Leta Blake's Blog, page 98
December 30, 2012
What's Ahead in 2013--Predictions for the Future of Publishing and Authors of the Digital Age
Reblogged from Kristen Lamb's Blog:
Writers, there is light at the end of the tunnel. (Thank you Scotty 00 for the image via WANA Commons).
Ah, 2012 is coming to a close and the world did not end. The Mayans were wrong *shocked face* which kinda sucks because I was looking forward to not having to clean out the garage after all. But, in keeping with tradition, I am going to make my predictions for the coming year.
Fantastic and, in my opinion, accurate analysis.
Buy Earthly Desires On Super Sale!
Earthly Desires is on sale at All Romance eBooks! Only $2.80 after rebate! It’s a great time to pick up the first book in our Tempting Tales series because Book Two–Ascending Hearts–will be out January 2nd! Can’t really beat that price, either!
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Cursed as an infant with a lack of physical and emotional gravity, Prince Efrosin can’t keep his feet on the ground or his head out of the clouds. Laughing his way through life, he’s never been weighed down by love and lust.
Then one fateful day, his tenuous tie to the earth is severed and he blows away on the wind. He’s rescued by Dmitri, a handsome young woodsman who suffers from a mysterious curse of his own, and the two strangers are irresistibly drawn together. Experiencing sex and love for the first time, they dive into a delightfully sensual and passionate affair.
But the evil witch who cursed them is planning her ultimate revenge. Efrosin and Dmitri must fight to find their fairy tale ending and live happily ever after.
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Inspired by The Light Princess by George MacDonald.
December 29, 2012
New Year’s Eve and Tournament of Roses Parade Viewing Ideas?
One of the issues with not having ‘real tv’ in our house–(we’ve got a tv and access to streaming video and Netflix, just no cable or antennas)–is when it comes to certain American cultural touchstones like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Rose Bowl Parade, and New Year’s Eve shows in Times Square. Last year, I found a legal livestream of NYE in Times Square, but it was kind of crummy and mainly showed the Rock of Ages cast doing “Don’t Stop Believing” like 20 times.
So, I’m doing some research early this year, looking for various options. I could try to find an illegal stream, I guess, of NBC, CBS, or ABC’s coverage, but I was thinking that surely there are more legal options than last year’s terrible one?
So far I’ve found these:
1. Earth Cam – it looks like it will mainly be crowd shots and stuff? I guess I could watch the 3D one from last year to verify what it is like, but I don’t want to risk a migraine. Also, will this year’s been in 3D? Because I don’t want that.
2. Times Square Ball App — We have an iPhone and iPad and could possibly AppleTV this app. To quote: ” The 2013 Times Square Ball App lets you experience all of the New Year’s Eve festivities by offering a six-hour live live stream from the scene. App users can watch the ball drop, the party in Times Square and live musical acts throughout the night.” Looks likely to be lame in terms of coverage, but this might be our best bet. Looking more closely, though, I’m doubting that we could AppleTV it, so it’d probably just be on the device, which is less awesome.
3. New Year’s Eve Livestream 2013 — I’m not sure if this is the same livestream as the iPad App, but at least it looks like I could stream it to the tv via the main computer.
Does anyone else know of any other options for New Year’s Eve?
As far as the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day, these might be an options:
1. KTLA
2. Huffington Post links to livestreams for last year’s parade.
3. My World Webcams
KTLA looks like the best option, but if anyone knows of something better, do hook me up.
What are you planning to do for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day? Will viewing Times Square or the Rose Parade be part of your plans? We’ll be staying home with the kiddo and watching the rest of the world party-extreme through whatever webcam livestreams we can find.
December 28, 2012
December 27, 2012
December 26, 2012
December 25, 2012
The Next Big Thing Blog Hop – Leta Blake, Dancing Shoes
Amelia C. Gormley, the author of the wonderful Impulse Trilogy, tagged me to participate in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop, which was incredibly kind of her! Thanks, Amelia!
What is the working title of your book?
The original working title was Spanish Dancing Shoes, but over time it’s been shortened to just Dancing Shoes.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
Keira and I have been working on our fairy tales series for the last year. After completing Earthly Desires, and while Keira was hammering out the details of Ascending Hearts, our upcoming tale based on Jack & the Beanstalk, I started reading the story City of Blind Delights by Catherynne M. Valente. Something about it sparked a whole fairy tale world in my head–nothing like the world of her story, but a world all the same. That all came together while reading The Twelve Dancing Princesses to my daughter at bedtime, and inspired by both, the flow of the book came easily at first.
What genre does your book fall under?
Fairy tale romance/erotica.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?
I don’t have any particular actors in mind, but I did create this Pinterest inspiration board to help guide my focus while writing the story.
This is Matteo.
And this is Ópalo. Well, except that his hair is actually pink feathers.
What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?
In an effort to discover where his sisters disappear to at night, Matteo follows them to a new world and finds a new life he never expected.
Will your book be self published, published by a small press, or represented by an agency?
Assuming that all goes according to plan, the book will be published by Ellora’s Cave as part of Keira’s and my Tempting Tales series.
How long did it or how long do you anticipate that it will take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Too dang long! Haha! But there were several reasons for that. First, I stopped in the middle of the book to work on a long-running work in progress and that got us off track for a little while. Then we thought we’d really like to have a Christmas tale out this year, so we made a stab at that for a month or so, but in the end it was just not viable and we basically scrapped it. Third, the book was fighting us because it wanted to be longer than the novella length first two books in the series. Once we gave in to how long the book wanted to me, the characters really opened up and started sharing more with us. So, all in all, a first draft took about six months.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
You know, I’m not sure I’ve read another book quite like this one. We are trying to keep each book in our series unique. I suppose that in terms of the kind of fairy tale world, the romance, and the sexual nature of the book, the closest really would be the other two in our series, Earthly Desires (inspired by The Light Princess) and Ascending Hearts.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
I believe I covered that above to a large degree, but I wanted to give a quick nod to Jim Henson’s The Storyteller series for giving me the kick in the behind I needed to start writing and working on this series with Keira. I’ve had several ideas for fairy tale reworkings for years, but last winter I indulged in a rewatch of The Storyteller as a kind of Christmas-comfort-winter-warmth and it lit me up inside with all kinds of ideas. I’m sure Jim Henson never intended someone to get inspired by his show and write a lot of gay romance and erotica, but that’s what happened. We owe it all to Jim Henson. Haha!
What else about your book might interest the reader?
I think it is imaginative and surprising. If you’ve read other reworkings of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, I can guarantee you that this one is different in substance and style. It’s a sweet, spring book, and I’m hoping we can have it out in April or May, because it just seems like the kind of thing people should read when flowers are blooming.
This is where I was supposed to link to four more blogs. But I’m only posting a link to one (wonderful! awesome!) blog. Apparently, otherwise, the buck stops here, because everyone I asked except Nisha-Anne–and I asked a ton of people–have already done this and so, just like in P.E. class when I was a kid, I was the last chosen for the game. *sniff sniff* Haha! No worries. I suppose that it had to eventually peter out. I’m just disappointed that I couldn’t round up even more participants. Oh well! Thanks, Amelia, for this opportunity! It’s better to have been chosen last than never to be chosen at all?
Check out Nisha-Anne D’Souza on January 2nd! She’s the author of the book Calling Pomegranate and a brilliant woman. I’m sure that her work in progress is going to be worth waiting for!
