Where history comes unlaced..
This is my first ever convention and I’m really excited! I’ll get to meet some of my favorite authors like Megan Hart, Elizabeth Hoyt, Jennifer Ashley and Cherise Sinclair…and get books signed…and take some workshops…and there’s even a beauty contest–male beauty that is–called Mr. Romance. The cover models compete for the title. I don’t think I can pass on that one. ;0 The really surreal part is that my name is listed in the AUTHORS ATTENDING page. God!!!!
Savvy Authors – Query pitch with Deb Werksman of Sourcebooks Results.
This was a pleasant thrill to end the week. I entered this contest last minute–literally–as it ended at midnight EST and that made it 9:00 pm on my side of the U.S. I was actually at a BSA dinner with my family and zipped home for 30 minutes to get my pitch posted before the contest closed, as usual, wearing several hats all at once!
Ms. Werksman has been on my short list for quite a while now, and low and behold, asked to see the full manuscript for a novel I’ve just completed! Libertine Lover is about a man who lives a self-indulgent life and enjoys rough sex with anonymous courtesans until–you guessed it–he falls hard for a girl he wants to have a future with. But she cannot be with him or any other man. She’s terrified of intimacy after a brutal attack leaves her emotionally fragile. What’s a libertine rake to do? Hmmmmm…finding his inner “gallant knight” and rescuing the lady in distress may be the only path he can follow.
Raine
My contract for, His Perfect Passion came and with it, some Homework assignments. First, I had to describe my characters in specific detail, height, weight, physical characteristics, etc. along with other elements key to the storyfor a cover questionnaire. I was invited to provide a link to a photograph of a person I could “see” as my character. This part was fun. I have found inspiration in paintings several times for my writing and it was a John William Waterhouse painting of Boreas that inspired my vision of the heroine, Marianne. The hero of my book, Darius Rourke, was just as fun to imagine. Darius is half English, half Italian, and a cultured but domineering gentleman. I found the perfect man one day in a cologne ad from a magazine. From the moment I spotted the photo I could not picture anyone else as my Darius. He is him, in my vision at least. Actually, ‘he’ is a Spanish model named, Oriol Elacho. I love his hands in the picture. You can feel the ‘cultured elegance’ just by looking at his hands. Delicioso…
The less fun part was writing three separate book blurbs. The first: 25 words or less for use on ads. The second: 50 word blurb for use on the website. The third: 150 words or less for the back of the book. Now, this was rather hard to do in my opinion, and the hardest blurb, by far, was the 25-word one. I did it, but it took me several hours to get it right. Condensing a novel down to just two sentences and conveying the essence of your story is a challenge. As a writer you have to make your book sound interesting enough that people will want to read it. That’s the tricky part…but also the beauty of writing–the part that keeps me typing away.
Raine
Today marked the beginning of ‘The Year of the Rabbit.’ My mother tells me, (she has unlimited knowledge in these areas) that the animal of your birth year in the Chinese calendar will prove lucky for you throughout your life whenever the year comes into your animal.
Well, it was RABBIT the year I was born, so I guess I’m due a sh$%load of luck now that it’s come around again!
Mom said informatively, “You’re getting a book published, so it’s already working for you.”
I have to say, I’m generally a pessimistic person, but considering how exciting the last few days have been, I’m thinking Mom’s luck theory has some merit to it.
Yeah, RABBIT luck works for me. I’m not complaining. “Here little bunny…”
Raine