The Ides of March with Liv Rancourt

 How do you mark the passage of time? By the holidays? The garden? The solstices? Some other internal clock?

When I was a church choir geek, the Holy Days kept me on track. Beyond Christmas and Easter, smaller celebrations like Pentecost (school’s out!), Assumption (fall is right around the corner!), or All Saints Day (Halloween!!) grounded me in time. Every year had a rhythm, and even Ordinary Time – everything that wasn’t Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter – had a way of marking the seasons.

Most writers I know, at least the ones who self-publish, have it all turned around. I mean, if you want to release a Halloween story, you better start writing it in May. A holiday romance? That bad boy better be in edits by August. 

Writers know the unique pleasure of stranding their characters in a snowbound cabin while the outside temperature is somewhere over 80 degrees. (That’s 26 degrees for those of you who speak Celsius.) Writing a spooky ghost story that takes place in the darkest part of the year? Don’t look out the window because the azaleas are blooming. 

Though there is something to be said for writing a beach romance in February. You’re giving yourself a little mental vacation, even if you are snowed in.

In my own work, I gravitate toward stories that are set during the fall. Those long nights work well for my vampire characters. I live in Seattle, where the late November sun sets by 4:30pm. For me, there’s something incredibly peaceful in the way nature goes to sleep for the winter, even if it is dark and blustery.

And my vampires love it. (LOL)

As I look outside my office window, spring is definitely on its way. The cornelian cherry tree is covered with yellow blooms and the spirea is starting to send out its pretty orange leaves. Yet most of my garden is more about hope than beauty. Next month, though, y’all should come by, because the bulbs will be going crazy.

I don’t spend nearly as much time in church as I used to, though this year I did give up candy for Lent. (Much easier said than done!) I’m more likely to bake a King Cake for Mardi Gras than learn a new chant for Easter. Seasons change and so do people, you know? And since the book I’m currently editing is set in late October, I just have to conjure the cold and the dark from memory.

What about you? Are you currently visiting some sunny vacation spot for your characters’ benefit? I hope so…

Liv Rancourt is a multi-published author of gay and m/m romance. Because love is love, even with fangs. 

Liv is a huge fan of paranormal romance and urban fantasy and loves history just as much, so her stories often feature vampires or magic or they’re set in the past…or all of the above. She also co-authors two m/m paranormal romance series with Irene Preston. Their partnership works because Liv is good at blowing things up and Irene is good at explaining why.

When Liv isn’t writing she takes care of tiny premature babies in the NICU. Her husband is a soul of patience, her kids are her pride and joy, and her dog Burnsie is endlessly entertaining.

Liv can be found on-line at all hours of the day and night at her website, on Facebook, or on Twitter. For sneak peeks and previews and other assorted freebies, go HERE to sign up for her mailing list or join the Facebook page she shares with her writing partner Irene Preston, After Hours with Liv & Irene. See you soon!

How My World Shapes My Writing by Paty Jager

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT is our Theme this month in honor of our Eleventh Blog-o-versary! I found some very special posts from past years to repost in case you missed them the first time around.

In " How my world shapes my writing ", first published July 4th, 2011, Western Romance and Murder Mystery Author Paty Jager tells us how her personal experiences led her to the genre’s she writes. (File this one under "Writer's Life")

I’ve dabbled in different venues of writing over the course of my lifetime. First as a child writing plays for stuffed animals, then at thirteen writing stories of love and lust that my friends and I passed back and forth adding scenes, to witnessing what words can do when an English teacher read one of my assigned fiction projects to the class and all the way through writing children’s stories for my kids, writing murder mysteries when I wanted to kill someone (killed that person off in two manuscripts), writing for the local paper when it fit my lifestyle, and finally settling into western romance.

Each stage of my writing had to do with what was going on in and around me at the time so it only makes sense that I find myself writing about the west. Where I live and the American history I love. Specifically the 1800’s has always been my favorite subject. I love museums, historical sites, and finding bits of history that were so integral to life when this country was spreading and growing.

I think having grown up in a semi–isolated part of the state that was slow to get technology it brought out the pioneer spirit in me. Until I was twelve, my paternal grandparents lived with us. There were seven people in a three bedroom, one bath farmhouse. We had a woodshed where we chopped kindling and stored the wood for the cookstove. When we did get an electric range we still had a wood heating stove and used the wood cookstove when the power went out which was fairly often. The power went out often so we used kerosene and oil lamps, the outhouse, and hauled buckets of water to the house from the ditch. Looking back, it was usually in the winter that the power went out. And on many occasions the pipes from the well to the house froze, and we had to haul water to the house.

My family had a small herd of dairy cows and used an old hand crank separator to separate the milk from the cream. We used the milk for ourselves and the hogs we raised. We made our own butter from the cream and sold the rest to the creamery. We raised 100 chickens every year, butchering all but thirty, which were laying hens. I hated the smell of the wet feathers after you dunked them in the boiling water to loosen the feathers. And disemboweling them and cutting them up-I’d always offer to fold clothes, clean the bathroom, or whatever other chore I could think of than spend hours smelling the feathers and butchered chickens. My grandmother sold extra eggs to neighbors and the local grocery store.

These are all events in my life that easily happened in the era that I write about. I can feel the heat of the woodstove, hear the clank of the metal plates as grandma put more kindling in the fire. Smell the acrid smoke that slipped through the chimney standing in the middle of my bedroom. I'd stand as close to it as I could on cold winter mornings as I dressed. Growing up, I lived the life I write about in my historical westerns.

And now, ranching with my husband, I've encountered many of the obstacles that I write about in my contemporary westerns.

And I grew up in the land of Chief Joseph's Nez Perce and have always had a fascination for them and believe I saw an apparition of a Nez Perce warrior one summer day while riding my horse in the mountains. That moment has stuck with me, and I believe the catalyst that pushed me to write the Spirit Trilogy.

If you are a writer, what shaped the genre you write? If you are a reader, what is your favorite genre to read and why? 
Paty

www.patyjager.net
www.patyjager.blogspot.com

Graphic by: http://www.holidaygraphics.com
Photos: Paty Jager

A Small Epiphany by Pippa Jay

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT is our Theme this month in honor of our Eleventh Blog-o-versary! I found some very special posts from past years to repost in case you missed them the first time around. 

In "A Small Epiphany", first published Jan. 17, 2014, SciFi and Superhero Romance Author Pippa Jay recounts the discovery that transformed her into a professional writer. (File this one under "Writer's Life")

In the summer of 2009 I sat and watched my three little monsters playing in the garden. My youngest had just got mobile enough to chase his older siblings around the place and play with them on more equal terms. Me - I was overweight, bored and miserable. I felt I'd lost myself. I was proud of being a mum and wife, but beyond those labels I felt I had no purpose. No identity. Who and what was I?

So I sat at my computer, pulled out an old short story that I'd left in storage and put on some music. Having not written in nearly 20 years, I decided to give it another go.

A six week frenzy of scribbling and typing followed. My husband thought I'd gone mad. Maybe I had a bit. Because once I'd started putting down the words, I just couldn't stop. They poured out of me. At the end of those six weeks I had a 40 000 word rough draft, which I then split in two. By the end of 2009 I had a 100K novel ready to pitch, and nearly as much for a sequel.

At the same time I went on a diet, started a dance class, changed my hairstyle and dyed my hair, and completely changed my wardrobe, from baggy black to tailored reds, blues and greens. Hubs refers to it as my midlife crisis. I call it my epiphany. Because after 40 years I'd found myself and my real passion - writing. Until that point I hadn't realised how much I loved to write, and that it's what had been missing. And I haven't looked back. It took another eighteen months of rejections and rewrites and a change of tack before that first novel got a publishing contract with a small press but I count myself lucky. And now, four and a half years down the line I have five titles out, two contracted, one request on a full and one out on submission. I have two short stories scheduled for release in October and November this year. My only regret is that it took me nearly forty years to figure out what I really wanted to do. >.<

Right now, that debut novel isn't available to buy. My publisher - Lyrical Press Inc - has just been bought by Kensington, and titles have had to be taken down as the transfer occurs. But in the meantime, I'm doing a giveaway at Goodreads for three now rare paperback editions of that novel, and you can enter here.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Keir

by Pippa Jay

Giveaway ends February 14, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

And my scifi romance short went up at All Romance Ebooks just last week at the discounted price of $1.01 until the 23rd HERE. :)

EXCERPT | Available at... B&N
|ARe | Amazon US | Amazon UK
| Smashwords |

Happy New Year and happy reading!

My Crazy Life as an Author by Collette Cameron

No Lady for the Lord

I never intended to be an author. I was an avid romance reader who thought maybe someday—in the far distant future—I might write a book someday. Certainly not fiction and assuredly not a romance novel. I could never master the dialogue. Or so I believed.

Fast forward eleven years and forty-eight published books since I typed that first fatal word and fell in love with writing. No one told me that every aspect of my life would become consumed with writing, dialogue, plotting, and a myriad of other minor details.

COLLETTE CAMERON

My mind is always working on my current work in progress, and quite often, musing about the next book or a new idea for a novel. Frequently, my most brilliant ideas occur in the shower. Yes, I have waterproof paper and a pencil on the shower wall.

If I’m stuck on a plot point, I just let my mind mull it over while I do something else, and inevitably, an answer presents itself. According to my family, “I have to finish this book” will be inscribed on my tombstone. Either that or, “I’m way behind in my writing.”

I keep a notepad in my purse, in my car, and with me on the sofa while I watch TV to jot ideas and record names of places and people. I have an entire journal dedicated to names I come upon. There’s no such thing as a vacation or day off for my mind. My muse never rests, and she’s a selfish creature. If she can’t relax, then neither can I.

On the one hand, that’s great. I am always coming up with new book ideas. On the other hand, it’s a pain in the rear-end. I can’t possibly write fast enough to ever write all of the story ideas I have.

To Seduce a
 Highland Scoundrel

My son shared an interesting fact while we were in Hawaii earlier this month, and I immediately began plotting how I could use it in one of my stories. That happens all of the time.

One drawback from having done all of the research I have for my Regency and Scottish Historicals is that it drives me batty to see a historical inaccuracy in a movie, TV show or series. My family doesn’t care about inaccuracies, and I’ve been told quite bluntly that I’m not allowed to share my wealth of knowledge.

I’m working on two books right now. LOVE LESSONS FOR A LADY is the 3^rd book in my Daughters of Desire: Scandalous Ladies Series, and the other is an inspirational. I have ideas for several different genres too. Again, there are not enough hours in the day for me to write all of the books I want to.

I’ve slowed down a bit in the last year and am taking time to enjoy life outside of my author world. I don’t ever foresee myself not writing unless I become unable to, but I’ll have fifty books written and published by the end of 2021. I think I’m allowed a little slack.

My muse won’t agree.

I’d love to connect with you.

Check out my author world: www.collettecameron.com

Join my Reader Group: Collette’s Chèris VIP Reader Group

Subscribe to my newsletter and receive a FREE Book: bit.ly/TheRegencyRoseGift

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USA Today Bestselling, award-winning author COLLETTE CAMERON^® scribbles Scottish and Regency historical romance novels featuring dashing rogues, rakes, and scoundrels and the strong heroines who reform them. Blessed with an overactive and witty muse that won’t stop whispering new romantic romps in her ear, she’s lived in Oregon her entire life, although she dreams of living in Scotland part-time. A confessed Cadbury chocoholic, you’ll always find a dash of inspiration and a pinch of humor in her sweet-to-spicy timeless romances^®. 

What Can Happen In A Decade

 

A Toast to Romancing The Genres! Happy Anniversary!

 A ten-year anniversary is special. An entire decade of time. I reflected on my own life of what had occurred in this length of time.

This past decade I lost the last of my family of origin, my sister and my mom. I was still working my federal job with the U.S. Department of the Interior, and commuting between Alaska and Arizona every few weeks, to help my ailing sister and my mom. That period of time was one of the most difficult times of my life. And not one that I care to recall very often.

I retired two years later, but things didn’t get easier, as my husband and I both had parents who were in assisted living facilities in two different states. All of our discretionary income went to airfare between Alaska, Arizona, and Wisconsin. When all was said and done, we’d each racked up over a hundred thousand frequent flier miles on Alaska Airlines.

When my mom passed, she generously left me her modest little house in Arizona, where my husband and I spend much of the winter now. Alaska had a harsher than usual winter the first three months of 2021, so it was easy for us to bail to the lower forty-eight.

After our parents passed, we faced all this free time and what seemed like extra money we weren’t spending on travel. I dove at the chance to do some world travel with my California cousin’s travel group. We did two tours of Europe before the pandemic stopped us in our tracks.

I’ve always kept journals, and once I started traveling, I resumed my journals. It was because of these journals that I was able to write two novels and an award-winning short story, starting in 2015. 

The summer of 2015 was the second worst wildfire season in Alaska. Anchorage had a health advisory in place for the better part of a month, due to the dense smoke that collected in the Anchorage Bowl. I could barely see my neighbor’s home across the street. Many homes were destroyed in outlying areas north of Anchorage and a total of 5.1 million acres of wildlands burned. Firefighting resources were stretched so thin, only fires that threatened lives and homes were being suppressed. Channel 2 News in Anchorage did a story of a near miss a fire crew had on a fire.

Memories came avalanching back on a near miss our crew had experienced in the late 80s. A friend of mine suggested I write up the story and submit it to The Anchorage Press newspaper. So I did. Six months later it won an Alaska Press Club award for best historical piece in all media, and a judge suggested I write a novel centered around that experience.

If you would have said to me back in 2015, I’d have several novels in different stages and published the first two, I would have stared at you like you’d shifted into a moose, exclaiming, “No way!”

A lot can happen in ten years. I’m sure you could list a trillion things that have occurred, and one of them was, we never saw this global impact coming. Although my biologist husband announced to me back in 1978 a virus like this would hit at some point. Of course, we poo-poo’ed it and got on with our lives.

In one way ten years seems like a long span of time. In another way it seems it zipped right by. That’s the funny thing about time. I remember sitting at my desk at work, watching the clock in late afternoons, as the minutes dragged. Suddenly, I’m at my retirement party, wondering how it all whirled past me so fast.

What I’ve learned from this is, to carpe the heck out of my diem! Each day when I think of something new or challenging, mostly relating to my new writing life, I say to myself, “What do I have to lose?”

Absolutely nothing.

There’s a ton of things that I was afraid to do at first. Dare I ask a New York Times bestselling author to endorse my second romantic suspense novel? What do I have to lose? She might say no. Then again—she said yes! After I picked myself up off the floor, I set to work, making my writing the best it could possibly be to be worthy of this honor.

If you’re celebrating a ten-year wedding anniversary, ten years at a fantastic job, ten years of overcoming a life-changing event or surviving a life-threatening health situation, celebrate it! Give yourself a pat on the back for your achievement. You deserve it. Especially after this past year and the challenges each of us has faced.

When we were forced into lockdown a little over a year ago, no one had a crystal ball. And being a tad older I couldn’t help but think I didn’t want to leave the planet until I published a book. For two years I had worked to get a traditional publisher. So, when covid hit, I pulled all of my submissions back from the Big 5 and learned to do it myself. Now I’m writing my third book.

So carpe the heck out of your diem!

Ten years from now, you’ll be glad you did.

I'm thrilled to announce that my second novel, Alaska Inferno, releases May 31st! 

Preorder ALASKA INFERNO!

Watch the book trailer for ALASKA INFERNO!

LoLo Paige was a wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Alaska Fire Service. She's an award-winning author of two novels in the Blazing Hearts Wildfire Series, Alaska Spark and soon to be released Alaska Inferno. Her stories contain edge-of-the-seat, invigorating action, strong-willed female firefighters and romantic suspense. LoLo and her husband divide their time between their oceanside beach house in Kachemak Bay, Alaska and sunny Arizona. 

What readers have said about Alaska Spark...

"I could almost feel the heat of the wildfires that surrounded the crews as they staved off threats..."

"The men are wild and yummy and the women are strong and lovingly feisty. The plot moves along at a fast pace..."

Website / Bookbub / Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest

 

 

Spring (eventually) Overcomes Writer's Block by Sarah Raplee

 

I never understood what it was like to have writer’s block until a couple years ago when my family was faced with a series of unfortunate events. We learned our forty-seven-year-old daughter and her husband were addicted to opioids and meth about the same time my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia.

My mother and my daughter lost their grips on reality over the next few months. Mom moved into a top-notch memory care facility and died of heart failure three months later. My daughter broke into our house multiple times because of her delusions and hallucinations. She refused to get help and became homeless and dangerous as their lives unraveled. We had to get a restraining order and learn the cold, hard truth: there is nothing we can do unless she wants help. She believes she is sane and everyone who tries to help her is insane.

Thank God for NarAnon and for our therapist. We learned about processing grief, the horrible disease of addiction, detachment and letting go. But the grief resurfaces in nightmares, crazy texts or on icy winter nights.

We got hit with the pandemic, which has hospitalized and killed people I know. We evacuated due to wildfires. American citizens stormed the Capitol and some of them attacked police and threatened lawmakers and the Vice-President. Recently an ice storm forced us out again.

I’ve struggled with writer’s block through all of this. Just surviving has been all I can manage.

And yet…Spring arrived this year, and I find myself enjoying the daffodils, the birdsongs, the antics of our new puppy, spending time with my ten-year-old granddaughter and writing stories in my head again. 

Spring reminds me that life goes on, life is good and I am blessed.

Have you suffered from writer's block?  Please share your experience in a comment.  ~Sarah  

It Get's Easy...

I've heard it said many time that after a while things just 'get easy.'


I've have many trips around the sun and I've yet to reach that 'get easy' stage in my writing career (or life for that matter).  I've often started down a path and thought this is the 'it gets easy' road but I've found that it was another path of ...


I left my full-time job to live my dream of writing. Oh the dreams I had. Writing, eating doughnuts that never made me fat or effected my sugar, and napping (lots of naps). I was home for 2 weeks and along comes Charlie...


Now I know that plenty of moms do amazing jobs while working full time (and I did the first time around) but Charlie is a child of trauma. And the many many challenges that brings.... and the endless amount of joy makes it more complicated.

To start my shift from a full time employee the amazing world of full time writer, I began a fantasy series under my 'nice' pen name. It was a 3 book series!


I wrote it!!! I sold it!!! And the house went out of business :-( I wrote a couple steamy romance suspense - Sold them!!!! And the houses went out business :-(

So what do I do??? Give up and eat doughnuts - that would make my hips grow and do wicked (and not the good kind of wicked) things to my sugar? Nope...

I made a seriously scary decision and decided to self publish them....YIKES. Now I really need those doughnuts!

A Mermaid's Wish was my first book from beginning to end that I self published (the other ones had been previously published so it was just a matter of uploading them on Draft2Digital).

Man oh man is there so much to the self publishing thing...Where to get a cover???? I was to the point I was going to have Charlie draw me a picture. Then I found Lia Davis and she's much better than Charlie's coloring!

            I had to find a content editor...
                                 a line editor...  my eye is twitching still thinking about it.

I wouldn't say that it has gotten easier to self published but I'm a little more comfortable.  So while I haven't ever stumbled on to the 'it get's easier' path, I have traveled the path of amazing dreams realized and over flowing with love.

My Path Less Traveled by Barbara Rae Robinson

I've never done anything the easy way in my life. Why should I now? My writing path has been strewn with rocks at times, but I've persevered and I'm still writing.

I look at my milestones as the decisions I've made and the paths I've taken over the years. The rocks have been the obstacles.

I rejected the career in science my high school counselors had laid out for me. I got married right out of high school. Six years later I started college as a freshman and finished with a master's degree in English while married, raising children, and running a household. I give thanks to my saint of a mother who took care of my kids.

While teaching English, I made a momentous discovery. It came about strangely. I was thumbing through a copy of McCall's magazine and came across a short story by Barbara Robinson. I remember having a sinking feeling. She was writing under my name. How could I use that name? Mind you, I'd never written a word of fiction at that point, but I made the decision that day that when I was published, I'd publish under my full name: Barbara Rae Robinson.

I started writing my first novel the summer before I quit teaching. I sold the fourth book I wrote to Harlequin in 1992. Love Me Not, by Barbara Stewart, was published in March, 1994. Harlequin insisted on pseudonyms back then.

By the time the book was published, I was so sick that I couldn't finish writing another book for over 17 years. A big rock in my path.  

The next three books I wrote were rejected. The last rejection, from a Harlequin editor, called my writing old fashioned. Margie Lawson, at a Rose City Romance Writers workshop, showed me what the problem was, my stilted language. My English teacher voice was not suited to writing romantic suspense.

To fix that problem, I took online classes from Margie Lawson and Rhay Christou. And even traveled to Margie's mountain for an immersion class. I learned a lot. And I'm still learning.

I have since written four more books that are in various stages of editing. I'm writing a romantic suspense series set in Portland, Oregon, featuring a PI agency and the people who work for that agency. My next goal is to indie publish the first three books in the spring. I'll be getting covers made soon and will upload them to my website: www.barbararaerobinson.com.

Blurbs for the three books are already on the website and a cover for the first book that will be replaced.

I'm still discovering my path. And I'm joyfully watching where it will lead me.

BARBARA RAE ROBINSON

Bio

 Barbara Rae Robinson lives in the country southwest of Portland, Oregon, with her high school sweetheart, who is still her husband. She spends her mornings writing and the rest of the day living. The rocks now have morphed into pebbles. And the path still awaits.

Anthology: A Collection of Stories by Paty Jager

The big thing these days is for authors to collaborate, hoping to garner new readers from other authors. It’s a smart way to find readers who might not have heard of you or were unsure if they might like your writing. 

There are box sets where authors put their first of a series in one set and price it low to hopefully capture new readers for their series.

And there are anthologies. A book with short stories or novellas from different authors. These are usually in the same genre or heat level. This is a good way for a reader to sample an author’s writing and decide if they want to try a book or a series by that writer.

I’ve been in both box sets and anthologies. Box sets are easier because you send the person putting the set together one of your books that is already written and there is very little to do.

Anthologies, on the other hand, usually require you write a story to fit within the bounds of the anthology. Some are marketed for holidays, others for a heat level, or some for a specific genre. Some are even put together as a marketing tool to raise money for a cause.

I’ve participated in a multi-genre anthology, one where I wrote a story for another author’s world, one where I wrote for a specific genre, and I have one coming out in June that is a western contemporary romance.

There are somethings to take into consideration when you agree to be part of an anthology. 

•   Know the writing of the others involved. Nothing will turn a reader off than to read two or three poorly written stories before they get to yours and not finish the book.
• If you are writing in a genre you usually write in, make sure to write it as you would any book in that genre. Use the same heat level, the same language. Make sure it sounds like your writing to give the reader a taste of your voice and style. Don’t style it to the tone of the anthology. You are trying to garner readers who will keep reading your work. If you misrepresent your writing, they may not come back for book two.
•   If you are writing in someone else’s world still stay true to your voice. But if that person doesn’t write the same heat level as you, it would be a good idea to turn the chance down rather than keep that story either hot or sweet and have the reader have the wrong expectations when they read your books. 
• Don’t let peers talk you into joining an anthology you know isn’t a fit for your writing. I had this happen. “It’s an excellent opportunity. You’ll get so much exposure.” It would have been an excellent opportunity, if I could have written the story to my standards. But I had to write to the standards of a sweet which misrepresented my writing to the readers of that anthology and garnered me some not so “sweet” reviews after they read my books.

The best way to get the most out of an anthology is to find a group of like-minded authors who write the same heat level, who have a proven track record with following through on commitments, and are willing to work to promote the project once it is released. And who you’ve vetted, so you know every reader who picks up the anthology will love every story in it.

The anthology releasing in June has 6 contemporary western authors involved. Many have been in other anthologies and box sets and have had success with those. I was honored to be asked to join this group. One of the request came this way: “We are looking for western writers who know the difference between chaps and shaps.” 

My novella in the anthology is Catch the Rain.

Running from her past, Kitty Baxter catches a glimpse of her future—if she’s brave enough to believe in herself and the kindhearted stranger who claims she deserves love. 

Focused on setting up his new veterinarian practice, Zach MacDonald becomes sidetracked by a karaoke singing beauty with a secret. He sees what others ignore, and becomes determined to make Kitty see that anyone can learn to catch the rain.

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 30+ novels, dozen novellas, and short stories of murder mystery, western romance, and action adventure. She has a RomCon Reader’s Choice Award, EPPIE, Lorie, and RONE Award. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. 

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