Stephanie Tyler's Blog, page 8

German Edition of Hard to Hold!

Jake's available for preorder in Germany!  Release date is May and here's the new cover – the title is Navy SEALs: Kidnapped.

It sounds so…dramatic.

Covers for the next two should be appearing soon, so I'll be on the lookout for them.  I believe the cover for Night Moves is in the works as well – my editor mentioned seeing a draft right after the New Year, which is something fun to look forward to.  It always feels so real once there's a cool cover to go with the book you've been slaving over for what feels like forever.

Beyond Christmas shopping and Christmas decorating and trying to write the book that will not write itself (the aforementioned Night Moves and dude, Kell SO owes me for this one), plus copy edits for In the Air Tonight, things are crazy here.  Must get back to the writing marathon while Zoo has the children under control…

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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News :)

So I've been sitting on some news because…well, because.

I think that's an excellent reason.

Anyway, I've just sold a PNR (paranormal) trilogy to NAL (Penguin Group)!!!

And yes, I will be continuing the romantic suspenses!  Don't forget, I was writing them along with the Sydney Crofts all these years.  So with the last ACRO book coming out June 2011,  I realized I would miss writing Paranormals a bit too much and I hatched my evil plan…because three hours a night is really way too much to sleep anyway.

I'll share more details when I have them – but for now, I'm really REALLY thrilled with this sale!!! A nice early Christmas present…and books I've been thinking about for oh, two years now…

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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Cover Copy for In The Air Tonight!

I know I've shown off the cover, but I've got the cover copy as well!

In The Air Tonight, coming July 26, 2011

Wi th danger closing in, all they have is each other.

Haunted by a mission he barely survived, Delta Force operative Mace Stevens still carries a soldier's burden. Running a small bar in upstate New York, he remains a stone cold warrior who guards dangerous secrets and stays ready for anything. Anything except beautiful, vulnerable Paige Grayson, who shows up at his door, demanding answers about her heroic stepbrother's death under his command.

Paige bears burdens, too. She's plagued by demons unleashed by an older brother who committed mass murder before her eyes. But here in this snowy haven with Mace, she almost feels safe from the menacing promises of her insane sibling. As a nurse whose hands can read the deepest thoughts of anyone she touches, Paige knows Mace needs her as desperately as she needs him. And when a faceless killer begins unleashing fresh terror, Mace proves just how far he will go to save the woman who means everything to him.

***

And for those who've asked, Cael and Vivi from Promises in the Dark will play a major role in In The Air Tonight!  Now, I need to go back into the writer's cave – Kell is waiting for me.  And Reid…and Gage…and…

There are a lot of heroes in here with me.

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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Release day for Promises in the Dark!!!

Zane's here!!!

On the run, in each other's arms, with one last chance to survive.  

A rugged Navy SEAL, Zane Scott was part of a failed mission to rescue Dr. Olivia Strohm from abduction by the terrorist group Dead Man's Hand (DMH)—and her anguished screams have haunted him ever since. So when he gets word that the beautiful physician has escaped from her captors in Africa, he's got personal reasons to storm the continent and save her.

Like her would-be liberator, Olivia carries the burden of a dark secret from her past. Ruthless and relentless, the DMH has threatened to hunt her down – and to systematically hurt anyone she's close to. The last thing she wants is to be rescued—even by someone as shockingly handsome as Zane. Yet the hot-headed special ops hero has come for her, and together she and Zane just might have a shot at not only stopping DMH's reign of terror, but also saving what's left of their souls.

***

Lea from Closetreader says, "Promises In The Dark" is an extraordinary story."  And Romantic Times says, "Tyler is a master of suspense. Book 2 in the Shadow Force series has the same intense level of steamy passion and gut-clenching suspense as its predecessor, Lie With Me.  A gripping and complex plot mingles well with complicated and emotional characters."

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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Quick check-in

Sometimes, I so love Free Will Astrology – here's the Aries scope for this week:

"You don't want to be the best of the best," said Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. "You just want to be the only one who does what you do." That's always good advice, but it will be especially apt for you during the next few weeks. You're entering a phase when competing with other people will get you nowhere fast. What will get you somewhere fast is nurturing your unique talents and proclivities. Do you know exactly what they are? If you're even a little fuzzy, make it your quest to get very clear."

Do you agree with Jerry?

There's a giveaway of a signed copy each of Lie With Me and Promises In The Dark over with TwiMom (aka Jen) who has a great review up today.  She says, "Not only is this book full of wonderful romance and HOT smex, but the action is suspenseful and riveting. Ms. Tyler has created an engrossing world of black ops and special missions, where the good guys are big and sexy and the bad guys are evil. I love it!"

Let's see what else – baby boy had two teeth break through within twenty-four hours of each other – with no drama.  I am working on a blog for Romantic Times website that I'm sure they think I've forgotten about, but I haven't – really!  I'm working on it now!  And I've got a bazillion words left to write on Night Moves.  Really, a bazillion…at least.  It would help if Kell would talk to me, the elusive bastard…

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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NaNo check-in

If you read nothing else today, do yourself a favor and go read PBW's post.  I always love her blog, but sometimes she just hits the nail right on the head at just the right time – for me, that was this morning.

A long time ago, I unsubscribed from lots of different loops and groups.  I'm an RWA member but didn't join any of theirs, either.  I was a member of some other group for published writers, too and after I year I never renewed.

The thing is, in my opinion, those loops and groups can be toxic.  They were for me.  And this is no one's fault but my own.  People on the loops were doing nothing wrong at all – they were talking about the business – complaining / celebrating / disseminating information – just what the loop is there for.

For me, it's too much information I don't want or need.  I don't want to be ignorant about the business side of things, but there's a whole chicken little the sky is falling tendency in the writing community that can make even the most stoic of authors slump in defeat.

Dude, this job can be hard enough without the outside influences whispering in my ear, telling me that this market is slumping or I can't write this or that because two editors declared it dead.

It's why I don't go on Twitter all that often – mainly, I just follow friends and readers, but inevitably, other stuff seeps in there (as it's supposed to) that I just don't want to know.

The internet can be a really bad place for your head to be in when you're trying to write.  Too many opinions, way too much snark which, IMHO, is the easy way out, and just too much can sap all your creativity and make it impossible for you to get all that shit out of your head.

I was really good for a while and then I started looking around a little more.  I shouldn't have – I feel it, and not in a good way.  So PBW's post was a really timely reminder for me to stay the hell off the internet unless it's my own space – here, FB, etc.  Otherwise, I gotta tune out for a while –  "walk away from the wolves and the sheep, and use your non-writing time to accomplish something personal that has meaning to you."

Here's something to chew on, when you listen to the, this can't be done / can't sell / will never make it people- when I started writing SEALs, I was told that I couldn't / shouldn't write them.  Because Brockmann wrote them and no editor would ever want them.  Even my agent at the time said, well, SEALs will be a tough sell, but she believed in my books, so that didn't stop her.

The editor who bought my SEAL trilogy?  Brockmann's editor.  So yeah, who would've thought, right?  Because I'm not writing her SEALs – I'm writing my own – my own take, my own voice, my own stories.  And I believed in my books enough not to listen to people who told me, you can't.

I've always hated those words.

So (and this goes for writing and for real life as well) stop listening to everyone and pay attention to your gut – it's what saves the men in my books – it's what will steer you in the right direction every single time.

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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random editing discoveries

I can't spell the word adrenaline correctly without spellcheck.  And i use the word a lot.  And yes, wordpress has spellcheck.

In Mace's book, everyone's expression was hardening.  His face hardened. A lot.

In Kell's book, everyone is intoning.  A lot.  Not sure why I'm having a love affair with that word right now.

Editors invariably replace the word like with, as if.  Except in Mace's book, she replaced two as ifs with like.  It was almost like a personal victory.  It was almost as if it was a personal victory.  What?  You can choose which one you like better.

I finally remembered that it's talk to, not talk with.  I think.

Mace's book is my second longest, clocking in at 97K.  Promises in the Dark is my longest, clocking in at 102K.  All the rest are between 89K and 93K.  Lie with Me was my shortest at 89K.

There is a sticky spot in the middle of my trackpad that's driving me nuts.

The Black Saints friended me on Twitter and I checked them out on iTunes and bought some of their songs.  The power of Twitter. Except I'm not loving Twitter lately.

I know the last two things have nothing to do with editing. Neither will the rest of the post.

I don't remember getting a subscription to INKED magazine.  Consequently, I don't remember letting my Rolling Stone subscription run out, right when the True Blood naked cover issue was out.

Speaking of remembering, Linda H reminded me that I forgot to pick a winner for the good karma contest – so thanks to random.org, the winner is #13 – Alina D!  Alina, please email me via my contact page with the email addy you'd like me to send the Amazon gift card to!

In the next week, I'm going to be giving away another Amazon gift-card – to be eligible to win this one, you need to be on Facebook – and all you need to do is Like me.  (aka, join my reader page) And that's it.  You don't have to comment or anything.  I'll be picking the winner from the list of friends on that page.  And yes, I have another Facebook page that I started first and you might end up being on both. Eventually, I'll only be on one. For now, totally confusing.

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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Nano, Day 2

I've already lost track of the dates and actually had to check a calendar.

So, I'm about 3/4 of the way through Mace's 2nd round of revisions – mainly just wording issues and a few semi-bigger things to fix, but those all seem to be in the last 30 pages.  Which is why I stopped there, because it was around 2AM and my brain had stopped functioning.  I didn't want to have to do the work twice.

And  then Baby Boy decided to get up at 3AM to eat.  He hasn't done that for a while and I was so tired it actually hurt.

I also missed the Real Housewives of Atlanta.  Tragedy.  And I forgot to DVR it.

As for new stuff, I wrote about nineteen pages longhand yesterday, spanning 2 different books, so I'm typing it in now.  I pretty much get one typed page for each one written, so it wasn't a bad day.  Would've been better if the revisions weren't so time consuming – they're not hard – it's just a matter of going through the ms page by page and inserting / deleting.  It's like the edits before the copy edits.  Like the shirt before the shirt – and if you understand this, then I've caught you watching the Jersey Shore.

Really, you can admit it – we don't judge here.

If you're doing Nano, how're you doing?  Are you looking ahead and taking into consideration any days in the coming week where you know you won't get much writing done?  You have to bank your words then, write a little more each day heading up to that in order to make up for it.

My other tip of the day is, if you're stuck, change modalities – if you're writing on a desktop, can you move to a laptop / alpha smart – can you change locations?  Go into your bedroom, your living room, outside.  Try writing longhand for a while – I always do that when I'm stuck – longhand writing just frees me.  Plus, you get to use fun pens – it's like the first day of school with fun office supplies all over again!

Don't judge.

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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Happy Halloween & NaNo starts tomorrow

Okay, well, I'm hopped up on way too much candy (YUM!) and plan to take the leftovers and hide it in my office because chocolate is the nectar of writers.  No really, it is.

So, do you have everything you need for tomorrow to start your book?  For me, that would include a new pen (my favorite kind to write longhand with is pilot precise grip – fine point black) and a Claire Fontaine notebook (I don't use a new one at the start of each book or a new one for each book – I go through about 1 every 2 months so I always have a supply on hand)…also, my quote that I start each book with and at least the start of a soundtrack that I create on my iTunes.

Do you have a way to back-up your work?  The simplest (lazy) way is to attach and send it to an email address or 2 (web based – not Outlook.)  I also use a Western Digital Passport and save my entire computer with Mac's Time Machine once a month. You can use the Western Digital for PCs too.  I'm just a Mac girl now.

You can also think about using a writing program – I loved WriteWayPro when I used a PC – now I used Scrivener for Mac, which I also love.  They allow you to color code scenes and actually see them in a list.  You will still need Microsoft Word, no matter what, because you will need to send to editors / agents / crit partners in this format.  Both programs are easy to convert to Word.

Now, you can have all the notebooks, pens and writing programs in the world, but what's going to separate you from the pack is that you listen to advice, take what works for you (do you feel it?  Can you get out of your own way long enough to listen to what's being said or are you still in defensive-mode? and I'll discuss this more in weeks to come) and then (wait for it)…write the book.

I know – it amazes me that I have to say it but I can't tell you the amount of people who talk to me about wanting to write a book and then they never actually write anything down.  You cannot call yourself a writer if you don't actually write.  So just start – ANYWHERE.  Even if it's just lists about the character's wants / needs / desires.  Is there a line from a song that describes him / her?  Write it down.  Work with PBW's three questions:  Who are you? / What do you want? / What's the worst thing I can do to you?

I know – they're great questions.  Picture the scenes in your head and let them play out like they're a movie.  Put the music up loud and just get something down that resembles a story, a scene…something.

I'm going to dig into my IN THE AIR TONIGHT final revisions and prepare so I can write a bit on Kell's book either tonight or in the morning.  So I'm right there with you, writing away.

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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November looms…

Yeah, I know – we haven't gotten past Halloween yet, but we're close enough to November – and my impending deadlines – to make me start to twitch.  Or continue twitching, I guess.

November's the time of NaNoWriMo – a writing challenge where writers attempt to get to 50K on a brand new book.  Since I kind of feel like it's NaNo every month of the year for me (which is a damned good thing, I need to add) I'll be working toward my own goals, but figured, if there are writers out there who need some encouragement as the month goes on, maybe I can give back a little.  I know it's a strange, rough time for publishing and the amount of doom and gloom out there is tough to wade through.  But I've been really blessed with a great start to my career and awesome readers and if I can help someone else on their journey, I'd like to.

I won't be doing the traditional NaNo – this month, I have to finish a contracted romantic suspense – NIGHT MOVES – which will end up around 100K.  I have…um, 10K right now.  And I have two other projects I'm really excited about that I'll be squeezing in because, well, that's the way I roll.

I need to work on multiple projects because that's my right way.  When I try to tunnel vision, nothing gets done – I stall and I bitch and whine and it's not pleasant for anyone.  I want to write one book at a time, in order, but in the *counts* ten years (OMG!) that I've been writing romance, it just hasn't happened.  My process has it's great points and it's completely sucky points but hey, I own them all.

So this month, I'll try to talk about what I've learned, what I still struggle with – strengths and weaknesses, writing with children tugging at you, writing with all kinds of real life interruptions.  If you've got any writing related questions, things you want me to talk about, feel free to mention it in the comments or email me via my contact page.

For now, remember this.  I've told people that, although I've gotten better, it doesn't get easier.  I don't think it's supposed to – if it does, maybe it means you're not trying to outdo your previous work.  Because the only person you should be competing with – the only one you can compete with – is you.  And that's the thing to keep in mind.  You need to surround yourself with really really really good friends – the kind you can call and whine to, the kind that you're honestly from the bottom of your heart thrilled for when amazing things happen to them because you know they absolutely deserve every bit of success they get.  This is your support system, and it's completely and utterly necessary in this business.  Choose them wisely.

And then, repeat this to yourself - just because other writers get published / hit lists / get other writing related things you covet before you doesn't take away your ability to do so – those writers did not take your spot. There is plenty to go around.

And then, start writing your book.  Honestly, it's that freakin' simple.  Start.  Writing.

More to come…

©2010 Stephanie Tyler's Weblog. All Rights Reserved.

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