Lorenda Christensen's Blog, page 2

KD Fleming’s Debut Novel Launch Party

 

 

Nick & Kat are in the house!!!! Woohoo! Let’s give it up for Pemberly’s newest campaign rivals and reluctant sweethearts, Nick Delaney and Katherine Harper.

I am so excited that this day has finally arrived. Campaigning for Love, my debut inspirational novel that won the Golden Heart in 2012, released September 2nd.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

Katherine Harper can’t be beat.

For Katherine, running for city council is about protecting children from the kind of grim childhood she had. And she won’t let privileged politician’s son Nick Delaney ruin her chances. Like he once ruined her dreams of true love and a family of her own.

Nick has his sights set on public office, not on rekindling a star-crossed romance from years ago. Yet as he and Katherine spend time together on the election circuit, his competitor compels him with her beauty and heart of gold. Falling for the opposition was never in his plans, but Nick will give anything to earn Katherine’s forgiveness and renew their love.

It’s a story about learning how to let go of the old hurts in your life–not for the person who hurt you, but for yourself. Your heart can’t find peace and heal if you keep churning up those painful memories. Let them go so there’s room in your heart for bigger and better things.

The first chapter is on offer as the sample at all on-line retailers. Take a look via one of the links below and see if you want to get to know Nick and Kat and the rest of Pemberly’s citizens a little better.

Amazon   Short link: http://tinyurl.com/A-CampaigningforLove

Barnes & Noble    Short link: http://tinyurl.com/B-N-CampaigningforLove

Books A Million    Short link:       http://tinyurl.com/BAM-CampaigningforLove

Harlequin   Short Link:     http://tinyurl.com/Harlequin-CfL

Leave a comment about who you would vote for in Pemberly’s city council race?  Corporate attorney doing penance in family court, Nick Delaney, or former foster kid turned child’s advocate, Katherine Harper?

Thanks for dropping by and sharing this very special event with me. And don’t you think the cover is so pretty?  :-P 

 

 

I Love Dragons…

Especially when they look like this guy.

 

Today marks Day One of Are You a Dragonista? month.

“Is this a new National Holiday?” you ask. Unfortunately, no. But I’ve banded together with a group of authors who also write about dragons, and we’re doing an in-your-face push to raise awareness of all things dragon. Kinda like a Public Service Announcement, but a lot more fun. 

Paranormal Romance is filled with waves of the “hot new thing.” Vampire-love exploded with Meyer’s Twilight series. Werewolves and other shifters are going strong with help from the likes of Nalini Singh and Shelly Laurenston. But it’s time for dragons to take their rightful place as the hottest thing in Paranormal romance. I mean, geeze, some of them literally breath fire. How much hotter can you get?

So if you’re interested in discovering your favorite dragonwriter, I invite you to join us on Facebook for the month of September. We’ll be featuring dragon-centric romance novels all month, offering giveaways of draconian “stuff”, and sharing media and websites that feed our love of dragons.

Speaking of giveaways, here’s one for you right now!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ten Good Reasons

Stress & the (Un)Productive Writer

Stress—though technically not (my spellchecker eagerly reminds me), it feels like it should be a four-letter word.

 

You know the kind I’m talking about. Those words that made your mom threaten to wash your mouth out with soap if she heard them cross your lips. The ones you utter when you stub your toe. The graphic ones that roll so easily off your tongue in moments of intense…. Stress!

 

There it goes again. That word just crops up wherever it wants.

 

We can’t get away from it. Stress is part of life. It’s how we deal with it that matters.

 

As romance writers, it might be hard to get into a groove writing about the beauty of love and romance when our own personal lives aren’t going so smoothly. I’ve had times when I felt like switching to penning a horror novel, or a murder mystery, or a zombie thriller. Or a short story where someone drops a bomb and everyone is obliterated—

 

at least those creating the stress (darn word) in my life. 

 

 Alas, it’s not that easy.

 

So how do you keep the lows in life from dragging you down, slowing your progress, even worse…bringing it to a halt?

 For me it’s like a mind game. Let me step into my characters’ world for a bit because here are problems I can solve. Here are stressors (that’s 5 times now, but who’s counting?) that I can melt away. If I keep pounding at the keyboard, my characters will get their HEA.

 

I’ve had the privilege of hearing the incomparable Nora Roberts speak at several RWA national conferences. Each time she’s passed along a similar piece of advice when asked how she’s managed to be so prolific. It’s simple really, according to Nora:

 

Sit your butt in your chair, and write.

 Quit whining, and write.

 Quit F@ing around, and write.

 

My question for the day is: What keeps you pecking away at the keyboard? Or, how do you de-stress (it just keeps coming back to haunt me, doesn’t it?) so you can be productive?

 

A looming deadline and your sense of commitment to your obligations? I’ll say, good ol’ Catholic guilt and the need to not let others down are powerful forces within me! J

 

A driving need to prove you can finish the damn book?

 The desire to give your characters the story they deserve?

 

Those fan letters clamoring for your hero’s story and your compulsion to give your readers what they want?

 

What drives you to ignore the stressors (7—if this were my manuscript I’d be editing out several of these) and remain productive?

 

Or what works to help you remain productive?

 

 This four letter word—yes, I know it’s really 6, just go with me on this metaphor trip, will ya?—can’t be eradicated, but it can definitely be tamed, managed, assuaged.

 

In this crazy world of stress-inducing ugliness, let’s band together to help one another get through the day, leap the chasm before us, climb over the wall looming in front of us, or cling to each other for a few moments while we catch our breath before we keep on keeping on.

 

 Because stress—for the 8th and final time—will not define us. It will not deter us. It will not defeat us.

We’re romance writers, and nothing can stop the positivity our work brings to the world!

 

 

Whatever your art, make space for the unexpected

I was going to blog on keeping healthy as a writer but a quick round-up of my ailments warned me that I was in no position to advise anybody.   As I don’t want to sound like a poor, martyred whinger I’ll sum them up as;

Back ache

Awful knees

Occasional migraines

Traumatised fingers

The backache and the migraines have been my fellow travellers for more years than I can recall.  The knees and the fingers I can put down to two years of solid writing to get The Dress Thief from being a requested manuscript to a book on the shelves.   I have sat at a desk, typing words for more hours than nature ever intended.  And yes, I’m contemplating a stand up desk and have tried those kneeler chairs.  Neither is quite satisfactory.  My life-saver is walking three times a day, about 22 miles a week.  I keep telling myself to go swimming and to get my bicycle repaired.  And frankly, until I do either of these things, I’m nobody’s guru. 

Spot the bike; in there somewhere

So, thinking last night ‘what can I write about for the Firebirds’ blog?’ I decided to let my mind roam and it headed for its comfy sofa labelled, ‘Kicking creative ass.’   It’s a theme I return to often because, as a writer and occasional painter, I find myself sinking into well-trodden patterns of work.  That conflicts with my desire to keep my work fresh, for others and for myself.  The question is – how to allow in change without surrendering hard-won techniques?

In my old corporate copywriter days I worked for a huge company whose mission statement was ‘Creating a culture of continuous improvement.’   They paraded the philosophy but everyone was so busy shoring up their own mini-empire, they rarely looked over the edge of their desk to the company beyond.  As for customers  - what customers?  When it comes to creativity, maybe we should STAND on our desks and take a panoramic view. 

This is where the fun begins because the subconscious mind is a hungry infant.  Feed it often and generously and it gets more playful, more open.  I will give you an example.

Last Monday, at about 5pm, my dear friend Chrissie rang me and said, ‘I’ve got two free tickets to Snape*, for the prom concerts.  Do you want to go?’

Me (in head):  Nooooooo.  I spent all yesterday until 2 am finishing the first half of The Milliner’s Secret so it was in my editor’s in-box as she arrived for work.  I got four hours sleep.  And it’s Monday.  I never go out on Monday (hangover from school days).   What I said was; ‘Um … all right.  Who’s playing?’

Chrissie:  Something or other.  Not sure.  It’s part of their summer concert season, and I’ll pick you up at half six.

We went, no idea what we were in for, and were privileged to see Evan Christopher’s  ‘Django a la Creole’ which is a fusion of the hot jazz gypsy swing of Django Reinhardt, with a New Orleons, Cuban, reggae rhythm.  If that makes no sense,  here’s the link. Clarinet, two guitars and a double bass, sublime. I came away feeling that my creative tree, which had grown stately and inflexible, had been given a brand new branch.   It gets better.  

On Friday, at dinner with friends who were about to depart for India, leaving me their Labradors to look after, I was offered another pair of free tickets to the Snape proms.  I rang Chrissie, who to her credit, said, ‘Wow yes,’ then, ‘Who’s on?’

Me: ‘Um, not sure.  Penguin-Something.’

It was The Penguin Café, an ensemble playing a fusion of folk, Blue Grass, classical, rock, and many other things I would have to be a musicologist to describe.   Again, sublime and musically complex. Another branch sprouted from my creative tree.   As I sat in Row Z up in the Gods, a radical twist in the plot of The Milliner’s Secret suggested itself.  And last night, I dreamed that I was in my car, in heavy traffic, and couldn’t get the hand-brake to work.  I was sliding backwards downhill.  A panicky dream suggesting I’d stirred up issues of losing control simply by grabbing an opportunity to get out of the house.

Easy, isn’t it, to get locked into the processes of living?  Or to try and micro-manage the future out of fear.  Trusting to chance, letting in the random, can be worrying, but it’s often the agent of shift in the creative process. 

Do you have a favourite way of ass self-kicking?

Let me end by quoting Wiki’s entry for Simon Jeffes, the original founder of the Penguin Café Orchestra who created a fresh and original sound because he was dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by classical music.

 

“ In 1972  …. I was on the beach sunbathing and suddenly a poem popped into my head. It started out ‘I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe, I will tell you things at random’ and it went on about how the quality of randomness, spontaneity, surprise, unexpectedness and irrationality in our lives is a very precious thing. And if you suppress that to have a nice orderly life, you kill off what’s most important.  ”

 

*Snape Maltings, formerly a rambling malt  and barley warehouse for the beer industry on the River Alde in Suffolk. It was turned into a concert hall in the 1940s by composer Benjamin Britten and singer Peter Pears.  It now has an arts centre and a loft-living complex.  I intend to have a flat there when I’m rich and famous.  

What’s in a Name?

It used to be that if you wrote romance, you did it under a pseudonym as a matter of course. Now, though, I see a lot more writers keeping their own names and proudly pointing to their book covers. These days, if you come up with a pen name, there’s usually a reason. Maybe you work as an educator or a lawyer or some other job where you can’t comfortably risk the exposure, or you write two different genres and need to avoid confusion.

Interestingly, if you look at old book titles, it seems like every pen name was Anglo. No matter what the author’s ethnicity really was, everyone was a WASP on paper. I don’t know how this came about. Woodiwiss isn’t a common name, after all. Nor is Heyer. But it seems to have evolved that way over time, and most authors seem to follow suit. Maybe because publishers believed an author’s name should be easy to pronounce, or maybe they thought it should feel familiar. Comfortable. But in so doing, romance authors’ names became homogenized to a surprisingly large extent.

When I first started writing romance, I knew I’d need a pen name because I also planned to write YA. I needed that separation between the sexy and the relatively chaste. So I came up with a name: Talia Daniels, a nod to my husband’s name. But when I went to register it, I discovered a bunch of Talia Danielses. Who knew?

So I decided to come up with a middle initial. And of course I chose Q, because, well, why not?

My husband, the aforementioned Daniel, scoffed. “What name begins with Q?”

“Quinn.”

“Use that. It sounds better than Q.”

And so Talia Quinn Daniels was born. The first time I said the name aloud was when the RWA board member called to say I was a Golden Heart finalist. It sounded awfully strange in my own ears, but I went with it. I figured I’d get used to it.

Until it came time to design my covers. Turns out Talia Quinn Daniels is an awful lot of letters to fit on a cover that needs to be readable in thumbnail format. The length of the name was crimping my design choices.

And so Talia Quinn was born. It still sounded strange to my ears, but again, I figured I’d get used to it.

Then I looked around and realized just how many other romance authors named Quinn there are. And I started to get “Find out the origin of your name!” Facebook ads talking about its innate Irishness. And, um, well, I’m not Irish. Not anywhere near. That doesn’t have to matter, but somehow it did. Because, by whitewashing my name choice, wasn’t I aiding and abetting the genre’s tendency toward a mainstreamed homogeneity? My real name is almost excessively exotic, and I like that about it.

I realize it’s unusual to change my name at this stage–not to take on a new authorial identity, I mean, but to keep the same one, only shift it slightly. But it feels right. And so I’m now:

Talia Surova.

My mother’s father came to America in 1910 as a nine-year-old boy. When he became an adult, he changed his name from Surovsky to something more Americanized. I’m simply changing it back. Returning to my family roots. So far it sounds a lot less strange to my ears. A lot more like me.

Does an author’s name matter to you? Do you find it evokes a character? And do you think that colors your read?

And if you’ve taken on a pseudonym, how did you choose it, and why did you go for one? And if you haven’t, what made you decide not to?

Ask Tate and Noelle

Today on the Firebirds blog, we have two very special guests, Tate Grayson and Noelle Butler. They’ve graciously stepped away from their day jobs as radio talk show hosts between the pages of  Tell Me Something Good–Firebird Jamie Wesley’s debut novel–to answer a few questions.

But first, let’s get to know our experts. If you’re looking for advice on all things sports, Tate Grayson is your guy. Want to know who’ll be going first in the next draft, or which baseball player is currently sitting closest to a perfect 4.0 RBI? He’s the man to ask. 

But if you’re interested in understanding what makes a couple tick, Noelle Butler is your woman. A trained psychologist, Noelle will be here all day to help you figure out just what spice is missing from your relationship.

And if things get a little tense between our two hosts, no worries. That’s what popcorn was invented for!

Our first question is from Tamra in the sunny Southwest…

Dear Noelle,

After talking to some of my girlfriends, I’m beginning to think my fiancé isn’t exactly…normal. Is it odd that he likes to organize my closet, and my shoes, by color and season, but only after he tries them on? I’ve found my lingerie drawers are equally neat, now that we’ve moved in together.

Signed,
Organized but Confused

Noelle: Thanks for the question, Organized but Confused. This is a toughie.

Tate: I’ll say!  

Noelle: Tate, she asked me, not you. The reason I say it’s a toughie is because it depends on how you feel about your fiancé’s actions. It seems he likes to cross-dress, which isn’t the end of the world. We all have our kinks, and this is his. Are you comfortable with it? That’s really up to you. I’d talk to him about it, and see how he responds. Only you can decide if this is something you can deal with if he chooses to continue to engage in the activity.

 

Our second question is from Kathleen in beautiful Budapest.

Dear Tate,

I am in a hot, new relationship with a man who lives and breathes sports. I know nothing about any sport, but I want to get closer to him, so I need to learn fast – how can I become an athletic supporter?

Signed,

Green but Game

Tate: Athletic supporter, you say? Yeah, an athletic supporter is also known as a jock strap. I don’t think that’s what you meant. Or maybe it is. As Noelle said, we all have our kinks.

Noelle: Tate, really.

Tate: What? I’m just answering the woman’s question.

Noelle: Then answer it.

Tate: Okay, okay, Doc. Don’t get your panties in a twist. Green, here’s what you do. It’s baseball season. Baseball is pretty easy to pick up. I’m sure you know three strikes and you’re out. Watch some games. Listen to the announcers as they call the game. Read the postgame articles where they dissect what happened. ESPN needs to become your favorite channel.

But really, the number one thing you need to do is make sure this is something you want to do. Take up a new interest becomes it interests you, not to make some guy like you. You have to like yourself first. And make sure he’s putting in the same effort to learn about things that interest you.

Noelle: I knew you had some redeeming qualities.

Tate: I know.  

And our third comes to us from KD in Florida.

Dear Tate and Noelle,

My wedding is planned for the fall and the SEC college football schedule was just released.

There’s a huge rivalry game scheduled at the same time as the wedding. Is it wrong for my fiancee to ask me to change our wedding date to another time of year so there won’t be a conflict?

Signed,

Not a die-hard fan

Tate: Nope, not at all. You live in SEC country, and we all know football is king there.

Noelle: Tate, I’m just going to ignore you. As my followers know, I advocate the three C’s – cool, commitment, and communication. My fourth unofficial C is compromise. I say don’t change the date, but change the time of the wedding if you can. Get married before the game and turn the game on during the reception. In a corner. With an iPad, so they’re not disturbing the other guests.

Tate: Good idea, Doc. Here’s another idea. Sports fans know all the tricks to not missing games. The number one trick is the DVR. Record that bad boy and promise death on anyone who spoils the game. And the beauty of the DVR is that you can skip the commercials and game action breaks, so it really does only take an hour of your time.  

 Thanks so much, Noelle and Tate, for stopping by! If you’d like to hear more from our lively duo, I suggest…no, I ORDER you to go out and purchase a copy of Tell Me Something Good, available today from all major retailers!

Amazon | B&N | Google Play | iBooks | All Romance 

To celebrate the release of Tell Me Something Good, Jamie is giving away a Kindle. Answer the following question in the comments and fill out the Rafflecopter – What did you think of Tate and Noelle’s advice? Would you advise something different?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And if you’re still on the fence about buying Tate and Noelle’s book, here’s the blurb:

 

Two radio show hosts. One show. Who will come out on top?

In a moment of restlessness, Tate Grayson sold his multimillion-dollar company and spun his love of sports into a radio talk show. Life, and love, is too short to take seriously—a fact he enjoys rubbing in uptight radio host Noelle Butler’s face.

After the death of her parents, a tragedy she blamed on herself, Noelle vowed to live a controlled, focused life. Now a psychologist, she channels her need for connection into her radio show. But when the arrogant sportscaster next door tells listeners men shouldn’t get married, she’s all too happy to yank the silver spoon out of his overprivileged mouth.

Their heated on-air arguments are a hit, but when the station director forces them to do a joint show for two weeks, Tate and Noelle object. They can’t stand each other, despite the attraction sizzling beneath every interaction. But if they can’t pull the struggling radio station back from the brink, they’ll lose their jobs. Or worse, their hearts.

Amazon | B&N | Google Play | iBooks | All Romance 

Firebird Debut: The Dress Thief

The Dress Thief, Natalie Meg Evans’ debut novel, is a perfectly delectable read, with suspense and romance set against the rising tide of approaching war in the Paris of 1937. Above all, though, Alix Gower’s story comes alive in the world of haute couture, as she uses her talent and skills to move from a stable but stifling job as a bilingual telephone operator toward her goal of opening her own salon. Along the way she becomes entangled in the dangerous pursuit of copying fashion (we first meet her slipping into a shop to memorize a newly released Hermes scarf), a path not so easy to leave when the time comes.There is mystery in Alix’s past as well, going back to the murder of her artist grandfather in Alsace in 1903. What is the connection between the Comte de Charembourg (the Alsatian aristocrat who befriended Alix’s late English father during World War I and later paid for her eduction) and Alix’s Alsatian Jewish grandmother, who shares her small Paris appartment and rightly fears the rise of anti-Semitism? Will the truth about her grandfather’s death turn Alix’s life upside down?

The Dress Thief is broad in scope, with a variety of interesting supporting characters, including the denizens of the fashion world, from the lowly seamstresses to the designers, the wealthy American woman involved in fashion copying, and the bohemian artist Bonnet for whom Alix sometimes poses.

The men in Alix’s life are equally varied. There is Paul, the young day laborer who lives on a boat, caring for his two young sisters and making ends meet by selling Alix’s sketches; Monsieur Javier, the designer who gives Alix a job and encouragement; Verrian, the English journalist drawn deep into the Spanish Civil War; and Martel, the dangerous night club owner.

The most fascinating element in The Dress Thief is the world of Paris high fashion in the late 1930s when the coming war casts a shadow that will change everything. Natalie Meg Evans portrays this world in wonderful detail, from the seamstresses toiling in the workrooms to the society women shopping in the salons, from the small salons filled with copies to the top designers struggling to create a successful collection every season.

As Alix carves out a life for herself in this world, she makes some debatable, if understandable, decisions along the way, but she never loses sight of her goals. It’s a difficult journey, but a fascinating one, and The Dress Thief portrays it beautifully.

At this time The Dress Thief does not have an American distributor, but it can be ordered from the Book Depository (free shipping and quick delivery just about anywhere). Natalie Meg Evans’ next book, The Milliner’s Secret, will be out next spring. I’m very much looking forward to it.

Books, Books, Books!

So, the Romance Writers of America Annual Conference was held in late July. It’s the conference that holds a special place in the Firebirds’ hearts because we got to be Golden Heart finalists together and meet each other in person!

Now, the official reason we go to RWA is to network, to meet editors and agents, to get a pulse on what’s going on in the romance industry and the publishing industry as a whole. Now, that’s all true, but the real reason I (and others even if they don’t admit it) go to RWA is to GET BOOKS!!

I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise that a writers love to read. Books are so shiny and pretty and filled with wonderful stories. Every year, I tell myself that I’m going to control myself at RWA and not take quite so many books.

Every year, I lie. I walk into the signings and there’s Author A I Love and Author B I REALLY Love and Author C Who I’ve Been Meaning To Try and they are just sitting there giving their books away FOR FREE. So I take them even though I know the odds that I’ll read them all is small.

I love writing, but the downside to being a writer is that I don’t read as much as I used to. And yet I still love getting books – buying them and hoarding them.

This year, I “only” took about 50. I showed restraint, I did.

Some of my books from RWA 2014!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of my OTHER books from RWA 2014!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read Cara McKenna’s LAY IT DOWN (before it was released), and really enjoyed it. Now, I’m reading Jill Shalvis’ It Had to Be You, which I got at last year’s conference.

So yeah, my name is Jamie, and I have a problem. Which I LOVE!

What books are you reading? If you went to the conference, how many did you get, and have you read any of them yet?

Release Day for Jumped!

Some of you may remember back in December, when Colette Auclair’s debut equestrian masterpiece, Thrown, was made available in retail locations the world over (well, some of the world). Let’s see if the book cover (which is awesomely lovely) helps to jump-start your memory. Pretty, right? And guess what? The story inside was just as lovely.

And now, it’s the day I’ve been waiting for, to pick up the next book in the series, Jumped. Here’s a quick blurb:

Thoroughly enjoying herself at her friend Melissa’s wedding, Amanda Vogel’s best friend Beth finds herself in an unexpected state of shock when she realizes she’s been seated next to her ex-husband, Finn, at the reception. Determined to not let this fluster her, Beth strikes up a conversation only to learn Finn isn’t the same man she walked away from.

Relieved the reception is over, Beth is looking forward to a relaxing weekend against the beautiful backdrop of sunny Aspen at Amanda and Grady’s estate. Little does she know Finn will be partaking in the weekend activities too. But just as Beth decides to keep as much distance between her and Finn as possible, Finn has a terrible accident and Beth is stuck being his bedside nurse.

Over the course of the following weeks, Beth and Finn discover that the wounds of their failed marriage are not all that’s left. There are sparks…and hope. But just as they decide to give their relationship another try, Finn confesses a huge secret that could destroy everything he’s fought to get back—Beth, their relationship, and another chance at love.

Will Beth turn away, or will she take a leap of faith and say “I do” once (again) and for all?

And here’s another beautiful cover.

So do me a favor and pick up a copy. I’d love to hear what you think of it! (And what do you know? There are buy links right here. Coincidence? I plead the 5th!)

Simon & Schuster | Amazon | B&N | iBooks