Samantha MacLeod's Blog, page 31

Win Something Hot for the Holidays!

Just in case you don’t get Loki under the tree this year…

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I’m hosting a giveaway on Goodreads!

Enter here for your chance to win a free, signed copy of The Trickster’s Lover. I’ll even mail it to you! (If you live in the US, that is. Sorry, my international friends – your mailing costs are just cra-cra.)

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Surviving Graduate School ~ Falling in Love ~ Preventing Ragnarök

Graduate student Caroline Capello has always been more comfortable with books than people. She’s just moved to the University of Chicago to become the world’s foremost authority on Norse mythology, making her the only member of her family to leave San Diego, and the family business.

But she’s wondering if she’s just made the biggest mistake of her life.

When the enigmatic and irresistibly sexy Norse god Loki appears in her studio apartment, Caroline is forced to question everything she’s learned.

Do the gods exist? Are the legends about Ragnarök, the apocalyptic battle that destroys the gods and ends the Nine Realms, actually true?

Or is she losing her mind?

Of course, you can always buy a copy of Trickster’s Lover here on Amazon for $2.99. Which is not too far from free, honestly.

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Happy Winter Solstice!

Greetings from Maine!

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Ayuh, this is as high as the sun’s going to get today. And by 4:30 this afternoon, it’ll be totally dark.

I am going to enjoy the hell out of that extra minute of sunlight tomorrow!

Happy Winter Solstice, my virtual friends!

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Family Secrets

I just got a box in the mail from my mom. It’s not what you’re thinking.

Mostly, it’s a bunch of old, somewhat broken, somewhat inscrutable Christmas tree ornaments. Or decorations, maybe? It’s hard to tell.

[image error]Are these bows? Bells? Cthulhus?

Why is my mom sending me old ornaments? I suspect it’s because I told her my two-year-old knocked down the Christmas tree over the weekend and broke everything.

So she’s replenishing our ornament supply with festive vaginas.

[image error]Tell me this isn’t a va-jay-jay

Anyway, beneath all the ornaments, I happened upon this…

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Side note: Yes, this is a pen name. But McLeod is my mom’s maiden name, so I have some claim to it. 

What’s in the envelope, you ask?

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That’s right.

It’s a printed Wikipedia article about Mary Anne MacLeod Trump… Donald Trump’s mother.

Who was a MacLeod.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be sobbing in the corner.

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Happy Holidays Blog Hop!

I’m thrilled to be part of Nicki J. Markus‘s Happy Holidays Blog Hop!

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Nicki also writes fantasy romance inspired by Norse mythology (which you can check out here), so I feel like we’re already virtual writing best buds.

[image error]Cheers, Nicki!

For this blog hop I’ve got a FREE novella for you (it’s fantasy romance inspired by Norse mythology).

AND I’ve got a giveaway for my novel, which is (you guessed it) a contemporary romance inspired by Norse mythology.

Yes. I have a mythology problem.

[image error]Also a Marvel problem. And also a serious Loki problem.
First, FREE!

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Mythology expert Caroline Capello agreed to marry Loki, the Norse god of fire and lies.

She didn’t realize the most dangerous part of their marriage might be the honeymoon…

My novella Honeymoon is free on Amazon until Dec. 20. This story has a heat rating of 4 (i.e. steamy sexual content) and will absolutely help keep you warm during cold December nights! It is not intended for readers under 18.

You can download Honeymoon here.

Win Something Hot for the Holidays!
[image error]This could be yours…

Surviving Graduate School ~ Falling in Love ~ Preventing Ragnarök

Graduate student Caroline Capello has always been more comfortable with books than people. She’s just moved to the University of Chicago to become the world’s foremost authority on Norse mythology, making her the only member of her family to leave San Diego, and the family business.

But she’s wondering if she’s just made the biggest mistake of her life.

When the enigmatic and irresistibly sexy Norse god Loki appears in her studio apartment, Caroline is forced to question everything she’s learned.

Do the gods exist? Are the legends about Ragnarök, the apocalyptic battle that destroys the gods and ends the Nine Realms, actually true?

Or is she losing her mind?

I’m hosting a giveaway on Goodreads for a free, signed copy of my novel. You can enter it here and I’ll send you a copy for the holidays!

Of course, you can also buy a copy here for less than the cost of an eggnog latte.

[image error]And my novel is more satisfying.

The Trickster’s Lover also has a heat rating of 4, and is not intended for readers under 18.

Be sure to check out the rest of the authors in this blog hop, and enjoy your holidays!

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Pick up Honeymoon for FREE!

Happy Holidays, my virtual friends!

Say, I’d like to give you a present. How about some smut?

[image error]I made it myself!

Honeymoon, my erotic fantasy novella about the continuing adventures of Caroline and Loki, is FREE until December 20th!

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Mythology expert Caroline Capello agreed to marry Loki, the Norse god of fire and lies.

She didn’t realize the most dangerous part of their marriage might be the honeymoon…

You can pick up your own FREE copy of Honeymoon right here.

And hey, if your thermometer looks anything like mine this morning, you’re going to need something to keep you warm this weekend.

[image error]Balmy morning in Maine!

I guarantee this will do the trick.

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The Story Behind the Story: John Cutter Entertains a Visitor

I read a lot of Stephen King as a teenager, which probably helps to explain why my stories are so freaking weird.

I loved – and I still love – King’s novels. I also love his short stories, and I especially love that little section in the back where he explains his inspiration for each story. Neil Gaiman does something similar in his short story collections.

So hey, if this is something King and Gaiman do, I can do it too!

In this post I’ll tell you about the inspiration for my short story “John Cutter Entertains a Visitor,” which was published by Typehouse Literary Magazine. You can read the story for FREE here.

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This is also the story that was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, which made my entire freaking year.

The story is about a prospector in the Colorado Rockies in the late 1800s and his unexpected, mythological guest. It’s a bit…different. I wrote it as background character development for The Trickster’s Lover, in my car, in the dark, cold parking lot of my daughter’s dance studio during her Tuesday night lessons.

So where did I get such a crazy idea?

First off, John’s cabin is a real place. It’s a one room log cabin with a sod roof nestled at the foot of Mount Harvard in the San Isabel National Forest of Colorado. The cabin is in the National Register of Historical Places, and it was even built by a guy named John.

How do I know?

Well, back in the ’70s my parents and a group of their friends discovered the cabin. They liked it so much they bought the mining claim, and I spent my childhood thinking “vacation” meant hiking eight miles to a cabin where you’d cook over a wood stove, haul water from the creek, and use an outhouse.

This may explain why I ended up living in a tipi…

The prospector John died suddenly. One hundred years later, his cabin was still pretty much exactly as he left it. The barn was filled with bags of bismuth ore, glass jars filled with murky brown liquid labeled “sent,” and the rusty metal loops of leg traps for lynx.

The wooden lynx cages were still standing between the outhouse and the cabin. As a child I’d climb in the cages and press my fingers to the deep gouges left by wildcat claws a hundred years ago.

One of our favorite bedtime rituals as kids visiting the cabin was to ask my dad how John died. Dad would turn the Coleman lantern down low and tell us that long ago, one stormy night, John heard the horses making strange noises in the pasture. He opened the door, walked out to check on them…and dropped dead.

“What did he see!?” we’d demand.

My dad would just raise his hands and shrug his shoulders.

“John Cutter Entertains a Visitor” began with me wondering what Loki did after he was released from his prison, and it ended up in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, answering a few of the questions I’ve carried with me since childhood.

You can read the story here. Drop me a line and let me know what you think!

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Snow Day!

This morning I got to wake my six-year-old with those three magical words: “School is cancelled!”

Yes, we measure snow depth using a Buddha statue…

Since my husband is a high school teacher, the whole family got a three day weekend!

Snow on the old apple tree

That means sledding…

Homemade Mexican hot chocolate with maple syrup whipped cream…

(In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll tell you my six-year-old said the hot chocolate was “bad and needs more sugar,” and my two-year-old spilled it all over the kitchen.)

And trying not to panic about the fifty philosophy essays I haven’t started grading yet!

Happy snow day, my virtual friends!

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Coming in 2017: Persephone Remembers the Pomegranates

Being an independently published author is fun, in a riding-a-roller-coaster, “Oh my God I’m going to die,” sort of way.

Why?

Because most of the time I feel like this…

I mean, sure, I can bang out a story (double entendre most certainly intended). But writing a blurb? Setting a price?? MARKETING???

I mean, I have a Master’s degree in Religious Studies. Marketing is just about the furthest thing from my comfort zone imaginable.

But, as an indy author, I do have this going for me…

I can experiment like crazy because, hey, who’s going to stop me?

So, in that spirit, I’m trying something new next year! I’m branching out to a whole new pantheon…Greek mythology.

I’ve got a stand-alone erotic short story called Persephone Remembers the Pomegranates; yes, it’s a super sexy re-telling of the Greek myth. You can read an excerpt here.

I’m also going to branch out from Amazon and publish this story to iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere else I can find. When? Sometime in January – stay tuned for more fun details like the release date and the amazing cover.

Here’s the blurb-in-progress:

    You’ve heard it was the pomegranate.
    Those six juicy, ruby seeds, staining my lips and fingers. Sealing my fate. Damning me.
    Well, maybe so.

    But that’s not entirely the truth.

Sound exciting?

Don’t worry, my friends – you don’t have long to wait!

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Throwback Thursday: The Tipi

Hey, have I mentioned I spent the summer of ’03 living in a tipi in Montana?

It’s always fun to see people react to that.

Yup. I was a recent college grad living with my boyfriend in Bozeman, Montana. And I said, “Hey, know what would be fun? If we lived in a tipi!”

To his lasting credit, my boyfriend said, “Uh…okay.”

And that’s why I married him.

We set up the tipi on the banks of the Gallatin river. The farmers who owned the land agreed to let us live there in exchange for help around the farm, which is where I learned that asparagus are a pain in the ass.

Yes, these are pictures of pictures. I lived in a freaking tipi, for God’s sake. I didn’t have a digital camera!

So what was it like to live without running water or electricity for three months?

Samantha MacLeod circa 2003

I’ll be honest with you.

It. Was. AWESOME!

A tipi is beautifully designed. It was warm at night, cool during the day, and yes – it stayed dry in the rain.

Those blue waves? I painted ’em.

As for being outside all the time – watching every sunset, ending each day around a campfire – well, that was the best. Straight up best.

The few irritating things (insects, no phone, no oven) got less irritating over time. And when it was finally cold enough to force us back inside, it was really strange to hear machines humming all night.

Weren’t you worried about, like, bears?

Yeah, Montana has bears. And not just wimpy little black bears – grizzly bears, baby! So we didn’t do any cooking in the tipi; all the food stayed near the cars, in a cooler weighed down by the big orange water jug or in an ammunition box I got from the local Army Surplus store.

What about the bathroom?

Well, I washed my hair in the river (using Dr. Bronner’s biodegradable soap, of course). And, uh, there is a backcountry camping technique called a cathole… But mostly I just waited till I was at work. (As a part time cashier for a bead store, if you must know.)

And what does this have to do with writing smut?

Nothing!

Although my next novel is set in Montana…

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Pushcart Prize Nomination

Friends, way back when I was an undergrad at Colby College taking creative writing classes, this puppy was required reading:

It was good stuff, and it helped to inspire the only kid taking the class because she actually wanted to be a writer, and not for an easy humanities credit. (Spoiler alert: That kid was me.)

Well, yesterday I learned Typehouse Literary Magazine nominated my story, “John Cutter Entertains a Visitor,” for a Pushcart Prize.
Actual footage of Samantha MacLeod

Yeah, I know there are jackasses on the internet who say this nomination is meaningless (e.g. this jackass).

But it doesn’t feel meaningless to me.

It feels like this.

Most of writing is painful drudgery, after all. For me, it’s a lot of forcing myself to write when I don’t feel like it, then worrying about whether or not my ideas all suck, then staring at one sentence for forty-five minutes wondering if I should say, “the idea which woke him” or “the idea that woke him.”

Then I send off the story I’ve spent hours and hours struggling with…and it gets rejected.

Or I publish it on Amazon…and don’t even earn enough to buy myself a gingerbread latte.

You can’t afford me!

So when I get a victory like this?

You bet your sweet ass I’m going to shout it from the rooftops.

Samantha MacLeod: Pushcart Prize Nominee

You can read my Pushcart Prize nominated short story, “John Cutter Entertains a Visitor,” for FREE right here. It starts on page 11 (although I highly recommend reading the whole thing – it’s awesome).

As for me?

Well, I’ll be enjoying the scotch I forced my husband to buy me last night…

Yes, I’ll be wearing that down vest till May. Maine is cold, yo.

 

And then I’ll get back to writing.

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