Lisa Phillips's Blog, page 3

Rogue Everlasting Giveaway!

From tomorrow through July 15th you can enter to win a signed copy of the final novel in my Everlasting Trilogy, Rogue Everlasting.

Good Luck and wishing you all a wonderful summer with plenty of time for reading!

Success Is Relative

I began dreaming of being an author when I was just a kid. I’m pretty sure that dream was somewhere between being crowned Miss USA and touring the country with my cousin, Deb, as half of the singing sensation known as The Dixie Darlins. I gave up on being Miss USA when I realized my cousin couldn’t sing with me during the talent competition, and the dream of the Dixie Darlins died when I figured out half of a singing sensation should actually be able to sing (I’m talking about me, Deb, not you.). I almost gave up on becoming an author because it took thirty years for it to happen. Most likely it would have never happened had success for me not been relative.

I wrote my first novel when I had a baby on a hip and a four year old reminding me it was almost time for Blues Clues. It was nothing more than an attempt at preserving my own sanity. I wrote my second novel while saying goodbye to my terminally ill father and a marriage. And I wrote my third novel while suffering being the mother of a teenager and the daughter of a mother who kept telling me I was NOT the boss of her! During the most challenging times of my life, writing has always been a way to hold on to something I do purely for myself.

My third novel was released yesterday. As excited as I was, there wasn’t much time to relish that particular success. The PS3 went on the blink, so the teenager curled up into a fetal position and began whimpering. The 9 yr old asked if he could have a dozen buddies over for a sleepover, and my mother told me to bite her when I mentioned diet cola was listed nowhere on the nutritional pyramid. I went to my brother looking for solace in enduring the struggles of facing life in my household, only to be told at least I did not have to deal with me.

As a result of my relatives, I am well into my fourth novel. Any success I have achieved is strictly a result of them driving me slowly but surely closer to the edge of insanity. I suppose my success in realizing a dream being relative to the people in my life I love, but sometimes want to escape from, could be considered balance in the cosmos. Were it not for my relatives, I might not have achieved a dream three times over. And it is because of them I am sure a means of escape will continue to help me realize my dreams. Even if I’m not Miss USA or half of the singing sensation known as The Dixie Darlins.

Rogue Everlasting

You can now check out my upcoming vampire romance release, as well as other paranormal romances from some talented authors at http://www.blacklyonpublishing.com/Ro...

Happy Reading All!

Rogue Everlasting

The final novel in my Everlasting trilogy, Rogue Everlasting, will be released by Black Lyon Publishing on May 15th. However, you can take a sneak peek at the first chapter at http://lisa-phillips.com/

Wishing you all Happy Reading!

Love Struck

I say all the time in order to write about love for a living you must be a firm believer in the power of it. You have to know for those fortunate enough to experience it, there is that one other person who can with nothing more than a smile make the world come to a complete standstill. And there is little that fuels a writer’s imagination more than seeing proof of the undeniable power of love…

I pick up the 9 yr old at the elementary school at 2:45, which means we always have more than half an hour to fill before picking up his brother at the middle school at 3:30. This time slot is generally filled roaming around the Kroger in South Knoxville while I try to remember all the things we need I forgot to get when I was there the day before. My younger son usually plods along beside me, filling me in on his day, and assuring sugar in moderation is not harmful to growing boys. Whatever the topic, the kid rarely takes a breath as his little mouth runs nonstop. I do not know where he gets that…

I rummage in one of the freezer cases, wondering if thin crust veggie pizza would be too much to ask of a national grocery chain, when I realize the 9 yr old’s play by play of the football game at recess has come to an abrupt halt. I look down to find my son’s big brown eyes filling his face and his mouth gaping open. Normally it takes nachos or a new video game to produce that sort of result. I turn my head to see a beautiful little blond-haired girl with big green eyes following her mother down the aisle. She is smiling at my son…who I slap on the back in hopes he will take a breath before his face turns any bluer. When the girl and her mother turn down another aisle, I look back at my son.

“Do you know her?” I ask as he cranes his neck to watch her disappear.

“Yes, ma’am,” he croaks. “That’s Maddie. She is the prettiest girl in the whole school. All the fourth grade boys are in love with her.”

“Really?” I toss a couple of pizzas into our cart. “As you are in fourth grade, I assume that means you too.” His face flushes as we stroll down the aisle.

“I think she knows who I am.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of the jeans with grass stains on the knees.

I wonder if just once he and his buddies could play something besides football at recess as I grab a bottle of stain remover from a shelf. “What do you mean you think she knows? I ask. He only shrugs. “Don’t you talk to her?” He looks at me like I have asked for a kidney. “Honey, she is just a girl. She may be waiting for you to talk to her.”

“I doubt it,” he replies, giving me the you-are-just-my-mother-so-what-would-you-know look.

“I happen to know for a fact when boys are too afraid to talk to a girl she sometimes ends up at home alone on Saturday night reading The Hobbit.”

“Ma’am?”

“Nothing,” I insist. “My point is maybe she thinks you are the cutest boy in the whole school, and she is too afraid to talk to you. So now here you both are not talking to each other.” He rolls his eyes again. “Tomorrow you go right up to her and say hello.”

“I can’t do that,” he gasps.

“Of course you can! I am telling you, she is probably wondering why you never talk to her.”

He is trying not to look like he is looking when we pass her and her mother as they stand in the checkout line. A little part of my heart is breaking as I realize there is now another female who scares my son more than his mother. He hesitantly lifts a hand and waves as we pass them. I hold my breath until the prettiest girl in the whole schools waves back at my son.

I watch that boy walk on air for the rest of the afternoon, knowing there is little greater in life than the power of love.

Dear Lisa...

On average, I receive about two dozen messages a week from aspiring writers. Very often they are the same questions. How do I find a publisher? Do I need an agent? What should I include in a query? Should I consider self-publishing as opposed to traditional publishing? And the list goes on and on…

Though I have been published by a small press, I by no means consider myself an expert on the publishing industry. But, I can tell you what I know as a writer. It is a sickness. For years before I finally summoned the courage to query publishers, I kept journals and wrote stories I never dreamed anyone would ever read. When my older son was a toddler, I wrote simply out of the hope it would keep me sane! By the time my second son came along, I had drawers filled with journals and manuscripts that were my attempt to hold on to a sacred corner of life that was not devoted to those I gave birth to.

If I was down, I wrote. If I was happy, I wrote. If I was determined not to finish my kid’s spaghetti… Yeah, I wrote. My brother is an artist, who says if he never sold another piece of his work again, he would still draw. It’s part of who he is. Writing is the same for me. I think writers are born, and whether we are ever published, or not, it is part of who we are. So whether you write fiction, non-fiction, or whether you are ever published, or not, if for you writing is a sickness, you have a really good start. Most published authors will tell you, few of us started with the illusion of fame and fortune. We write because we don’t know how not to write. We become published because we don’t give up. Why would you give up on something that is part of who you are?

Write the best book you can, research publishers and agents and self-publishing, and DO NOT GIVE UP! If being a writer is part of who you are, then chances are good somebody else will recognize it as well…before you eat your kid’s spaghetti!

Saying Goodbye...

More than three years ago I began writing about a cast of characters, who just happened to be vampires, whose eternities unfolded in Savannah, Georgia. I chose Savannah because when I went there as a little girl for the first time, I decided it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. Historic homes and buildings, which even then I was drawn to, and sunny beaches… I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live there. Well, at least not for another thirty-five years. And then my imagination kicked into overdrive.

On May 15th, the last book in my vampire trilogy, Rogue Everlasting, will be released by Black Lyon Publishing. This trilogy will always hold a special place in my heart. No matter what I do as an author in the future, this trilogy was the realization of a dream I had as a nine year old reading The Secret Garden. Writing these stories helped me through a pretty rough patch in life. For me they are proof if you want something bad enough, and are willing to work hard for it, the dreams of a nine year old can come true.

I am immensely grateful to fans of the Everlasting Trilogy, who have taken the time to contact me, and give me feedback, my editor, Kerry, who is an absolute dream to work with, and my boys, who never once complained about hot dogs, or pizza…again, so I could finish a chapter. Through these three novels, I have learned much about the publishing business, as well as myself as an author. I may be saying goodbye to these characters, but the lessons I learned through the process of bringing them to life in someone’s imagination besides my own will always make them special to me.

Happy reading all!

Spring Fever

It’s difficult to avoid when it’s nearly seventy degrees, and it’s not even March yet. When I was growing up, I dreaded spring. My mother didn’t just spring clean. She spring cleaned, painted, wallpapered, and redecorated. My father would say one day all the holes she put in the walls moving pictures and mirrors around would one day run together and the house would fall down. If that were to happen in spring, I wasn’t sure he would notice. Not only was there the usual yard work he would sentence my brother and me to, but in spring he started obsessing over firewood. He would volunteer to cut down trees for friends and family members. We would drag limbs, stack logs, and rake up the mess… To this day the sound of a chainsaw makes me cry.

I swore when I grew up I would never let the first signs of spring turn me into some crazed maniac with a To Do list designed to torture innocent children!

And then the other day I was standing at the patio door looking out on an afternoon that seemed more like one in April than February. I was thinking the ornamental grasses needed to be cut back, and the patio needed to be pressure washed. While I had the washer out, I might as well do the front porch and shutters… While I was dragging things around the garage to get to the washer, I should do some sprucing up there because we were going to need the tools to clean out flowerbeds and prune hedges.

“What are you doing?” my 13 yr old asked shrilly.

I turned, and recognized the fear in his eyes. He saw that gleam in his mother’s eyes that told him leisurely winter weekends were coming to an end…and I was going to work him and his brother like mules. I started rattling off the To Do list as he winced with every word.

“Cheer up, buddy! It could be worse,” I assured, patting his back. “At least I don’t have a chainsaw.”

Happy Valentines Day!

If there is anything I know to be true, it is to write about love for a living requires a devout belief in the magic of it. The hearts and flowers of love, as I call it. Fast beating hearts, first kisses, and turning up the love songs on the radio that once made you roll your eyes. Though I think many wonder if there is truly as much romance as ‘hooking up’ going on today, call me old fashioned, but I believe there is. Every once in a while, I see something that restores my faith in that romantic notion.

My Valentines Day started off in crowded doctor’s office where I decided I had no choice but go after the virus my sons brought home from school had just about rendered me unable to get out of bed. I’ve been a mother long enough to know a good case of bronchitis when I hear it. As my sons were feeling better, and therefore wanted to do things like eat and wear clean clothes, I had no choice but to stand in a waiting room that was standing room only. As I stood, I looked around at the number of men with their butts firmly planted in chairs while half a dozen women stood lined up along the wall. Shame on you, I thought, vowing to be ever as diligent about flicking my boys on the ear if they forgot to open a door for their grandmother, or dared take a chair while a woman stood. Old fashioned, I know, but it is a real pet peeve of mine.

As I was lamenting to myself about chivalry being dead as a doornail in that waiting room, I stepped aside as the door opened. A man came in wearing coveralls and a pair of work boots that looked like he had been plowing the back forty with his feet. He had on a baseball cap, which he quickly pulled off his head. I smiled. Wonder how many times his mama flicked him on the ear for wearing a cap in her house? He had two large bouquets of roses, and a box of candy. And I mean the good stuff. If there is anything I know, it is chocolate. Those were truffles, so I leaned closer as he passed just in hopes of getting a whiff of them.

The man, who I guessed to be in his early thirties, went to the counter where the receptionist was grinning from ear to ear. She held up a finger, rushed down the hallway, and a minute later a nurse followed her back down the hallway. I was already tearing up by that time, but when he gave her one bouquet for being his Valentine, and then said the other bouquet was from their children… Just about every woman in that waiting room was already sniffing from whatever crud had driven her in there, and he’d just made it worse. The nurse hugged him. I thought, honey, you better not let him go!

I’m wishing that happy couple and all of you a very romantic, Happy Valentines Day!

Backhands, Wet Dishrags, High Heels, and Meatballs

When the parental debate of whether to spank, or not to spank arises, I am torn. I’ve never spanked my boys, other than popping chubby little hands when they were toddlers, more to get their attention than anything. It wasn’t really any sort of moral decision on my part. By the time my older son was five years old, his arms and legs were so long, I couldn’t reach him to spank him when he started flailing around.

I learned with my children long, drawn out torture worked far better. If they didn’t pick up their toys, there was no watching Disney Channel. If they misbehaved in school, no playing sports. If they talked back to me disrespectfully, then the PS3 was off limits. There were times they would beg me to just spank them instead.

The trick to it was never blinking. I knew if I made a single threat I wasn’t prepared to follow through with my credibility was shot, and those kids would run over me from then on. I once saw a mother threaten to spank her kids seven times in one hour if they didn’t go get their playroom cleaned up in the next ten minutes. I thought, after the first three times you didn’t do what you said you were going to do those kids stopped giving the last four times a minute’s thought.

However, I was raised in a family with a devout belief in sparing the rod spoiled the child.

My father never spanked me. He preferred public humiliation and stunting my social life. If friends called after my nine o’ clock phone curfew, he would answer, telling them when they asked for me I had broken my leg and they had to shoot me, or I ran off with a clown and joined the circus. He spanked my brother, who said he would rather be humiliated.

The grass was always greener, I guess…

Mama was a backhander. My brother and I would start arguing and punching each other in the car and her arm would come over the seat. We’d be crouched down, trying to avoid that backhand as she asked if we wanted her to pull that car over right that minute. I often thought about agreeing to that rather than her swerving all over the road as she tried to drive and swat at us. As we got older, she sometimes had to pull a chair out from the kitchen table to hop up onto it to smack the sass out of my brother as she called it. When I was sixteen, I slapped a hand to my hip and asked exactly when I got to start picking out my own friends. I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye, my cheek started stinging, and I was suddenly facing in the opposite direction.

My Aunt Sue had six boys. One Sunday after church a mere thirty, or so of my family decided to go out to eat. With her big brood, she had to drive a bus. It came to a halt in the parking lot, and boys spilled out all over the place. Two of them started bickering and shoving and one ended up slamming a door on his brother’s hand. Aunt Sue reached down, pulled off a three-inch heel, and started chasing that boy around the parking lot while he tried to shield his head with his arms crossed over it yelling, “Mama, stop! Watch my eye! Mama, please stop!”

But, the undisputed champion of corporal punishment was Aunt Carol. She didn’t care whose kid you were. If you were in her house, eating her baloney sandwiches, you were fair game. One night after she fed close to a dozen kids loitering around her kitchen, she told Deb and me to go right then, get our showers, and when we got out, put our dirty clothes in the dishwasher. Well, of course we knew she meant the washing machine. I begged Deb to stop as she draped our clothes over dishes and glasses, and closed the door of the dishwasher with a giggle. She said her mother was always saying we needed to listen to her, and do exactly as we were told.

A short while later, Aunt Carol came storming into the den whirling a wet dishrag over her head. I started running as fast as my short, chubby legs would carry me. Deb was faster, so when we made it into the hallway, she cut me off. That dishrag popping against the skin on the backs of my knees was worse than the switch she would snap off forsythia bushes. And Aunt Carol didn’t give up. She’d chase you as long as you ran. We all learned soon enough to lie there and play dead so she’d move on to the next kid.

One night she was rolling out balls of hamburger meat to press into patties, and my cousin Steve said something she thought was disrespectful. All of a sudden, she started firing meatballs at him as he ducked and dodged trying to get out the door. About once a month, she’d pile kids into a station wagon, drive to the Juvenile Detention Center, and say that was their next stop if they kept on trying her. She had all her kids convinced there was such a thing as Fed Up Mother’s arrest.

I still say yes, ma’am to my mother, and Lord knows I say it to Aunt Carol. When my sons get a little rambunctious I tell them about backhands, wet dishrags, high heels, and meatballs. I think they’ve decided I might not have spanked them so far, but there’s no telling what I am capable of given our gene pool.