Christine Rains's Blog, page 116

For the Tawa Fans

Don't forget FEARLESS will be releasedon August 7th!Sign up for the"What was your childhood monster?"blogfest!

Game On now available

The lovely Kyra Lennon's contemporary bookGAME ONis now available!
Amazon.com kindle version  Amazon.com paperback  Amazon UK kindle version  Amazon UK paperback  Blurb:After swapping her small town life to work for one of the top soccer teams in the U.S, Leah Walker thought she could finally leave the ghosts of her past behind. However, when she meets serial womanizer, Radleigh McCoy, the memories of her old life come swarming back, and she is forced to ask herself whether she has really changed at all.
GAME ON blog tour starts on August 6th!

Friday Five for July 20th

1. FEARLESS will be released on August 7th. Yay! I created a blogfest to celebrate its release. It's about one of my favorite parts writing the story: the monsters. What was your childhood monster? Click here to sign up. I can't wait to read your posts. For those of you who've asked about promo stuff for the book, I'll send you the info when I have it. Right now, it's just the cover and the blurb. Hopefully I can get the book uploaded a few days before the 7th to make sure everything is working, and I can send you the links then.

2. I haven't done any writing this week. Still no air-conditioning. I can barely think in this heat induced fugue I'm living in. I really, really hate the smell of humid air and breathing it in.

3. A big congratulations to Laura Josephsen who signed with an agent from the Bradford Literary Agency! That's awesome news. I'm so excited for her.

4. My writer's group meeting went well last Saturday. They liked the concept and the action in my submission, and offered up some good suggestions. I was worried about writing in the male POV, but no one thought there was a problem there. I know I'm harder on myself than anyone else. I'm my own worst critic at times.

5. Tonight we might go to a county fair. Let the boy see the animals and try some fair food. If there's little kid rides, he can try those too. That's all the excitement I have planned.

Have a good weekend, folks!

What Was Your Childhood Monster? Blogfest sign-up

My paranormal romance novella, FEARLESS, will be released on August 7th. To help promote it, I wanted to do something fun. One of my favorite parts of writing the story was creating monsters spawned from children's imaginations. Some of them are silly, but there's no rhyme or reason to a child's fears.
I'll be hosting a blogfest that will go from August 7th to the 9th. You can post on any one of those three days. (I like it when blogfests give you an option of which day to post on!) For this blogfest, all you need to do is write about your childhood monster. Did you have a beast living under your bed? Or was the scary clown in your closet?
Please add a link back to my blog when you do your post, and if you would like to add anything about FEARLESS, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Sign up on the linky list below and grab one of the badges from this post to add to your blog's sidebar. I'm eager to read everyone's posts for the What Was Your Childhood Monster? Blogfest!

Wicked Wednesday - you are what you eat

I've been told you are what you eat since I was a small child. I've never turned into a cookie or a carrot. What people really are saying when they tell you that is what you eat (and how you eat it) is reflected upon your personality. You can learn a lot about characters through their dietary habits.
Writing paranormal romance, you have a wider variety of food to play with too. For the paranormal part: the supernatural creatures and their strange eating habits. For romance: the sensuality of eating what you eat.
You don't want to write too much about food because it could bore your reader. Yet eating is an every day thing - for most beings - and just a quick line about it can show your reader something about your character. For example, an addiction to sweets or someone who puts salt on everything. Not unusual, but just those few words have put a certain idea of a person in your mind.
More extreme paranormal examples: A vampire that only drinks AB negative type blood would have a difficult time finding victims.A werewolf that refuses to eat meat, but his body is having difficulty transforming without it.A half-dragon that won't eat anything raw, but can't produce her own flames.
It's just not what the characters eat, but how they eat as well. A soup slurper or someone who chews with their mouth open would be immediate turn-offs. Yet someone who eats with only their fingers could be highly sensual.
Paranormal examples:A vampire drinking from his lover's most intimate places.A demon with a long tongue licking the juices from an apple he's bitten into.
Sharing food can be a sensual experience. Sometimes, watching someone cook can be too.
What's your favorite fictional food moment?

Teaser Tuesday with Deadlocked

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read Open to a random page Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that pageBE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!This is the next installment in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series. I eat these books up like they're chocolate chip cookies. Yum!
Here's your teaser:
"You don't find me attractive?"
"Completely beside the point!" (page 30)

Agents are watching you on Twitter

I ran across this interesting article the other day on Mashable.com called "How Literary Agents Find Talent on Twitter."

I'm new to Twitter, and sometimes it can feel overwhelming. I've discovered some wonderful writers and found a lot of useful information, though. I can't keep up with everything, but what I do get from it is worthwhile.

I wonder how agents pick out a writer amongst all the various ones out there. Interesting links, sure. Quirky quotes, okay. Hash tags, yup. How do you get attention in the massive land of Twitter when your tweet is just one of millions?

I think it comes down to luck. Yes, you have to put yourself out there and write quality stories, but in the end, only Lady Luck decides what happens. I think it's nice to think about an agent approaching you after seeing you on Twitter, but it's like winning the lottery. Don't depend on it. Go out and succeed on your own terms.

Saturday Six for July 14th

1. Today I have my monthly S.C.I.F.I. (South Central Indiana Fiction Interface) meeting. Even with this heat, I managed to get all the stories critiqued. I'll be happy to sit in the air-conditioned library for a few hours even if my story gets torn to shreds!

2. A big thank you to L.G. Keltner for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award and Tell Me About Yourself Award. Consider this Saturday Six post as getting to know me!

3. I finished my revisions for Fearless. Funny how I missed some of those spelling errors, and I really need to pay attention to my use of the passive voice while writing fight scenes. Onward to proofreading and formatting!

4. Still no air-conditioning. Blah.

5. My son held up a clear plastic lid in front of his face the other day. He said, "Look, Mommy! An invisible box!"

6. I'm finally catching up on True Blood. It's funny how ten years ago, my TV schedule would have included a few hours of shows for most nights a week. Now, for the summer, I have nothing I watch except True Blood. It feels weird, but I have better things to do with my free time these days like write!

Have a great weekend!

Fearless release date

AUGUST 7th!
Mark it on your calendars! Of course, I'll be reminding you. I've been making great progress this week on the revisions. I'm not changing much at all, but it needed cleaning up. A big thank you to Cherie Reich who's a superb editor. Tawa will be proud.

To celebrate the release of Fearless, I'll be hosting a "What was your childhood monster?" blogfest. I'll make a badge and set up a linky list very soon. (I'm still behind on everything. I don't work well in the heat. No air-conditioning yet.)
I will be offering Fearless for free everywhere. (Well, ninety-nine cents on Amazon until they price-match it!)
The official blurb:Abby White was seven years old when she killed the monster under her bed. Now she slays creatures spawned by the fertile imaginations of children, and the number of these nightmares are on the rise. Neither she nor her guide - a stuffed hippo named Tawa - know why. When she rescues Demetrius from an iron prison, he pledges his life to protect hers until he can return the favor. She doesn't want the help. And how can she concentrate on her job when the gorgeous wild fae throws himself in front of her during every fight? No matter how tempting, she can't take the time to lose herself to him.

To save the children and all she loves, Abby must be truly Fearless.

First Wolf FREE on Amazon

The lovely Carole Anne Carr's ebookFirst Wolfis FREE on Amazon between now and the 13th!
Book description: This is a brilliant book from former Shropshire primary school teacher, poet, actor, church minister and artist. Now Carole Anne Carr from Ludlow can definitely add children’s novelist to her list of many talents. In her first book, aimed at 10+, she uses her expertise and life experiences to create First Wolf. Youngsters are plunged into a vibrant adventure with enough energy and realism to keep them on the edge of their seats without it being too heavy or too grown-up to cope with.Together with Carole's Anglo-Saxon hero Toland, young readers will be transported on a journey to an incredible world. Along the way, they learn about truth, honesty, and friendship, and that good always triumphs over evil. After visiting historical places with her schoolchildren, Carole used the sites to encourage children to create their own music, paintings, to write their own stories and poetry, and to make mathematical models, all of these experiences forming a basis for her novels.