Rosa Temple's Blog, page 4

What I #amwriting!

The summer is nearly over here in the UK. It was a hot one for most of us and just this week the sun surprised us with another boost of heat and we all whipped off our cardigans and got back out in the garden or went to the park to cool off. It's been the best summer we've had weatherwise in a few years.

But while I sit waiting for the sun to warm us up again for another lovely day, I'm also mindful of the task I set myself earlier this year and that was to write a 3 book series!

In my short writing career so far I've published a novella called Sleeping With Your Best Friend and recently I published my first full length book, Natalie's Getting Married. They both have had some pretty goody reviews, even if I say so myself, so I'm looking forward to publishing my Christmas novel, Single by Christmas, very soon.

The Magenta Bright Book Series

Now on to write the series!
I already had the character Magenta Bright in my mind and the basic idea of what she would encounter and what her story would be and I was looking forward to writing the first book.

I've marked out a rough plan for the whole series so I know exactly what's going to happen (unless of course Magenta has other ideas, as often happens with my characters).

Because it was such a big undertaking I decided to give myself time scales to work to in order to get the whole series written. And let me tell you it's so much more difficult to plan a series than it is a one off. I always wondered how some writers of books in a series kept the ideas fresh and kept their readers coming back for more, but the fact that a lot of my readers wanted follow ups to both my novella and my novel, it got me thinking that if a character is popular enough, then people will be eager to keep on reading about them.

So the basic deadline plan was etched out. Sadly, because of other commitments I got behind straight away. BUT I'm about 26k words into book one and that should be 30k by the end of the week! Sunshine or no sunshine, I'm staying in to work on this novel!

With Single by Christmas about to go off to the proof reader (see my forthcoming post about Writing  a Christmas Novel) It's heads down and lets see what Magenta does next ...


Quick blurb about the first Magenta Bright book

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Magenta Bright has one year to prove she can hold down a job. If she does, she gets her hands on a sizeable trust fund. If she fails, the money stays in trust until she is forty-five. Now twenty-eight, Magenta has to shake off her wild child image, forfeit being bailed out by her rich parents – and grow up. She likes the finer things in life, designer handbags, shoes and objet d’art for her Holland Park apartment. So how does a girl who hasn’t had a job for more than two months cope? First she finds a job and soon discovers that new boss, Anthony Shearman, is as big a flake as she is. Not only does she have to keep her job, she has to keep Anthony from quitting his otherwise she’ll have to start again. The most fraught and madcap year of her life has begun. Magenta will get her hands on that trust fund and nothing and nobody will stand in her way … even if she's drives herself, and everyone around her, completely crazy in the process.

Price Drop Promotion!

Well it's offer time here at Temple Towers (not a real place you understand but it sounds like it could be) and this weekend I'm doing a Price Drop Promotion on #Amazon this weekend.

Last time there was a Bank Holiday here in the UK I gave my novel Natalie's Getting Married away for Free!

A lot of authors try offering their books for free or dropping the price in the hopes it will entice new readers to take a chance on their books - especially if you're a relatively unknown writer. Chances are you'll all know me and know my books but there's a good chance that you only just came across this blog and you might be curious about my books.

Well if you're the latter (or maybe you have come across this blog before but have yet to pick up one of my books) then you're in luck:

From Friday 26th August until Monday 29th August,  Natalie's Getting Married is reduced to just 99p on Amazon Kindle in the UK and 99c on Amazon Kindle US.
Still here?Get over there and grab a copy slow coach!

Writing A Christmas Novel - Part 5

I was prompted to continue my 'Writing A Christmas Novel' series after seeing a string of films being shown back to back on Channel 5 (here in the UK) this weekend. Curious, since we're also going through a bit of a mini heatwave here at the moment.

The Christmas novel in question - Single By Christmas
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The process so far:

Write the book - Check
Write the blurb - Check
Book cover finalised - Check
Book sent to Beta readers - Check
Book sent to reviewers - Check
Sitting and twiddling of fingers - Check

Well the last one's not strictly true. I'm in a bit of a How Should I Market My Book dilemma. With my last novel, Natalie's Getting Married, I spent money on a one week cover reveal followed by a one week book tour. And to be perfectly honest with you I can't really tell if the tours helped to generate sales.The book didn't exactly fly off the shelves despite the number of five star reviews I got from reviewers and the great feedback from beta readers.

One positive thing I did do was make my novella, Sleeping With Your Best Friend free and that encouraged sales of Natalie's Getting Married. Then when I offered Natalie's Getting Married for free it generated sales from countries other than US, UK, Australia and Canada - I actually reached readers in Spain, France and Germany!

So while I'm still contemplating the book tour route, I will be doing a price drop promo of Natalie's Getting Married in the hope that it will generate more awareness of my books and might encourage readers to look out for Single by Christmas. A bit of a long shot I know but I know the road to making my mark on the book world is going to be a very long and very hard one to negotiate with so many well established writers out there and so many new ones popping up as I write.

I am, however, reading up on lots of marketing advice and I'll have to make some decisions soon. In the meantime, I'm writing my next book (the first in a series actually) and I'll be approaching a proof reader in order to get Single by Christmas ready for publication on 1st November!

Guest Post - Susan C Daffron

As part of #ComedyBookWeek it's my pleasure to have author Susan C Daffron visit my blog today with a guest post I know you're going to love.


Fun With Lots of Fur 
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As a writer, some of my favorite reviews are when readers say they literally laughed out loud at one of the scenes in my books. For example, a number of readers have commented on the scene in my first novel Chez Stinky where the main character, Kat struggles to get her cat into a kitty carrier. Murphee does not go quietly or easily into the evil plastic box, and many battle-scarred cat owners obviously sympathize with the experience.p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 120%; }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }



p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 120%; }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); } One of the keys to writing humor is to take a characteristic or flaw to an extreme, yet still have the character remain sympathetic. On TV for example, Lucille Ball on "I Love Lucy" was constantly so impulsive that she ended up in absurd situations. But because she always seemed to mean well, as a viewer, you still ended up rooting for her.
As every pet owner knows, dogs and cats have their own unique personalities. So if you take a dog’s basic personality and make it a little more extreme, it can be funny. For example, many dachshunds like to burrow or get under things. In my book The Art of Wag , Roxie the doxie has an unfortunate habit of getting into cabinets and throwing pots and pans on the floor. Or getting stuck in small spaces, which is even worse.

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 120%; }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); } I have owned various breeds of dogs and cats and spent a lot of time around pets at vet clinics and animal shelters, so I have lots of pet personalities I can draw from for my novels. Right now, I have two rescue Samoyeds of my own, so I am well aware that although Samoyeds are completely adorable, they often can be stubborn and have a habit of covertly eating things they shouldn't. Not surprisingly, my book Fuzzy Logic includes a Samoyed named Swoosie. Although Swoosie is a sweet dog, she also daintily eats half the contents of a buffet table at a wedding. The gastrointestinal disturbance resulting from her indiscretion won't come as a surprise to many dog owners either.

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 120%; }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); } When I decided to start writing fiction, I followed the old adage, "write what you know." For years, my dogs and cats have made me laugh on almost a daily basis, so it was natural for me to include them in my novels. Let's face it, critters can be funny!
About the Author
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Thank you Susan!
Don't forget to follow #ComedyBookWeek on Twitter and discover more amazingly funny writers!

Guest Post - Bernadette Maycock

As part of #ComedyBookWeek, I am happy to welcome Bernadette Maycock to my blog as she shares this brillaint post today!

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‘LOL’One day there was a girl sitting next to me on the bus, reading. I stole a glance to see what she was reading as you do (well I don’t know if you do, but I definitely have to anyhoo!) Now generally I fly to my phone to send myself a text message informing myself of the name of said book, which I HAVE to read, but in this unusual instance I’d read the book so I didn’t have to. Here’s the thing. Not only had I read it, I intrinsically remembered numerous details, one being that it was touted as hilarious, laugh out loud, and in one particular damning review (I later deemed it damning for me, it wasn’t at that point), the blogger had informed us, the readers, that she had almost fallen off her chair as she was laughing so hard. Really? Okay then! I was in! I’m a sucker for comedy and this was too good an opportunity to pass up (it was ninety nine cent on Kindle). Afterwards, it was these accolades that put me in a seriously bad mood. As in stormy. Because not only had I not laughed once, I had only smiled once or twice in the whole four hundred odd pages. The writing was fine, a nice romance, pretty descriptions and I think in the end I gave it 3.5/5 but I did mention that not everyone would find the romantic comedy label it had been tagged with appropriate. Fast forward a year and this girl had a smile embedded on her face. At times she was even chuckling out loud. She caught me looking and removed her earphones. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, smiling, ‘It’s just this book is bloody hilarious! The dialogue is cracking me up!’ I vaguely remembered the girls in the book giggling over guys, snorting with laughter at other times, and I remember my foot twitching as I read while twice wondering if I should just quit.The girl’s response only served to cement my view that no two people will get the same out of a book and that is why it is so wonderful that there’s something for everyone out there. So I hope you find your book that will make you ‘laugh out loud,’ ‘snort,’ or ACTUALLY ‘fall off your chair’ (not if you get hurt though, that would be a bit mean of me). Because there is one out there for everybody, and look hard enough and you’ll find yours. Honest!About the authorWhen Bernadette Maycock (writing as B. R. Maycock) isn’t reminiscing about her times with Heather from ‘It Started With A Snub,’ (good times!), she participates in a closed Facebook group called Imagine, Write, Inspire (IWI). This is led by the award-winning author Carmel Harrington (Harper Fiction-Beyond Grace’s Rainbow, The Life You Left, Every Time a Bell Rings). She has contributed to their three publications, “All I want for Christmas,” “Stop Waiting For Friday” and “The Love Anthology; A collection of short stories." She can also be found on her book review blog (https://brmaycock.wordpress.com/), reviewing books that are 'the lighter side of heavy TBR lists,' in particular chick lit (her first love!) and women's fiction or on Twitter, where she devours bbok blogs and writing articles. Bernadette is also a member of ChicklitChatHQ, another closed group that allows her to eat and breathe chick lit! She lives in Co. Westmeath, Ireland with her brilliantly out there husband, Keith, and four amazing children- Paul, Conor, Aidan and Brian. It Started With A Snub by Bernadette Maycock[image error]HEATHER GREEN is a fun loving, happy go lucky, twenty-six year old who has remained upright and beaming despite a few wobbles in life. She wears her heart on her sleeve and pins on her thoughts for good measure.

We meet Heather as she moves out of her family home to share with four guys, much to the dismay of her long suffering (by his own admission!) boyfriend Graham. We follow her housemates and watch their sometimes funny, sometimes-fraught relationships as they go about their daily lives.

Join Heather as she navigates the simple things in life, her inability to remember the code for the house alarm, odd driving habits, general musings on chick flicks, casualties in cooking, as well as her attempts to talk down the “mad farmer with the gun.” Experience comedy and drama as we get to know her family and housemates, and, as an unexpected event finally takes her down, learn what happens when the last people you expected to turn to are actually the ones you need the most.

For more on Bernadette Maycock:
Amazon  
B R Maycock's Blog 
Twitter 
Goodreads 
Facebook

Book Review - How To Cook Up A Disaster

It's #ComedyBookWeek and today I'm reviewing ' How To Cook Up a Disaster ' by author, Rachel Elizabeth Cole.

The Blurb:

Sadie Dawson's mother goes into labor hours before her great-grandfather's 100th birthday party and Mom refuses to cancel the festivities. Now it's up to domestically-challenged Sadie to host the dinner party--only she hasn't a clue how to cook a turkey.

This could be the mother of all culinary disasters, but with the help of her two best friends, Sadie is determined to pull off the best dinner party in a hundred years. And maybe land Mr. Right, too.

How to Cook Up A Disaster is a breezy chick lit novelette which should also appeal to romantic comedy fans.

My Thoughts:

Who says cute things don't come in small packages. This short and sweet read will appeal to everyone who likes fast paced, comedic romances.

This one is a real 'situation comedy' with most of the action taking place in the family home, all of which lets the reader settle into the story without taking too many leaps and bounds into various settings.

Characters are well defined and the dialogue came across as pretty natural, always a plus in my mind!

This book makes up part of a series by Rachel Elizabeth, there are three in total:

The DIY Dating Series:
Book One: How to Cook Up a Disaster
Book Two: How to Knit a Tangled Mess
Book Three: How to Wallpaper a Catastrophe

So if you want to curl up with a coffee or a glass of wine, and suggest grabbing one of these and looking out for more by the author!

Keep in touch with Rachel Elizabeth Cole
 
on her Website

Twitter

and Facebook

And discover a whole lot more!

Interview With Ana Spoke

It's #ComedyBookWeek and today I have the pleasure of interviewing Ana Spoke, author of the Isa Maxwell Escapades and the brains behind Comedy Book Week.

Haven't heard of #ComedyBookWeek? Then read this!

And now over to Ana:


Indiot is the sequel to Shizzle Inc. Did you know there would be a sequel while Shizzle Inc was in the early stages?Oh no, I wasn’t even sure I was going to finish the book leave alone write a sequel to it! It all started as a joke for my sister and it was sort of an email soap opera, until I had enough material to think “hey, I may have something here!” I decided to continue the series towards the end of writing Shizzle, Inc—I had so much fun with it, I almost did not want to finish writing the book. I am now thinking of writing a “trilogy in seven tomes”— basically, I will keep writing Isa Maxwell series until it is no longer fun for me.What are the pros and cons of writing a book series?The pros of writing a book series are well known—you get a chance to hook your readers on the first instalment and then they will hopefully get hooked on the story and continue buying the future instalments. The con may be that you might inadvertently be locked into continuing to write the series to please your leaders, rather than expanding your writing skills by trying different genres or different plot lines. This often happens to Hollywood actors who become pigeonholed into playing certain roles.On deciding to write a series, did you plan each book meticulously or did you just decide to see how the ideas came?I have not planned the whole book series, however I do plan each individual book. I am a combination of a “pantser” and meticulous planner, but I allow my characters to dictate where they want to go with the story.How hard is it to keep a main character fresh for more than one book?I have made a conscious decision to allow my protagonist to grow up a little bit in each book. I have also had some trouble with her trying to repeat the same kind of jokes or thoughts she had in the first book, so I had to mercilessly edit them out after the first draft. I am currently writing the third instalment, but it’s actually easier than the second on—partially because I too have grown, as a writer.If a new writer asked for your all time top marketing tip, what would it be?Advertise! Social media is great for getting positive reviews, but you can’t expect it to provide you with the sales after the initial peak, unless you already have a huge presence. I would advise new authors to save their money for a marketing campaign, no matter whether they decide to go a self-published or traditional route. In either case, you will be expected to do most of the marketing, and you will need to have a budget for your project.Writer's block is a nightmare, how do you maintain enthusiasm when writing a sequel?Thank you Ana!

Stay in touch with Ana:

Website
Twitter
BookBub
Goodreads

And grab your copy of Ana's books here:
Shizzle, Inc and Indiot.

 

Writing A Christmas Novel - Part Four

Last time when I talked about my latest novel Single by Christmas I showed you the finished book cover but I didn't talk about the subtitle of the book. On my book it reads:

A funny, heart warming, feel good, Christmas romance

The above describes the book I set out to write and I really hope that it proves to be just that to many people. I wanted my subtitle to be informative, to the point and not misleading. I'm not sure if that's the right approach but it seemed the right thing to do.

Sometimes, though, books can have a subtitle that is more of sales pitch than anything else.

The last book I read was 'A year of being single', by Fiona Collins whose subtitle in the Amazon description read:

The laugh-out-loud romantic comedy that everyone's talking about

Though it isn't printed on the cover, it does form part of the subtitle in the book description. And I'm assuming this subtitle was added later, after it was discovered that people did actually laugh out loud and after everyone began talking about it. Otherwise it's all just hype and I wonder if, as a writer trying to sell books, I should adopt such a tactic? Hmm - I think not.

I chose my subtitle, as I say, based on how I'm hoping the reader will feel and not trying to coax them into thinking the book is something it's not.

That said - I do need to market my book and I'll talk more about that next time.

In the meantime, you might want to read my book review for A Year Of Being Single here!

Book Review - She Just Can't Help Herself by Ollie Quain

What they said about She Just Can't Help Herself:
Everybody thinks Ashley Jacobs is #slaying life
With her hot job on a style magazine, cool wardrobe, attitude to match and a cat called Kat Moss – Ashley is fashion. However, beneath the Photoshopped fabulousness she’s on a downward spiral; (not) dealing with rising debts, insurmountable problems in her relationship and growing dread over a rival at work.
…but one woman knows the truth.
As kids, Tanya Dinsdale – nicest of natures, nasty shoes – was Ashley’s best friend. But the darkest of betrayals in their teens made them the worst of enemies. It’s taken Tanya more than a decade to get over what happened. Her future is finally looking good. So, the last person either would want to see is the other. Then their adult worlds collide…

What I say:
This, NetGalley, Advanced Reading Copy of She Just Can’t Help Herself written by Ollie Quain was given to me for an honest review. I finished it yesterday and can honestly say I enjoyed it on the whole. I particularly couldn’t put it down towards the end when the story was ‘hotting up’.
I must say that the initial pages were hard to get into, purely because I wasn’t so sure about the writer’s style which did little to grab my attention. It seemed too full of fashion world journalist speak that was a bit off putting to me but I allowed the story to unfold and so my enjoyment increased.
What I liked in particular was the story itself. Told by the two main, female protagonists, Ashley and Tanya, we have the story of two women who became best friends as young girls but by the time they were seventeen a life changing situation arises that sees them unable to resolve the matter and they never speak again until much further down the line when their worlds collide – in more ways than one. Sound interesting? Well it is.
I liked that my guesses in the plot happened as I thought they would, but even better were the plot twists I didn’t see coming. Good stuff.
Good, too, was the development of most of the main characters and the, more often that not, flowing dialogue. The times I didn’t like the dialogue was when people spoke as if they were given words by a journalist who didn’t pay enough attention to making her characters sound ‘real’. Maybe you’ll pick up on it – it wasn’t always present but when it was it got on my nerves.
Generally I liked the author’s writing style and use of flashbacks. Though I do have to say some flashbacks were overly long, especially at the very end, when I was getting agitated by how long the writer was taking to round things off, she goes and throws in another flashback! Yikes. And, maybe because this was an ARC, I couldn’t understand why people spoke sometimes with contracted verbs in one sentence and didn’t in the next. Curious and also annoying.
I’m still not sure why this book was giving its title or cover – neither seemed to fit somehow.
Generally, though, I think this book will have a lot appeal for a lot of people so it’s worth grabbing a copy. It won’t blow your mind but it will make for a pretty decent read.

Writing A Christmas Novel - Part 3

Okay - so I'm still working on the dreaded blurb for Single by Christmas and I got so worked up about it, I've just let it alone for a while. I did send the blurb to a beta reader who thought it was good - so, Yay!
But I think it could do with a few tweaks which I hope I can run by you soon.

In the meantime I was working on the book cover concept.

Now, I'm no artist and had to ask for the services of a graphic designer who loves to design book covers - result!

So I'm daring to show you my own concept first of all:

Well I did tell you I was no artist!

But here are a few of the stages the graphic designer went through until I was happy with the end result:



And this is the winning cover:
Let me know what you think.

Credit for all the concepts go to:

Rima Salloum Graphic Design - Illustration - ConseilPortfolio & Website Society6