S.M. Butler's Blog, page 33

Quote of the Day: Off Her Game #6

Here’s this week’s Off Her Game quote!

“Her arms pressed her breasts together in the low-cleavage shirt. He bet she had amazing tits. God he wanted to find out.” –Off Her Game, coming March 2013

Retro Quote of the Day: Off Her Game

Since January, I’ve been sharing quotes from Off Her Game on social media sites. But I haven’t been sharing them here, so I’m going to reshare those, and start posting the new ones here as well. The format will be two a week (one old, one new) until March when I’ll start doing the new quotes more often.

And now, here’s the first one I posted in January.

“This close, he smelled soft vanilla, like ice cream. It filled his nose and just the scent of her body made him smile.” –Off Her Game, coming March 25, 2013.

Lea Griffith and her two cents on genetic manipulation

Today, I’ve got the lovely Lea Griffith on my blog talking about smart stuff I probably know nothing about. So let’s sit back and listen to her for a bit.

Thanks, Suz, for having me today. I hope you know what you’ve gotten into.

You know I always struggle for topics to blog on. I’m pretty new to all of this and want to make sure I hit it out of the park every time. Have no idea if this actually happens but that is my motivation, lol! So as I was thinking over what I’d run my mouth about today, it hit me…my debut release, Retrieval, is all about genetic manipulation and things that may, or may not, be possible. So this is my topic.

I’m a scifi nut from way back. When I was young, Star Wars and ET were my favorites. My mom and I watched Battlestar Galactica on Sundays when I was really little and I devoured everything I could on TV and in books. If it had stars, I was there in front of the telly watching it. I went to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama when I was in the fifth grade. As I grew up, my interests remained in the heavens, but I when I entered college they morphed to include all things science. This included genetics.

Now I’m not telling you what I made in my genetics classes—it wasn’t always pretty. But those classes enhanced my already overactive imagination, forcing me to see genetically enhanced bionic men and women and human/animal hybrids around every corner. As my knowledge of the science of genetics grew (slowly I should add here—those classes kicked my arse pretty frequently) so did my thoughts that everything I was learning was not only possible but probable.

Frightening when you think about it, genetic enhancement is happening today. They’re growing human ears on rats, people. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and researched the science behind it. They are growing replacement limbs for people who’ve lost body parts, organs for people who are suffering from chronic diseases. This isn’t science fiction anymore—it’s real life.

And if they can grow an ear on a rat’s back, who’s to say they can’t modify a human’s entire genetic structure? Blend it with other mammals, take away what may be weak and replace it with something stronger? That’s what my heroine’s father did in Retrieval. A mad scientist, Dolan Smythe-Ward takes cloning and genetic enhancement to a new level. Having been raised amongst monsters such as Josef Mengele, he has roots deep in twisted science. He is brilliant for all his madness and creates five women with amazing, extraordinary abilities. That they are his daughters is irrelevant. Nothing is off limits when it comes to his egomania.

One of those daughters, the strongest, is the heroine of Retrieval. Skylar understands what she is and what she has the power to do. She is unwilling to be used by her father in his bid to control the world. Her story is complicated by Sebastian Graham, the man sent to retrieve her and the one man she cannot break free from. Theirs is a love so true, so deep, that overcoming an evil scientist is just the beginning.

Skylar’s story has its beginning in the articles I’ve read on cloning humans. Scientists have already cloned sheep, dogs and cats. It’s my understanding cloning humans is against the law in every country. However, some countries allow therapeutic cloning—which is cloning cells from adults for use in medicine and transplant. Many countries are already cloning embryonic stem cells. My feeling is that cloning an entire human isn’t far off. So Skylar’s story is entirely possible, if it isn’t true already. *muwhahahaha—cue evil scientist laughter here*

The science is there, folks. Around every corner or in the basement of pharmaceutical companies across the world, the conspiracy theories about genetic enhancement and cloning abound. But the simple truth is that this is possible. What’s uncertain is whether it’s happening right now.

So there’s my two cents about genetic manipulation. I get a little more in-depth into the science behind the creation of my heroine and her sisters in Retrieval. Hope you’re not looking over your shoulder now—they could be everywhere and nowhere at all.

Thanks for stopping by to let me drop some science ;D into your brain.

Suz, you freaking rock and I’m looking forward to hosting you soon as you talk Off Her Game.

Check out Retrieval at these places online:

Retrieval   Liquid Silver Books| Amazon

Blurb:

Skylar is the hunted. Fashioned for the sole purpose of destruction, she has spent her entire life running from the evil scientist who created her, her father. When a team of retrieval experts hired by her father track her down, neither Skylar nor the team’s leader is prepared for the magnetic attraction that will not let them go. In the midst of danger, with their lives on the line, they forge a bond so tight only death could break it.

Together they will fight an egomaniacal scientist as well as their explosive desire for one another to discover what true power is.

Special thanks to Lea Griffith for joining us today. See below for more places to find her online:

Website  |  Twitter

Bio:

Lea Griffith began sneaking to read her mother’s romance novels at a young age. She cut her teeth on the greats: McNaught, Woodiwiss, and Garwood. A firm believer that love makes the world go round, she still consumes every romance book she can put her hands on, but now she writes her own.

Lea lives with her husband and three teenage daughters in rural Georgia. Two dogs, a cat, and a beta fish named Coddy George complete a family that is always in motion. When not working at the EDJ, she’s usually at her keyboard, using every spare second to write. Shifters, artificial intelligence, and gene splicing, oh my!

Nothing is off-limits when it comes to her writing.

ROW80: Sloooow progress, but progress

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series ROW80 2013 Round 1

It’s been a rough week, my ROW80ers. I’ve pretty much locked myself into finishing the final edits on Off Her Game and smoothing that out. It’s going much slower than I expected, but it is moving, so I suppose that’s something.

So here’s a quick overview of what I’ve got going on:

Hockey book #2 is pushed back a little so I can give hockey book #1 the attention it needs. I’ll be writing that soon, though.
Off Her Game edits will be done either tonight or tomorrow morning. After that, it’s formatting. Yay!
I also tweaked the cover, so you can see the new one on the book’s page.

Other than that, I’ve got my head down. So it’s a short update this time around.

How’s everyone else doing?

Healthier Me In 2013

This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Healthier Me in 2013

I’m always of the mind that doing things like losing weight or shopping in partners or groups is better. That’s why when Sidney Bristol asked me if I wanted in on Healthier Me in 2013. For me, it’s not so much losing weight as it is being more in shape and feeling better about me.

Managing weight is hard. It can be disheartening. So Sidney is running the Linky Tools for those that want to blog progress on the Tuesday check-ins, but if you’re not a blogger, there’s Facebook and Twitter. Tweet under the #healthierme13, post tips and tricks of things to try.

So for me, I want to get into kickboxing. I need to be physically active, because I’m already to the point where diet doesn’t do anything for me. I’ve hit the plateau. So that’s my goal. To be more active.

You can follow my progress (in addition and probably more frequently) on Twitter, or Facebook (page or profile)

What’s your goal?

Meet the men of the online dating world

Anyone who’s followed this blog for a long time (you poor things!) knows that I’ve been dabbling in online dating. Luckily, it hasn’t retained that stigma that it once had in the early days of the internet, but there are some weird expectations and strange occurrences that happen in this community. And really, it is a community, because there is a finite pool of people and they are on All The Sites.

The past in dating online

I used to do an online dating series called Flirty Fridays with Sidney Bristol, which for time constraint, we’ve kinda fallen off on lately. But this doesn’t mean that we haven’t been dating or talking to men. In just reading through profiles, I realized that there are all kinds of similarities in these guys’ profiles.

“Hey, baby, ur cute. Wanna go out this weekend?”  But there’s a particular issue I want to bring up. Did you know that 99% of the guys on these sites are adventure travelers? I know, seems strange to me too. I’ve seen profile after profile of guys that mountain climb, scuba dive, go white water rafting, sky diving and even bungee jumping. They all frequent places like Ireland and Egypt and Greece and the Amazon. They are always outside, always traveling and have rocking pictures of their awesome tans. They also play every sport ever invented and workout every single day of the week.

Dude. Come on. I live in Texas. Far from mountains, beaches, and all those countries. Let’s be serious.

These guys all say they are also ambitious and career-driven and have income of over 100k. How exactly are they doing this? If they’re career-driven, they’re leaving work to do this. Exactly how many days off do they get a year? And the Big Boss is okay with this constant absence? I think not. I’ve fired people in my lifetime for less.

Let’s talk profile pictures

On most of my profiles, I’ll mention that I have children, but I don’t go into detail beyond gender. But I’ve seen the cutest pics of children up on THEIR PROFILES and I’m all “Who does that? Do they not realize how unsafe that is for the child?” It’s an immediate turn off. Because I’m wondering how unsafe they’ll be in other ways.

Let’s not forget about the classic shirtless pic in the mirror shot. Seriously, guys. Do you really think that this is all women look for? Yes, I love abs. I love seeing the muscles wrapped over good, broad shoulders. But these are not pics that are necessary, and they’re cliche these days.

It goes for girls too, even though I spend less time looking at them, since you know, I’m not oriented that way. We don’t have the shirtless in the mirror pic, but we do have the pouty face. Seriously. Headshot, puckered lips, lots of makeup. Pouty face. Ugh.

Now expectations.

“She has to be beautiful and adventurous and open to trying any thing (is this a sexual reference) and be outgoing and extroverted and smart and be beautiful and a great conversationalist and witty and fun and like jokes and be beautiful and play lots of sports and be able to kick it with the guys and be ambitious and successful and be beautiful and have a great job and be family-oriented (I’m guessing this means barefoot and preggers in the kitchen?) and takes care of herself and be beautiful and be outdoorsy and like camping… Did I mention be beautiful?” Seriously, guys. The stipulations you put out there. You know what I put on my profiles? “I looking for an honest, easy-going guy who knows what he wants and likes dogs and kids.” And for all that stuff, my favorite is still the “accept me for who I am” line, because then you KNOW that they’ve been burned.

O__O

My question for the guys

Do you really think that this is a possibility? That you can find such a woman?

I mean, if you’re holding out for THAT, maybe that’s why you’re single or divorced already.

Hell, I tell you what.

You find that chick, and I’LL date her.

But many of these things dudes put on their profiles is contradicting. I mean, someone who does adventure sports and works out every day and still has time to put makeup on and get her hair done and be on time to her awesome well-paying job?

No. Sorry. Not happening.

But also, I think dudes need to think about this… Is that something that you really want?

Because would you even approach such a girl, should she exist? Based on my experiences, I don’t think so. I’m told I’m intimidating and one dude told me that he was breaking up with me because I was better at things than he was.

Seriously.

But I don’t fit 90% of that criteria so imagine what a person who did would be like.

Refocus

It’s possible to be successful in online dating. But being realistic is better than trying to sell yourself on a lie. You’re not going to find that girl, because chances are, she’s probably married anyway. In fact, she probably got five marriage proposals walking down the street to the grocery store.

There are some fantastic women out there, ones so deserving of attention and love. Maybe they aren’t the prettiest things in the world. Maybe they aren’t the most adventurous, but they love to cook. Really think about the priorities you set when you’re searching. Not everyone is Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie, just like not all men are Brad Pitt or Antonio Banderas or Sean Connery or Jeremy Renner or Chris Hemsworth or Chris Evans or…. ahem. Sorry, got carried away.

So, let’s talk ideal and realistic. What is your ideal mate? Take that idea and let’s come up with a realistic mate. What would that person be like? What are the traits that you’re unwilling to give on, and others that you are?

Four dating mistakes single parents make

Last week, I started thinking about time and how I don’t have it, and I’ve realized that while I love the 365 Days series, I just don’t have the time to blog every day. I have a line of books waiting to be worked on, and deadlines to make and blogging, while fun as hell, doesn’t make me money like books do. So a little bit of reorganization of my time and projects, and a hiatus from blogging, we’re back to posting one or two days a week, but hopefully a little more structure than before.

I suck at dating

You guys probably know that I’m a single mom. God knows, I don’t try to hide it. But that pesky “single” part of that label is definitely a challenge. I’ve been divorced for a little over eight years now. I’ve spent that time flailing around, not knowing what to do, and trying to survive. But surviving shouldn’t have been my goal. It should have been living. I’ve adjusted to being a single parent, but I’ve lost that social aspect of myself. I’m no longer thinking about the “single woman” part. I’m hoping to change that aspect of myself but the thought of dating scares the shit out of me. The rules haven’t changed much, but I’m ten years older and have to consider two wonderful boys.

So I thought I would share what my wonderful internet reading has told me about single parent dating.

1. Waiting too long to date again.

Seriously. This is my problem. I think my main problem here is that I’ve become overly comfortable with being alone. I’m set in my ways and that makes it difficult for me to make the changes to include someone new in my life.

So, what I’m doing is crawling out of my hiding hole slowly, testing the temperature of the dating pool. I started looking at online dating. Though there are some crazies that send messages, sometimes, there’s one or two that will send a thoughtful, non-crazy message that we might click with. I probably get twice the messages that guys do, but that’s the way society has taught us. The boys chase, the girls get caught. Funny thing is… when I was in second grade, I was the one chasing.

 2. Being exclusive too soon.

I haven’t actually made this mistake. That would require having been in a relationship. But I have noticed that I tend to stop talking to others once I find someone that is interesting. So, I think I should work on that. A lot of single parents come from long-term monogamous relationships, so we tend to be one-person people. But dating more than one person allows us to compare or contrast.
3. Becoming sexually intimate too soon.
Oh, man. Most of us have made this mistake before. Sexual intimacy isn’t part of dating. If you’re worth it, the other person will wait for sex. And of course, you’re worth it. Don’t get into bed with any of your potential significant others until you’re ready. Whether you realize it or not, there’s an emotional connection brought forth from sex.
4. Introduce the kids too soon.
This is the most terrifying fear of dating for me.  As a single mom, I know that a prospective boyfriend worth his salt will interact well with my children. The introduction is tricky. When is it a good time? I would wait as long as possible before introducing my kids to the boyfriend and I’d never do it around the holidays.Traditionally the introduction of children is a big step. When you have talked about exclusivity and are both sure you share the same vision for the future of your relationship, then you can introduce the kids.

So that’s just a few tips I’ve learned or am still learning. I think I want to explore my own issues with dating in the future, because I have quite a few. But for now, it’s time for me to run off and get to writing.

Tell me about your best dating experiences. What rules would you tell a fellow single parent about dating?

How to Build a Twitter Following

As an author, aspiring or published, our goal on social media is always to build alliances, drawa a readership to our website and grow an interest in our book. I’m actually in the process of doing this with Off Her Game. I’m always trying to talk about it (without being all “Look! IT’s my book!”) and get that word of mouth going. But what good is it to talk about it if there’s no one out there to see it?

Pros are now saying that creating a twitter following is one of the best ways to drive traffic, and I agree with them for the most part. I get most of my news there, and I follow blog links all the time from there.

Time to get serious

When I created my Twitter account, defining a purpose was easy. I wanted to have fun. Growing a following wasn’t even on my mind. Different philosophies exist when it comes to growing that following, and I think that I’ve whittled it down into a manageable, fun experience for me.

Have a plan

I’ve had several conversations about people limiting the people they follow to people they’re familiar with. But when you’re a new author, that approach isn’t going to result in the level of promotion you require. We need to have people we can bounce conversations off of, have fun, and interact with. But if we always interact with the same hundred people all the time, are we really going to be stretching our platform and building those relationships?

Maybe that’s not your goal. It certainly wasn’t mine when I started. My Twitter account came along before my Facebook page, or my Pinterest account, or even the author email address I use now.

I’ve always said that Twitter is a world-wide cocktail party and that’s how you interact with people: by mingling.

How we create a quality Twitter following

I’ve had a couple different Twitter accounts, and they’ve all failed spectacularly for one reason or another. In fact, I converted my oldest Twitter account into a feed for when I have new designs out so I could use my current account to grow a readership.

I have friends that unfollow at every turn, and won’t follow anyone. That might work for them, but I like the influx of new blood into my Twitter stream. Sometimes I come up with some very interesting things. I try to follow 10 people a day, though I haven’t had time to look lately. I look mainly for writers, bloggers, book reviewers. Not everyone I follow will be in the publishing industry and that’s important, because there are more people out there than are in the publishing world.

How to find people to follow

I get notifications every time someone follows. I look at every profile. I look at where the tweets come from, how often they respond to people. i like active tweeters. I’m on every day for the majority of the day (even if it’s in the background) so those are the people I look at.

Who do I not follow?

People who don’t interact with others at all. (My exception here is Emergency Cute, which tweets pics of cute animals.)
People who don’t tweet very often but still follow people.
People who follow massive amounts of people, because I’m not sure that they can interact effectively. I don’t want to talk into the void.

It takes time

Active followings don’t happen overnight. Not only that, but Twitter does have a follow limit per day. If you follow too many at one time, it will lock you down. Be patient. You can review Twitter’s Follow Limits here.

So, those that will follow you back (and don’t get bent out of shape if they don’t! They might be waiting for you to engage them in conversation!) will do so within 10 days or so. So what I’ve been doing is going in once a month and slowly pruning away the people I don’t talk to.

This is good to do because once you hit your 2000 people you’re following, Twitter will not allow you to follow more until others close that ratio by following you. So keep your numbers tight to start and you’ll not have to worry about that. And don’t take it personal if people unfollow you. I unfollow constantly. And sometimes, I’ll refollow someone for various reasons.

Interaction is key

You see, if you’re wanting people to follow you, you need to show an interest. Comment on their blogs, tweet their links. RT their book posts. If you give, they’ll give back.

What not to do:

Tweet to others about not following you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a mention from someone saying “Oh, you’re not following me!” and then proceed to try to guilt me into doing it. There might be various reasons why they aren’t following, and it might not have anything to do with you. And not to mention, it’s crude.
Don’t DM people when they follow with self-promo. That’s an automatic unfollow for me.
Don’t sign up for those validation services. I unfollow if I get those messages. You’ll find out I’m real when you engage me in conversation.

Twitter Lists

I’ll admit. I hated the idea of lists when they first came out. Never used them. Now I use them all the time. I have a couple private lists for me. I have a public list with my favorite tweeters and I follow that list more often than I follow my Home feed. This might also be where I put people like celebrities that are never going to follow me back. That way they aren’t taking up one of my following numbers and i can still keep tabs on their tweets.

My Twitter Experience

I love Twitter. It is my favorite social media. I love interacting with people, and it’s always a positive experience for me!

I hope this helps people out there trying to figure out Twitter. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. I love hearing from you guys!

 

ROW80: My intent and my first quarter goals

So, when I made my Slow Blog post the other day, I forgot about ROW80! Can you believe it? So, there will actually be two posts a week, but my Wednesday post will be about my writing progress and goals and stuff.  Monday’s post will be the primary post I do each week. Feel free to skip this day if you don’t want to talk about my boring goals.

Basically, for this ROW80 round, I’m writing new things and revising.

My writing goals this time around are:

Write hockey book #2
Write, revise, and submit the kinky cowboy story
Release Off Her Game into the wild
Survive

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on my plans for this. I’m working on the kinky cowboy story, which is my submission to digital publishers this quarter. My goal is to submit to digital first publishers at least once a quarter so that’s four this year. This is the the one for this quarter.

The hockey book #2 is taking its sweet time. I’m having a hard time, so I’m working on kinky cowboy stuff until that gels for me.

Non-writing goals

Take kickboxing classes
Continue working on design business stuff
Read for fun at some point.
Survive

I’ve already bought the kickboxing thing. i need to go and find out when the classes are so I can get started.

Design stuff is starting to pick up with conference season and all. I need to get my butt in gear for that too and dedicate a little more time for it.

I haven’t been reading. It makes writing hard when I don’t read, so I have to make time for that.

Survive. Yeah, it’s going to be  busy quarter.

 

 

Slowing it down…

Going from a ton of posts down to one per week is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I love blogging. I would blog every day if I could. But with all the new releases and all the edits I have to do this year, it’s just not feasible for me to do my writing AND blog like I want to. There has to be a line drawn and a decision made and since I’m getting paid to write books, that has to take precedence.

But it never occurred to me that blogging once a week is effective, but it is. There are award-winning blogs out there that only post once a week. The thing of it is… They’re consistent. They blog once a week, slightly longer than most blog posts, but they pack a lot of information into it. In fact, it came from a particular post, written by Todd Seiling called the Slow Blog Manifesto.

Slow Blogging is a rejection of immediacy. It is an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly, and that many thoughts are best served after being fully baked and worded in an even temperament.

So what is it, really? It’s an essay written in 2006 by Canadian software designer Todd Sieling. It was written at the height of the everybody-must-get-a-blog frenzy.

There’s a lot of advice out there for authors these days, one of the most repeated is “You must blog THREE TIMES A WEEK to be successful!”

Hey guys, you can be successful without killing yourself trying to blog. A blog can help a new author establish a web presence. It’s an important part of the platform. It’s a foundation. But a Slow Blog can do all that too, and leave you time to like, write or maybe play Tetris if you’re like me.

So unless you’re Chuck Wendig and capable of spitting out a thousand words on a blog every morning, you might want to consider that thousand words once a week. And Chuck probably doled out my favorite blogging advice on that post as well:

All blogging is just squawking into the void. It’s free. It’s a soapbox on which you stand and bark your brain-think into the world. Be yourself. Talk about what you want to talk about. Authenticity and interest will garner readers well beyond plopping out rote, formulaic posts because they are somehow “expected.”

I might have an internet crush on him.

So this is my plan. I’m blogging once a week. I think a lot of it is going to writing-related, I might even do the occasional review, just because I sort of hate that unspoken rule that authors shouldn’t review books and it’s in my nature to challenge shit. There might be an extra post every once in a while, if I have book news or a cover reveal or stuff like that (all of which my Fabulous Minions get before anyone else!). I love the craft of writing, I love social media, and I love hockey. Those things pop up fairly frequently for me.

The main point I’m making here is that I want to go on loving to blog, and if i do it every day, eventually I will tire of it. So I’m forcing myself to slow down, and enjoy it. I’m allowing myself the freedom to blog about what i want to, when I want to. And this new schedule will allow me to get through my outrageous and superhuman release schedule this year.

So don’t be afraid to put your email into that little blog subscriber box right there. I’m not going to flood your inbox. In fact, while you’re filling out forms, considering joining my Fabulous Minions newsletter. You can click on that link or fill out the sidebar form.

Now that I’ve said what I want to say, I’m going to sign off here and go write on that book that needs to be done by the end of the month.

Got something to say? Tell me all about it in the comments! I love hearing from you!