Barbara Elsborg's Blog: https://www.barbaraelsborg.com/blog, page 21

London Book Fair

I know it's a minor thing, something that comes naturally to most people, but not to me. I'm not sociable. I'm not a sociopath or any other sort of path - mostly - but I tend to clam up in company. Well, I didn't on Monday. I was at the London Book Fair and I talked to people all day! I spoke to book buyers from South Africa, Denmark, Germany, China....I talked until I forgot I didn't like being sociable. I told them about the publisher's stand I was lurking on, about my books and what they were like. I handed out freebies and smiled and said 'you're welcome' and you know what - I enjoyed it! I had some great company, editors and other writers, two lovely lasses from Ireland, would-be writers and all in all it was a foot achingly, back achingly, brilliant day.

I'm going to kill my crit partner

So my crit partner, Arlene Webb, doesn't get three thousand years bad luck, I have to go to page 77 of my WIP, go to the 7th line and post the next seven lines.
Here they are!
WIP is tentatively called Coming Undone. A MM erotic romance


"Have you ever been in a relationship?" Logan asked.
"How long counts? Fucking the same guy three or four times? If so, yeah a few. Generally I just fuck someone and walk away. It's simpler."
"How many guys have you fucked?"
"Christ, I don't know. I haven't counted."
Logan had. He and Zak were like ice and fire. They had nothing in common.
One thing in common.

Here are seven more victims
Cinderella
Robin Hood
Kevin Costner
Humpty Dumpty
Bo Peep
William Shakespeare
Christopher Marlowe
Yep, I cheated and if they're not writers, they should be.

The London Book Fair

I'm going on Monday!! It's not really an event for writers - more for publishers and agents etc to get together and discuss business, but two of my publishers will be there and I'm looking forward to seeing the girls I already know and meeting the ones I don't. Of course, when I'm approached by many directors about putting my books on the big screen, I shall play very cool.
Think any of my stories would work as a film?
I sometimes wonder if I ought to have pursued the fanfiction writing I did as a teenager. I loved creating new episodes of TV shows. Hop skip and a jump to writing a script. I never tried. I wish I had, though I know it's harder than it looks. Sometimes I get out my old stories and read them!! They all featured the same heroine - obviously ME! I was usually an orphan or abused or hated by my parents, managed to save the hero at the expense of my own life - I didn't get the need for Happy Ever After then!

Out in print SOON

Rocked - my menage paranormal - is going to be out in print soon from Loose-Id. I can't tell you how excited I am about that. I have several paranormal books published by LI but Rocked is the first to make it into print. I have a real soft spot for this story and I don't think it's come to many people's attention. Not my soft spot for it! Just that few seem to know about it despite my extensive marketing campaign on Fox and Sky News and the Times newspaper. Umm - even thinking about one of those would use up all the income I get from writing and more.

The unexpected!

A week ago temperatures were high enough in the UK to sunbathe. Today this is what we woke to! The lambs across the road look very cold!





I LOVE the unexpected. That's why I don't plan or plot my stories. I just let them go where they want. It means that when I sit at the laptop, I have no idea what my characters are going to do. There are problems with that. Big black holes that I'm led down which mean backing out or finding a way out. I have to admit, most times I write my way out. I figure there's a reason WHY I was inclined to go down that particular path.

On Writing

I'm often asked - ah darn it no - I'm never asked about how I write. Well not often. I'm not one of the lucky ones who sit down at a computer and it comes pouring out. My stories rise slowly like hot air balloons and then eventually move forward. I wish I could write faster but I can't. I'm not slow but I so quickly get trawled up in plots and character that I have to backtrack over the first few chapters time after time until I feel happy moving on. So instead of plotting everything, I start off with nothing and then build it up like a tower of blocks, only to take a couple out every now and again and let it fall before I start off once more.
Current WIP - has me excited to write on and I can't until I have some sort of feel for where I'm going and why. For a change, I know what I'm going to be writing in a few chapters time and that's rare. Usually, it happens as I type. This is one is more of an adventure than some of my others. An MM story with the MCs so diametrically opposed, they're going to be fun to bring together.

NEWS from friends !!

My friend Cate Master's dark paranormal erotic romance, Dancing With the Devil, will be free on Amazon from Wednesday 3/28 through Saturday 3/31.
The link is
http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Devil-Goddess-Connection-ebook/dp/B007J3M3QA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1331413492&sr=1-1

Lily MacInnis has the luck of the Irish – against her. All her life, she never could catch a break. But now, something's about to catch her, and dump her suitcase of secrets on the floor. Some secrets, even Lily hadn't known. Like her father's an angel, and her mother escaped from Hell. Literally. And now Hades and Persephone – her grandparents – want her to return to the Underworld. Lily is The Destined One, promised to Zeveriah, Archduke of Section Six, and Hades' up and coming CFO.

Not in Lily's plans – she's fallen for Bodie, the Ruling Angel of the Sixth Heaven.

Bodie can't let Lily fulfill that destiny. But will Bodie risk losing everything to keep his promise to ensure Lily stays safe?

Part goddess, part angel, part demon, can Lily summon the powers she never knew she had to free herself and make her own destiny?

Dancing With the Devil is Book 2 of The Goddess Connection series, which says: Every woman should embrace her inner goddess. What's your connection?


http://catemasters.blogspot.com/2011/03/dancing-with-devil-dark-paranormal-with.html


And in other news, two writing friends Laurie Green and Donna Frelick have both finaled in the RWA Golden Heart/Rita awards with their sci fi romance novels. Donna is a double finalist as Laurie was last year. Congratulations, ladies!!!!
http://spacefreighters.blogspot.co.uk/

Why is life like this?

We have a leak. We HAD a leak. Husband has temporarily filled it but the roof will have to be re- whatevered. But the leak caused damage to the plaster and so it has to be painted. Whole room needs doing. Since you'll have white paint out - says slave driver - why don't you do bedroom as well? So that's another room stripped ready for paint. I usually strip to paint, funnily enough. In pants and bra I can throw away afterwards. A hot shower and I'm good as new. But moving bedroom furniture showed carpet in need of cleaning, so we have a guy coming to do that. While he's here, he might as well clean the carpet in the den which is in DIRE need of new life. Oh and while he's at it, there are marks in the hall from a workman who failed to remove his shoes. I fear this is the neverending story.....

What to do with my business cards

Where can I leave them - let me count the places
Who can I give them to?

1. Random shoppers in Target who make the mistake of talking to me - sorry nice lady!
2. Slip them inside books I send to charity shops
3. Hand out at book fairs - oh, I never go to any.
4. Drop by 'accident' - and watch them get thrown in bin
5. Drop by 'accident' and get fined for littering
6. Stand and wait for possible victims - get done for loitering with intent
7. Leave in coffee bars - oh I never go to those either

Could this be why I still have 493 of the 500 I ordered?

New cover

My next book out with Samhain in May - is called Worlds Apart - a paranormal menage.

Love has never been so close—or seemed so far away.

I love you. Niall is in hiding, but not from the police. He's trapped between the world he longs for and a place he can't leave behind. Cursed to hold his tongue, unable to claim what he wants until it's given, he's allowed one year to capture his heart's desire. But speaking those three simple words, the most important words in his life, might very well kill him.

I can't love you. As a private investigator, Taylor walks daily through the ashes of love burned out. He's witnessed the aftermath of love—destroyed marriages and wrecked lives that leave behind nothing but bitter memories of betrayal. He's convinced that love will never plant a seed in his heart—until Niall sparks a completely unexpected reaction in both mind and body.

I want to love you. Roo has spent her entire life bouncing from relationship to relationship, offering her heart only to get it trampled on. When she finds herself out in the cold again, she discovers love can come from the most surprising of places. Her choices are simple. Do the right thing. Do the wrong thing. Do nothing. The wrong choice could be simply devastating…

Warning: Beware faeries with killer tattoos and girls dressed as chickens—broken hearts can follow… Or lots of love. And lots of sex—three-way, two-way, every which way. But no chicken sex. Thank god.