Eleni Konstantine's Blog: Eleni's Taverna, page 16

Super Sunday - update

So what's happening in my world?

Lots.

Oh, yes, that clarifies things doesn't it?

Designing - I'm working on some exciting projects. Actually I find all projects exciting. I love coming up with a design in conjunction with the client. I've also enrolled at for another year of my Diploma. Again very part time. I think I will be in a walking-frame by the time I finish but hey, I want to learn, have fun AND keep sane.

And I had fun coming up with these for the Wenches....




Writing - I'm getting a short story ready to be self-published. I thought hey, let's dip my toe in the water and check it out. So that's currently being edited, and I'm also getting a cover ready. No need to pay a designer for that. I know someone, you see ;0)

- No news yet on SNOOP's release, but I've gotten everything I need to get ready for before the edits begin.
- I'm getting ready getting promo stuff ready for ARRC. Getting some lovely pens and bookmarks.


Teaching - yep, I'm doing a trial run of the Online Shuffle for a month to see how it goes and work out any kinks. We've just started, so if I'm absent you know why.


Conference - great news - registrations for the Freo - Riding The Waves - is open! Yay. I'll register in the next couple of weeks. I'll be doing the blog spotlights on the conference, so look out for that.


Hearts Talk - I'm having fun being the good news collator. What's better than hearing good news?

Righto, that's it from me. I'll be heading back to the cave. I hope you're enjoying my Musa Mondays and Writing Buddy Wednesdays.


Have a fantabulous week!
~yia~

Stunning Saturday

It's the first Stunning Saturday of the year and I have some great book covers to show you.

The sci-fi look - nice monochrome with a hint of colour

The ghostly look... cloudy and whispy.

Two different covers but both have a lot of white space which works for these.


 Historical feel.  Both with rich blues. 

These two just happend to be at the end. Love the fantasy setting on the left, and love greens on the right with the woman looking right at the audience. Powerful.
  

What do you think?
~yia~

Writing Buddy Wednesday: Carla Caruso

Today, I have SARA buddy, Carla Caruso join me in the Taverna. Carla is a sweet lady who doesn't seem to say a bad word about anybody. She also knows how to keep a secret as her book  City Glitter  was one of those at the Destiny Romance launch last year at Diamonds Are Forever conference and she we at SARA didn't know. It was top sekrit!

Today, Carla talks about travelling back in time, and I'm a sucker for a good time travel story. Take it away, Carla....


 

Travelling back in time 
by Carla Caruso



Time travel. Ah, it’s something that’d come in handy if you wanted to skip a confrontation in future or redo a regret. Plus, it’s fun imagining things like going back and seeing what your parents were really like in their youth.



My latest novel, Second Chance, out through Destiny Romance in February, involves 90s time travel pre-Facebook. Can you believe it’s been more than 20 years since the start of the decade? The pangs for the era are already being felt with 90s stars like J-Lo doing sell-out comeback tours and Brian Austin Green returning to our screens on Wedding Band .


The book’s premise? After a disastrous 36th birthday, Flora wishes she could be 20 again and delete all her romantic mistakes. She wakes to find she has gone back in time, but things don’t go to plan.

Here are some other films and books I “heart” involving time travel (I’m a bit of a sucker for them actually!)…







Flicks:

•  Back to the Future. It would be remiss of me not to mention this Michael J. Fox trilogy. Much-loved from the film was its fictional hover-board – Aussie rapper Seth Sentry even penned a ditty about science’s lack of progress regarding the invention. Social media hoaxes have tried to have us believe the iconic scene when Doc sets the DeLorean to a future date has already happened, but it’ll actually occur on October 21, 2015.

•  Hot Tub Time Machine. Eighties clothing, Bobby Brown-style ‘dos and John Cusack – what’s not to love? This one involves a malfunctioning hot tub and a group of guys who must relive a fateful night and not change a thing.

•  Peggy Sue Got Married. This eighties flick sees Peggy (Kathleen Turner) faint at her high school reunion, waking to find herself in her own past – just before she finished school. 

Books:

• Fast Forward by Juliet Madison (Harlequin Escape). The perfect life as an international supermodel seems assured for Kelli Crawford until the morning of her 25th birthday when she wakes in the future as a 50-year-old suburban housewife – married to the high school nerd. 

• Defiant Surrender by Tamara Gill (Crimson Romance). Unlucky in love, Maddie St. Clair hides behind an antique store and her mud-larking hobby until she finds a medieval ring. It throws her back to 1102 and into the life of an heiress about to be married to a baron 900 years her senior – yikes!

• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (MacAdam/Cage). This first-time novelist’s love story, since turned into a film, follows a man with a genetic disorder, which causes him to time travel unpredictably, and his artist wife who must cope with his frequent absences and often dangerous experiences. 

Carla Caruso is also the author of Cityglitter (Destiny Romance – www.destinyromance.com) about a gorgeous fairy living a glam life in the big city, who does the one thing she promised herself she’d never do: fall in love with a human. Plus, she has the short story, The Grass is Greener, out through AlfieDog.com. 


~~~Thanks, Carla! I have some books to read it seems :)
Check out Carla's website at www.carlacaruso.com.au 

Love Musa!

You know I've raved about Musa on this blog, so it's no secret that I love my publisher.

I love them even more for putting my book cover on one of the Musa banners.


Doesn't it look great with all the others? Oh, and look there's fellow Wench, Vonnie Hughes.



Oh, and here are some more of the fun banners...






~yia~

Musa Monday: Leigh Daley

Today, I have Wench Leigh Daley in the Taverna....take it away Leigh....



TITLE: Why I Write Sex
by Arley Cole and Leigh Daley
I write under two pennames—Arley Cole for my YA-friendly fantasy and Leigh Daley for my steamy romance. Arley Cole keeps it out of the bedroom, but Leigh Daley gets into some seriously R-rated territory.
This makes life difficult for me in my tiny Alabama hamlet. When people ask about my latest release, I have to make a quick judgment—do I tell them about the Leigh Daley stuff or will it scandalize them? What would the little women in my church say about me if they read my Leigh Daley stuff? Would they ask me to put a scarlet letter on my choir robe?
But the truth is sex has a hugely important place in women’s lives. We think of men as being the sex-driven beings, but human relationships are cemented together by the physical act of belonging to one another. If we want stronger relationships, we need to be having frequent, mutually beneficial, loving sex.
That is not to say that I am at all in favor of the “jump in bed first, ask questions later” school of relationships. From personal experience, that attitude leads to sleeping with frogs rather than princes. My characters sometimes do sleep with each other before they should – that’s one of the relationship minefields we have to navigate. When they do, I am compelled as a story-teller to deal with their actions in the most realistic way possible. Sex too soon causes trouble they have to work out together.
But sex in the fullness of time in a relationship binds two people together in ways very little else can. I truly enjoy writing about a couple’s exploration of each other. In loving someone else, we really do discover things about ourselves. The sex act opens up all kinds of emotional territory for us, and I love to show my characters discovering themselves through their physical loving of each other.
Our sexual experience affects us profoundly, no matter our age, background, or gender. As an erotic writer, I try to treat the subject with the respect and integrity it deserves. If my readers sometimes find themselves inspired to jump their partners after reading, I am glad of that.  Anyone fortunate enough to be in a loving, committed relationship owes it to that relationship to invest in it physically as often and as jubilantly as possible. In fact one of my personal goals as a romance author is to inspire my readers to have more sex!
In my latest Leigh Daley release, Storm Duty - Finally Ever After , a natural disaster shakes up divorced couple Kyle and Jenna. In the midst of the chaos, they both have to learn that all that really matters is who we love, and their love scene is one of my favorites because of the healing that takes place between them.
At this season, especially after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, I think we all need to remember to hold close the ones we love. So I’m going to keep writing romance, and I hope you all will keep reading. Now, go hold somebody!
Leigh Daley
Their careers drove them apart--could disaster bring them back together?
BLURB:In the aftermath of a series of tornadoes, Kyle Mathis just wants to guide his linemen to restore power to the devastated town of Milton. When reinforcements in the form of corporate deskjockeys come to work storm duty, he's glad for the extra bodies to help serve food and support the crews working eighteen hour days.
But Kyle is not prepared to face one of the latest arrivals, his ex-wife Jenna. Jenna left him years ago, choosing her career over their marriage. However, being back together in their home town brings back memories and desire--for both Kyle and Jenna.
Can Kyle and Jenna find each other again in the midst of the devastation? Or will their jobs pull them apart and leave not only their homes but their hearts shattered?
EXCERPT:The instant Jenna Harlow heard her ex-husband’s voice, she wished she hadn’t agreed to come.
She certainly wanted to help and Cedar Hill had been home once. But as she stood and saw Kyle face to face, she wished she hadn’t. There were just too many memories.
“Yeah, I’ve got some made already,” she answered him, aware that his eyes had widened at the sight of her. She covered her own desire to stare by pouring him a cup. “Do you still take cream and sugar?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light even though her heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her fingertips.
“I’m drinking it black these days,” he answered, his tone just as even.
As she passed him the cup, her hand trembled. He took the coffee, but the hot liquid splashed out a little over the side. His hands were shaking too.
He cursed under his breath as he sat the cup down on the table and grabbed a napkin to mop up the spill.
“Don’t worry,” she insisted. “I’ll clean it up.” She looked at his face in the dim light. His eyes that same dark green, his hair the same light brown—still cut the same as she remembered from seven years ago.
But his shoulders were broader, and he stood taller, more muscular. His jaw had a strong, determined set, and little sun crinkles had begun to frame his eyes. She’d always thought he was good-looking, but now in the fullness of manhood, he was downright gorgeous...
To read more of Storm Duty , please click HERE .
BUY LINKS Musa Publishing Amazon   Barnes & Noble   All Romance E-books
Leigh Daley lives with her husband and kids in the wilds of West Alabama along with her dogs Bruno and Jack. Now on her fourth career, she has spent most of her life writing for other people, but these days she is writing for herself. She eats like a cavewoman, posts crazy fanfic as Arcole, and tries to meet her creative needs by writing romance as Leigh Daley and fantasy as Arley Cole. She’s a really big fan of happily ever after.
Learn more about Leigh Daley on her blog . Stay connected on Facebook .

Writing Buddy Wednesday: C.T. Green

Today, my special guest is fellow DarkSider, C.T. Green. I've known C.T. now for a few years and she has a wicked sense of humour and is fun to have around (you'll see that below).



Thank you for having me Miss Helen : )


Your debut release is Dream Lover published by Momentum (congratulations!).  Can you describe this story for us?

Dream Lover is a hot, sexy, summer romance with a touch of the paranormal (‘cause I can’t resist the dark side : D). So, my heroine Cate is lost in the Australian bush and she puts the blame squarely on tall, dark and irresistible Reece Johnson’s shoulders (why not blame the hunky hero I say? It is, after all, his fault he’s so deliciously compelling).

Reece, my hero just happens to be the guide for their hiking group as well as a long-term acquaintance of Cate’s. While he has never seemed remotely interested in her, Reece brings out the wild cat in Cate. In the wicked heat of Antipodean nights secrets will come out... But you’ll have to read the book to find out if they tear Reece and Cate apart or bring them together forever ; )




What is your typical writing day like?

Juggling housework, The Bruce (my husband) and four children, including one of the littlest Darksiders, Miss 9 months, means I have to fit writing in around other things. We have a fantastic nanny who comes in three times a week so I can get some writing done and I usually try to fit some in after the kids have gone to bed. I keep work hours - 9am to 5pm and I work on weekends too, but as I’m breastfeeding I have had to learn to be flexible with my day. I used to have a routine...but it left and never came back. It’s probably in the Bahamas with my Muse.
   

Are you a plotter? Pantser? Or somewhere in between? 

I used to plot the wazoo out of my work (which is quite hard...you need a wazoo for a start). If it could be plotted I’d be plotting (and stroking my fluffy white cat..mwahahahahaha!).

Plotting is not to be confused with potting, which is entirely different, but something I also do. (Sadly I don’t read my stories to my plants, that would be just weird). At any rate I found that being an ardent plotter stifled my ‘voice’. So I pantsered my next ms but found I still needed to plot some parts of the story so it made some kind of coherent sense and someone might like to read it. So I now say I’m a panstering plotter. (Sounds a bit naughty.)


What are you working on now? 

I’m currently working on three manuscripts as well as finishing the final in a series of short stories. I’ve found that swapping manuscripts when I hit the wall (writer’s block) means I can fool myself into believing I’m super productive. Just kidding. It does help and I don’t find swapping worlds as hard as I’d thought it would be. The one thing I’ve realised is, I can’t write a timid heroine. I tried to write one character as a nurse who dredges up a bit of bravery to rescue the hero. By the second page she was working for Homeland as a black ops agent and not letting the hero give her any shi...trouble.



Who or what inspired you to write?

My Nan loved writing and always wanted to be one. She lived with my sister, parents and I for our whole lives and we were close. I’d like to think she’d be proud of the fact there’s now a writer in the family. She always had an eye for a handsome man (especially one with a firm...um...bottom) and I think (hope) she’d have taken great delight in my stories.

I also found, after my evil ex left that I’d been away from my career for so long (looking after children) that my resume was years out of date. I’d been in advertising for ten years and wanted a new career that would also allow me to be home for the children after school and during holidays.

I’d written stories - as most writers do - during my adolescence and adulthood and I’m kicking myself I didn’t do it earlier.

So it came down to writing or teaching...Hmmm teach a class of kids all day or write about gorgeous heroes and kick-ass heroines? Making that decision was such a struggle!

 Plus my parents are teachers and I’m naturally a rebel.
   

What are you currently reading?

I’ve just finished Shadow’s Claim, Kresley Cole’s first Dacian story. This is linked to her Immortals After Dark series. I want to be Kresley Cole when I grow up. Sigh.


You are a contest queen, with your manuscript, Halo , being placed in many competitions. Do you recommend competitions to newbie writers?

I think contests can be great for feedback, both good and bad. Some judges are incredibly helpful and insightful (even when they’re marking you down). You’ll get the odd judge who...isn’t polite (one called my hero bi-polar and insane). But it does help with toughening you up when it comes to your ‘baby’ and critical readings of it. I entered contests initially for feedback and to see how my ms was received in different markets (like the US). Now I’m targeting specific contests in the hope of getting in front of editors/agents whose eye I’d like to catch (cheaper than taking out an ad on a billboard near their homes).

(Folks, just for a taste of the competitions, go to http://www.ctgreen-author.com/awards.html)

~~~Thanks for visiting the Taverna, C.T.
You can find C.T. on her website, blog, and on Facebook.
Get Dream Lover from iTunes or Amazon.

Guest blogging....

I'm over at Smart Girls Love SciFi and Paranormal Romance today talking about lore of supernatural beings. Check it out here.




~yia~

Trekking Tuesday

Trekking Tuesday was meant to be last week but since I forgot to schedule, I'm posting it today.



Award nominations

The ARR(Australian Romance Reader) Award nominations are out and it's fantastic to so many of my buddies on the list, including ones who have visited this blog.

Congratulations to Christina Ashcroft, Annie Seaton, Kaz Delaney, Shona Husk, Tracey O'Hara, Kylie Griffin, M.J. Scott, Rebekah Turner, Erica Hayes, Paula Roe, Annie West, Amy Andrews, Barbara Hannay, Anne Gracie, Anne Stuart, Michelle Diener, Anna Campbell, Beverley Oakley....deep breath.... Cathryn Hein, Rachael Johns, Imelda Evans, Jess Dee, Melanie Milburne, Kelly Hunter, Sarah Mayberry, Keziah Hill, Mel Tescho, Lexxie Couper, Denise Rossetti, Helene Young, Bronwyn Parry, Caitlyn Nicholas, Nikki Logan, Bec McMaster, Christina Brooke, Fiona Lowe, Nicola Marsh, Danielle Lisle, and more....

(blue = DarkSiders ; green = bootcampers)



Blogs
Jim C Hines with another pose for Charity...



and the mega one...





Caricatures by Andre Carrilho at Inspire First. Here are just a couple of them.




All Things Urban Fantasy have the winners of their 2012 Cover Contest...
The overall winner....


Just love the typography of Iced and how the ice is used in the cover to reflect a barren world. As well as the remains of buildings. It's very cool! And yep, it had been in one of my cover posts late last year.


Booktopia will be announcing the Top 50 Australian authors as voted on their blog. So far 30-50 have been announced.



Other

I'm annoyed. Apparently, Alphas, a tv show on SciFi is not going to be renewed for a season 3. Way to go. I mean I don't want to know what happens to the characters do I. Sigh.


~yia~

Musa Monday: George Wilhite ~ Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Today, my special guest, fellow Musa author, George Wilhite, talks about ghosts. Take it away George.....

Do you believe in Ghosts? Stories in my new book SILHOUETTE OF DARKNESS Explore this Universal Theme

It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.
-SAMUEL JOHNSON, The Life of Samuel Johnson

This quote is as true today as ever. Even though the show Ghost Hunters and its countless imitators has offered a certain level of proof spirits exist, most often that evidence is still not nearly enough to win over stanch skeptics.

Over two hundred more years have passed since Johnson wrote this—two hundred years of vast technological advancement—and still, this subject comes down to the simple notion of belief vs. disbelief.

Fiction provides an effective venue where this debate can be mediated in a safe environment. While readers entertain the notion that ghost smay exist, we are safe in this created world we can leave at any time, compared to a more extreme form of experiment, such as agreeing to attend a séance or serious session with a Ouija board.

In his book The Fantastic (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975), Tsvetan Todorov offers one of the best explanations of how readers participate in a “gothic hesitation” to sort out this potentially disturbing subject.

The fantastic, we have seen, lasts only as long as a certain hesitation: a hesitation common to reader and character, who must decide whether or not what they perceive derives from reality as it exists in the common opinion. At the story's end, the reader makes a decision even if the character does not; he opts for one solution or the other, and thereby emerges from the fantastic. If he decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we say that the work belongs to another genre: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous.

I have had my own brushes with the uncanny and found there is always a frustration when trying to relay the experience to a friend later on. In the moment, I was positive I was faced with the “new laws of nature” Todorov presents, and that “all belief was for it,” but once I began explaining it to another person, the certainty became diminished with each passing word I tried to place upon it.

This is why ghost stories are so popular. We read the book, or watch the film, and can safely entertain the notion, in the guise of fiction, that we accept the supernatural as real. We are safe there. We wander the halls of The Overlook or Hill House expecting entertainment but also to enter the world of the what if, the Todorovian hesitation that allows for the real possibility that the spirit world is real.


My new collection, Silhouette of Darkness includes two ghost stories.

The Blues in A Minor
Since surviving a tragic accident, Mona is troubled by blackouts. Waking from one of these spells, she enters an eerie tenement and discovers Zach, a young man who plays blues guitar that speaks to her soul.

An Act of Naming
Norman wanders the streets after a night of drinking and meets Angela, a homeless amnesiac. The moment their eyes meet is the beginning of an evening of mystery.


These stories are not meant to frighten or disturb, as are most of the other selections in Silhouette of Darkness. Rather, they explore the classic themes at the heart of every ghost story—who are the ghosts and more importantly why are they spirits? What has trapped them in the region between life and whatever exists beyond death?


To read these ghost stories, and eleven other tales of horror and dark fantasy, check out Silhouette of Darkness , available in all electronic formats through Musa Publishing here.

~~~Thanks, George.You can find George on his blog.

Writing Buddy Wednesday: Kitty Bucholtz

Today, I have the bubbly and fun Kitty Bucholtz, joining me. I met Kitty at a RWAus conference back in 2010 and have been internet buddies since. 


Welcome to the Taverna, Kitty!


Thanks for inviting me to the Taverna, Eleni! I particularly like the fact that your morning is my afternoon in California, so I think I’ll have a pint while we talk. (Oh, how I miss Strongbow!)


You self-publish your fiction. Can you tell us how that came about?

I’ve published magazine articles and other short nonfiction in the traditional way, but when it came to my fiction, I couldn’t find an editor – with or without an agent – who was buying what I was selling. By the time I finished my MA in Creative Writing at University of Technology, Sydney, last year, I told myself I’d give traditional publishing one more shot, then start my own company. I flew to the RWA conference in New York the morning after my last class, talked to a few editors and agents about my books and my writing style (a humorous, almost chick lit style), and I got the same old reply – we don’t know how to sell it.

I thought to myself, “Well, I do!” So I started Daydreamer Entertainment and self-published Little Miss Lovesick  as an ebook a few months later. The next fourteen months were filled with multiple international and local moves, several deaths, and a lot of unemployment. So I didn’t get the print version out until November 2012. But I’m on a roll now, and expect to publish Unexpected Superhero in March or so, and Love at the Fluff and Fold a few months later. Both are book one in two different series.


You have a short story in an anthology, too, right?

Two, actually! When I lived in Sydney, I was a member of The Writers Coven, an RWA chapter in the Inner West. Our anthology, Moonlit Encounters , came out just before Christmas. “Rescue at Loon Lake” is a side story that takes place in the same small town where Love at the Fluff and Fold is set.

My California RWA chapter published Romancing the Pages as a fundraiser last August. My story, “Hero in Disguise”, is the beginning of the love story that leads to the superhero adventure in Unexpected Superhero .


Who or what inspired you to write?

I think I came by it naturally because my mom was a writer. I’ve always had stories in my head and they often make it to paper. But my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Day, was the person who really encouraged me to come up with stories and write them down for extra credit. I realized before the school year was over that she was using my natural gifts to keep me out of trouble, and I loved her for it. Little Miss Lovesick was dedicated to her. I have to work up the nerve to track her down and send her a copy.  :)


You also teach online classes. Can you tell us a little about that?

I love to teach! I taught at a business college, taught software to lawyers at a law firm, and I’ve taught at a dozen or more writers conferences. Due to moving a lot for my husband’s job (he’s a computer animator and worked on Happy Feet 1 & 2 and Avatar), I started teaching online because I could teach from anywhere in the world.

Every January, starting this week, I teach a 4-week class called Going the Distance: Goal Setting and Time Management for the Writer [Eleni~ go to Kitty's website: http://kittybucholtz.com/classes/].

I love helping people figure out how to achieve their goals in a way that allows them to also attend their kids’ soccer games and get a good night’s sleep. ;) There’s still room in the class if anyone wants to join us!


What do you love about being a writer?

I love working for myself. If I weren’t a writer, I’d have my own business doing something else. But I love writing because I love the connections and parallels between apparently different things – like an acorn and the human soul, or a comic book superhero and Jesus. Exploring all kinds of things in story form – reading or writing – is the most fun way to spend my time!



What would be your ultimate research trip?

Hmm, good question. I’ve never thought about it because I try to choose settings that I know, and everything else can be researched in books and online. Though, come to think of it, I did travel to the wilderness in Ontario, Canada, to research the beginning of Little Miss Lovesick . I’d say that my husband’s idea of touring Europe via footraces sounds like fun. Going from country to country running 5K, 10K and half marathon races, and then wandering around the cities and the countryside would probably give me more ideas than I could write in this lifetime!


What’s with you and all the running?

Ha, ha! Yes, I know, I’m a little weird. I wanted to do something I didn’t think I could do before I turned 40. I’m the biggest couch potato – my favorite activities are reading, writing, and watching TV and movies – and my body shows it! But I signed up to run a half marathon with my husband and another friend just to prove to myself that life after 40 can be as exciting and fun as it was before. Or more so!

Now I’ve run several half marathons including one in Sydney, and we’re running another one here in California next week. Plus we’ve run the City2Surf twice, which is our all-time favorite race. The best part for me about running is that every time I run, I find myself comparing it to writing and the business of writing. I see myself doing more than I thought possible, getting slightly better and faster every time, and of course visualizing a crowd cheering for me at the end! Ha, ha! Just like I do things to make my body stronger so that I run better, I take classes and read books to be become a better writer, with readers cheering me on to write more books. Only I hope I’m a better writer than I am a runner! Ha, ha!


Thanks for having me over, Eleni. It’s been fun hanging out!

~~~Thank you, Kitty. Folks, you can find Kitty at her website, Facebook, and Twitter.