Lorenda Christensen's Blog, page 5

Welcome Connie Taxdal, 2014 Golden Heart® Romantic Suspense Finalist!!!!

 

2014 Golden Heart Romantic Suspense Finalist

 

Hello to all our Firebird readers out there. Today I have the pleasure of hosting 2014 Golden Heart® Romantic Suspense finalist, Connie Taxdal. This is an extra special moment for me. Connie and I are both members of RWA’s Tampa Area Romance Authors (TARA) chapter. So, Connie isn’t just a new Golden sister, she is also my long-time TARA sister. And I am so proud and excited for her and all the great things yet to come in her writing career.

Thank you, Karen, for inviting me to the Firebirds blog.

You are very welcome, Connie. I’m thrilled to get this chance to introduce you to all my Firebird sisters.

Tell us the title of your book and what it’s about?

It’s a romantic suspense called Fatal Fragrances. When Greg Franks, CFO of a San Antonio, Texas, candle manufacturer, discovers canisters of cocaine hidden within the wax, he’s determined to avenge the life his sister lost to drugs—even if his boss is the source. He hires a female PI, Teri Gilbert, to help him investigate, but as their passion for one another builds, so do the dangers. Can they expose the drug traffickers before their journey together turns fatal?

It sounds like an awesome read. You’ve put a unique spin on a familiar story line. But I have to ask, is it just a coincidence that your setting is San Antonio when the RWA conference is there this year?       No, I grew up in Oklahoma and wanted the flavor of the west, but without making it a cowboy story. I picked San Antonio because the Texas Mexican mafia declares the city its “capital”.

You mention to the Mexican mafia. Is Mexico where the drugs are coming from in your story?      I have them coming in from Bolivia, South America, because it’s not the usual country people think of when drug trafficking is mentioned. It’s also known for an abundance of flowers, spices, and fruits used in scented candles. 

That is a clever combination. Editors and agents are always saying they want the same ideas but with a new or fresh twist on them. I think you’ve done that very well with the fragrances. What other things did you do within your story to make it unique?     A candle manufacturer is an unexpected, unassuming business to associate with drug trafficking. How many people, lighting their fragranced candle, see it as a carrier for drugs?

I really like how you’ve taken something everyone would call benign or harmless and given it a sinister purpose. Since we’ve established your plot is unique and well developed, can you share with us something interesting about your characters.    My hero, Greg, is motivated by two incidents in his early life: the possible suicide of his father after his family is plunged into poverty and his sister’s death from drugs. As an adult, he vows never to be poor and to teach kids about the dangers of drugs. Male readers can associate with Greg’s rise to financial stability and women will applaud him for his interest in children.

My heroine, Teri’s father is a strict, military man who doesn’t know how to show affection. Thinking she’s flawed, she strives to be perfect. Businesswise, she’s fighting a slew of adversities to build her company. Female readers can relate to Teri because most of us try to please everyone and men will sympathize with her attempt to strengthen her firm.

You’ve focused your characters to reach a larger audience in a very targeted, yet believable  and appealing way. What made you decide to write this specific story?      My older brother and I live states apart, but we talk on the phone every Friday night. One evening he relayed a story of a Mexican cartel bringing drugs into Texas. We laughed as our discussion about methods, ways to fool drug-sniffing dogs, and Homeland Security’s attempt to squelch drug trafficking became silly. After two hours of conversation, I really had to pee and when I stepped into the bathroom, I spotted the scented Yankee candle jar and…waalaa! 

They do say inspiration can strike anywhere. J

We Firebirds each had something going on in our lives that caused us to enter the 2012 Golden Heart®. For us, receiving “the call” was an affirmation that we were moving ahead in a way we had only dreamed we could before the phone rang that day. Can you tell us your reaction when you learned you were a finalist and what it means to you?    During one of our plotting days, my writing mentor and I had Chinese delivered for lunch. When I cracked open my fortune cookie, the slip of paper read; “A long term goal will soon be achieved.” My friend danced and clapped saying I’ll final in the Golden Heart. I laughed, never imagining I’d reach that goal out of all the fabulous entries the contest receives. Three days later, I got “THE CALL”!       Being a Golden Heart finalist solidifies my belief in myself. I’ve become more confident in my writing. I’ve formed a bond with the other 2014 finalists. But most importantly, the experience gives me a chance to encourage members of our TARA chapter’s Push-to-Pro Program. If I can final in such a prestigious contest…so can they.

PS: My “fortune” slip is taped to my dresser mirror. Hopefully, it will work again and I’ll win my Golden Heart category!

It has been a pleasure having you on the blog today, Connie. I will have my fingers crossed for you at the awards ceremony.  And all of us Firebirds wish you the very best in achieving all your writing goals.

Thanks again for having me on the Firebirds blog today. I’ll be around to chat, so please leave a comment.

Connie wants to know:  What sayings of encouragement or inspiration do you have taped to your mirror? 

Please share your encouraging phrases below in the comments section.

*To find out more about Connie and her writing visit her at www.connietaxdalauthor.com or on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/connietaxdal...

 

writing process–blog tag post

There’s a blog tag going around the author community exploring everyone’s writing process. I thought it might be fun to share mine here as well as on my own blog, both for my writer friends and for interested readers. A look behind the curtain, if you will.

I was tagged by the awesome Sonali Dev, my Golden Heart 2013 sister (her debut A Bollywood Affair comes out in October) and I’ll tag a couple of writer friends at the bottom of this post.

On to the questions:

1)     What am I working on?

I’m finishing up pre-publication prep on one book, doing my agent’s notes on another, and developing a third. Yes, my head is exploding. But I suspect this is the way of the writer and I have to suck it up and get used to it. Multitasking, I am learning your secrets, yes I am.

First book:

Call Me Saffron, my sexy new contemporary romance. Here’s the blurb:

Samantha Lilly is in a long-term relationship… with her vibrator. She can’t handle a serious commitment, but casual affairs don’t do it for her either. So she’s resigned herself to being alone.

Her call-girl roommate Jeanine has other ideas. She persuades Samantha to take her place for one night with Dylan Krause, an incredibly hot prospective client recovering from a messy divorce. She says it’ll be good for Samantha to be with someone without her usual expectations and complications.

It’s more than good. It’s intense, extraordinary, and emotionally devastating. During their long, intimate night together, they bare, not just their bodies, but their souls.

But after that one amazing night, Samantha flees. This feels too real for her. And yet she can’t forget Dylan, even though she tries.

Then one day, he walks into the architecture firm where she works. Seeing him threatens to destroy the careful walls she’s built around her heart—and this time she can’t run away.

It goes on sale June 9th. It’s Book One in the Greenpoint Pleasures series, which is closely linked with my Greenpoint Artists series, with lots of cross-over characters.

So here’s where I am with it:

Copy edits and proofreading: check. Ebook formatting: check. (Well, mostly.) Cover: check. Book up on NetGalley for reviewers: check.

To do: write acknowledgements page. Format for print. Bite nails to the quick in anticipation of launch. Hold breath in anticipation of same. Release breath, realizing that two weeks is too long to hold my breath. Bite nails some more.

Second book:

My contemporary YA. My fabulous agent has given me excellent notes, the kind that deepen secondary relationships and add richness to the world. The kind that don’t require a major overhaul, but that do require just the right words in the just right spots. In other words, the kind that make me second and third guess myself. But I’m making progress, and this is good.

Third book:

The next one in my Greenpoint Artists series, the sequel to Hold Me Tight. It’s tentatively titled Dream of Me, and is about Georgette, who holds her emotions at bay by psychoanalyzing them to death, and the man she’s only seen in dreams—or so she thinks. It’s not a paranormal story. It may or may not involve a smidge of amnesia. And that’s all I’m saying right now.

The sequel to Call Me Saffron is calling my name, but I’m plugging my ears and ignoring its siren call.

 

2)     How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’ll only speak for the romance novels here, not the YA.

I write contemporary romance. It’s a hot subgenre right now, but generally only in two arenas: small town and erotic romance. In the post-Fifty Shades world, the latter usually involves billionaires and BDSM. I have no objection to either type of novel, believe me, but that’s not what I write. I’m a city kid. I grew up in New York City, went to college in Boston, and have lived as an adult in both Los Angeles and New York. I could write a country-set book, sure, and maybe someday I will, but I love my cities. I think the close-knit community exists here, as does local color. And it’s what I know well.

I also tend to write prickly or difficult women who guard their hearts, paired with not-alpha-but-not-beta-either guys who often have a strong nurturing streak. Is that unusual? I’m not sure, but maybe?

 

3)     Why do I write what I do?

I love reading all kinds of romance—and all kinds of books, for that matter. But you have to adore research to write historical, and you have to excel at world-building to write paranormal, and you have to love kink to write erotic. I like writing books that take place here and now, with real-world problems, but with a fairy-tale sense of slightly heightened reality.

 

4)     How does my writing process work?

I’ve always thought that writing fiction is a balance between left brain and right brain. This pretty much defines my process. I’m not exactly a plotter and I’m not exactly a pantser. I’ve written extensively detailed synopses (on What’s Yours is Mine), but I’ve also written out just a few pages of thoughts before starting (on Draw Me In).

In general, I get the kernel of the conflict or inciting incident and open up a brainstorming file on my computer, where I ask myself tons of questions about plot, character and conflict. When I start thinking about it while taking a shower and riding the subway and making dinner, I know I’m onto something. When I’m too impatient to wait any longer, I start writing the manuscript, which carries with it all those writerly why-did-I-think-this-was-a-good-idea moments interspersed with spots of pure joy. Then one day, I write the last words and close the file.

And then open it again for the first revision.

Then I give it to my spouse, who reads it and gives me feedback. He’s a fabulous first reader, because he works in TV editing and is aware of emotional throughlines and is able to analyze when he’s falling out of the story and why.

Then I rewrite the sucker.

Then I give to a few trusted beta readers who are also writers.

Then I do their feedback.

Then I give it to my editor, who is my copy editor, but also has a really good eye for when something is going to feel off to a romance reader.

Then I do her notes.

Then she gives it to the proofreader.

Then I do those edits.

Then I’m done and the characters go off and live their lives. And I miss them but wish them well in their new life together.

Then I open up a new brainstorming file and do it all over again.

 

I’m tagging two of my favorite writers:

Firebird/Lucky 13 sister—and six-time Golden Heart finalist—romantic suspense writer Sharon Wray, whose blog posts always touch my heart and make me cry in the best way.

And Firebird sister, historical romance writer Kathleen Bittner Roth, who has such maturity and insight, she too makes me choke up, and who has sixteen kajillion lovely historicals coming out this year (or possibly just six) from Kensington and Entangled, with the first, The Seduction of Sarah Marks, to be released on June 9th.

Look for their posts next week on their blogs (and maybe here too).

A launch, a promise and my tallest tale about Wimbledon

 

Generally, the moment my fingers touch a keyboard, they go off like a nervous thoroughbred on a race course.  Except when it comes to writing book #2, when they go all stiff and shy.  What with the editing stages of The Dress Thief and publicising it ahead of its launch on 29th May, I haven’t got into the zone with book #2, to be called ‘The Milliner’s Secret’.    If I could find a clear corner in my office, I’d sit in it and rock.

It’s a dilemma all published writers face, whether we’re with an established house or doing it independently.  No longer can we fire a book out into the world and say, ‘Fly little fella’ and go back to what we were doing before.  We must fly with it, holding its wing and guiding it through the impenetrable flock of other ‘little fellas’ that have been launched at the same time.

So how to give our published books the best chance, without ending up in a corner because we can’t get on with book 2?  As time is precious, a big, scatter-gun PR campaign is probably not the way, unless we can afford somebody to do it for us.  It’s why I’m narrowing the focus.  Building a bigger social network platform, getting online reviews and guest blogspots.   As far as traditional PR goes, I’m keeping it local.  People living in your own backyard may read your book because you are local, not because they necessarily read books.  It’s a niche opportunity and not one to be missed.

When I say local, however, I actually mean everywhere you’ve ever lived or studied, or rocked the boat.   The other day, I wrote a blog for a newspaper in Wimbledon, SW19 (the tennis Wimbledon) where I lived in my early twenties.  I shoe-horned in my best after dinner fable about the day I was working in a quaint old bakery in Wimbledon Village and a group of unbelievably tall African American men came in asking for doughnuts.   Or should that be donuts?  Anyway, in they came en masse, stooping to get through the doorway and filling the shop with their singlet-ed presence.   I nearly cricked my neck making eye-contact but I knew who they were because I’d watched their cartoon show as a kid.   They were the Harlem Globetrotters, doing what it says on the tin, globe-trotting.  Yes, they were there, it wasn’t me hallucinating after a night on the cider.  If somebody reads that a girl who once lived in their town is launching a novel, and sold jam impregnated baked goods to superstars, they’ll think, ‘Did I know her?’ and you have their attention, if only for a moment.

But while physical media is great,  the big party is online.  The advice I am picking up, over and over, is that online reviews are key.  But you know this, friends.   Family, friends, colleagues present and past, neighbours, neighbours’ friends, even their children and dogs, have to be asked to post reviews.  Ideally favourable ones.   And here I make a confession.  By not being sufficiently clued up on the importance of Amazon reviews (and in the interests of impartiality, those of other online retailers too) I haven’t done my share of reviewing other authors’ work.   Father, forgive me for I have sinned.   Since I will be asking friends to help me, and mutuality is the soul of networking, I hereby promise that if asked, I will order, read and review your book in a timely fashion.  I will give my website a brush-up and dedicate half of the home page to linking to other people’s books. And so now . . . drum roll and with a lump in the throat, here it is, my baby. 

Published in ebook form on May 29th and as a cute, old fashioned paperback on June 5 and available from -

 

http://bit.ly/1jcla3O   The Book Depository

 

http://amzn.to/RqCHzx  Amazon.com

 

http://amzn.to/1s6DKjf  Amazon.co.uk

This book was written in two phases, first when I was a young mum and had to creep to the computer when my little boy was asleep, and latterly re-written in the last two years when I had time to write seamlessly.  It’s been a long time a-coming and I have no shame in saying that I am deeply proud of it.   My editor Kathryn Taussig and agent Laura Longrigg have been wonderful, and the book wouldn’t be here without them but it’s really for my husband Richard, who has the dedication line all to himself and Sam who put up with an author mother.  This is my favourite picture below, taken some 23 years ago when I was away from my desk, in the Lake District. I’m wondering if I can get a story out of it . . . woman in boat with camera launches book.  It could work.

Two Turtle Island Doves

Sprinkles on Top

Hot Buttered Yum

Inspirational Quotes

Life has a tendency to throw us curves. Sometimes they’re personal. Sometimes they’re professional. Sometimes it feels like they’re both.

Generally I try to focus on the positive—find the silver lining or the lesson in the teachable moment. But every once in a while I falter and I find myself sinking into doldrums.

When that happens, I try to remember the mantras taped to my bedroom mirror. Or I head to my “memorable quotes” board on Pinterest–www.pinterest.com/prisakiss

Well, today happens to be one of those days. Some personal baggage has gotten heavier lately and my novel revisions aren’t going as smoothly as I’d like. Part of me knows I just need to “keep on keeping on” and “this too shall pass”, after which I’ll feel stronger and healthier for having survived the storm.

Still, part of me needed a bit of inspiration.

In case some of you are going through a similar situation, I thought I’d share some quotes that help me get back to a healthier mindset.

Quotes like:

Now, I don’t ever plan on climbing to the top of a mountain like the adventurer in this pic. But I can totally relate to those feelings of triumph. Can you feel the freedom expressed in this open-armed stance? Or the coolness of the misty cloud on your face? Or the exhilaration of achieving a personal success?

I can.

Just reading this quote and soaking in the emotions the pic evokes within me is like taking a breath of invigorating air.

How about this quote:

This one makes me nervous and excited all at once. I’m not a big risk taker. Yet, I understand the value of letting go of fear and focusing on building self-confidence. It’s not something I’m good at doing. But it’s something I’m working on.

This pic—the words, the randomness in the splash of light and dark colors—gives me a sense of strength. Urges me to take that leap of faith. To believe in myself.

The onomatopoeia in this pic tickled my writing funny bone:

These are all notes of good advice I’ve said often to my girls, just not often enough to myself. For me it’s easier to help others when they’re down. The trick lies is in remembering my own good advice when the need arises.

And finally, here’s a quote I strive to live by every day:

It’s not always easy do this. But if I can look myself in the bathroom mirror after washing my face at the end of the day and know I’ve done my best to answer “yes” to each of these questions, then I can be at peace.

And isn’t that what we all long for—a sense of peace in our lives? It is for me.

Peace, strength, love and faith. Important values in my life.

So how about you? When you feel the doldrums coming on, what helps you kick them aside or hold them in check?

I’d love to hear what helps you “keep on keeping on” in the trials of life!

 

What is Your Passion?

Writers sometimes hit a point on their journey through publication where they feel stale. Our words don’t zing on the page like they do in our minds. Our story characters leave the page with only a ghost of a shell to remind us they were present. Our plots feel tired and trite and definitely worthy of being tossed in the muck and mire of a pigsty.

It’s those times that we need to take a step back from the pressure we’ve placed on our stories and ourselves. We need to take a break, recharge, exercise and remember our passion. We each have a passion that brings out love and attention to detail. A passion can show our core values and reinforce our focus for what’s important. When you shift your thoughts and remember, you’ll find a way to make your words zing, your characters three-dimensional and your plots fresh and new.

Passion can be as simple as capturing photos of flowers to creating a bed of blooming wonders.

Animals can capture our hearts and show love in return. We care. We nurture. We add them to our character’s lives for pleasure and conflict.

Walking the beach and following seagull prints can refresh our minds and provide a relaxing time for your plot to percolate. Or maybe a hike up the side of a mountain to be still with nature can lead you to a way to engage your reader.

Whatever your passion is, take a moment and think about it. Bring it out, shake it off and know that you’ll refresh your spirit when you’re following your passion.

Do you know what your passions are? What do you do to refresh your spirit?

War Paint, Fall Out Boy, and Winston Churchill: The Three Things All Writers Need to Win

“Wait for me!” my niece yells as she runs after the older kids. But her six-year old legs can’t keep up with the other four in the nine-to-thirteen set.

“You’re slow,” the nine-year old yells back and waves her off. “Just wait for us here and we’ll tell you what happens.”

“No!!! I want to be there with you. I want to do it too!” She huffs and puffs and runs. “Wait for me.”

“You’re not good enough, yet,” said the ten-year old. “Stay with Aunt Sharon.”

I follow behind, in my natural position as watcher, bearer of snacks, and on-the-ready first aider and sports agent. Which means I’m carrying the picnic basket, camera, and everything else I thought we might need for an all-day adventure in the canvas bag weighing down my shoulder.

“It’s okay,” I say to the girl who wishes she was bigger. “I’m here with you. And I promise we won’t miss anything.”

“But we will,” she whines. “They’ll give out the best baseball positions before I get there.”

Although tempted to point out that five children do not make a baseball team, I sigh and hand her the bat that sticks out of my bag at an odd angle and keeps hitting me in the head as I walk. “They can’t do anything without the bat. So before you give it to them, use it to bargain for a better position.”

“Okay.” Seemingly appeased with her new source of power, she smiles and takes off. But it doesn’t take long for her to turn around and come back for me.

“They’re gone. And they took the bat.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They just don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

Her shoulders slump forward in an exaggerated way and she sticks out her tongue. “How much it hurts to be left behind.” She kicks the ground. “I don’t like it. I want to be grown so I can be part of the group. And I want it now.”

My shoulders ache and I count the number of steps until we get to our favorite picnic table. I honestly don’t know what to say so I start to unload everything. She might be small, but she’s smart. And she’ll roll her eyes at any pity or insincere comments.

She’s a six-year old who demands honest answers from her adults.

In other words, she knows bullsh*t when she hears it.

It’s one of the things I admire most about her. So I hand her the only Coke in the bag. (It’s mine. Which means my options for lunch have been reduced to a warm juice box or the park’s water fountain)

She opens it with a practiced pop-fizz. “How come it’s so hard?”

“How come what’s so hard? Being small? Or being left behind?”

She looks up at me with those too-old eyes. “To be so close to what you want–so close you can almost touch it–and not be part of it. To watch everyone else doing what I want to do but can’t. It’s like holding an ice cream cone and not being able to lick it.”

My heart catches in my throat and the words from a friend of mine rush through my mind. Like all authors, she’s had her share of rejections. And despite being multi-published, the most recent rejection had been particularly painful. “I can see my goal in everyone around me who is moving forward,” she said, “but when I reach out to touch my dream, it vanishes. And I’m left behind. I really hate this time of year.”

I’d asked why, wondering if there was a particular time of year when the rejections were more difficult than others.

All she’d said was, “Conference season.”

And those two words had sent a cold wash through my body. I knew exactly what she was talking about. For those of us who are yet-to-be published, the hard moments include book signings you’re not a part of. The publisher parties. The awards programs. If there was ever a time during the year when an aspiring author felt left behind, alone and unwelcome, it was during conference season.

But I also knew the other truth. That once the published barrier was broken, the loneliness that comes from comparison doesn’t end. From what I could see, those feelings of inadequacy, the sense of being unseen, become amplified.

That snapping, barking fear, which hounds all people chasing a dream, never goes away. But when you finally have something to lose, the fear magnifies.

So even though I’ve had my own moments of being left behind, especially as my own writing friends became published and moved on without me, I’d had nothing to offer my friend then or my niece now.

Hallmark encouragements looked nice printed artistically on pieces of driftwood, but they wouldn’t give the six-year old the weapons to slay her insecurities.

And the truth was, in order to beat those feelings, we needed a weapon. A particularly sharp and scary one. Because, like my niece and my friend, I too was afraid I’d be left behind.

Afraid of remaining unseen.

Afraid that all the baseball field positions would be taken.

Afraid that there’d be nothing left by the time I arrived.

But I had to give my niece something.

I knelt in front of her. “Do you know who Winston Churchill was?”

“You mean the dog from the movie Oliver & Company?”

“No. He was the Prime Minister of Great Britain. And he had an important job to do. He had to stop the spread of evil throughout Europe and the rest of the world.”

“Wow.”

“He was terribly afraid they would lose the war, but he had a saying for those who had to face the enemy face-to-face. Never, never, never give up.”

She burped from too much Coke.

I stood. For many reasons, that quote is my absolute favorite. That quote never fails to keep me going. That quote was my last arrow.

Except it hadn’t worked on the six-year old. She needed something tangible, something concrete, something she could do, like when my daughter would get excited or upset about something and dance around the room singing High School Musical songs.

As I pull out the butterfly nets and lay them on the table, my niece’s direct stare demands an honest answer to a tough question.

Not some seventy year old quote from a man she’s never heard of.

She comes over to help and finds the battery powered iPod speaker. “I wish I could fly,” she says suddenly. “Then I could fly over my brothers and poop on them.”

I laugh out loud. “You don’t want to poop on them. You want to rise above them.” Then I smile, remembering something. “You know, I’m a member of a group call the Firebirds. We’re named after the Phoenix.”

“Cool,” says the thirteen year old girl who’d just arrived from the baseball field. “A mythological bird that rises from the ashes.”

“What do you do when you feel left behind?” the six-year old asks the teenager.

“I make a playlist,” says the teenager. “I have one for every situation. Reading a book, taking a bath, doing homework. But when I’m really upset, I make a playlist of Victory songs.”

“What’s a victory song?”

The teenager picks up her cousin and twirls her around and around until they both fall onto the ground in a pile of tickles and laughs and twisted limbs. “It’s a song you play before you do something hard, like take a test, or when you’re sad or your feelings are hurt. It’s a song that reminds you that you’ve already won. There’s even a Victory song called the Phoenix. It’s by Fall Out Boy.”

“So what is the victory song?” My niece jumps up and down. “I want to be a Phoenix. Then I won’t be scared anymore.”

“It’s not about not being scared,” says the teenager. “It’s about knowing what you want, in spite of the fear, then telling yourself you’re going to win anyway. The Victory song is just there to remind you that you’re exactly where God wants you to be and that it’s okay to be there.”

She pulls out her iPod and pops it on the speaker. Then she picks up some dirt, mixes it with the dregs of the Coke can, and makes a paste. “Get ready,” she says, spreading the mud on her cousin’s face. “We’re going to dance the Phoenix Victory Song.”

“What’s this?” she asks. “Face painting?”

“No, silly.” The teenager stands and smiles. “War paint. A true warrior never goes into battle without it.” Then she hits play.

As I dance with the two girls, disregarding the frowns from other picnickers, I realize that my daughter has just given me and my amazing Firebird sisters a weapon with which to slay our “left behind demons”. Our very own Victory song. (and how many GH classes have their own song?)

The Phoenix by Fall Out Boy

Let the conference season begin. Without loneliness. Without envy. Without fear.

But with love. Courage. And a whole lot of war paint.

Because none of us have been left behind. We’re exactly where we need to be.

We just needed a Victory song to remind us.

 

(Disclaimer from the teenage girl: The phoenix in the song is not to be confused with the uber-romantic dark exiled angel hero Phoenix from Jessica Shirvington’s Embrace YA series with whom said teenage girl is in a ship with because he’s now her OTP. Unfortunately, her ship with Phoenix is not Canon but she assures me it is still real and their shipping name is Phoellen.  

If you do not understand the terms in this disclaimer, ask one of the YA authors. I’m sure they’ll be happy to explain.)

 

All photographs courtesy of Sharon Wray.

 

Welcome Guest Nicole Helm – Dreams Do Come True!

Hello, everyone, today we’re joined by fabulous writer Nicole Helm, who’s going to share a very special moment in her publishing journey. Take it away, Nicole!

Hello, Firebirds! Thanks to Jamie for inviting me here today to talk about my upcoming Harlequin Superromance, TOO CLOSE TO RESIST.

Every book has a different journey or path, at least in my publication experience. Two years, five books published, and five in the pipeline to be published the rest of the year, and no book has gone exactly the same. TOO CLOSE TO RESIST earns its gold star for being the longest process from submission to contract, being my first print actually-on-some-bookstore-shelves book, and being the result of a contest entry.

When I submitted the book, I had entered just about every Harlequin.com contest/fast track/event I could fit my writing into for about two years. I’d gotten a lot of great feedback, and kept writing new books. I’d been published elsewhere, but I really wanted to write for Harlequin, especially their Superromance line. And, lucky me, in the fall of 2012 there was another contest to enter on the Harlequin message boards, this time for Superromance, which the book I was currently working on could fit very well. It was a pitch contest and I was excited to have my pitch chosen, a partial requested, and then after months of waiting a full (with some revisions). I did the revisions, sent them off at the beginning of 2013 and waited. In the meantime, I kept writing and selling elsewhere, but I loved and believed in this book and really hoped Superromance would be the right fit for it, especially after going to RWA in July of 2013 and hearing such great things about the editors at Harlequin.

In September, I heard from an assistant editor that she wanted a few more revisions to the manuscript, so I did those as quickly as possible and sent them off. A few days later, I got the call! TOO CLOSE TO RESIST will come out next month AND the second and third books in the series will follow in October (TOO FRIENDLY TO DATE) and the untitled third book next year. I absolutely adore my editor (all those people at RWA weren’t wrong) and can’t wait for this book to make it into readers hands. It’s got an uptight, damaged businessman hero and a free-spirited, creative artist heroine, who are kind of forced to live together. They were very fun to write.

A few weeks ago, I got my box of author copies. I got to give one to my mom for mother’s day (the book is dedicated to her), and send one to my grandma for her birthday, and just hold it in my hands with my name on the cover there. It’s really no different than my digital-only books, but the fact it will be in bookstores in a few weeks is its own little thrill.

No books journey is ever the same, but TOO CLOSE TO RESIST will always be my first print book, and that’s hard to beat. TOO CLOSE TO RESIST can be ordered at Harlequin.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo.

What little thrill have you experienced in your publishing journey (or other career or life journey if you’re not a writer)?

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Nicole’s Bio: I grew up with my nose in a book and a dream of becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, a husband, and two kids, I get to pursue that dream. I write down-to-earth contemporary romance over the backdrop of America�s flyover states for Samhain Publishing, Entangled Indulgence, and (later this year) Harlequin-E and Harlequin Superromance. I live in Missouri with my husband and two young sons, and write my novels one baby�’s nap at a time.