Well, this isn’t one you are gonna want to miss! My new friend Leslie is ending 2016 with a bang for Fairy Tale Friday. Thank you so much to all of you who have participated. I have some AMAZ…
Check out my take on Cinderella!
Well, this isn’t one you are gonna want to miss! My new friend Leslie is ending 2016 with a bang for Fairy Tale Friday. Thank you so much to all of you who have participated. I have some AMAZING authors lined up for 2017, so stay tuned.
Leslie McKelvey has been writing since she learned to write, and her mother still stores boxes of handwritten stories in the attic. When her high school Creative Writing teacher told her she needed to be a novelist, she decided to give it a try. Finally, at the ripe old age of…forty-something…her debut novel, Accidental Affair, was contracted and published by Black Velvet Seductions Publishing. Two follow-up novels, Right Place, Right Time and Her Sister’s Keeper completed the Accidental Encounters series, and Runaway Heart, a standalone book, was released in March of 2016. BVS also published one of Leslie’s short stories in…
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01
Apr
16
It’s ANTHOLOGY time!
Sooo…I think it was late November 2015, or early December, my publisher, Richard Savage, owner of Black Velvet Seductions (BVS), e-mailed me and the other BVS authors about an erotic anthology he wanted to put together. The subject matter was first-time experiences with BDSM. He wanted short stories of 5,000 words or less (hello, have we met, I’m the verbose one, remember?), and he wanted drafts submitted by I think the first week of February. The dates are really unimportant.
Anyhoo, being me I put it off until the last possible minute. And I mean last possible minute, as in within hours of the deadline. Why? Well, for one I don’t write BDSM. I write romantic suspense, so why he wanted to include me in the first place sort of mystified me (one more thing on a long list of things that mystify me, like why does chocolate have to be fattening?). I asked him, “Why me?” He responded with, “Because you’re a good writer and I like the way you tell stories.” Boy, flattery will get you EVERYWHERE. Second, I work better under pressure. Whenever the heat is on and I can feel it licking at my neck like Satan himself wants to get busy, my inner genius comes out and produces something worth reading (wish I knew where that bi*** was the REST of the time).
Never in my life did I think I’d have a short-story in a published erotic anthology, especially an anthology regarding this particular subject matter. I guess I forgot that I write not only romantic suspense, but also historical romance, paranormal romance, sci-fi/post apocalyptic romance…. I write romance, and romance transcends the category. All I had to do was adjust the setting and wording and VOILA! A short story about domination/submission was born! It was a first for me.
It’s also the first time I’ve ever used the word “cock” in my writing. 🙂
I haven’t read the whole anthology yet, but what I have read was really good (if squirming in your seat while reading erotica is good). If BDSM and hot, nothing-is-off-limits-sex are your thing, you’ll LOVE this. Take a peek!
15
Mar
16
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!
Wow. Who’d have thought that I’d be a multi-published author when I started this journey? NOT ME. I’d given up trying to get published, then one of my university professors had the class do a paper on a professional/charitable organization we were a member of. I couldn’t think of anything other than Romance Writers’ of America. And I was a member really in name only, but it fit the criteria so I bushi**ed my way through said paper, and I received a note along with my “A” grade.
“I’d be interested in reading your manuscript, if you’d feel comfortable sharing it with me.”
That note changed my life.
My professor was actually impressed with my manuscript (she said it was NOT what she’d been expecting), and she referred me to a writing coach. It wasn’t a free service, but boy am I glad I skipped a few dinners out and paid for her expertise. A published author herself, her research brought me to Black Velvet Seductions, and the rest is multi-published author history. Oh, did I mention I was multi-published? (Wink, wink!) I think if I keep saying it, I’ll FINALLY believe it.
MULTI-PUBLISHED. Nope, still not totally there.
Now, I anxiously await the “birth” of my fourth “child.” Runaway Heart was actually written WELL before Accidental Affair or ANY of the others, so much so that I had to update all the tech because what was hip in the late 90s is NOT hip now. But, regardless of the corrected retro aspects, the basics, the romance, the suspense, the sex, are all there. And it’s a pretty darn good book, if I do say so myself. And I do, but I’m biased.
Do you want to know what the BEST thing is? Runaway Heart releases on my BIRTHDAY! There is no better present than that, unless of course my husband gets me that .416 Barrett rifle I’ve been pining for. So, yeah, BEST. BIRTHDAY PRESENT. EVER.
Thank you, Connie Van Guilder (my professor) and Catharine Bramkamp (my writing coach) for believing in me when I had stopped believing in myself.
See, folks? Dreams CAN come true…and sometimes it happens when you LEAST expect it!
Until I have a link to this one, you can check out my other books here:
13
Feb
16
#Meet My Character
I LOVE Bear! Sigh….!
I’ve been invited by Glenda Horsfall to participate in a “Meet My Character” blog hop. She is a wonderful writer and great supporter, and you should definitely check her out. Enjoy!
Glenda Horsfall was born and brought up in the beautiful city of Edinburgh.
From an early age she was an avid reader. She became engrossed in reading romance novels in her early teens and promised herself that one day she would sit down and write her own.
That dream has now been achieved with the publication of her first novel ‘Playing for Keeps’. A tale of Domination and submission, the story is also a romance with a Happy Ever After ending!
Glenda now lives on the Fylde Coast of England with her own hero. She has a grown up son and three beautiful grand-daughters.
Having worked for many years as an Accountant, she loves being able to let…
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13
Feb
16
I…am…JEALOUS
Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m jealous. Of what or whom, you ask? AUTHORS. Wait, amend that: SUCCESSFUL authors. Wait, amend the amendment: WILDLY SUCCESSFUL authors.
I keep telling myself I AM a successful author. I’ve been published. Three times. Number four comes out in the next few weeks and number five is in edits. Sooo…I’m a multi-published author. That’s a writer’s definition of success, right? Absolutely. You bet. Is that a rhetorical question?
The problem boils down to money, a concept that REALLY irritates me. It shouldn’t be about financial gain, but Success and Money seem to go hand-in-hand. Is being published really the measure of a writer’s success? Before getting published, getting published was all I wanted. DONE. Yea! Once I had one book out there then I wanted another. DONE again, and again, and again. YIPPEE! Now that I have BOOKS on the market, I spend all my free time promoting them, doing author events, giving away free books in the hope of gaining loyal fans who will buy the others. So far I’ve spent more on promotion than I’ve made in royalties. When my husband cocked an eyebrow at me I shrugged and said, “What? It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I HAVE to promote.” Thank GOD for tax deductions, lol.
I blame this dilemma on e-books. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my Kindle and the fact I can carry a THOUSAND books in a device the size of a single paperback. However, thanks to e-books any person who thinks they can write can publish a story (hands up if you’ve read one of those).
I read e-books today and reflect on the days of real, PHYSICAL books, remembering when seeing a typo was almost unheard of. Grammar was important, as was plot and character development, emotional depth, and ACTUAL WRITING ABILITY. Now all it takes is an eye-catching cover, a good back blurb, and VOILA! One is an author. With such a cluttered field, how does one distinguish between a GOOD book that has been developed, edited, revised, polished, and painstakingly produced, and a book that someone wrote over a weekend and ran it through one of the e-publishers, typos, stilted dialogue, and bad grammar included?
This makes me wonder if those authors most of us know – John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Stephen King, and the like – would still be as hugely popular if they had to publish in the current market. If Catherine Coulter had to go up against every aspiring novelist who could publish their own work, without “pounding the pavement” first, would she still have become a multi NYT Bestselling Author? The bratty, five-year-old in me wants to plant my fists on my hips, stomp my foot, and pout, “NO!” The other part of me just longs for a small taste of the immense success these “household names” have been blessed with.
Is it childish? Absolutely. Do I begrudge these well-known writers their achievements? Absolutely not. I AM jealous (who DOESN’T want to be world-renowned?), but I have hope that if I keep plugging away, eventually some of that success will shine on me. Regardless, I’ll keep writing. I have no choice, because if I don’t my head will explode from the characters and all the noise they make. And I have NO idea how to get brains out of a keyboard.
😀
If you haven’t yet, you can check out my books here:
And my publisher…: Black Velvet Seductions
04
Dec
15
I need to get my act TOGETHER.
Sooo, I’m trying to be more “authorly,” (yes, I made that up and I can because I’m an author). This means regular blog posts, working harder to market my books (they’re listed below if you’re unaware, and people seem to like ’em, so check them out!), and spending LESS time on Facebook and more time doing my ACTUAL job. Being an author. Because being an author is cool. And you get to write books. And make up words and stuff. (On a serious note, someone asked me what the best part about being an author was and I replied, “Seriously? Being an author!”)
Part of the reason I don’t do regular blog posts is because no one reads my blog so I don’t really see the point. Then again, if there’s nothing to read on my blog, why visit? The other part is I seem to practice “feast or famine” writing. My books are pretty long in comparison to other romance novels, but I believe in telling a full story, which takes me longer than 50,000 words or 87 pages. So, I either write too much, or not at all. Oh, the conundrum!
This quandary has led me to the first decision I’ve made in my quest to “Get My Act Together,” or GMAT: post here on my blog at least once a week. I have some author friends who post almost daily, but those author friends ALSO have personal assistants. My PA is a pair of headphones and a wireless keyboard. Oh, and the remote control so I can turn off that annoying idiot box (who knew that phrase would be prophetic?).
My second decision in my quest to GMAT is…brace yourselves…TURN OFF FACEBOOK. Oh, my goodness, has there EVER, in the history of mankind, been a bigger device of time-suckage? I go on to check my feed and three hours later…still scrolling, responding to comments (yes, I fight with people online because I’m aggressive like that), and making comments. JUST SAY NO. Nancy Reagan had the right idea, but cocaine would probably be an easier habit to break.
I’m sure I will need to make more decisions before I actually GMAT, but baby steps, people, baby steps.
Here are the links for my books:
19
Nov
15
Okay, so THIS happened….
See the picture below? Yeah, that’s my latest book cover (drool). I’ve been posting it all over Facebook, which is what authors typically do to help with promotion. Now FB has this service called “Boosting” in which they will promote, or BOOST, your posts. They have VERY strict rules about what can and can’t be posted (no nudity, no text that exceeds 20% of the image, no profanity, etc.), and I’ve had to re-do all my book teasers to accommodate their Puritanical standards. I figured, wrongly, that the cover of Her Sister’s Keeper would pass: not a lot of text, no “nudity” (because a bare male chest doesn’t qualify as nudity in my world), and no profanity. This is the response I received from FB after they refused to boost my book cover (emphasis mine):
“Your ad wasn’t approved because it doesn’t follow our Advertising Policies, which apply to an ad’s content, its audience and the destination it links to. We don’t allow ads that reference body images in a way that may make some viewers upset. Ads referring to someone’s health or appearance are sensitive in nature and using images of drastic weight loss typically evokes a negative reaction from viewers.
How to fix: Use an image that focuses clearly on your product or service.”
Oddly, they’re not upset about the “nudity” they’re upset about the “drastic weight loss” depicted in this photo. And, I can post this all over FB for FREE, but if I want to PAY them to boost it, it suddenly violates their “standards.”
Rolling my eyes so hard I just saw my brain….
I love character interviews, and I REALLY love Bear’s interviews, which he HATES. Maybe that’s part of why I like them so much, lol.
Amazon Red 