Serena Bell's Blog, page 4

Can’t Hold Back is out!

Can’t Hold Back is out! (Scroll down for some information about giveaways …)

Meet Nate. He’s strong, stubborn … and hurting, in the aftermath of an attack on his army base in Afghanistan.

Meet Alia. She hopes that if she can heal Nate’s pain, he might forgive her for breaking his heart.

It’s not a slam dunk or a sure thing. It’s a messed up, rule-breaking, physical-therapy-table sort of affair.

But sometimes you can’t help what you need.

Or who you want.

Welcome to R&R, a veterans’ retreat, where the strong and the brave learn how to live, and love, again. I hope you find R&R as healing as Nate and Alia.

You can visit my Facebook page to enter a $10 gift card giveaway for the retailer of your choice, through December 20, 2015.

I’m also doing an exclusive giveaway for my current newsletter readers (and for new subscribers before January 4). One lucky winner will receive a $20 gift card from the e-tailer of your choice. You must be 18+, a subscriber (by 1/4/16), and able to receive an email gift from an e-tailer I can purchase from in the U.S., to enter. Click here to enter!

And thank you, as always, for reading!

Hugs,

Serena

P.S. Can’t Hold Back is available now at:

Amazon iBooks Barnes & NobleBooks a MillionGoogle Play

Kobo

Amazon UK Amazon CA Amazon AU

 

 

 

 

Get It Together: Serena Bell

Welcome to my stop on the #GetItTogetherHop, where authors share how we keep our “writer stuff” organized.

I got so excited about this blog hop that the hardest part for me was not writing a multi-volume encyclopedia. I love organizing things! In fact, I love organizing things WAY more than I like doing anything useful with the things I’ve organized! But I’ve tried to pick a few highlights to share with you. And I’ve also attempted to give you peeks into my writerly secrets, such as they are.

This is me!

And that pretty rainbow ring around me is made up of my notebooks. 4×6 side spiral Meads (or Mead wanna-bes). I started my first notebook—the green one in front of my right knee—in 2010 when I started writing my first-ever romance novel, the book that is now known as Yours to Keep. The first words in it are:

“Book starts w/her POV./She is on her way to a job/musing about how yanquis see her/caught between worlds”

And then the notebooks go all the way up to the present, with notebook #44, whose last page includes notes on what I want to include in this blog post.

They look like this inside:

The big crossouts? That doesn’t mean I didn’t use that material. It means I don’t ever need to go back and look at it again. Sometimes I’ve put it in a book, but more often I’ve moved it to Evernote, where I can organize it and search within it more easily.

I use four apps religiously. Evernote is an extension of my brain and my notebooks. Anything that starts in my brain and temporarily ends up in a notebook will probably end up in Evernote next. The list of things that I put in Evernote is as long as the list of well, all the things.

One thing I keep in Evernote is a running word-count journal. When I’m writing a book, I use a Mac app called TimeOut to remind me to take frequent breaks (30 seconds every ten minutes and ten minutes every fifty minutes). Every time I take a big break (which is every fifty minutes if I’m disciplined about not hitting the “Skip Break” button), I record my word count. That way when I get discouraged I can see an objective map of my progress.

Keeping a journal also helps me figure out patterns in my process. After a few novels, I could see that I always get bogged down for days or even weeks at the 25% mark, the 50% mark, and the 75% mark. Those are the “turning points” in a book (terms borrowed from Michael Hauge), the moments where a character has to experience something that changes his/her trajectory, so it makes sense that they’re the hardest parts to write and require a lot of rewriting. It was easier to accept the pattern once I could see it for myself.

I also use Wunderlist to keep all my to-do lists. I learned pretty much everything I know about personal organization from David Allen’s amazing book Getting Things Done, which I highly recommend! A few thing I learned from that book that permanently changed the way I think about organization:

Any system of organization that works well and lowers your stress has to have (at least) these three characteristics: It has to a) somehow capture ABSOLUTELY everything that passes through your mind as a to-do item, and b) let you organize that big blog of everything so it makes sense and c) frequently revisit and re-evaluate what’s important in that (now super-organized) big blob of absolutely everything. (The notebooks and Evernote (and several other inputs, like an in-box and my voicemails, emails, etc) achieve a; Wunderlist helps me achieve b. C—well, c’s a work in progress, but I do try to do a “weekly review” every Friday to make sure I have an eye on the big picture and know what’s important for me to do next.)

 

There are two kinds of things you have to do—projects and tasks. No one can sit down at a desk and “do a project.” You can only “do a task.” And any to-do list that contains both projects and tasks will very quickly turn into a pile of undone madness, because every time you glance at it, you’ll think, OMG I can’t do all that.

 

You only accomplish things when you are in the proper “context” to do them. (These are all David Allen terms. I highly recommend reading him.) So if you want to get things done efficiently, you have to recognize the reality of your contexts. You aren’t going to make personal phone calls when you sit down to work at the computer, so keeping a list on your computer of all the people you need to chat with will only result in guilt and constantly revisiting how long it’s been since you called your friends.

The fourth app I can’t live without is Scrivener. A lot of writers feel that way. But I do know plenty of writers who are still wary of it, because they’ve heard it’s complicated or they’ve sat down with it and felt overwhelmed.

If you’re in that category, please don’t worry! The video tutorials are excellent, the user’s manual is incredibly helpful, and you only have to learn a little bit to get started. The rest will come. And I guarantee you, anything you do in Word you can do better in Scrivener.

When you open Scrivener, you can choose among project templates or make your own. I made my own. It contains a whole bunch of specialized smaller templates that help me get started with a new project. The one showing in the screenshot above is my How to Write a Novel checklist—which helps kick start me when I can’t remember what to do next (this happens more than I’d like you to think). I also have male & female character interviews, a template for figuring out internal and external goal, motivation, and conflict (GMC), and a bunch of other useful things.

I keep everything that has to do with my project together in one Scrivener file. From the moment I write the back-of-book-copy (my first act for every novel) until I start the copyedit process, Scrivener is my book’s home. I store all the blurbs, synopses, character interviews, scraps of thought I have about what I want to do next, and online research there—and Scrivener makes it very easy to do that. However, I don’t keep all my drafts in one file. Each draft is a separate Scrivener file.

I try to write at least five days a week. During the school year, I tend to write about four hours per day, five days per week. During the summer, when my kids are around and I want to enjoy them and the beautiful weather, I try to write one to two hours per day, seven days a week. Even though there’s a difference in total time allotted, I don’t find that the amount of productivity is that different! I think it’s because writing every day helps with continuity (much less startup lag time), and the truth is that a LOT of the work in writing gets done in the thinking hours, not the writing hours. I write between 700 and 1,800 words per hour, and I try to net at least 1,000 words/day and preferably closer to 3,000.

And here is where I do it:

This teeny garret office is in the back of the master closet in my bedroom, which is weirdly humongous for the size of my house. That’s mostly artwork by my kiddos on the ceiling, and the lists on the walls straight ahead are reminders of how to write a good scene (via Roxanne St. Claire) and which words I chronically overuse. All my equipment is ergnomically set up in the most kludged-together way—the monitor is sitting on two books and a stand I built myself out of wood and covered with fabric and, yes, fur. My desk chair is actually a drafting chair because the desk is counter height, and I’m sure working backlit is a recipe for disaster, but I LOVE my octagonal window.

Anyway, those are the highlights of how I stay, or often don’t stay, organized! Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter below to win fabulous, sexy prizes, (potentially) including two signed copies of Hot & Bothered. Thank you so much for visiting, and please make sure to check out all the other stops on the #GetItTogetherHop, organized by the fabulous (and blessedly nosy) Alexandra Haughton and Lindsay Emory!

#GetItTogether on Lexi’s blog: http://alexandrahaughton.com/get-it-together-blog-hop

#GetItTogether on Lindsay’s blog: http://www.lindsayemory.com/2015/08/get-it-together/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

Turn Up the Heat is Out!

Dear Readers,

Turn Up the Heat is out today!

And, yeah. It’s hot this summer. My family took a road trip to the Grand Canyon and several other wonderful tourist destinations in the southwestern U.S., and it hit 117 degrees on our car’s thermometer. We dared one hike into Canyon de Chelly, moving at a turtle’s pace, guzzling water, and drenched in sweat and sunscreen.

Since we’ve been home, we’ve tried to spend as much time as possible at the pool. My kiddos are now old enough to play on their own with just lifeguard supervision which means I can read (or even write)!

I hope you’re able to stay cool—in air conditioning, by the pool, or at the beach—and that you’re finding plenty of time to get in that summer reading. And I hope you’ll enjoy adding Turn Up the Heat to your summer collection. And if it makes your temperature rise a few degrees in the process… I’m (not really) sorry about that.

I also wanted to let you know about two great giveaways going on this week. I’m giving away a $10 gift card on my Facebook page, and a $20 gift card to current and new subscribers to my (infrequent, new releases- & sales-only) newsletter. You can find the giveaways here:

$10 Gift Card Giveaway on Serena’s FB page

$20 Gift Card Giveaway for current and new subscribers to Serena’s newsletter

As always, I’m so grateful for your support, and thank you for reading!

Love, Serena

About Turn Up the Heat

Aspiring chef Lily McKee noticed Kincaid Graves the first time he walked into the dingy diner where she waits tables. With his ice-blue eyes and primal tattoos, his presence puts Lily on edge—and reminds her of all the unfulfilled longings she isn’t pursuing while she’s stuck in this dead-end job. Without a doubt, the man is dangerous to her long-term plans of leaving town and hiring on at a real kitchen—and yet, she hungers for him, if even for just a taste.

Kincaid didn’t come back to his coastal Oregon hometown looking for a good time or a good meal. The ex-con has a score to settle, old wrongs to set right. But Lily, equal parts innocence and insight, brings out an impulsive side of him he thought he’d left behind in the past. And it only takes one intense moment of weakness between them to make him consider the possibility of an entirely new future—and the promise of passion beyond either of their wildest dreams.

Advance praise for Turn Up the Heat



“Serena Bell nails it. Turn Up the Heat is sexy, emotional, and engaging. I couldn’t get enough!”—Stacey Kennedy, USA Today bestselling author of the Club Sin series

“Serena Bell definitely ‘turns up the heat’ in this steamy read!”—Tina Wainscott, USA Today bestselling author of Falling Fast

“Darkly sexy and deeply emotional.”—Elisabeth Barrett, author of Once and Again

Excerpt from Turn Up the Heat

Copyright © 2015 Serena Bell

All rights reserved — Penguin Random House

He wanted to stay. Because it was a place to be, because there were people here and that felt like company, even if he didn’t interact with them. Because he was used to constant clamor, to being surrounded by human life and foible, and if he went home now it would be another night in that small, dark, lonely cabin. His P.O.—parole officer—had strongly advised him against spending time in bars (“Shit happens in bars”), which left him only a few options for hangouts. This was his favorite.

“You want to stay? Sit and read?”

It was as if she’d read his mind, and the way those green eyes bored into him, maybe she had.

“He’ll be pissed at you.” He gestured with his head at the tubby Greek owner.

“He’s already pissed at me.” She smiled and shrugged.

Brave girl. “You’ll lose tips.”

“I’ll live.”

They both knew he’d tip her well. He’d gone out of his way to tip all the waitresses here generously, in hopes of a favor like this one coming his way. The chance to sit a little longer where the noise in his head wasn’t louder than the noise outside.

“But you do have to tell me your name.”

She’d noticed his evasion, then. “Kincaid Graves.”

“Kincaid,” she repeated. “Nice to meet you, Kincaid.”

“Nice to meet you, Lily,” he said.

She set the check carefully on his table. “Stay as long as you want. I’ll let you know when I need to cash out.”

Maybe she’d look him up and find out what he’d done. He wasn’t sure what she’d find if she searched Kincaid Graves. Graves was his grandmother’s name. You should have something special of mine, she’d said. It was the name he’d always used—but it wasn’t his legal name, so it wasn’t the name attached to court documents and the legions of newspaper articles that had covered his case.

The next time she came in here, maybe she’d look at him the way the denizens of his hometown did, with suspicion and disgust. Then he wouldn’t be able to fantasize that he saw hunger there, and his own response wouldn’t run rampant.

Either that, or she’d react the other way women did when they found out he was fresh out of prison, like dogs to the smell of fresh meat.

He’d heard stories. One guy said that on the outside, he told every woman he met that he’d gotten out of prison the day before. His hit rate for getting laid was 85 percent.

Kincaid wasn’t sure whether women went nuts for the scent of danger or the idea of a guy pent up, restrained, frustrated for so long. Or maybe they had some nurturing instinct gone mad, some need to save or salve. Whatever it was, though, he didn’t want it. Taking it on those terms felt too much like buying it, and that was something Kincaid had never done and never wanted to do.

He watched her for a while, the sweet way she smiled at her customers, set her notepad down on the table, and leaned into one hip to show she was in no particular hurry. He was pretty sure she didn’t even do it on purpose. He watched the way she asked questions and joined in laughter, the way she leaned over kids and admired their crayon artwork, the way she wrinkled her brow and pursed her lips to think hard about something.

Before, he could have tried to be good enough for her, but those were gone days. If he regretted anything he’d lost, he regretted that.

He picked up his book and pretended to read while part of him always knew where she was.

 

Giveaway! Release Day for Hot & Bothered

Happy New Year! I hope 2015 brings you peace, joy, ease, and good health.

It’s release day for the ebook version of Hot & Bothered. Gruff-and-scruffy former pop superstar guitar-wielding hero. Teflon-coated image consultant heroine who will only eat Cheetos one at a time with paper towel in hand. Opposites attract (and attract, and attract, and attract).

Here’s what RT Magazine says about Hot & Bothered:

“Mark messing up Haven’s polished demeanor results in some of the hottest encounters we’ve seen in Blaze in a while…” 

                                         —RT Magazine Top Pick, 4.5 stars

I’d love for you to spread the word!

Scroll down for the cover (which I love, because those people really are Haven and Mark—except that I think Haven is shorter than that—hard to tell in that picture, though), blurb, excerpt, and buy links.

When you’re done taking in the sights, share this post using one of the buttons below and let me know which one. Or tap out your own Tweet, pin the cover, or write a FB/Instagram etc. post about the book, and drop a link to your tweet/post/pin/other act of social media awesomeness in the comments below. (Sharing the Hot & Bothered post on my Facebook page definitely counts!) You’ll be entered to win a $10 gift card to the e-tailer of your choice.

BONUS: If you click here to view my newsletter, you can see a way to get two more entries by signing up yourself and a friend.

This giveaway is open to anyone 18+ who can receive an e-tailer gift card from a U.S.-based author. The giveaway will remain open through January 10 at 11:59 p.m. EST.

 

 

Turning a certified disaster into a certifiable dish…

Image consultant Haven Hoyt needs to take former pop superstar Mark Webster from boozing, brawling mess to presentable musician—capable of keeping his tacky boot out of his mouth. Mark has no interest in being molded, but once she’s finished with him, he’ll be a work of art.

Haven has very simple rules for herself: be perfectly put together, don’t crack under pressure and never sleep with your client. But under the scruff and the surly attitude, Mark is hot. Haven’s careful image is unraveling with every look of lust and too-tempting touch. If she’s not careful, she’ll fall for her work of art…and break each of her rules in the process.

Excerpt from Hot and Bothered

Copyright © 2015 Serena Bell

All rights reserved — Harlequin Blaze

“I’m going to set up a bunch of appointments for you—hair, nails, skin.” She touched her hair and stroked the hot pink slickness of her own nails as she spoke, and his body heated. He had to look away. “For clothing, I’ll bring in a personal shopper—we can keep it simple at a department store.”

He hadn’t shopped anywhere other than his local secondhand store in nearly a decade. The whole idea made his skin crawl. He still remembered the way it had felt to be fussed over and groomed like a baby monkey when he was in the band. He didn’t miss that, not for a second.

He itched to get away from her scrutiny and her plans as intensely as he’d wanted to touch her earlier. His primitive brain screamed, Run away.

“Can’t I just promise I’ll get a haircut and buy some new clothes?”

A half smile appeared on Haven’s glossy lips as she tugged a bite of pasta off her fork. She shook her head.

“I hate this.”

He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but he liked Haven, and something about her loosened his lips. She wasn’t a ballbuster, and she didn’t come off fake. She had a way of looking at him that, yeah, maybe bordered on pity, but it was better than the other brands of female attention he usually got—scorn or leftover band worship from self-destructive women who wanted to flush their self-esteem down the toilet with him.

“I’ll try to make it hurt as little as possible.”

She said it without sexual emphasis, but it still made the blood rush out of his brain. He bet she would. If he swept the utensils and plates off the white cloth, the table would make the perfect surface on which she could make it hurt, or not, as she pleased. He’d take it either way.

 

Tuesday Tidbit: HOLD ON TIGHT Is Out! & $10 Gift Card Giveaway

I was really just trying to pack the most punctuation possible into a single headline.

But it’s TRUE! Hold On Tight is out, and I’m very excited because 5% of my earnings on ebook sales of Hold On Tight until September 30, 2014, will be donated to a non-profit, Ride 2 Recovery, that organizes challenge bike rides to help injured veterans heal physically and mentally. You can read more about Ride 2 Recovery here.

I’m also very, very excited because I. LOVE. THIS. BOOK. I love all my books, of course, because they are all my babies, but this book actually has a baby in it. A SECRET baby. The secret baby is Sam, who is eight. He was conceived during fail-sex on a beach, just before his parents had a big sort-of fight (because I’m the author, and I love both awkward fail-sex and fights-that-aren’t-quite fights). He lives with his mom, Mira, who is a great mom, the kind who works really hard to make a good life for herself and Sam and still has time for Ferris Wheel rides and stuff. They’re doing just fine—or they think they are—until Mira moves far away from her parents to take a job and suddenly finds herself without child care. And then—

And then there’s Jake.

He shows up in the physical therapist’s office and everything changes. Just like that. In an instant. Just like in the romance novels, you know—? Her breath stops, he’s unbelievably good-looking, she remembers all about that last night with him when he—

Well, you’ll have to read to find out. But I’ll tell you some things about Jake.

He’s a soldier. He’s injured. And he’s—well, angry, a little. And scared. He doesn’t feel much like a man.

But that’s about to change, too.

To read an excerpt, click here (and then scroll down to the black box).

To own Hold On Tight now, click one of these buy links:

And now, the giveaway.

There are two different ways to be entered to win a $10 gift card at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, or Kobo:

1) A. Share this post using one of those cute square Shareaholic buttons below AND B. Comment on this post to tell me which button you used.

OR

2) A. Tweet, post, or otherwise share the news that Hold On Tight by Serena Bell is out OR that 5% of my ebook earnings before 9/30/14 will be donated to Ride 2 Recovery. Use the social media outlet of your choice and your own words, pictures, video, fingerpainting, etc. (if you wish to include a cover image and/or buy link that will be greatly appreciated, but it is not required for entry). B. Comment on this post with a link to your tweet/post/etc.

You must be 18+ to enter and able to receive a gift card from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, or Kobo. This contest will last TWO WEEKS (longer than my usual Tuesday Tidbit giveaways), until Monday, June 30, at 11:59 p.m. PST.

 

Giving Back & A Giveaway

Next week, many of you will meet Hold On Tight’s hero, Jake Taylor, for the first time. Jake grew up in a not-so-great household, and getting out of it was a major priority. When New York’s Twin Towers fell on 9/11, Jake knew for the first time what he wanted to do with his life — exact justice for that act of terrorism. He became an Army Ranger and fought, among other places, in Afghanistan, which was home to many of the Al Qaeda operatives who planned the 9/11 attacks.

Jake paid a high price for his mission, emotionally and physically, like so many veterans who sacrifice for our freedom. Writing the book, I had a chance to think hard about why men and women choose to fight, what they give up when they do, and how hard it is for them to come home, especially when they feel that war has broken or diminished them. Living with Jake’s pain opened my eyes to all the ways that it is hard to remake a life you’ve put on hold in order to fight a war you deeply believe in.

I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude, both to all the men and women who have fought to make this country what it is, and also to all the soldiers whose stories became part of Jake’s. As I wrote about his struggles and victories, I decided I needed to give something back to Jake’s community.

Part of the way Jake comes back to life in Hold On Tight is through athletic training and competition. So in honor of the men and women of our Armed Forces, I’m donating 5 percent of my earnings from the sales of the Hold On Tight e-book from now until September 30, 2014 (this includes ALL pre-orders, so if you’ve already pre-ordered the book, a portion of your purchase will automatically be donated) to Ride 2 Recovery, which organizes challenge cycling rides to promote mental and physical rehabilitation of wounded veterans. (You can read more about Ride 2 Recovery here.)

Please spread the word about the book and my donation program, and please encourage your friends to buy Hold On Tight and support Ride 2 Recovery. Even you’re not a romance reader, please help spread the word about organizations like Ride 2 Recovery that give veterans the chance to heal and thrive.

In the general spirit of giving, this week’s giveaway is two ebook copies of Summer Rain, one each to two winners who will be randomly selected from those who comment on this post.

Summer Rain is the first of two volumes of rain-themed romance stories by some of your favorite writers. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of Summer Rain will benefit RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network). Contributors include Ruthie Knox, Molly O’Keefe, Cecilia Tan, Charlotte Stein, Mary Ann Rivers, Amy Jo Cousins, Audra North, Shari Slade, and Alexandra Haughton. (My story will appear in the second volume, due out in November.)

You must be 18+ to enter and live somewhere where I can gift a book from iBooks, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. This contest will run through next weekend and end Sunday, June 15 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Tuesday Tidbit: New Contract! & Giveaway

I’m thrilled to announce a new contract with Loveswept, for a novel, tentatively titled UNRESTRAINED, currently scheduled for June 2015 release. I can’t wait for you to meet its ex-con hero, Kincaid Graves. I know you’re going to love him. More details soon!

Since we’re talking about 2015, I figured I’d update you on some exciting releases between now and then, too! My next Blaze, HOT & BOTHERED, is scheduled for January 2015, which means it could be on shelves as early as December 2014. And you don’t have to wait ’til then for a Serena fix, either—AFTER MIDNIGHT, my Loveswept New Year’s Eve novella, releases as a standalone in October, and a not-yet-titled short story will appear in WINTER RAIN, an anthology published by Pink Kayak Press to benefit Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), in November.

And of course, HOLD ON TIGHT, my secret baby/injured soldier novel from Loveswept, is out in just two weeks! I have so much happiness about this book and sharing it with my readers. If you want to make sure you receive notification of new releases, please sign up for my newsletter here.

Here’s a quick reference.

June 17, 2014 HOLD ON TIGHT (Loveswept—secret baby/injured soldier novel)

October 2014 AFTER MIDNIGHT novella (Loveswept—New Year’s Eve story originally published in Heating Up the Holidays)

November 2014 WINTER RAIN anthology (Pink Kayak—short story, benefits RAINN organization)

December 2014/January 2015 HOT & BOTHERED (Harlequin Blaze—category sequel to STILL SO HOT w/burned-out boy band guitarist and highly-polished image consultant)

June 2015 UNRESTRAINED (Loveswept—novel with Kincaid, an ex-con hero; details coming soon!)

In honor of all this news and excitement, I’m giving away two ARCs of HOLD ON TIGHT. Please comment below (no rules about what you have to say today; any comment will do); two commenters will be randomly chosen to win one of the two ARCs. You must be 18+ to enter, but there are no geographic restrictions.

 

 

 

Tuesday Tidbit: Writer Friends & Giveaway

It’s very important for writers to have writer friends. We live in caves and hear voices and while some days we can behave ourselves and pretend to be normal (I went to two actual parties this weekend, and I didn’t have to hide in the bathroom and whip out my notebook to scribble down ideas, not even once), some days it’s a lot of effort.

I have made some of the best friends I’ve ever had on Twitter, some of the funniest, smartest, most emotionally tuned-in and articulate-about-feelings people I’ve ever known. I talk to them on email and on the phone and see them not frequently enough. Most of the time, they take really good care of me and pat my head and say, “There, there” in just the right tone of sympathy that also somehow implies, “Now go effing write that scene.” And most of the time, I feel comforted and go off and write. I could not do what I do without these fine ladies (and the occasional gent).

But it’s also really nice to have actual on-the-ground local writer friends you can take walks with and drink beers and write with in cafes and cry snotty tears with on a regular basis. I am lucky enough to have several of these now, enough that last week I actually hosted a party and fed them writer food (Cheetos, beer & wine, and chocolate).

One of my newest friends is Courtney Cook Hopp. She’s a graphic designer and–more recently–YA writer and she recently indie-pubbed her first novel, Art Is the Lie. Incongruously enough, I met her at a Little League game. She and I agree that showing up at a kids’ baseball game after a day of sitting in your writing/design/formatting cave has a lot in common with naked mole rats surfacing from their lairs and blinking in the sudden light. It’s a huge relief to be able to turn to someone who has also spent her day communing with imaginary people and say something like, “I just wrote 2,435 words and cut 2,436″ without having to explain. Somehow, once you’ve gotten that off your chest, it’s much easier to cheer with genuine enthusiasm for adorable seven-year-old boys who can only just hold their bats steady.

I would like to hear more about your day job—and HELL YES this includes stay-at-home-parenting or homemaking and anything else you do that’s important and undervalued—and who gives you the support you need to keep you from having to, say, run screaming in your underpants through the streets. Comment and tell me what you do and who makes it doable, and two lucky winners will receive signed paperback copies of Courtney’s recently released Art Is the Lie, which I read in nearly one extremely compelling sitting this weekend (she also designed that gorgeous cover). Oh, and a bonus matching bookmark! You do not even have to be 18+ to enter, although you do have to live in the U.S. or Canada for shipping purposes. The contest ends Thursday, May 29, at 11:59 PST.

Tuesday Tidbit: Sub-Genres & Giveaway

When I first started reading romance, I’d read pretty much anything. In fact, early on, I read more historical than contemporary books—tons of Lisa Kleypas, Julia Quinn, Mary Jo Putney, Mary Balogh. But gradually, I found that I preferred books that were similar to the books I wanted to write. These days, I read mostly contemporaries, mostly on the hotter side, and generally on the more emotional/serious side—although not always; I love funny books, too.

But I still like to read across subgenres, partly because it’s purely a nice change of pace, and partly because I believe the best inspiration to my writing comes from writing that’s the least like mine. The more different a book is from what I usually write, the more I have to learn from it, and the better it makes me as a writer. This applies to everything from how another writer uses language or how he or she creates a character, to getting ideas from the kinds of plots you can only find outside contemporary romance.

Sometimes, this means reading outside the genre—women’s fiction, science-fiction, literary fiction, mysteries and thrillers. Sometimes, it means reading within romance, but books that are not my sub-genre—paranormal, erotic, romantic suspense, new adult, mystery-romance.

This week, I read three books that weren’t straight across contemporaries, and loved them all. They were Lexy Ryan’s Unbreak Me (New Adult), Juliet Rosetti’s The Escape Diaries (a romantic thriller/caper, a la Janet Evanovich) and Carolyn Crane’s Off the Edge (romantic suspense). The three books were all very different from one another. Unbreak Me was steamy and angsty, The Escape Diaries was crisply written, hilariously funny, and sexually low-key, and Carolyn Crane’s Off the Edge was gritty, raw, and just—beautiful.

Comment and tell me whether you stick to reading contemporaries or read multiple sub-genres within romance, and what other kinds of non-romance books you like to read. One randomly selected commenter will win his/her choice of one of the three books I mention above (ebook copy). You must be 18+ to enter and live somewhere I can gift a book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Contest ends Thursday May 22, 11:59 p.m. PST.

Tuesday Tidbit: It’s Not the Size of the Package & Giveaway

I went out for dinner with my husband last night, and we talked about whether or not size matters.

Um, no, not that. Although when you’re a romance writer, that *is* a serious question that deserves contemplation over Mother’s Day dinner.

No, we were actually talking about what length of stories people like to read. And whether length still matters, now that we read so much digitally.

He suggested that since so many people read digitally, you’d expect them to want to read more, shorter books. Maybe, he said, nobody wants big anymore.

I argued that romance readers are attuned to story length, even when we read digitally, and that most readers still prefer books that fit into length categories that we understand — big, single title books; small, category books; novellas; and short shorts. And I said that overall I thought readers still liked books that felt substantial — long novellas, category length novels, and full-length novels.

Do you like to read longer books? Shorter ones? Why? Are there times when you prefer one over the other, and what are they? Are you willing to pay more for a longer book? And do you have different expectations for different lengths of work?

Comment to be entered to win the right to choose between e-book versions of Cara McKenna’s Her Best Laid Plans and Del Dryden’s Mai Tai for Two, both part of the new Cosmo Red-Hot Reads series from Harlequin. Good things, small packages … You must be 18+ to enter and/or live somewhere where I can gift a book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Contest ends Thursday, May 15, 11:59 p.m. PST.