Fever Dreams cover needs your vote!

Cover artist Dawne Dominique did a great job creating the cover for Fever Dreams, don't you think?

We'd both love it if you would vote for entry #14 in the You Gotta Read Covers contest!

A contemporary novel with fantasy elements, Fever Dreams is also part of the Romance Junkies Summer Contest. Enter before August 31st for a chance to win a print copy.

The Dangers of Research

If you're a writer, especially a nonfiction one, you're probably incredibly curious about everything. I'm always intrigued by odd snippets and facts that I stumble across as I research. Pretty soon I'm totally engrossed in something totally off topic, but thoroughly fascinating. Before I know it, I've blown all my writing time on a nonrelated subject.

At the moment I'm researching and writing on pirates. So when a tidbit about a woman pirate from Pennsylvania caught my eye, I had to follow up even though it had nothing to do with the Chinese woman pirate, Ching Shih, I was supposed to be writing about. Curiouser and curiouser...she lived nearby and met her husband one town away from where I'd lived. So how come I'd never heard of her?

Rachel Schmidt (1760-1789) was born on a farm near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. When she was 16, she met George Wall in the thriving metropolis of Harrisburg and married him against her parents' wishes. She and her husband departed for Boston and worked as a maid and fisherman, respectively. After partying with friends and using up their money, they hit upon a scheme to get rich quick.

Rachel and George sailed out just before a storm, pretended to be in distress, and then murdered those who stopped to help. They took the goods, then sank the ship. This worked well until a storm swept George overboard. From then on, Rachel worked alone, stealing what she could from docked ships.

In 1789 she was captured and tried for a murder she didn't commit. Although she confessed to her earlier crimes, she was hanged for the one she hadn't done. Talk about irony. . .

Writers Write Day: Part 2

Things I discovered while trying to implement Writers Write Day:

1. I'm very distractible.
2. I'm not cut out to write for long, uninterrupted periods. (See #1)
3. The combination of the lure of the Internet and the habit I've developed of frequent check-ins is much stronger than I realized.
4. I need to power through the first painful "I can't do this/this is too hard" phase to get to the sweet spot where I can focus and concentrate. Telling my daughter to turn off the TV helps, too.
5. Butt in chair, eyes on work remains a viable writing rule.
   
   I've logged a little more than 5 hours since last night, so I still have about 2 hours to go (I'm flexing my day to work around my family's schedule...and my distractibility ;-) It has been a very productive five hours. Which leads me to:
   
6. I need at least one of these a month.

Writers Write Day: Wednesday, August 11

Last Friday, I received an email about Writers Write Day from fellow writer Rita Gerlach. The official date? Tomorrow, Wednesday, August 11. Here's what Rita had to say:

"Writers, there is a tug-o-war going on for your attention. It mostly comes in the guise of the Internet. Next Wednesday, August 11 is Writers Write Day. The goal of this all day event is to immerse writers in their manuscripts without the distractions of blogs, Facebook, social networking sites, news sources, etc.. Let's admit it, they do pull us away, and sometimes hours go by and we have lost valuable writing time.

Here is what to do.

1. Put a 'do not disturb' sign on your door.
2. Write for at least three hours in the morning. If you start at 9am that will bring you up to the noon hour.
3. Take a lunch break.
4. Write for four hours in the afternoon.
5. That evening post on your blog, Facebook, etc. how it went. How much work did you get done?

Here is what you CANNOT do.

1. Do not peruse the Internet. That includes Facebook and other social networking sites.
2. Do not make phone calls unless absolutely necessary, and make them during your break.
3. No text messaging.
4. No television or radio, but by all means listen to inspirational music that helps the creative juices flow.

Let your family and friends know that you will be going into a day of seclusion to work on your manuscript. Hope you have an incredible time writing."

It sounded wonderful to me, but...yeah, there's always a "but."

In my case, the "but" comes in the form of a preteen whom I prefer not to leave to her own devices for seven hours, and a doctor's appointment for said preteen, made months ago.

BUT (there it is again), I'm not giving up. I like the idea too much to pass, so I'm stretching my Writers Write Day into three days. I started this afternoon, will put as many hours in as I can tomorrow and will finish on Thursday, if necessary. The times I designate as writing times during those days will be Internet-free...but Facebook and blogs do make a nice reward for a job well done, as does email.

How about you? Are you up for a challenge? Or, are you such a well-oiled writing machine that this is child's play for you?

Celebrate the Book Festival coming this fall!

On Saturday, October 23, 2010, The Friends of Bosler Library will host Celebrate the Book, a Central Pennsylvania Book Festival at the Carlisle Expo Center. Their purpose is to bring the community and authors and book-related special events together to promote literacy.

The event will have scheduled authors, children’s book illustrators, and book-related vendors as part of the festival. The featured guest is John Grogan, author of Marley & Me. Children’s activities will include the game “Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?” and a “tea party” with Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Sharon Gaston will entertain with her wonderful storytelling, and Megan Lloyd will talk about her inspirations for illustrating her books for children. There is so much more—Wert BookBinding, historians Richard Sommers and Ann Hoffer, Patrick Reynolds, and Mark Nesbitt--check out their website www.celebratethebook.org to see the program and all the author’s biographies.

If you are an author and wish to participate, Celebrate the Book is seeking authors who would like to attend the festival, sell their books, and meet the public. Contact festival chair Lynn Hofer for details.

I will be at a booth with my books, including my latest fantasy novel Surfacing, and my Native American historical with local ties to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Follow the Stars Home, which releases tomorrow! Woot!

Hope to see you there!

My cover for Surfacing!

I couldn't wait to share this new cover. It just came in my email, and I love love love it! Right down to the fin on the spine. :) Kendra Egert did an amazing job.



The blurb is on the back cover (and you can read it if you click on the image to enlarge it), but Surfacing is the story of struggling indie rocker AJ Dillon, who moves to his grandfather's house in Florida because he has nowhere else to go. Grandpa lines up a job at Weeki Wachee Springs, home of the famous mermaid show. There he meets Cassiopeia, a real mermaid.

But some of you already know that. You've been a tremendous help with edits, and I'm so grateful.

This cover really made my day. What do you think??

Shadows from the U.K.

Today I received a large package from Gollancz (my UK publisher). *cue the dirty thoughts*

Done? Okay, here are the UK covers for Shadow's Son in hardcover (left) and trade paperback (right). I think they came out awesome.

Thanks, Gillian!

Are first chapters an effective marketing tool?

A discussion at Lyons Literary blog convinced me they are. Or could be, if your first chapter interests people. :)

So in advance of tomorrow's release of my historical novel (which I like to call a historical adventure romance), I've posted the first chapter of Angels, Sinners and Madmen on my web site. While historicals may not be to everyone's liking, I hope the first chapter will entice people to want more. The trailer and excerpt are here.

On Wednesday, I'm also launching a new blog series called Casting Call - I hope you'll check it out. First up is Angels, Sinners and Madmen.

Though I'll still be visiting plenty of blogs (see the crazy schedule here), today also marks my last official stop on my blog tour at Margaret West's wonderful blog.

And tomorrow is my monthly post at Popculturedivas, a tribute to my much-maligned home state of New Jersey. I hope you'll pop over!

WordArt

The best authors are transparent, their phrasing and word use as deft as an artist's brush. Their art paints the lives of their characters, while we, the readers, follow the flow of their work in silence.
But I do wonder sometimes just how the author might phrase their work aloud, what they'd emphasize, how they'd punctuate. Public readings used to be commonplace. Now, they're much less so.
But that's about to change next Saturday night at Gallerie 13 in Mechanicsburg where six authors will be reading their works aloud. Two of them are SuquehannaWriters -- Lori Myers and Mike Silvestri.
The event is called "WordArt" and it was was dreamt up by Ally Bishop. Ally is a MFA student who wanted to bring the wordsmith's art into the same venue as the visual arts. She gathered us together; poets, essayists, humorists, fiction, and non-fiction writers alike, to lend our voices to our prose. It promises to be a thoughtful, humorous, and enjoyable evening. Best of all, it's free. There's even refreshments.
So, come on out and listen to how the wordsmith's paint at Gallerie 13 on 13 East Main Street in Mechanicsburg, PA beginning at 7:00 PM on Saturday, July 31st.
See you there.

New blog series: Story Elements

Today I launch a new blog series called Story Elements. Each post will examine the various aspects of each title and how I pulled together various elements into each story. I hope you'll pop over to my blog at http://catemasters.blogspot.com. As always, I love comments!

First up is my contemporary, Going with Gravity, which also provides a nice escape to the lush setting of Hawaii, also rich in culture.