stronger, and it's constantly evolving. And this isn't a bad thing. Our world is constantly changing and really, if we are to survive, we must change as well.

Change or die. Incidentally, that was the theme of my last book. I guess it's been on my mind.

When you come to a crossroads in your life and you know you must leave a relationship, change a career, make a difficult choice, how do you handle it? Do you prefer to make the change quickly, like tearing off a Band-aid or do you let it eek out over the course of days or weeks?

Do you resist change with all your might or do you embrace it openly and without fear?

What's my point? I'm not sure. I just have a feeling change is in the wind and I think I like it...

Today is April 30th, which means Blogmania is going on. Over 100 blogs are involved and each one is giving away a prize. I'm participating with my Believing is Seeing blog. Rules of my giveaway are on my post, but to sweeten the pot for readers of the Paranormal Romantics blog, if you leave a comment, you'll be entered in a second contest for a different prize. Just mention on your comment you linked there from Paranormal Romantics. http://sandrasookoo.wordpress.com/

Good luck and have a great weekend!

The Big 'D'

Hey Y’All!

When I sat down to write my current Work In Progress I thought it was going to be a little short story for an open call. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I do. I know that must sound funny to non-writers, or maybe to some writers too, but the truth is that while I love all of my work, I love them all differently.

Sometimes I write something that I just fall in love with, body and soul. I think about it constantly, I almost can’t sleep because of it; I wake up wanting to write it. That’s this Work In Progress, which is wonderful. Except that now the crazy doubt that comes when I write something I’m this invested in has started to rear its ugly head.

If my critique partner doesn’t seem to love it as much as I do, I doubt. If I struggle through a scene, I doubt. I suddenly start to wonder if it’s too dumb, too clichéd, too over the top.

This time, however, and I’m going to attribute it to growth, because, hey, why not? I didn’t stop writing for even a second because of the doubt. That has to count for something, right?

How about all of you? When it comes to your writing, do you ever have a confidence problem?

On that note—I’d always like to invite you to join me all week at the Love Those Shifters blog. If you leave a comment, you will be entered to win a t-shirt and a download of one of my Westervelt Books.

Best To All of You!

Rebecca

The Good, Bad and Scary of my Muse...

...so, this week I've been doing nothing--well writing wise that is. I finished my dragon novel a few weeks ago and spent last weekend editing it up for the umpteenth time. I finished a short story last week, also featuring a dragon.

Apparently dragons are on my mind.

So, I vowed for this week I'd do nothing but catch up on housework I let slide during the writing process.

All was going well until (cue dramatic music here) my Muse got involved.

She doesn't like sitting around, cooling her heels, and she hates folding clothes so I suppose it was only natural she'd dig in deep and slap me upside the head with a new shiny idea for a full length book. I think we're going to shoot for 90K with this one too.

The premise this time? Straight up fantasy, old school style, except I plan to put my own personal spin on it by adding a liberal sprinkling of funny and snark. Yeah, I can't help it. And neither can my heroine. I can already feel it...

Anyway, the book is still in the planning stages and yes, I am a plotter and proud of it :-) I've got in a basic plot and have been filling it in here and there. I know alot of the secondary players, and boy are they larger than life. There's a twist and a secret. There's a villain and there will be a love story in there along the way. Just waiting for the h/h to talk to me a little bit more and reveal their histories, motivations, etc.

This is going to be fun. Why? Because the Muse showed up for work today clad in long skirts, a chain metal shirt and a sword belt slung around her hips.

Needless to say, it's on. I've never attempted a fantasy like this. It's a bit intimidating but it's exciting as all get out. I'm up for the challenge.

My question to you? If you're reading a fantasy novel, would humor distract you or would you find it a refreshing change to the genre? I'd love to know your thoughts.

I wanted to remind you all that I'll be participating in the BlogMania event on April 30th. I'm offering an awesome prize pack so drop by my Believing is Seeing blog for more details. The link is on the sidebar here.

And keep an eye peeled. Starting next week I'm kicking off my Fangs, Fur and Boys with Fast Toys Summer Blog Tour to showcase new book releases. I'll be giving away prizes with each stop. :-)

Until then, happy reading!