Mandy M. Roth's Blog, page 82
August 2, 2012
Series Delay and Muse Standoff
I’m often asked why one book comes out prior to another. Like, why one series book will come out long before another or why an unrelated title will come out when everyone has been waiting for a certain next book in a series. The answer often varies. Sometimes, publishers decide a release date and its set no matter what. I write for many different publishers. I have different series with diff pubs.
Also, a few things I’m waiting for the rights to the first books in a series to revert to me so they can be released as a whole with a new publisher. Other times something is found during edits that needs fixed, delaying the book’s release. And yet other times I can’t get my mind to focus and be fully part of the series world I created. Instead of pumping out a book that doesn’t match the feel of the rest of the series I wait. I would rather forgo sales than simply slap words on paper and throw a series title on it. That isn’t fair to my readers and it isn’t fair to my characters. I spend endless hours creating the worlds, creating the characters and breathing life into them. I could force it but the end product would read as such. I want to thank everyone for being so awesome about my releases and for embracing all of what I do. For loving me even when I need to clear my head and ignite the muse by stepping out of my genre and writing under a pen name. I know that you understand in the end it means stronger stories with my FULL heart poured into them. Never a book for the sake of a book or a book to “make a publisher happy” but in the end doesn’t satisfy my readers who become every bit as invested in my characters and worlds as I do. THANK YOU!
July 27, 2012
Snippet: Postin what I want to post
Snippet from Going the Distance by Mandy M. Roth
“You staying late?” Crosby asked as he held his bag over one shoulder. He was going through a painful separation from his long-time girlfriend and spent as much time as he could lending a hand at the gym.
Quinn glanced at his cousin, not really understanding the whole long-term relationship thing. When he found a woman he liked, he fucked her. That was all there was to it. He didn’t ask for more and he didn’t want more. Crosby was altogether different. He wanted to settle down and have the American Dream. The idea made Quinn shudder. Who in the hell wanted a picket fence and two point two children? Not him. “Yeah.”
“Want me to stick around? I could help you train?” The hopeful look in his cousin’s eyes was enough to make Quinn smile. As the Extreme Fighting Champion, Quinn was considered the shit around the gyms. Crosby got a kick out of the fact he chose to train in a gym in the area, rather than a big fancy one. The guy didn’t have room to talk. He still owned a rundown hotel in the neighborhood and also owned a big swanky one in the city.
“Nah, you go on home. I have it on good authority your mother made a big dinner and is expecting you.” One untimed hit by Quinn and Crosby would be dead. Didn’t matter that the guy also carried the blood of the wolf in him, that he was a wolf breed, and had the ability to shift forms like Quinn. He didn’t have the strength and the years of experience behind him. He wasn’t an alpha like Quinn. Not yet anyway. In a few years, maybe. For the time being, it would be too easy to accidently hurt him and that wasn’t something Quinn wanted to do.
Crosby groaned, kicking a foot out a little. “She called here lookin’ for me, didn’t she?”
“Maybe,” Quinn said with a slight smirk. “It’s a good thing. Means she cares and worries about you.” He refrained from commenting on how much he’d give to have his mother alive and worrying about him. He motioned to the back of the gym. “Hit the lights for me back there on your way out. I’m gonna stay here, do some reps and then shower.”
“Sure thing, man.” Crosby did as instructed and hurried off.
Quinn ran through two sets of free weights and then moved on to jumping rope. It helped his speed and agility, plus he tended to get lost in thought while doing it. A faint noise cut through the silence of the gym.
“What the hell?” Quinn stopped his training, set the jump rope aside and listened with his ultra-sensitive hearing. Assuming he’d imagined the sound, he moved to the next step in his nightly routine. He stood before the heavy bag, his hands bare and ready to strike. His knuckles were long since scarred over, no longer requiring tape or attention. He struck the bag and at the same moment, the noise returned.
“Arghh.”
His body cramped. Never had he responded to a sound in that way before. It was crippling, seeming to center in his groin. Catching his breath, his entire body strained as he listened for more. He heard it again and this time it was unmistakable.
A woman’s screams.
Not just any woman. One who was able to call upon his primitive side. The wolf that was as much a part of him as the very air he breathed raised its hackles, wanting to be freed. It was a side of himself he wasn’t embarrassed by, but one he didn’t let out often. When he did, bad things happened. In human form, Quinn wasn’t a man to be messed with. In wolf form, he was downright deadly.
He couldn’t deny going towards the woman in need. Her draw was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before and resistance was futile. She needed help and he needed her. It was basic but true.
Quinn had friends who had suffered through something similar—the inability to reject a certain pull or call to a female. In the end, it was because they were a destined pair. Mates. If it held true, that meant his mate really did exist and that she was in dire need of him.
“It’s my fucking imagination.”
He rolled his shoulders, doing his utmost to disregard what seemed painfully obvious. The odds were too high. There was no way he had a mate and that she’d be close enough for him to hear. The woman screaming was probably someone fooling around, having a laugh. The theatre district wasn’t far from the gym and more than once the actors had left the buildings late at night, carrying on so loudly one would think Armageddon was nearing. In the end, there was nothing really wrong with any of them. Didn’t stop Quinn from being fooled into checking on them. Not this time. No. This time he’d ignore their ruckus. He was sick of falling for their crap.
He placed his attention upon the heavy bag, doing all he could to clear his head. The screams came again, taking with them his ability to turn a deaf ear. Something was wrong. The terror in the female’s voice was too real, too full of emotion to be staged.
He snarled, the beast moving to the forefront and challenging him internally. It wanted him to respond to the cries, to save the woman, his mate.
“Stop thinking of mates.” He grunted. “All that leads to is a heap of bullshit.”
As was often the case, the wolf in him tended to see past the bullshit and cut right to the point. When all else failed him, his beast saw the world with a clear head and it said go to her.
Thrusting open the door of the gym, Quinn bolted, running full force in the direction of the disturbance. It was late and this section of the city wasn’t one to frequent after-hours. Various gangs had laid claim to it some ten years prior but that hadn’t prevented Quinn from training at the gym where he had started his career. A creature of habit, Quinn had always been one to follow through with the norm, to stay the course. The old neighborhood was no exception. It didn’t matter how well he’d done for himself or how many vacation homes he owned. The old gym was a part of him.
The woman’s scream echoed off the buildings around him, drowning out the sounds of the city at night. Gone were the sirens and the seemingly endless sound of traffic. Even the dogs that spent their nights barking, keeping up anyone unfortunate enough to reside in the area, were silent. All that remained was her plea for help.
Still caught off-guard by the intensity of his beast’s reaction to the sound, Quinn stumbled before catching himself with one hand. His knuckles scraped the brick of the building nearest him. The flesh ripped and blood pooled.
Sweat beaded on his brow, dripping down his face. His temples throbbed as his pulse sped. Her feelings beset him.
So much fear. So much pain.
The agony felt as if it were his own. Lifting his head, his eyes, now an icy blue because of the wolf within him, he stared out into the night. He was closer to the woman who called to him from blocks away. The one whose very cry had ripped him from his training, hardened his muscles and prepared his beast to strike. The hairs on his body rose as his senses heightened. She needed him.
The city’s current heat wave meant the breeze carried hot air with it. Humidity clung to the air as did her scent, reminding him that he had to find her. The option to refuse the call was no longer presented to him. It was internal and primitive. Something he could never turn down.
The call of my mate.
Burning need filled him and he surged forward, partially shifted. He leapt over an abandoned car and then a dumpster. Upon landing, he found himself standing in the center of a group of young, human males. They looked wired, their eyes bloodshot and their movements jerky, twitchy. They circled a bloody mass on the ground. He knew without being able to see that the mass was the female in need. His woman.
A low growl started deep in him. His jaw was tight, his mouth burning with the need to change. He was eager for a fight, hungry for the kill.
“Get the bitch!” one of the young men yelled, scratching at his arm. It was apparent he did so often from the scabs there.
Quinn had seen similar scars on junkies. Not just any junkies, but tweakers who were hopped up on the latest drug craze that was sweeping the streets. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure what the drug was but he knew it had something to do with supernaturals. He also knew the shit was potent and highly addictive to humans.
Another punk nodded, his face gaunt. “She has to know where her boyfriend keeps it stashed.”
“I need it, man,” the other replied, still picking at his arm while shaking his leg uncontrollably. “I can’t wait.”
Unconcerned with what they needed, Quinn roared, catching their attention for the first time. Shocked expressions covered their faces. They shared a look before taking a fool’s approach and attempting to come at him. One pulled a knife, bandying it about as if he really thought he might get somewhere in the using it department. It was almost laughable.
Unimpressed, Quinn blocked the strike with one blow, knocking the would-be attacker far from him. Another guy made a similar move only to find himself sprawled on his back, his upper arm bleeding. Quinn continued, granting no mercy. Even if he wanted to, his beast would not permit it. They were the cause of the woman’s distress. They were who had inflicted the pain upon her and they were who would answer for the crime. He could smell her blood and her fear upon them. It was like they’d been painted as targets for his beast to dispense with.
Two of the thugs were smarter than the rest and ran in the other direction. Giving chase was an option but Quinn had to see to the woman. Whoever she was, she needed medical attention. Bending, he reached with the intent to move her long brown hair back from her face and to check the extent of her injuries.
He turned her onto her back. Her eyes opened partially. Dark brown, almost black greeted him. She blinked and her brow furrowed before a sense of peace seemed to settle over her.
He nodded, hoping to come across as the bringer of peace rather than of death and destruction. “You got a name, beautiful?”
“C-Carri,” she whispered before her eyes fluttered closed once more. Her wrist was sliced wide open, the cut jagged. A broken bottle lay near her with blood coating its edges. The loss of blood was great. A supernatural would even have difficulty healing after losing that much blood. She lacked the scent of a fellow paranormal. All he could smell on her was her humanity, her mortality and her pending death.
Unable to let her pass, Quinn lifted her wrist to his mouth and allowed himself a partial change. The healing agents in his saliva would aid in controlling the bleeding and closing the wound. He licked her wrist, the sweet taste of her blood coated his tongue. His body responded with mind-numbing buzzing. It centered in his groin, his cock growing thick and long. He did his best to ignore the pulsing need, making his organ take heed of his better sense.
Energy seemed to pass from him to her and back again. For a moment, it felt as if he’d slipped his skin, left his body, his essence traveling into her, merging with her own. He shook the feeling but not before it had fully consumed him. There was no denying the signs. The wolf, as well as the man, was coming to an understanding—she was his mate.
He finished licking her wrist, the wound clotting nicely. Setting her hand down gently, Quinn checked her for any more injuries. Blood from his scraped-open knuckles mixed with hers. A niggle tickled the back of his mind bringing with it the knowledge that not everyone could come into contact with nonhuman blood and live to tell the tale.
Megan Hart:Read in bed!
Leah Braemel
Jody Wallace
Eliza Gayle
Mandy M Roth
Lissa Matthews
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Shiloh Walker
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Lauren Dane
Shelli Stevens
My writing cave…
I thought you might like a glimpse at my writing cave. This is as clean as its getting. And yes, I do own a LOT of books. Most are reference/research because I buy my fiction electronically now.
Pic taken over chair and laptop area of printer area
Look out my door. Its my office "guard".
Desk Area. Yes, two desktops are on it.
Back to School Shopping
The ads and flyers are coming. That means its that time of the year. (The most wonderful time of the year.) Time for the kidlets to head back to school. Now, insert the crappy part of this… school clothes and supply shopping. Who is dreading this? Who is groaning at the thought of fighting your way through the section with the .25 cent glue sticks and arm wrestling over the .99 cent boxes of crayons? Please tell me its not just me.
Also, I should note I always grab extra and donate them to my school for kids in need.
July 25, 2012
Need your help again on making a book FREE for good on Amazon
I hate asking for help but the only way to get a promo book to be free for good on amazon is to get reader help. Its a flawed system, I know and please know how very grateful I am that my readers are so awesome and willing to help.
Amazon reset the price of King, King, Goose? to $.99. I want it to be FREE for good to everyone on amazon. I need your help to get it listed that way again.
Here is how you can help:
Instructions:
King, King, Goose by Mandy M. Roth
1. Visit this AMAZON book page link. King, King, Goose? by Mandy M. Roth (click and new window will open)
In the PRODUCT DETAILS section you will see this under the info listed there “ Would you like to give feedback on images or tell us about a lower price?” Click on TELL US ABOUT A LOWER PRICE. Select ONLINE story option. In the url section you can paste one of the following URLs (doesn’t matter which one you use) and you can input the price as $0.00 and the shipping as $0.00.
URLs to be pasted in
http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW0...
OR
http://www.allromanceebooks.com/produ...
OR
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/King-K...
July 24, 2012
Make A Story Stronger
Authors,
I put a call out on the web, asking people who work in various fields or who have certain hobbies to step forth and tell me what bothers them when reading a book that talks about what they do or what they know quite a bit about. Here is one of the responses to my call out. –Mandy M. Roth
Injuries in Books by Sharon Cullen
Give a little background about what jarred you out of the book or what made smoke come out of your ears.
There are a lot of things that jar me out of a book—like safeties on Glocks and police calling people “perps” but that’s a different post for a different day. What I’m talking about today is injuries.
Authors like to torture their characters and I have no problem with that because I torture my own characters pretty much all the time. What bothers me is when the injury occurs then is forgotten.
A good example is the movie Unknown starring Liam Neeson. Good movie. Fast paced, lots of action. What made me want to throw my tub of popcorn at the screen was when Liam’s character spends four days in a coma with a head injury due to an automobile accident. After four days he suddenly wakes up, jumps out of bed, runs out of the hospital and is chased all over Berlin.
Unreal.
I consider myself sort of an expert on injuries—especially head injuries as my husband suffered a traumatic brain injury in May. Now I’m not comparing Liam’s character’s injury to my husband’s. My husband’s was far worse but still, some comparisons can be made. For instance there is no way possible a person can hop out of the bed and run around like that—not after being bed ridden for four days. Your muscles start to cramp and atrophy. My husband was in a coma for nine days and he had to relearn how to walk.
Another example I find a lot in romantic suspense is characters falling long distances, then getting up and running away. Again, I will refer to my husband who fell off my parent’s roof (yes, he’s accident-prone. Very accident-prone). He fell a mere ten feet off a ladder and broke his fall by landing on the ladder. He didn’t get up and run away because he couldn’t. He was put on serious pain medication and couldn’t sleep on his back for almost a year. It took over a year for him to fully heal and that was only a fall of ten feet. Think of what would have happened if he fell a longer distance?
Q: How should an author handle this, what tips do you have to help them better their book?
A:
Obviously we’re not all going to give our characters head injuries (or back injuries) but I can pretty much guarantee that at some point in your writing career you will injure your character.
My advice would be to first research the injury. If possible, talk to people who have experienced a similar injury. Find out what it feels like, what the healing process was, how much pain was involved, etc.
Also, once your character is injured that injury must become another character. You can’t forget it was there. You have to develop it, make it a part of the story (or at least the next several scenes depending on the severity of the injury). If you don’t want it to overtake your story line then I suggest opting for a less serious injury.
But, please, I beg you, don’t introduce the injury then forget about it for the rest of the story because you’ll leave your readers shaking their heads at the least. Some will put down the book and never pick it up again.
Of course if you’re writing about superheroes or supernatural beings then you can write your own rules and forget about everything I said J
Bio: Sharon writes romantic suspense, paranormal romance and contemporary romance. She considers herself somewhat of an authority on injuries considering she spends way more time in the emergency room with her accident-prone husband than her three kids combined.
You can visit Sharon at her website or her blog.
July 23, 2012
Dear Muse… stop being a punk bitch
from 123RF stock
Dear Muse,
It would be nice if you’d return to the days of old. The days when a box of crayons would stimulate you and occupy you for hours on end. Instead, you’ve become a whiny, demanding bitch who thinks she needs wine, chocolates and “me” time in order to let your creative juices flow. I never fenced you. I never forced you to stay within the lines. For that, I think you should stop your crazy demands, stop being a diva and just do what you do… inspire me.
With love,
Mandy
July 20, 2012
Snippet: Scene with a family in it
Snippet from Executive Decision by Mandy M. Roth
“Stop being a baby and come on,” I said, pulling on Dale’s arm.
He didn’t budge. “I’m nervous. Really nervous.”
It was cute that Dale put so much into his first meeting with my parents. It meant that he cared what they thought of him. “How about I go to a hotel for the night and then meet your father at his party tomorrow while there are a lot of other people around to keep him from strangling me.”
“Please, Dale. I want him to meet you. I want them all to meet you.”
“Why?” he asked, finally moving a few steps. I took a moment to look at him with the ivy-covered barn as his backdrop. It didn’t matter where you set Dale, he was still gorgeous to the point you thought you should look away but knew you couldn’t.
“I want you to meet them because you’re … you’re you and I … uhh … I want you to meet them, Dale.”
“But you can’t even figure out what I am and what I mean to you how are you going to explain it to your parents?”
This was insane. “Dale, it doesn’t matter. They know we pretty much live together and….”
“And we keep telling them we’re just friends.” He was getting agitated and that was never good. “And it matters to me, Liz. I care what I am to you.”
“Oh, sugar, if you haven’t figured out what you are to her then you never will,” my mother said, appearing from the other side of the tall bushes that ran to the house. She stood there smiling at Dale with her long brown hair down. She was in a pair of white slacks and a white sleeveless shirt. The brown basket she held had various greens, ivy and such laying in it.
Dale nudged me and whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “That’s your mother?”
Confused, I nodded. “You’ve seen her picture.”
“Yes, but I thought it must be an old photo because I guessed her age and she looked at least twenty years younger than that in the picture. Good God, the woman looks half her age! She’s beautiful.”
I could tell he was being honest. My mother had shocked him. I glanced at her and smiled.
Looking Dale up and down, she smiled and came towards us. “Well, after a comment like that I’m fine with him being part of the family.” She took hold of his upper arm and turned him back and forth slightly.
I sighed. “Momma, what are you doing?”
She kept turning Dale who didn’t say a word as he let her twist him and pull on him. “Sweetie, I’m trying to picture my grandbabies that’s all.”
Groaning, I dropped my head into my hands. This wasn’t happening to me. It really wasn’t. I would wake up any minute and find out it was all a freakish dream.
Someone wrapped their arm around me and then yanked it off quick. “Liz, you’re soaked and you smell funny. Ha, so I see you ran into Zachary.”
“Thanks, Scott. And yes I did happen to run into him,” I said, secretly wishing I had a garden hose to soak my brother with. Scott was the middle child and it showed. Always the attention getter.
He laughed when he saw our mother turning Dale more. “Momma,” he said. “Stop sizing the man up for his reproductive qualities. I’m positive that had a part in Lisa walking out on me.”
My mother let go of Dale and stared at Scott. “Lisa left you because she’s a selfish little girl who never grew up enough to marry let alone be a mother. And you, should be happy she did leave.”
Scott chuckled. “Yes, Momma. I’m thrilled my wife walked out on me and left me with a child to raise on my own. Speaking of which,” he looked behind him, “Beth-Ann! Aunt Liz is here! And she brought someone special with her!”
“She brought him?” A tiny scream was followed closely by hysterical laughter. I looked at Dale for help, he shrugged and smiled. Trust a guy from Park Ave. to be clueless when it comes to children.
I spotted the dark head of spring loaded dark curls and smiled as Beth ran full force at me. Her little yellow sundress went straight up in the air, showing off her yellow ruffled panties. Laughing, I shook my head. I used to be just like her.
“Liz, Liz, Liz!” she screamed as she wrapped her tiny frame around my leg and squeezed it tight. “Eww, you’re wet and you smell funny.”
“You don’t say?”
She looked up at me with wide, confused brown eyes. “But I did say it.”
Dale laughed and Beth zeroed in on him. Her eyes narrowed as she walked over to him. Crossing her arms, she motioned for him to bend down. Dale looked at me and I nodded. He was so tall that he had to practically sit on the ground to be eye level with her.
Beth stuck her face right against his and began to look him over thoroughly. When she began to pull on his lips and I couldn’t hide my laugh. The urge to touch his lips apparently ran in the family. Beth gave me a stern look and I stopped laughing. She looked back at Dale and put her hand on her hip. At five she was quite the diva. “Smile.”
“What?”
“Smile.” She stamped her foot for effect. “I said it slow. Any man should be able to understand.”
Scott started to correct her but Dale put his hand up and stopped him.
Dale smiled wide and laughed softly. “You are just like your aunt.”
Beth squealed and tossed her arms around Dale’s neck causing him to lose his balance a bit. He touched the ground to stay up with one hand and patted Beth on the back with the other.
“I didn’t know if it was you or if Aunt Liz tried to sneak someone else in. I promised you that I wouldn’t let her do that and I didn’t. Was that good, Uncle Dale?”
Uncle Dale?
I couldn’t have been more surprised if I tried. “You put my niece on spy duty?”
Beth nodded proudly as Dale looked at the ground. “Yep and I’ve done really good. The last four times,” she held up for fingers just in case I needed a visual, “you’ve been home he had me do it.”
“You’ve had her spying since she turned four? Isn’t that against child labor laws?”
Dale grinned and pulled his wallet out. “I think that you did such a good job that you’ve earned a reward.” He pulled out a hundred dollar bill and went to hand it to her. Scott and I both moved forward.
“Dale, she’s five!”
“Right.” He nodded and pulled four more out to go with the first one. I shoved them back in his wallet and grabbed a one dollar bill instead. I handed it to Beth-Ann who smiled just as wide as she would have if it would have been a hundred dollar bill.
Scott looked at me and I knew what he was thinking. Was this guy for real?
“Thanks, Uncle Dale!” She beamed as she hugged him tight.
My mother hid her laugh and put her hand out. “Come on Beth, Nana needs help with the green beans.”
Beth ran after her and my brother put his hand out to Dale. “Nice to finally meet you.”
“You too.”
Scott looked back at me and laughed.
Jerk.
Megan Hart:Read in bed!
Leah Braemel
Jody Wallace
Eliza Gayle
Mandy M Roth
Lissa Matthews
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Shiloh Walker
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Lauren Dane
TJ Michaels
New Interview
Please stop by and check out my interview at Scorching Book Reviews. Also, comment for a chance to win an ebook! CLICK HERE
July 18, 2012
Mums the word?
Lookie what have come back to life from last year! I’m very excited. I normally kill everything. Its a sad truth. This is making me think of Fall and how summer is nearly over. [image error] 
