C.C. Bridges's Blog, page 4
March 7, 2017
Release Day for Love In the Time of Hurricanes
It’s finally here! Love in the Time of Hurricanes is out at all major retailers!
I’ll be celebrating the release all day on my twitter,so come chat with me!
Blurb
The night Nick Henderson storms into Martelli’s Pizzeria, he’s just looking for something to eat. Along with dinner, he finds Lou Martelli—pizza cook extraordinaire and Jersey Shore native. Nick is renting a Shore house for the winter while taking classes at the local community college as he devises a way to escape the accounting major his father chose for him.
When Lou offers to show Nick around, heat flares between them as they realize they have more in common than domineering families. But it’s not all fun and games on the boardwalk. Hurricane Sandy blows ashore, changing the place Nick was starting to think of as home. His peace is shattered, and it will take everything he has to keep his relationship with Lou from being torn apart by the storm brewing around them.
States of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the United States
March 6, 2017
Soundtrack for Love in the Time of Hurricanes
Love in the Time of Hurricanes will be out in just a few days! To tide you over until the release, I wanted to share a mini-soundtrack. Quite honestly, I had “Born to Run” in my head most of the time while I was writing, but I picked out a few different songs that have different meaning for various points in the story.
The Lou Monte song listed below is the one I pictured Lou dancing to during the scene where he’s trying to distract Nick from the hurricane. The record he’s listening to is based on one I had while growing up, called Aunt Carmela’s Italian favorites. (I actually managed to snag the actual record from my parents before they moved. Don’t tell my brother!)
I hope you enjoy Love in the Time of Hurricanes, and have fun matching the songs to parts ofthe story!
Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen
Under the Boardwalk – The Drifters
Che La Luna Mezzo Mare – Lou Monte
Dancing in the Dark – Bruce Springsteen
This House is Not for Sale – Jon Bon Jovi
It’s My Life – Bon Jovi
February 24, 2017
Blog Tour for Love in the Time of Hurricanes
I’m going to be doing a whirlwind of a tour for the release of Love in the Time of Hurricanes (which is March 8th, by the way.)
Check out my posts for some excerpts, stories, and a few giveaways!
Here’s where I’m scheduled to be:
March 1 – MM Good Book Reviews
March 8 – Scattered thoughts and Rogue Words
March 9 – Love Bytes
March 10 – My Fiction Nook
March 13 – Boy Meets Boy Reviews
March 14 – Tammy’s Two Cents
March 15 – Dreamspinner Press Blog
Come join me!
January 5, 2017
Cover Reveal – Love in the Time of Hurricanes
In the fall of 2015, Dreamspinner Press called for submissions for their States of Love line, stories set in every state of the United States. As a life-long resident of New Jersey, I knew I had to submit. I’m so happy that my work was accepted. There is a lot of me in this book, probably more so than anything else I’ve written. You’ll be able to find it March 8. But until then, check out this awesome cover.
Blurb:
The night Nick Henderson storms into Martelli’s Pizzeria, he’s just looking for something to eat. Along with dinner, he finds Lou Martelli—pizza cook extraordinaire and Jersey Shore native. Nick is renting a Shore house for the winter while taking classes at the local community college as he devises a way to escape the accounting major his father chose for him.
When Lou offers to show Nick around, heat flares between them as they realize they have more in common than domineering families. But it’s not all fun and games on the boardwalk. Hurricane Sandy blows ashore, changing the place Nick was starting to think of as home. His peace is shattered, and it will take everything he has to keep his relationship with Lou from being torn apart by the storm brewing around them.
States of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the United States.
December 30, 2016
Looking back at my writing goals for 2016
Now that 2016 is (thankfully) winding down to a close, I wanted to look back and see how well I met my writing goals. So let’s see how much I wrote!
– Love in the Time of Hurricanes (pub date March 2017) – 30,000 words
– Wolf Knight (pub sometime next year) – 20,000 words
– Rejected Christmas Story 8,000 words
– Bloodwork – first draft – 60,000
Total: 118,000 words.
That’s not bad!
Now goals for 2017:
Edit and submit Bloodwork
Edit and submit Angels Rising, the last Heaven Corp novel
Write a novella and maybe another novel (hah!)
What do you think? Too ambitious? I realize it’s not the banging out of words that’s the difficulty – it’s the finding time to edit. It’s easier to write in the chaos of my daily life, but finding that quiet time to think about the words and fix the problems is a bit more difficult.
October 3, 2016
Monday Miscellany – Escape Rooms
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Last week my other half and I visited our 9th escape room. Despite the clipart, nobody actually handcuffs you anywhere and expects you to escape. Well. That I know of.
What I’m talking about are those places that seem to be popping up like the Frozen Yogurt shops a few years ago. At one point we had to travel all the way to Philly to go to our first escape room. Now we have multiple choices that are less than a half hour from where we live.
The premise is that you are locked in a room for 1 hour and have to use your wits and teamwork to figure out the puzzles and get out. Of the 9 we’ve tried, each has had a different theme, and varying levels of difficulty. I hope to talk about some of the more interesting ones here.
Last week’s event was called CureZ, and unlike many other escape rooms, the object wasn’t to escape, but to develop the cure for the zombie virus.
Now. If you know me, you know I really don’t like zombies. I went along with my friends, but it’s not the theme I’d normally choose. I think that did affect my enjoyment of the room.
Because no one does story like the creators of CureZ – Trap Door Escapes. There is a scenario before you start, and you are totally immersed in that scenario throughout your time in the room. Anyone who is a fan of video games like Resident Evil, this felt like the actual “live action” version of the game – sans killing zombies.
I won’t give out any spoilers, but I will say that with only one major hint, we were able to cure the virus and save the world. You’re welcome:)
Has anyone else tried escape rooms? What did you think? (comments are moderated for spam purposes).
September 18, 2016
Currently Working On
Right now I am in the midst of the following projects:
Edits on a fantasy novella (long short story?)
First draft of a sci-fi novel
Waiting on beginning the official editing process for “Love in the Time of Hurricanes.”
July 25, 2016
Christmas in July!
Ok, it does seem silly to celebrate Christmas when we are currently having a heatwave right now. But every year, the Jersey shore (or at least my little corner of it) puts on a big event for this date. You can take pictures with Santa on the beach (and boy do I feel sorry for the dude dressed like Santa in this weather!), sing carols, and win 'presents' on the boardwalk.
I thought it might be a good time to show off some of my Christmas stories.
"Teddy Bear Christmas" is a short little tale.
Two lonely men, a lost teddy bear, and a sprinkle of holiday magic….
On a snowy night before Christmas Eve, Tyler Martin finds himself stuck in a Chicago airport, unable to get home to his family on the East Coast. After missing last year due to his jerk of an ex-boyfriend, the idea of not making it this time hurts. When he finds a lost teddy bear in the waiting area, his night changes for the better.
Aaron Klein is a bored airport worker, taking the Christmas shift because he’s Jewish. He doesn't expect to hit it off with the hot guy who brings a lost teddy bear to his desk, but it might end up being everything he didn’t know he was looking for.
You can find it at Dreamspinner, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iBooks..
And if MMF is more your style and you haven't read Kitten's Ribbons yet, you can find the story (and 3 others!) in Kitten At Play.
This entry was originally posted at http://ccbridges.dreamwidth.org/18246.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
July 20, 2016
Writing Wednesday - Green is the color
This started while writing Love In the Time of the Hurricanes. I found I had to hand-write to get into the zone. But what really helped was writing on green paper.
For some reason, with the green I was able to focus and write more. And then some lovely individual on Tumblr showed how to change the background of a page in google docs. So I was able to type onto a green screen.
This process worked so well I've been using it for all the writing I've done since! I don't know why, but it's so much less stressful than staring at a blank white page and not knowing what to write.
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July 18, 2016
Some updates
I have been pretty busy writing. I have one short story and one proposal on submission. I'm currently working on two manuscripts for anthology calls.
Unfortunately in order to meet these deadlines I've put Angels Rising (Heaven Corp book 3) on hold. The ending needs a good rewrite, I think, and once I have some free time in my schedule I'll work on that.
I've updated my website with all of this, including a new page for Teddy Bear Christmas which includes one of the many very nice reviews I got.
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