Shiloh Walker's Blog, page 78

You were always on my mind…

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Today’s Saturday Snippet…the theme?

You were always on my mind.  And Vaughnne is on Gus’s mind.  A lot.

 

read more here…coming in Sept.

~*~

He’s too young for the burden he’s bearing…

Fuck.

Did she think he didn’t know that already?

He shoved a hand through his hair, knocking his ballcap off in the process.  He hurled it to the floorboard and turned his head, staring outside as the landscape zipped by.

The view is nice…

Innocuous words.

But what she’d pushed inside his mind…

Damn it.  He did not need that inside him just then.  The knowledge that she felt the same heat he’d felt.  No.  He didn’t need that all, yet at the same time, part of him…

Part of him wanted to grab her, haul her into his lap and just…feel.  Give into what he had inside him, what she obviously had inside her.  Skim his hands up that long, slender back and tangle them in her hair as he feasted on her mouth.

That greedy, selfish part wanted to strip her naked and ride her until the both of them were too drained to even move. That part of him knew just how long it had been since he had a woman, touched a woman, kissed a woman…wanted a woman.  How long it had been since his life revolved around anything beyond watching over Alex, nights spent pacing the house as he fought to make sure the boy was safe, hours spent watching over him.

That part of him wanted to touch her.  That part of him wanted glide his hand through her hair and draw her mouth to his, see if she’d taste as wild as he’d imagined.  She wouldn’t be a sweet and gentle woman in bed, he didn’t think. He’d had sweet and gentle lovers.  She’d be heat and power and passion, and he’d lose himself inside her.

If he could have given into that.

But it wouldn’t happen.

Alex…his focus was, and would always be, Alex.

“How long have you been running?” she asked quietly.

He slanted a look her way and then looked back out the window.  “Too long.”

Four years.  Six months.  Twelve days.  He flicked a glance at the clock, calculated the time change.  Thirteen hours and nine minutes.

Since Alex was eight…the day the boy’s youth and innocence and life was shattered, right in front of him.

The night his mother…

He closed his eyes and tried to stem the flow of those memories.

Please…you must promise…

He was trying.  Damn it, he was trying. 

 

Lissa Matthews

TJ Michaels

Mari Carr

Rethinking how I think

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So there’s a big hullabuloo (is that how you spell it?) going on because an UF writer turned erotica writer is having some issues… her UF doesn’t sell, and she doesn’t like that.  Her erotica writing does… and she likes the money, I think, but she’s not really into erotica.  She thinks it’s trash.

I don’t want to go into this a great deal… she’s wrong, plain and simple.  Dismissing an entire genre as inferior?  Yeah, I seem to recall SF people who view UF as inferior.  A bunch of lit folks who smash down all genre books.

Disregarding an entire genre because you don’t get it is narrow-minded, at best.  And it’s all wrong.

To quote the awesome David Morrell who spoke at the RT Awards Show…

There are no inferior genres, just inferior writers.

Every genre has its lousy books, and every genre has its gems.

Just like every genre has books that are going to be overlooked…books that people poured their heart and soul into, and those books just don’t sell worth shit.

My Veil series was cancelled because of low sales.  Does that suck?  Yep.  Do I blame the readers?  Nope.  Sometimes a series just doesn’t connect with the right group of readers.

Every genre is going to have books that sell like gangbangers.  I mean… hello, Fifty Shades of Grey, right?  That thing sells like mad.

The author in question, Kendall Grey said crap that was insulting.  She was dismissive of her readers who laid out their hard-earned money, who enjoyed her work, who complimented her.

She was dismissive of an entire genre of writers who spent a lot of time crafting their work… Ms. Grey bemoans how she spent years crafting her UF trilogy, how much money and time and energy, and then she wrote an erotica book that earned $10k.  Hey, that’s awesome money, go you… but she doesn’t get why the books she loved didn’t make the money, and the book she doesn’t seem to care about did.  Well, she thinks she understands.  Readers like simple.  They don’t like art.  I looked at her art…it didn’t catch my interest, and I’m a diehard UF lover.  Sometimes, that happens. A book just fails to connect with the right group of readers.

Sometimes, you can do all the supposed ‘right’ things…and nothing happens.  There is no magical cure or shortcut or answer in this business, and I think that might be the root of the problem.  She’s looking for answers, and she thinks she found one…

Readers, in her opinion, basically want trash…that’s what her post boiled down to.  She thinks erotica is trash, writing it is selling out and there’s the implication that her readers are dumb. Yes, I had to pick up my jaw off the floor, too… she earned $10k and instead of… wow, thanks guys…she insults them.

If you want to read more about the mess, you can check out Lauren Dane’s rant.  When she puts on her ranty pants, it’s a beautiful thing. And that’s as much detail as I’m going to go into.

The meat and bones of what I want to get at is this…

On twitter the other day, a comment was made by Jane of Dear Author (paraphrasing here…) It’s insulting readers when an author knocks their own work….

And I disagreed.  Not, at all, because of what Kendall Grey said, or what she thinks.  What she said was insulting.  It was dismissive.  I don’t really write a lot of straight erotica.  The closest thing I have is Beg Me.  Erotica isn’t generally my cuppa but Ms. Grey’s comments still come off insulting as hell.  Many women like erotica… they are becoming more comfortable with their own sexuality and rock on with that. Nobody has the right to dismiss them or insult them or make them feel belittled for it.

The reason why I disagreed with Jane is this… I often think a lot of my writing sucks.

And I need to rethink how I think.

It’s not that I’m putting out ‘garbage’ as one twitter follower said and thinking…hey, look at what these suckers might buy…

My line of thinking is this:

I’m a perfectionist and I’m never satisfied with what I put out.  Eventually, I have to let the story go and move on, so I can write the next one.  Because I can do better with the next one.  And the next one.

I know I have a talent for writing.  I know that, in my gut.  I read books by Lynn Viehl and Nora Roberts and Ilona Andrews and Stacia Kane and I think…wow. I want to be able to do that.  I want to suck people into my stories and hold them in tight so that they can’t let go until the very last page.  And if the story I’m writing doesn’t hold me like that, then I don’t know if it’s good enough.  But I can’t trust my own judgement because I’m a harsh critic.

But it’s also been made clear, very clear… (insert mollified face here) that it’s not really doing a reader justice either to so vocally put it out there like that, and I’ve been known to do that.

This is entirely my problem and I’m sorry if anything I’ve said in that vein has bothered one of my readers. That totally wasn’t my intention at all and I will work on it.  I’m never going to be one of these authors who can honestly (and I can’t say something if I’m not being honest on it) say hey, my books always rock, check me out…

I will be blunt and say I think that’s a tricky road to walk, too, because in this industry, arrogance can be a downfall. I don’t ever want to get to the point to where I think I rock.  I really don’t.  I’ve, sadly, seen several people who let arrogance and success get in the way.  Once that gets in the way, the writing…the story will suffer, and for me, it’s always about the story.

My stories are in my blood and I don’t want them to suffer.

But…the upside to me being critical is that if you see me saying…Whoa, I think I really did something amazing there, that means that book blew me away.  Because I am so critical on myself.  Books like Blade Song, Night Blade, Wrecked and the Ash trilogy are books that actually caught me by surprise.  These books, when I finished them, instead of…I need to do better, it was like… huh.  These are pretty damn good.  Which seems to be a decent indicator, because those books are the ones that have hit really well with readers.

In the future, I’m going to try to ‘retrain’ how I think.  Logically, I know I can write and I get that.  My satisfaction, or lack of, comes from a desire to improve, and it has nothing to do with putting out less than the best book I can.   If the book is less than the best I can do, I put it aside until I can make it my best.

I write the best book I can, but each book improves the craft and I can’t get better unless I keep writing.

Instead of the ‘this book sucks’ line of thinking, I’m going to try and go with… this book might not be as good as I wanted, but it’s the best I can do. Onto the next one.

And readers, please don’t ever let any writer, or anybody else, make you feel inferior because of what you read.  You’re awesome and I love you.

Deadly Desires…Contest!

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Okay, so this is a contest post.

Win a copy of Deadly Desires… or a GC.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Worlds collide as three bestselling authors deliver two tales of danger, suspense, and steamy encounters.

Don’t Walk Away

by Shiloh Walker

Ten years ago, former Army Ranger Ethan Raintree made one hell of choice…keep on lying, or tell the woman he loved the truth. He decided to tell the truth, and she threw him out of her life. He never stopped loving her, not stopped wanting her. Celeste Harper finally had everything she wanted—or so she thought. She’d escaped her past. She’d escaped her demons. But she couldn’t escape herself…or the man she’d left behind all those years ago. Looking into his eyes ten years later, she realizes it’s her turn to make a choice—let go of that pain and take him back. Or walk away…and face a future without him.

Code Word: Storm

by Sydney Croft

The extremely secret Agency for Covert Rare Operatives is the only thing that stands between the human race and complete chaos. Now, two agents with special abilities, Annika Svenson and Creed McCabe, are sent to stop a man who has harnessed the power of the supernatural world. But Creed and Annika have a history that puts them at odds — and in closer, hotter contact than they’d like. In this ACRO story, which falls in the series timeline between Riding the Storm and Unleashing the Storm, Annika and Creed grow closer, despite their resistance. And with their lives are on the line, they find they must not only work together, but be together, or risk a terrifying fate that could consume them both…

Amazon | BN  | ARe | Smashwords

These two short stories contain hot guys, determined women and some sexiness. Please note…they have been previously published, but we did add some new material.

Sighing, she lifted a hand to the curtains fluttering the breeze, brushing them out of the way as she stared outside. She couldn’t see much of anything but the pale yellow circles cast by the weak streetlights. Their light didn’t do anything to lessen the gloom of the sidewalks and beyond. And although she couldn’t see him, she knew he was out there.

She knew he waited. Knew he watched her.

It was disconcerting as hell to realize that.

Easing the curtains aside, she slipped through the French doors onto the small balcony and stared down into the street. The Belle Inn was the only moderately profitable business in town. It catered to those who enjoyed spending the night in older hotels that had a history of being haunted. With the restaurant and bar attached, it managed to do a decent enough business. She stayed here every year—and hadn’t seen a single ghost.

The Inn had been redone period-style. The room she stayed in probably looked as it had back in the 1800s, with the exception of the air-conditioning and indoor plumbing.

Resting her hands on the painted wood railing of the balcony, she looked for him and tried to pretend she wasn’t. But she knew she was wasting her time. If he didn’t want to be seen, he wouldn’t.

Ethan.

He was out there.

Why?

She’d made herself clear, right?

I don’t want ever want to see you again. Nice, short, to the point.

Except she did want to see him. Man, she’d missed him. So much. Not just the physical stuff, although she’d definitely missed that. She missed him. Missed that slow, almost reluctant smile of his. Missed the way he could sit there and listen to her as though every word she said was somehow vastly important. Missed his easy strength and the way he’d made her laugh with that wry humor.

She missed feeling his arms around her at night, although they’d had precious few nights together.

She just plain and simple missed him…

Enter the contest via the widget.

Deadly Desires…

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Okay, due to some confusion, I’m redoing the Deadly Desires post.

This is just an FYI post.

There will be a contest tomorrow-ish.

The bloggers who did post about it have been notified.

So… Larissa, Stephanie and I sorta went and snuck this one out.

These titles were previously released in one of the Mammoth collections.

They have been expanded and revised for the digital release.

Danger. Deceit. Desire. 

Don’t Walk Away

by Shiloh Walker

Ten years ago, former Army Ranger Ethan Raintree made one hell of choice…keep on lying, or tell the woman he loved the truth. He decided to tell the truth, and she threw him out of her life. He never stopped loving her, not stopped wanting her. Celeste Harper finally had everything she wanted—or so she thought. She’d escaped her past. She’d escaped her demons. But she couldn’t escape herself…or the man she’d left behind all those years ago. Looking into his eyes ten years later, she realizes it’s her turn to make a choice—let go of that pain and take him back. Or walk away…and face a future without him.

Code Word: Storm

by Sydney Croft

The extremely secret Agency for Covert Rare Operatives is the only thing that stands between the human race and complete chaos. Now, two agents with special abilities, Annika Svenson and Creed McCabe, are sent to stop a man who has harnessed the power of the supernatural world. But Creed and Annika have a history that puts them at odds — and in closer, hotter contact than they’d like. In this ACRO story, which falls in the series timeline between Riding the Storm and Unleashing the Storm, Annika and Creed grow closer, despite their resistance. And with their lives are on the line, they find they must not only work together, but be together, or risk a terrifying fate that could consume them both…

Amazon | BN  | ARe | Smashwords

These two short stories contain hot guys, determined women and some sexiness. Please note…they have been previously published, but we did add some new material.

Soooo… the original plan was that we would get it up for pre-order and all that jazz, and then I thought maybe I’d try to get it up for RT…and then…um.  Well.  Best laid plans never work well for us, it seems.

Instead, hey!  We haz book.

Please note, these two stories are not new.  They have been previously released but we did expand them a little.

Kobo, Sony, iBookstore, etc are coming.  Can’t give dates as that depends on when they get the titles uploaded.  Thanks!

Shhh… secret release… well, no. Deadly Desires

Kindle

So… Larissa, Stephanie and I sorta went and snuck this one out.

These titles were previously released in one of the Mammoth collections.

They have been expanded and revised for the digital release.

Worlds collide as three bestselling authors deliver two tales of danger, suspense, and steamy encounters.

Don’t Walk Away

by Shiloh Walker

Ten years ago, former Army Ranger Ethan Raintree made one hell of choice…keep on lying, or tell the woman he loved the truth. He decided to tell the truth, and she threw him out of her life. He never stopped loving her, not stopped wanting her. Celeste Harper finally had everything she wanted—or so she thought. She’d escaped her past. She’d escaped her demons. But she couldn’t escape herself…or the man she’d left behind all those years ago. Looking into his eyes ten years later, she realizes it’s her turn to make a choice—let go of that pain and take him back. Or walk away…and face a future without him.

Code Word: Storm

by Sydney Croft

The extremely secret Agency for Covert Rare Operatives is the only thing that stands between the human race and complete chaos. Now, two agents with special abilities, Annika Svenson and Creed McCabe, are sent to stop a man who has harnessed the power of the supernatural world. But Creed and Annika have a history that puts them at odds — and in closer, hotter contact than they’d like. In this ACRO story, which falls in the series timeline between Riding the Storm and Unleashing the Storm, Annika and Creed grow closer, despite their resistance. And with their lives are on the line, they find they must not only work together, but be together, or risk a terrifying fate that could consume them both…

Amazon | BN  | ARe | Smashwords

These two short stories contain hot guys, determined women and some sexiness. Please note…they have been previously published, but we did add some new material.

Soooo… the original plan was that we would get it up for pre-order and all that jazz, and then I thought maybe I’d try to get it up for RT…and then…um.  Well.  Best laid plans never work well for us, it seems.

Instead, hey!  We haz book.

Please note, these two stories are not new.  They have been previously released but we did expand them a little.

DUE TO CONFUSION, THIS IS NO LONGER TAKING PLACE. THERE WILL BE A CONTEST TOMORROW, HOWEVER.

Since we didn’t do the whole promo shebang, I’m asking you all for some help.

The first fifteen bloggers who post about the book will receive a free download of the book.
How?  Just blog about it.  Come back here.  Post the link.
If you’re one of the first fifteen, you get the book. Easy, yeah?

 

Kobo, Sony, iBookstore, etc are coming.  Can’t give dates as that depends on when they get the titles uploaded.  Thanks!

And the winner is…

Kindle

Courtesy of Randomizer.org…

Teresa…email starting with ada*****@y****.com

She commented:

I love her Darkyn Series. I have not read the Lords of Darkyn yet. Looks like I get to add some more books to my TBR List.

Thank you for offing this opportunity!

Teresa, I need you to email me at shilohwalker2011 at gmail.com and put NIGHTBOUND in the subject line, please include the format ~print or ebook, and if you choose ebook, let me know if you have a preference over kindle, nook, etc.

thanks all!

The definition of success

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A workshop I attended…

 Author Unknown tells Supercool Author:

You’ve been my idol.  You did everything I wanted to do.  Tell me…how can I avoid making the mistakes you made…your career just tanked.

At this, I just kinda gaped.

Because Supercool Author has the kind of career that makes me starry-eyed. A movie made after her books.  She’s mega cool.  Yeah, yeah, sometimes we perceive things to be bigger or different than they are, but she’s still an author I’d call a success.

Author unknown has set the bar for success at hitting a list.

I haven’t hit a list yet.  I’m wondering…will I?

I’ve been doing this for a while now. I see shit that happens behind those names.

I’ve known authors who put on a happy, smiling face while secretly they have families who don’t support them.  They have husbands who try to force them to walk away from a career they wanted.  They have significant others who do not care about the things that make them happy.

They hit lists…. and ten years later, you see their books in the remainder bin at the dollar store and are they still writing?

I see authors in dollar store bin all the time…USA TODAY BESTSELLER…and the names ring nothing on my mental scale.

I see MEGA BESTSELLING AUTHORS who treat their readers like shit and walk all over the people who helped them get where they are.  Because nobody does it alone.

Does all of that add up to success?  How successful are you if you’re full of spite?  How successful are you if you have nobody to truly share it with at the end of the day?

This author who supposedly tanked?  She’s funny.  She’s sweet.  She’s genuine and kind.  She’s happily married and she’s got kids she loves.  And she’s able to pursue a career she loves with the support of her family.  Regarding her career, people know her name.  She has readers who know her and love her and support her.

That is success.

I was talking to my husband about all of this the other night, and damn it, I want that list thing. So bad.  I want it so bad I can taste it, and I’m not giving it up.

But… I have a guy who tells me this, in a matter of fact way.

You’re doing what you want.  It’s all you ever wanted to do with your life and you’re doing it.

I’m married to my high school sweetheart.

We have three beautiful kids.

I have a family who loves me.  A husband who supports me.  He doesn’t see my writing as a hobby and he doesn’t mock it, make light of it…and when it did get big for me? He didn’t try to take from me or make it seem like it was something he’d done for me.  It’s mine…I worked for it and he’s happy for me and he’s proud of me.  He’s there for me and he supports me and it’s the most amazing gift.  I pity women who don’t have that.  I’ve got three kids who think it’s pretty damn cool to have a mom who tells stories for a living.

And I’m a storyteller.  That’s all I ever wanted to be when I grew up…a storyteller.

I’ll define what is my own vision is.

Am I successful?

Damn straight.

Snippets…a woman to love…

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He was painfully, acutely aware of the woman sitting off to his side.

Shifting his attention to her, he found himself staring at her profile. Her gaze was locked on some point just above Oz’s head, like she couldn’t be bothered to look at him and he guessed he couldn’t blame her.

After all, he’d walked away from her.

He’d walked away from this woman he’d loved more than anything…Destin Mortin…the woman who had slowly been killing him inside. She just hadn’t realized it.

His heart had withered away to ashes inside his chest over the past five years and he’d hadn’t ever planned on seeing her again. If it wasn’t for Oz, he could have probably managed to do just that.

Now? Shit, now he couldn’t remember how he’d felt just five minutes ago—when he’d been almost level. Not happy, never that. Not without her. But he’d existed. He’d been level.

Now it was like he was freefalling all over again.

And she still wouldn’t look at him.

Hell, maybe that was best. If he could get settled again before those big blue eyes shifted his way, he’d be better off.

Time fell away and it was like the very first time he’d seen her. Just like then, he wanted to grab her and protect her against all the world. He wanted to grab her and do every dirty thing imaginable to her. He wanted to grab her and just stare at her face. Learn everything that had happened in the past five years.

Even though he knew every line of her face, every inch of her body, he wanted to relearn them, see if anything had changed.

And still, she hadn’t looked at him.

From The Unwanted…

Other authors with womenz!

 

Lissa Matthews

TJ Michaels

Book Club! So… here’s the first one…The Unwanted

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Are you in a book club?  Did you read about my super awesome idea where I sponsor your book club?

If your bookclub is into ebooks and interested in reading The Unwanted, my July release, you can read it before anybody else.  Well, other than me and my editors.

I’ll pick one (I dunno, maybe two) bookclubs to read it.  Again, this is an ebook.  I’ll send a PDF to the members of the bookclub.  I only have the PDF right now-most ARCs are sent in that version only this early on.

The book!

 

Destin Mortin’s psychic gift comes with an ugly twist—she excels at tracking down violent rapists. But it’s rough on relationships. Once, her partner Caleb was her everything: filter, shield, rescuer, lover. The only man who didn’t think her a freak. Then he walked away.

Destin turned her back on the FBI to work for a private agency, but now a particularly horrendous case has come up, and her boss wants her paired with only the best.

For Caleb Durand, leaving Destin was an act of self-preservation. Every time she flung herself headlong into dangerous situations, every time he nursed her through soul-crushing visions, he’d died a little more inside.

Now they are forced to work together one last time. Tragedy has changed them both, but Caleb knows if he lowers his shields for an instant, he won’t have an icicle’s chance in hell of resisting the temptation to lose himself in her wild power.

But to catch the rapist, it’s exactly what he’ll have to do.

 

This is romantic suspense, with a bit of a paranormal slant…they are psychics.

It’s also a novella.

Now…here is how this works… I provide the bookclub with the book, and I ask for reviews/word of mouth.  Since this is a July release, I’d kind of like to see reviews and such going up in late June or early July.

I’m not asking for positive reviews (well, unless you loved the book and hopefully you will).  I just want honest opinions.  And ideally, more than one review per bookclub…the whole idea is to get some more word of mouth for my books and to get more people out there trying my books.  I don’t ask or require that everybody in a bookclub review the book, but if there are say twenty people in a bookclub, I’d appreciate four or five reviews posted.  More is absolutely wonderful, though.  Reviews can be posted at Amazon, Goodreads, BN, blogs, etc.

Interested?  Leave the name of your bookclub below and the name of the person to contact.  Please check to see if somebody for your bookclub has already posted, just so my fried brain doesn’t get more fried.

Please note, this isn’t a contest and there is an ‘exchange’ of sorts going on…I ask for the reviews/word of mouth, etc in exchange for me providing the book.  I do want honest reviews, and if you hate it, that’s fine and I’m perfectly cool with you saying so, but this isn’t an ‘odds are determined’ by sort of thing.  If your bookclub is more into contemporary or vampires or werewolf aliens on the moon, please keep that in mind when you check out the book.

RT Recap

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So RT 2013 is over.

It was fun.

This was the view driving into Kansas City.

The registration line looked line this…

 

And there were lots of cool publishers and cool panels and cool people. Including the guy who wrote this…

I met him.  I fricking met the guy who created Rambo.  I was starstruck.

 

And then there was this speech by this awesome writer who made me weepy.

Meljean, you rock.

There was a cool panel with me, Smart Bitches’ Sarah Wendell, Jaye Wells, Liliana Hart and Mandi from Smexy Books.  In a nutshell, we talked about social media and how to make it work for you…and how not to be a douche.  It was fun.  We should do it again.

And then there was this…

I won that for Blade Song.  I don’t remember my speech.  I know I didn’t fall flat on my face.  I know Laura Kinsale Ilona Andrews and David Morrell and Jude Devereaux and John Scalzi and all these other amazing authors were up on that same stage, accepting their awards.  And I got one, too.  I still can’t puzzle that one out.

And my husband was there in the audience…I can remember that.

All in all, RT 2013 was all kinds of awesome.