K.M. Jackson's Blog, page 19

Goody Two Shoes!

Thanks so much to all who entered my Goodreads SEDUCTION’S CANVAS giveaway. I’m excited to say I had 929 entries and Goodreads picked the two winners. One from California and the other from Great Britain. The lovelies Sarah and Sheila.

How cool that Seduction is on the way across the States and across the pond?! Feeling quite good about that. Makes me want to do a little Sunday Goody Two Shoes dance which I would be doing if I didn’t dance so much out with the DH and friends last night. Sidebar: me and a heels just don’t mix. Oh well, I can always chair dance to Adam Ant!

 Thanks again to all who entered and I hope you will be seduced by Seduction’s Canvas.

 

All the best,

KMJ

Friday Hangover and a Winner!

Happy Friday! I hope you all had a good night last night with plenty of treats and no tricks. Things started out slow over by me. I decorated the porch along with Jack who was without a costume this year but still feeling festive and we sat and waited.

And waited some more. But once it got dark and my purple lights came up the kids really started to come out and it was quite a lot of fun answering the door in my Witch’s Hat. It started to drizzle around 8:45 which put an end to the Trick or Treaters wich was fine by me because it was  getting on time to settle in for the real Halloween scare with Scandal.

Wow! It was so good. You can check out my recap for the week over at Heroes and Heartbreakers. I’d love to hear your comments.

A big thank you to all who commented on the fab Lise Horton’s WORDS OF LUST interview. I’m so grateful to Lise for being here. Thanks to random number generator I have pulled a name for her book giveaway and the winner is Maria Ferrer! Congrats Maria! Lise will be in touch. And no worries if you didn’t win you can click here to buy your own copy of WORDS OF LUST.

 

Have a great weekend!

 

All the best,

KMJ

 

image from Scandalabc tumblr

Boo!

Don’t get too tangled up in the tricks and treats this Halloween!

It’s back to work on Friday!

 

All the best,

KMJ

 

 

P.S. There is still time to comment on yesterday’s interview with author Lise Horton and be entered in the giveaway. Click on over.

 

image from here

Getting Wordy with Words of Lust author Lise Horton + a Giveaway!

It’s a lovely day over here at ye old blog and an exciting one as I’m so pleased and honored to welcome my dear friend and fellow RWA NYC chapter mate, Lise Horton. Lise is here to discuss writing, life in the NYC and her fabulous debut novel out from Carina Press: WORDS OF LUST. Believe me folks this is one you don’t want to miss and a voice you will not forget.

Thanks so much for being here today, Lise. I’m so thrilled to have you over at ye old blog!

Since I am a long time, ardent admirer of KwanaWrites, I am totally tickled to be here!

First off can you tell is a little about WORDS OF LUST?

This novel, my debut, is a contemporary, New York City-set erotic romance in which two very different people are brought together by fate and discover that love – and lust – can overcome all those obstacles: Age differences, IQ, disparate occupations, and even sexual history.

WORDS OF LUST is a pretty saucy (I adore that word) title. What was the inspiration for that? Did you come up with it or was it an editorial collaboration?

The idea for the novel itself was the final line of James Joyce’s Ulysses – the famous line where Molly Bloom climaxes, “. . . I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” I created a woman who hasn’t had the experience of the heroines of the classic erotic fiction she teaches. My original title was Words of Love but it was decided it was not right for an erotic romance. And since lust figures prominently in my story as Nick and Serafina’s relationship blossoms, it seemed quite fitting.

WORDS OF LUST is a bit of an opposite attracts story (as many of the best are) tell us, what made you pair a professor with a construction worker? Sidebar: Don’t we all love a man that’s good with his hands?

I adore opposites attract stories because I love lots of conflict that my hero and heroine have to deal with, and what better than coming from different worlds.  It adds another lovely layer of complication and conflict, both internal and external. Nick and Serafina learn to discover that the truth, is hearts don’t recognize class, or wardrobe or bank accounts. And they’re also forced to navigate the sometimes choppy waters of society where loving outside of your group can get sticky. But in the end it allowed me to give my readers that terrific happily ever after and reinforce once again, that love can conquer all.

You are a New Yorker, what does the city mean to you and how does it influence your writing?

I lived the first year of my life on the West Side of Manhattan. As a child and teen I visited often the historical monuments, the theatre and museums here. And I’ve spent my adult life working here at various jobs, and in various neighborhoods throughout the City. I lived  here for a decade (6 apartments in 3 years before finding my HEA apartment – pre-war, doorman building in the West 50’s – where I got my inspiration for Serafina Luca’s apartment) before moving back to LI to take care of my Mom. So I’ve experienced this grand and glorious metropolis during all the stages of my life and just can’t get enough of it. I am continually both awed and inspired by the life, the energy, the history and the amazing diversity here, both of experience as well as the citizens themselves. As a writer, I have my entire “world” right at my fingertips. So I am incredibly lucky to be able to use favorite neighborhoods, the habits of city dwellers, and attractions like the High Line, to give atmosphere, character and immediacy to my story. And these are a people I love to portray on the page! Like they say, there’s a million naked stories in this City (OK, so I took a bit of liberty there!)

Now for my favorite question, tell us the story of your “overnight” success.

As a former singer and actress, I’ve always gotten a kick out of that concept. In fact, while I’ve dabbled for quite a while, I didn’t get totally serious until 2008. That was the year I completed my first full-length novel. I started submitting in 2009, and made my very first professional sale in 2011: A short story called Share and Share Alike in the Ravenous Romance anthology, My First Threesome. The big moment came in November 2012, after I survived Hurricane Sandy and ten days in the dark in the aftermath, AND the ice storm that blew in just when the lights when on. (Although I can now brag I’ve cooked pasta on a hibachi and held back the darkness with my trusty book light and lots of great romance novels.) As you can all imagine, I was pretty burnt out about then. Then I received “the call” from Angela James at Carina Press. And it’s been a storm of a much more delightful nature ever since.

Lastly, what can we look for next from you?

I’m very excited to be finishing up book two in the Stellato Siblings series. I’ll be doing some revision and polishing before sending it off to my super editor at Carina Press, Alissa Davis. So I hope everyone crosses their fingers for me that she loves it as much as I do! And in the interim, I will have my short story “My Master’s Mark” included in the upcoming Cleis Press print anthology “Slave Girls”, edited by D. L. King. The story is dark – and it is pure erotica – but incredibly romantic (kinky, but romantic). I’m very proud of it, and thrilled to be in the company of some of the top writers of erotica in fiction today.

Thanks so much for being here today, Lise. What a great treat!

I cannot thank you enough for having me here, Kwana, and for being my friend, and being here to celebrate our mutual publications! Here’s to many, many more great love stories and thundering applause for all the readers who can’t get enough of them.

 

Lise Horton is a native of NYC and a Long Island suburb. She loves her rescued fur friends, her special needs brother, her mom, and writing books that make readers fall in love – and be just a little afraid. Words of Lust from Carina Press is her debut novel. You can find Lise at her Website:  http://bit.ly/1aRWECL and Words of Lust can be found on  Amazon:  http://amzn.to/19UmTfe and at Barnes & Noble:  http://bit.ly/1cZjZqV Happy Reading!

 

Now for some BONUS fun! Lise will give away a digital copy of Words of Lust to one lucky commenter. So please comment away and be sure to leave your contact info. A winner will be chosen on Friday by 12 noon EST.  Thanks Lise

 

All the best,

Kwana

 

Author photo thanks to katana-photography.com

Squeak on!

Jack says (in his own Jackster way) a big thanks for all the birthday wishes here and on FB. For his birthday he got a fun new ducky gift (sorry for the bad pic) that was supposed to be extra durable. We was in love with it and then quickly became obsessed with finding the squeaker inside.

The duck lasted all of 20 minutes before the squeaker was found and out. As you can see with Jack nothing is indestructible.

He never gives up until he achieves his goal.

We can learn a bit from the old Jackster.

Wishing you an indestructible week filled with knocking out all your goals.

All the best,

KMJ

7 Year Itch- Happy Birthday Jack!!!

Please join me is wishing a very happy birthday to the world’s cutest little terrible terrier muse ever!

We Love you Sweet Jackster! Thanks for being you!

 

 

 

Scribing New

After working in Word for all of my books (and all of my near books) I have long been jealous of my writing buds who smoothly tout the benefits of working with the writing program Scrivener. They talk about how they don’t have to writer linearly, how they divide and then compile their scenes, how they can color code their scenes however they want and outline their work right there on their computer and so much more. Yeah, I was mad jelly. But you see I had Scrivener on my computer and I tried the program, but my hard to retrain brain just couldn’t get around the program.

Well, last week my good friend, super talented writer and it turns out computer wiz, Laura K. Curtis came by to help take me out of the ‘Dummie’ stage in my long Scrivener quest.

After her patiently going over and over how to insert files, add new files, label postcards and explaining ‘The Inspector’ (what is that again?) I’m honestly nowhere near what you would call an expert…

But maybe I can now call myself a Novice as opposed to a Dummie. Hey, as long as I remember to keep hitting save every few minutes and just keep writing I should be a Novice plus in about 2 years or 3 books. Whichever comes first.

Tell me are you trying to tackle learning anything new or have you done so after doing it the same old way for so long?

 

All the best,

KMJ

In the Breeze

Just a bit of Sunday beauty seen at a stoplight yesterday to remind you to pause sometime and look around. You never know what beauty you may be missing when you’re blowing by life a little too fast.

 

Have a great day!

 

All the best,

KMJ

Skunked!

Good day peeps! Hope this hump day is treating you right. I’m starting off trying to get over a couple of humps. The 1st, the day before, of tripping over my laptop cord and watching that thing crash to the floor. Heart stopping there. And the lesson: Backup! Backup!! Backup!!

The next is: a skunk must have gone by last night and had a spray storm right by our house. Ugh! The smell work me in the middle of the night and it still has me riled today. I’m hoping the smell of frying bacon is a worthy air freshener. In my mind it is.

Oh well that said, I’m wishing you an easy way downhill from the hump. Watch those skunks.

 

All the best,

KMJ

They’re Closer Than You Think

Now that I’ve finished book 3 and handed it in I’m left tapping my fingers until I get my editing notes and have to look at the final book in my Creative Hearts series for the big clean up to get it ready for production.

In the meantime it’s time to face the fact that it’s time to move on and step into a new world of my own making. Now sure, I could very well add on and on and on to this series, but it really is time to start something now. There are new stories, new ideas and most importantly, new characters that are starting to take shape and voice in my head, while the old ones are enjoying their Happily Ever Afters or at least Happily for Nows off in the sunset. Yes, the time is now.

You can’t live your life in the rearview mirror. All the while hitting the breaks and holding up traffic. There’s too much crash potential. As the warning heeds, the objects behind you are closer than you think.

 

 

All the best,

KMJ