Numbers are all Relative
This is the year I turn thirty-five and that has brought a few things to mind. As a child I swore I wouldn’t have a baby until I turned thirty, my oldest will be sixteen in July. I’d planned to have two children, a boy and a girl, but eventually had four daughters. My goal [...]
My Life as a Star: Shooting Your Own Book Cover
Like many writers, I’ve had my share of disappointments along the road to becoming a pubbed author. In my case, I gritted my teeth and kept going through 6 years, 4 novels, numerous “revise and resubmit” requests, and 63 outright rejections before my debut novel—a dark Tudor romance called THE DEVIL’S MISTRESS—was accepted by Samhain.
I [...]
Trying new things-are you brave?
It’s been one of those ongoing obsessions of my life–trying new things. Yes, I know, there are labels for people like me, people who can’t stay on one task for any length of time before being distracted by the next new shiny thing. Like ravens discovering a…
Wait, where was I?
My curiosity and willingness to ‘go [...]
To Prequel or Not to Prequel?
I’m not a big fan of prequels. Maybe the Star Wars franchise ruined it for me, maybe I’m just not the type to look back at what happened before. Whatever the case, I prefer to move forward when reading. I prefer to have the past all summed up in a prologue or very succinct memory [...]
The Importance of Ritual
Few things breathe life into a character for me as much as their little personal rituals – the idiosyncratic things they do differently from anyone else. It’s what makes them unique, and in many cases it’s what cements them in the reader’s mind. To be fair, I’m primed for ritual – I grew up Catholic, [...]
Let the party begin!
There’s been a lot of parties and special days lately. Valentines, St Patty’s Day. The Oscars, the Grammys–at Samhain Publishing they presented the Sammies this past Saturday and there were some great books honoured and celebrated.
We like to celebrate. It gives us a great deal of pleasure to look back at our accomplishments and see [...]
Give me some Space…
Fiction, that is. I’m talking about science fiction.
Hi! *waving from Australia*
My name is Yolanda, and this is my very first post here. So I thought it might be nice to introduce myself first. I live in a suburb of Sydney, Australia with my hubby, daughter, and cat. I enjoy writing in a variety of [...]
What’s in a Name by Cat Johnson
Do you ever wonder how authors name their books? Do they write the book and then name it? Do they come up with the name first? Does the publisher or the author choose the title? Well if you are full of these questions, here I am to tell you the answers, at least as far [...]
Alpha Males – Imagine one today!
I can’t imagine a world without romances, and it has become just as essential to me that I furnish some of them. Even though I sometimes go days as a wife, mother and full time school librarian, too busy to put ‘pen to paper’, I am still writing in my mind.
My imagination flows [...]
Let it snow…
The ground was bare when I went into a store this morning, when I came out the snow was falling and it fell all day. At two, I got a call from my munchkin’s school saying they were closing early, could I come get him.
As I write this we have six or seven inches of [...]
From our Authors…
