Christa Simpson's Blog, page 32

He Can Hold Me Captive Any Day

So I just finished reading ‘Captive at Christmas’ by Danielle Taylor.  I tell you, it doesn’t need to be Christmas time to read this steamy novella.

Summary:  Mac’s house is under renovation and so he’s staying at a quaint cabin for a few weeks until the work is complete. Little does he know that Hannah also booked the luxury cabin for that time. He seems to have serious trust issues and thinks she’s some kind of spy or assassin and in turn holds her captive on her two week vacation.

 

Log Cabin – Camp Petosega (Photo credit: Odalaigh)

Though their relationship starts out with a gun to her head, Hannah seemed to be a rather willing victim and if you knew what this guy looked like, so would you. He is such a sexy bad ass that you can’t help but like him.Every time Mac lets her in a little, my heart squeezed for Hannah. Then when he finally touched her, it was so casual, but knowing his background and their predicament, it was so much more to her.

Captive | A (Photo credit: DavidR_)

Throw in a little unexpected gun play, their fierce attraction to each other and a few naughty sexcapades and this story has everything thing you could want in a romance. There’s even a couple of twists thrown in, that only add to the happy ever after.

I absolutely loved this story and totally recommend it to anyone who loves romance, erotica or reading in general. Seriously, it is very well written. I’ll read it again just to follow the flow of the words. This girl has got game. Check her out on Goodreads here.

My 30 Days Are Up!!

Holy crap guys, 99 people have added Twisted onto their Goodreads shelves!! One more makes 100. Can you help a sista out?

Twisted by Christa Simpson.

Today marks the end of my 30 days since self-publishing my debut novel in The Twisted Trilogy and man am I floored by the response.

Sure, there are mixed reviews, and I can handle that… because there are also some very awesome ones. I didn’t expect to put out a best-seller on my first try, but I also didn’t expect to sell this many copies in one month’s time either!!

Writing is a life long journey. You can only become better with every story that you create. I can already see progress being made with my plot development and editing skills after taking in everyone’s comments (yes, even the not-so-nice ones). They’ve all helped me to become a better writer.

I must say that, despite all of the advice to the contrary, putting my story out there – even without seeking help from an editor – was a smart move for me. Seeking out an affordable cover designer online was also just brilliant. Stock photos are your friend people. You don’t have to spend a small fortune to get an excellent cover. And if you’re creatively challenged when it comes to cover design, then you should definitely leave it up to the professionals. I’m here to tell you though, it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg.

I’m here to recommend that you self-publish, if that is what you want to do. Yes, the marketing aspect is time consuming, and it’s all up to you, but guess what? Even if you publish traditionally, you are not in the clear. That right, I said it. It’s up to you to make your book a success.

Here’s to hard work and future achievement.  Cheers!!

The Next Big Thing

I’m told I’ve been nominated for The Next Big Thing award. Twice!! Cool. I guess it’s a blog hop, where writers get to share their WIP and have to nominate a few other writers to do the same. Thanks to Danielle Taylor and Mitch Lavender for nominating me. Here goes nothing.

 

QUESTIONS:

1) What is the title of your next book?

TWIST AND TURN. I’m currently in the editing phase of book two in The Twisted Trilogy.

ashley greene and kellan lutz arrive push premiere (Photo credit: Anthony Citrano)

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

One day, after reading a series by a new author, I thought ‘I could do that’. So I googled hot celebrities for inspiration and started dreaming up a life for them. My novel TWISTED wasn’t ready to be finished, so it quickly became The Twisted Trilogy. 

3) What genre does your project fall under?

New Adult Contemporary Romance with a paranormal twist.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I picture Abigail looking like Minka Kelly.  For Edwin, I’d like Channing Tatum‘s acting on Kellan Lutz‘s body. What? I can’t do that?

Here’s who I’d choose if given the choice:  

English: Leighton Meester at the premiere of Killer Movie at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Edwin – Jensen Ackles

Abigail – Leighton Meester  —–>

Cameron – Cam Gigandet

Ashley – Mischa Barton

5) What is a one sentence synopsis of your work?

Sexy, playful characters, caught up in a love triangle, making a girl decide which relationship is better for her: the long-time friendship turned into love, or love at first sight.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I intend to self-publish the entire Twisted Trilogy.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

It took me about a year to finish the first draft of The Twisted Trilogy (three books).

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

To be honest with you, I haven’t read a whole lot of New Adult novels, the genre being fairly new. I haven’t read a single trilogy in that genre. And I hate to compare it to Twilight, but for the lack of a better comparison, I’d say it’s like Twilight with more sex and no vampires or wolves, and exchange the school scenes for a lawyer’s office.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’ve always loved to write, but reading is actually what inspired me to write a story myself. When I started writing, I never expected to share the story with anyone. It was for my own entertainment only. But once I was done, I felt like it was too good not to share and my friends and family agreed.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Strong, sexy, comical men. Soft, sassy, confident women. Throw in love at first sight, a gorgeous man with an adorable little girl, a jealous housemate not ready to give up, and a pair of bitchy sisters who haunt them all day and night, dead or alive, and you get TWIST AND TURN.

Thanks again to Mitch and Danielle for nominating me. If you haven’t already, you should check out their blogs:

http://lifein64squarefeet.com/

http://authordtaylor.wordpress.com/

Go on. I’m not going anywhere.

Now… for my dedicated nominees:

Cassandra Janey (She’ll be publishing her first romance novel in one week!! Can’t wait for it.)

Mel E. Cober (Working on her first novel. This girl has got the goods when it comes to parenting.)

Ionia Martin (Her blogging is out of this world. Go see for yourself.)

Prologue Or Not Here I Come

Fake car accident. The vehicle on the picture is an FSO Polonez MR’89. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here’s my prologue (in rough draft) for TWIST AND TURN, book two in The Twisted Trilogy. I used a prologue to give the readers a glimpse at the paranormal aspect of this novel. I feel that it is very significant and, since my book is written in the first person (Abigail’s perspective), this is a way of seeing it through someone else’s eyes. It’ll tie in later, to make you say ‘whoa’.

So now you know. Abigail’s not crazy. Or maybe she is, for leaving Edwin. But she actually is seeing dead people. (At least one dead person in particular. J
PROLOGUE
~

Six years earlier.

TESSA CLARKE WIPED THE tears from her eyes as she sobbed out of control. She was miserable, but certain she was doing the right thing.

“This is my daughter, he’s not taking her from me,” she cried, as she sped away from her home with no intention of turning back.

She squinted through the dirty windshield at the dark night with blurry, enraged eyes and a heavy foot. She dangerously weaved through cars on the highway until she reached her exit. Relief overcame her when she finally passed the City’s boundaries and dirt began to plume behind her on the freshly gravelled country road.

She looked in her rear-view mirror flashing a glance into the back seat. “I finally did it baby. I did it for us,” she said, a soft smile creeping onto her downturned lips.

A sudden flash of red light blinded her as she turned her tired, burning eyes to the oncoming headlights. A truck was crossing over the narrow bridge before her and it was coming at her head on. The driver eased toward the dirt shoulder and relief swamped her a moment too soon, as the truck suddenly swerved back at her.

Tessa slammed her brakes, but it was too late. She raised an arm to cover her eyes to hide from the imminent crash, as her car skidded through the gravel and collided with the truck at full speed.

Tessa’s head violently cracked off the windshield, instantly spilling blood down her face. Her speeding car spun out of control and hit the bridge barricade. Momentum drove the car forward over the bridge as it begged to climb over the edge.

Sparks flew from the bumper as it screeched deafeningly along the metal barrier, which was even louder than the shrieking baby girl in the back seat of her car.

With blood obstructing what little vision she had left, Tessa reached for one last chance at their survival. She gripped the steering wheel and tugged on it, in an attempt to negotiate the curve at the base of the bridge to no avail.

The car crashed into a concrete support beam and forcefully delivered Tessa’s body through the windshield. She sailed through the air until her battered body crashed into the nearby tree and fell to its final resting place.

The little girl was secured in her car seat, locked inside the twisted heap of metal. She screamed in horror as the blood poured from her mother’s cracked skull. A destroyed cell phone had been thrown from the vehicle and rang in the distance, as a man dragged himself out of the demolished truck.

The man limped quickly to Tessa’s car and yanked on the crushed backdoor, but it wouldn’t budge. The child continued to scream, her shrieks swallowing the open air around him.

A strange noise escaped from the hood of the car before flames burst from it. Adrenaline pumped through the man’s veins as he crawled onto trunk and shattered the cracked window with his elbow. He crawled into the flaming car, maneuvered around the crushed metal and pulled the screaming baby out of the jammed car seat.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his heart aching painfully for the child’s loss.

Dark red blood ran down his arms and dripped all over the child as he reached her out of the broken glass and carried her to safety. He ripped off his jacket and wrapped it around the baby, his eyes only momentarily resting on her small bleeding limb, as she choked on her desperate sobs for her mother.

The man gently placed the baby in the dewy grass against a nearby tree and scrambled away to examine her mother’s mangled body. The man checked for Tessa’s pulse, but found nothing.

The child lay there, alone by the roadside, in impossible darkness, squealing with fear and confusion.

A sudden flash of headlights in the distance told the man help was on its way. The oncoming car slowed as it approached the flaming scene.

When the man turned around, to wave the car over, he was startled to find a beautiful young girl with long, golden brown hair tending to the baby on the ground. His eyes frantically searched the area for her parents. She couldn’t have been a year over six. But when he looked back to the baby, the young girl was gone.

A handsome, young man ran briskly toward the scene of the accident, as his wife hurried to the screaming baby.

“Did you see that little girl?” the man hollered hysterically, to the young man approaching the scene.

The young man stopped before him and looked back to his wife, worry written harshly across his brow. “I didn’t see anyone, except for you.”

What do you think? Do you find this to be helpful at the beginning of the story, or is it too much, being that you don’t know the players yet? I worry that it’s a bit too long for a flashback later in the story and it would slow up forward progress later in the book. I think putting it right out there and leaving it sitting in the back of the reader’s mind, until the connection comes out later, is more exciting. What’s your thoughts on it?

Playing Hardball

This is my book review of HARDBALL by V.K. Sykes, a husband and wife collaboration. Canadian authors too, I might add.

V.K. Sykes

Dr. Holly Bell is a pediatric surgeon who just started her new position at a hospital in Philadelphia. She meets the infamous Nate Carter, a pro ball player (though she’s never heard of him), while he’s visiting sick children. Immediate sparks and let the romance begin.

​

There’s also some stuff about a crazy ass father of an ill patient, but I’m not gonna go there.

​

I guess the doc’s been less than active sexually, and yet that doesn’t stop her from doing Nate on the first date. Apparently she just can’t control herself, and I just can’t blame her. lol. Nate Carter is handsome, thoughtful, charming and good with kids to boot. Throw in that he’s rich and sexy and it makes for an irresistible combo to Holly.

​

Apart from a few wardrobe malfunctions near the beginning, and random if not somewhat awkward names Holly calls Nate throughout the story (ie. “dude“), I enjoyed it.  I truly felt for the pair and wanted Holly to stick to her guns and demand fidelity.  And she did. Toward the end, I just wanted Nate to say he’d stop seeing other ladies already.  Why wouldn’t he just say it??!!  We all knew he wanted to.

​

Oh yes… I got a kick out of the twist with the snow globe.  You’ll have to read it for yourself if you want to know what I’m talking about.  It’s worth a read.

Nate was a pitcher.  Here’s a random tidbit about me.  I used to pitch for my soft ball team with the boys.  I played that and second base.  I love to play ball. 

Review This…

I just got to a point while editing TWIST AND TURN, book two in The Twisted Trilogy, where a couple of reviews creeped into my head and tried to make me unbitchify Abby.  I could have cut the entire paragraph out…now, instead of editing this out, I’m leaving it in just to piss ‘em off. 

To change Abby’s overdramatic sarcasm and bitchy persona is to change Abby.  Can’t do it.  Besides, I love her like that.  Do you think the world is full of all sweet, perfect, non-selfish people?  Puh-lease.  She’s real (in my own twisted little world).

Excerpt Follows: (FYI:  “I” is Abby.)

English: Photo of parking spaces in an American Parking lot in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“I pulled into Aubrey’s lot and zoomed into the last visitor parking space, cutting off another car.  The driver was waving erratically at me and hollering in her car, though I couldn’t hear a word of it as I snickered to myself.  Today’s my day beoch.  Sorry ‘bout your luck.  I ignored her and rushed to the building’s entrance, quickly buzzing Aubrey’s apartment before the lady could catch up with me.”

Hah!!!  The joys of being able to do whatever you want in your own story.  That paragraph hasn’t even been edited yet, but I felt like sharing.

Enjoy the rest of your day!! 

A Piece of Me…

Heart of Stone (Photo credit: dongato)

Holding his hand against her heart,

it beat against his palm,

warm, filled with hope and life,

he knew the night had come.

 

He clutched her heart in both his hands,

and heaved it to the ground,

pieces strewn about the floor,

her heart of stone was gone.

 

Guilt and shame had filled him,

not worth half her time,

empty, disconnected,

now the damage was undying.

 

There you have it.  A Piece of Me.  Wow, I haven’t written poetry in years; like at least 10.

What does it all mean? you ask.  Beats me, but I had to write it. 

What do you do when your rock is smothered?

Rock, Water III (Photo credit: Martin Burns)

Rock. Paper. Scissors.

What do you do when life deals you paper and smothers your rock? That’s what I’d like to know right about now.

It’s a great feeling to have a person who will be your rock. Your constant. Your undeniably best friend and support system.

So what do you do when your rock gets smothered? Time to step up to the plate, take it like a man (or woman) and transform into the person you need to be or risk turning into the person you don’t. It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it and that someone has got to be you. I tell you, it’s a little hard to find the motivation at times.

You people have definitely proven to have inspirational words and have surprised me with your sage advice. Have you ever found yourself between a rock and a hard place? Please share how you managed to move past it.

Classroom Chaos

This is a book review from my little sweet heart Jenica. She is 7 years old and just finished reading the novel Magic Kitten – Classroom Chaos.

There’s Classroom Chaos when fluffy black and white kitten Flame appears at lonely Abi’s boarding school!

“In the beginning, there was a mean girl named Keera at the boarding school and she had to share a room with Abi. Then Abi got put with a nicer girl named Sasha because Keera was being mean to her and doesn’t have anything in common with Abi. Now Keera got put with Tiwa and Marsha because they had lots of stuff in common. All three of those girls were mean. They said there was an old lady grey ghost, which was weird because ghosts aren’t real.

In the middle, Abi had to go to volleyball practice and she met a little cute kitten named Flame. Flame is actually a lion in his world and his powers make him look like a fluffy cute kitten. Sasha was at the practice cheering for Abi and Sasha helped Abi with her math. Sasha is very nice, but she doesn’t know about Flame because Flame is a secret boy kitten that only Abi knows about.

Ghost fear (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

At the end, there was three boys throwing stones and sticks at Flame when he was climbing a tree and falling, because he wasn’t invisible anymore. Flame fell into Abi’s hands and Abi ran away from the boys. Keera stole some sweets from Mrs. Brown’s store. She was grounded by the head teacher.

At the very end, Keera and Abi became friends on their team and they hugged each other, but Flame had to go to his own lion world. In the lion world, his uncle is trying to kill him. And that’s all that happened. That’s the end of the story. It doesn’t tell you that much.”

She liked the story, except the part where Flame has to go home because that made her sad.  She was also stunned that the uncle was trying to kill Flame at the very end of the book, but that they don’t tell you anything else about it.  I explained to her that she’s reading a series and she’ll have to read the next book to learn what happens next.

I’m sorry, but I think this is just too cute.  She’s learning and having fun doing it!!  What do you think?

Have a Heart

Broken heart symbol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My heart hurts. It’s true. I have been blissfully ignorant of one thing while I attempted to take the next step on my publishing journey. Book reviews.  I always knew that there would be others reviewing my story and my writing skills once I got my book out there, but never could I imagine the emotions flowing through me after reading each one.

I tell myself to quit checking them, but I can’t help it. I know certain reviews could potentially make me a better writer for addressing each of their concerns, but I hadn’t considered the fact that some people forget that authors are only human and have feelings too. Especially those with private accounts and unidentifiable screen names. How convenient for them.

Twisted is the first novel ever written by me. When I started writing it, I had no real writing background, except for reading others work and some random courses on grammar. Of course, by the time I had rewritten and edited Twisted, I had learned a lot more, but I still have a lot to learn. Don’t we all?

The reason my heart hurts is because it keeps experiencing the ups and downs of book reviews. Until I was published, I had only received rave reviews from readers, with no complaints except that book two wasn’t ready for them to read on. I am still getting those, but now unnamed individuals from around the world are free to rant and rave about what they did and didn’t like about my story and my skill as a writer.

While one person says, “Found this book on a chance.  Boy I was pleasantly surprised it kept my attention.  Hot steamy and couldn’t put it down.  Cannot wait to read the next one!!!!”, the next person is finding any way possible to bash it and me in the process.

I myself didn’t realize the effect a book review might have on the author. I can now say that if I ever have anything not-so-nice to say about a book (which isn’t super often), I will be sure to also announce what I did like about it, in fairness for the next reader to understand how I came to rate the book. I also hope that this post reaches some of those others who tend to write bad reviews. I ask that you take a look at yourself and your own life and make sure you aren’t taking unrelated personal frustrations out on the author.

Wow, what a rush. If you’re new to writing or still unpublished, I wish there were something I could say to help prepare you for that first blow, but I don’t believe anything could ever quite prepare you for it. I only hope that you’re lucky enough to bypass that unpleasant stab to your heart altogether.

Me, I like to write controversial, sassy, confident characters that apparently rub some people the wrong way. In other words, there will be plenty of icy javelins heaved my way in the future. I’m lucky to have a good support system though, so I think I can handle it.

Have you experienced similar heart troubles? If so, how do you deal?

What about responding to negative Nancy? I’ve held my tongue to date, but I tell you it’s been hard.