I’m over at the Contemporary Romance Cafe, discussing a big surprise about going to writing full time.
Will Write for Food
//Category: Blog
//Forbidden Romance and Fictional Bar Names!
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First off, big congrats today to bestie and all-around lovely person and Zen influence on my life, Anne Calhoun, on the release of THE SEAL’S SECRET LOVER today! This novella kicks off a super sexy romantic suspense series of three novellas and three novels. I’ve been in on the brainstorming and these are unique storylines with Anne’s trademark high-stakes emotional angst. Here’s the blurb for this one:
Logistics director Rose Powell agreed to chaperone her grandmother on a guided tour of Roman ruins on one condition: her brother Jack would come with her. But when Jack backs out, his best friend and fellow SEAL Keenan Parker takes his place. Without a working cell phone, Rose’s orderly world drifts into dreamy days and hot, secret nights in Keenan’s bed. Keenan left the Navy but never made it any farther than Istanbul, much less to a viable future. Until he does, he’ll show Rose things she didn’t know about herself. Can he give his heart and his future to the woman he promised his best friend he’d never touch?
See what I mean? Go snag it now!
In other news, last week I finished drafting my story for the upcoming DEVIL’S DOORBELL anthology. In the course of writing, I discovered I needed to name the bar that the heroine frequents. So, I posted this to Facebook:
Okay folks, I need to name a bar. Contemporary U.S. Something in the name should evoke heaven, hell, angels, demons, the devil. Anything along those lines. And… go!
I got over 150 suggestions, counting duplicates!
Of course, I couldn’t use all the names and there were so many great ones, I thought I’d share them here. Feel free to use! In fact, please DO, because it took me *way* too long to sort these…
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A Dimensional portal |
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Ace of Spades |
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Afterlife |
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Angel’s Roost |
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Apocalypse. |
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Armageddon |
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Asylum |
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Baal’s Asylum |
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Bedlam |
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Beyond Good and Evil |
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Bitchbox, |
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Black Star |
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Bob’s Road Kill Grill – “You kill ’em, we grill ’em!” |
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Brimstone’s. |
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Broken Halo |
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Carrie Nation’s Delight |
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Cemetery Gates |
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Chains |
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Cherubz. |
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Church |
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Club Beyond, . |
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Communion |
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Constantine’s Smoke |
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Crooked Halo |
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Dam Site Inn |
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Dante |
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Dante’s |
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Dante’s Circle |
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Dante’s Fire |
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Dastardly Spirits |
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Devil’s Backbone |
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Devil’s Dew |
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DewDropInn |
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Diluted Atheist |
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Duality |
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Elohim’s Den |
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Elysia |
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Elysian Fields |
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Elysium |
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End of days |
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Exodus |
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Fallen Saints |
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Firewater Shack |
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Flaming Wings |
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Forbidden Fruit |
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Gargoyle. |
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Genesis |
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Gethsemane |
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Hades |
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Hades by Nigh |
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Handbasket, |
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Heaven & Hell |
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Helen Back |
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Hell Raisers. |
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Hell with the Lid Off |
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Hell’s Half Acre |
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Hell’s Kitchen, |
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Hellvard |
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Hemingway’s Delight |
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Holy Spirit |
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Horn & Clove |
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Horns ‘n Halos |
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I Like It Like That |
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Inferno |
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Judgement Day, |
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Last supper steakhouse |
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Limbo |
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Lividicus |
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Lost Soul Watering Hole, |
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Lost Souls |
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Lucifer |
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Lucifer’s Pub |
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Lucifer’s Taphouse |
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Mephistopheles Mezzanine |
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Nailed Spirits |
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Nexus |
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Old Scratch’s |
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Pagan Spirits |
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Paradise Lost |
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Pearly’s gate |
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Pentagrams |
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Perdition |
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Preach, |
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Purgatory |
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Rahab’s Roadhouse |
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Reality Rehab |
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Revelations |
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River Styx |
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Sacrificial Blood |
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Saints & Sinners |
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Sam’s Fight Tavern |
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Satanic Bites. |
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Satan’s Tavern, |
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Seraphic |
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Sinnerville, |
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Soul and Sacrifice |
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Soul-stealers bar and grille. |
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Spirits. |
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Stone Club Baby Head |
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Streetcleaner |
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Styx and Stones |
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Tavern in the Circle |
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The Abyss |
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The Altar |
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The Chamber, |
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The Crossroads |
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The Crypt |
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The Devil’s Fork |
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The Devil’s living room. |
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The Devil’s Waterhole |
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The Emerald Cross |
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The Fallen |
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The Hourglass |
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The Inferno |
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The Last Judgement |
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The Morningstar |
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The Nailed Redeemer |
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The Ninth Circle |
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The Office |
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the Redeemed Soul |
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The Rogue Angel |
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The Serpent’s Tavern |
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The Seventh Circle |
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The Stygian Crypt |
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The Tarnished Halo |
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The Third Ring |
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The Trilogy, |
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The Y’all Come Back Saloon |
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Tomb |
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Underworld. |
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Unknown Redemption |
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Unrepentant Spirits |
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Vodun’s Delight |
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Wings |
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Wish |
Writing to the Market – Is It *Always* Anathema?
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This is like one of those “Can you spot the X?” photos. Can you spot the quail in this pic? While the others in the covey are scratching around and eating, one will get in a high spot and be the lookout for predators. At first I thought I hadn’t gotten a good photo – several were out of focus – and then I zoomed in and wow!
Love how he’s looking right at me, too. 
I’m over at Word Whores today, talking about when you *should* write to the market.
The MSU Method for Speculative Fiction Writers
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I’m Five Ways to Combat Bad Writer Habits
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This week I put out on Amazon a short read. It’s a true story I wrote some time ago, that was originally published in a literary magazine, about one of the most unsettling experiences of my life. A brush with the unseen that I don’t care to repeat!
At Word Whores this week, our topic is “My Bad Habit as a Writer.”
Which took some thinking about, really. Not that I’m ALL THAT or anything… but I have rather ruthlessly weeded out my bad habits over the many years. Like… twenty years. And I’m still a work in progress, which I suppose is part of the point. So, rather than focus specifically on my own bad habits, former, existing or future, I thought I’d give five ways that I’ve developed to identify and eliminate bad habits.
Five Things I’d Tell My Newbie Writer Self
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This is our neighborhood roadrunner. She comes by fairly frequently and checks things out. Not easy to get a good pic of her either! This isn’t the best shot I got (too much background, not *quite* in focus), but I love how it captures her purposeful stride.
Also, if you haven’t yet read THE MARK OF THE TALA, it’s on sale at Amazon for only $2.51. Great time to pick up a copy!
Jeffe’s #1 Tip for Being a Good Blogger
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I love seeing the mountain bluebirds come around this time of year. They’re skittish birds though, so it’s hard to get a good shot. I’ve been leaving the tripod up with telephoto lens trained on their usual perches. Even so, this is about the best pic I’ve gotten. Mostly they’re a whirl of bright blue and rose amidst the snowflakes.
I wrote a blog post early this week that was a bit meta – on how to write a bad blog post. Maybe that was a good example of a bad blog post because only one person commented!
At any rate, I’ve had a note for a while to share one of my blogging tricks. Not that I claim to be a great blogger or anything, but sometimes people ask me how I come up with topics. My secret? I keep a list. I have an ongoing list in Word of various topics, and I add to it as things occur to me. Sometimes I make notes in my phone or tablet and transfer them to the main list.
The most important thing I (try to) do, and this is really key for writers, is I note topics that apply to the book as I’m writing it. You will love your past self for doing this when it comes time to write those promo blog posts. If you’ve been there, you know. It can get really difficult to think up interesting things to say about your published book. Having this list of things you researched, what gave you images or ideas, problems you encountered, people that offered needed obscure information – and so forth.
All of these things will make great blog topics in the future, all that you would likely never remember months or a year later, depending on your publishing schedule.
Short and easy tip there, but one I’d had on my list for a while. 😀
Happy weekend, everyone!
Getting Book Reviews and Odious Comparisons
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A rare sight of Elephant Butte with snow, from the Christmas storm in New Mexico. We caught this on the drive home from Tucson, and now that I’ve turned in THE EDGE OF THE BLADE, I’m digging photos out of my camera and sharing. Yay!
The last few days, I’ve been in a range of conversations with writers at various stages of their careers.
One friend is not yet published. She had been discouraged by a string of rejections and has resolved to take her series out via self-publishing this year. (It’s a contemporary romance series that I think is excellent and will be excited to tell you all about when she’s ready.) We’ll also strategize another series for her to query with traditional publishing. For her, everything is about cracking that first barrier – getting her first book out there.
On one of my author loops, several extensively published authors bemoaned not being able to get book reviews. One commented that her latest self-published release got zero reviews. On another loop, more published authors complained of the same, asking for tips on getting more reviews.
Meanwhile another author friend yesterday celebrated the one-year anniversary of the publication of her book – and that it just hit 1,000 reviews on Amazon.
Me? I fall somewhere in the middle of all of this. I get a substantial number of reviews, from wonderful, enthusiastic readers – but I got nothing like 1,000.
So, what did we learn today, boys and girls?
There’s a saying that hearkens back to the fourteenth century, credited to John Fortesque, that’s been repeated by many, such as Lydgate, Shakespeare and Swift.
Comparisons are odious.
And no, that has nothing to do with odor. The word “odious” comes from the Latin odium for hatred. Something that is odious is hateful, disgusting or offensive.
In other words… DON’T DO IT.
Don’t make comparisons, people. And I’m speaking to myself, too, because when my darling friend announced hitting 1,000 Amazon reviews, the first thing I did was go look at my comparable book. How many? 54 Amazon reviews.
But hey, it’s better than zero reviews.
And it’s better than not having a book published yet.
Actually… it is what it is, right? Comparisons are odious because they’re meaningless. I reminded myself of that, shrugged it off, and closed the Amazon page.
We all do what we can do.
How to Know When to Give Up
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Can’t believe it’s already time! But the Coastal Magic Convention is only a few weeks away and January 15 is the last day to register. I love this convention and there’s going to be tons of great authors, bloggers and readers there – so if you can wrangle it, you should totally join us. Great panels, terrific interactions and it’s right on the beach. SO fun!
So, this week’s topic over at Word Whores is: It’s dead, Jim – how to know when a project isn’t working vs when its fixable.
I’m telling a couple of stories about knowing when to give up.
Writing in Books – Do You Do It?
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I’m over at the Contemporary Romance Cafe, giving some writing advice, and talking about why we do and don’t write in books we’re reading.