Meri Weiss | CLOSER TO FINE

June 24, 2008, the release date of my debut novel, CLOSER TO FINE, has now come and gone. The birthing process is over—the novel can now live its own life (hopefully a long one). I have seen my book—my words, my ideas, my characters—in bookstores, and never have I felt such satisfaction. I feel nervous and anxious as well—I want others to read my book, to love my characters the way I do—but mostly I am just proud of myself. Publishing a book is an arduous process—one’s ego must be displaced, and one’s self-confidence must remain steadfast, despite the incredible odds of actually seeing one’s book picked up by an agent, sold to a publisher, worked over by an editor and then successfully launched into the land of commercial fiction. I was fortunate to find a terrific agent and a fantastic editor, both of whom suggested minor changes that significantly improved my novel. I was, and am, lucky in general; the odds of publishing a book these days are slim. I also possess a cadre of friends who, along with my family, have supported my grass-roots efforts to publicize the book, which is, of course, the last and hardest part of the entire process.

Some people believe that publicizing your own book—using email, Facebook, alumni associations, word of mouth, bookstore readings and any and all means of spreading the word so others purchase the book—is shallow, useless and antithetical to what literature is supposed to be. These people believe that it is enough that my book is in stores; they posit that if I believe in my book (which I do) and my book is good (which it is), that is enough—I have achieved my goal, my work is done, time to move on and write another.

I am writing another novel, but I am not about to leave my first-born behind, sitting on shelves, without a voice with which to reach out and appeal to readers. I believe in art for art’s sake, but I also teach college-level literature and am all too aware of those writers who did not enjoy the respect of the reading public in their lifetimes. I do not aspire to be Fyodor Dostoyevsky or Herman Melville—they were brilliant writers who died alone amid poverty—their work did not sell while they were alive, and they were never lauded for their literary talents until years after they died. Part of the publishing quagmire is accepting the role and responsibility of self-promotion—every good writer does it, until he or she sells enough books to attract attention, and then a new, stronger contract. When a writer is no longer an unknown quantity, the publishing house pitches in, and helps sell the next book. Even then, however, thanks to our media-saturated society, a writer should do everything possible, whether it is a third book or a thirtieth book, to promote his or her own book. It is akin to supporting a child, really. No matter how much faith and confidence you have in your child, you would not usher it into adulthood, into the real world, without the tools and abilities needed to succeed.

So as I write my next novel, I will also continue to work on my debut novel, CLOSER TO FINE. It is an amazing book that will appeal to any reader. It makes people laugh, and it also makes people cry. It asks readers to think, but it also entertains readers. It is a part of me, and I will never abandon it.

Visit http://www.meriweiss.com/ for more information on CLOSER TO FINE, including Appearances.

Meri Weiss

Yasmine Galenorn | Things That Go Bump In The Night & Other Delights

From the time I was a little girl, I was terrified of the house I grew up in because I knew it was haunted—by what I couldn’t say, but a malign energy tainted that house. It didn’t help matters that I’ve always been somewhat psychic. I could always sense whatever was there watching me. To this day, that house shows up in my nightmares and in my nightmares, it’s usually filled with tens of thousands of spiders (I’m arachophobic) and I wake up screaming. Granted, I had a lot of serious baggage to deal with in childhood, but the house stands out in my mind as the ‘haunted house on the hill’ even though it was smack in the middle of a lower-class suburb.

Scared of the house or not, that didn’t detour me from falling in love in love with the paranormal, and from becoming a total fantasy/SF freak. When I was five years old, I stumbled over Dark Shadows and went nuts over it. I’m not certain why my mother let me watch a vampire soap opera but wouldn’t let me watch ‘the man with the funny ears’ (Spock, on Star Trek, which started the same year). I have a feeling she didn’t fully realize that Dark Shadows was about a vampire.

But before ST:TOS was over, I was watching Kirk, Spock, and my favorite—Uhura, take on the denizens of deep space. And every Saturday, I settled down in front of the TV for the Science Fiction Double Creature Feature, immersing myself in Godzilla, The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds (and no, we’re not talking Tom Cruise’s version, we’re talking the real thing here!), The Valley of Gwangi, The Creature from the Black Lagoon—all those incredibly riveting old movies that I still love today. In fact, just last night I hauled out the DVD of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I knew I wanted to be a writer from the time I was three and had been making up odd little stories from the day I could string sentences together. I learned to read early and my loves ran to volcanoes, dinosaurs, and…would you believe it? Yep! Fantasy and science fiction. The Space Cat series by Ruthven Todd was one of my first discoveries—I just loved that adventuresome astronaut cat. And thanks to a non-restrictive policy allowing children to check out books from any section of the library, I sped through the fantasy and science fiction section. I ploughed through Asimov, Clarke, Pohl, and my favorite to this day—Ray Bradbury. I cut my teeth on The City and the Stars, I fell in love with Something Wicked This Way Comes and The October Country. By the time I was ten I knew that I didn’t care all that much for Heinlein, but I was nuts over Clifford D. Simak.

As time went on and I left home, I discovered Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, JRR Tolkien, Jack Chalker, Joan D. Vinge. And later on—Ben Bova, and Greg Bear, among others. I added them to the growing list of writers I admired, but I also began to branch out in my reading, moving into other areas. But my love for F/SF never diminished, nor did my determination to make it as a writer in that genre.

Fast forward to my first book contract. In 1996, with seven novels hiding in my closet (and trust me, they’re still there), I received my first contract. Not for fantasy—or SF—but for a nonfiction book. Of course, the nonfiction was connected to my love for the paranormal. It was a book of guided meditations. But I didn’t care—I was ecstatic I’d finally gotten my foot in the door. Soon, I thought—soon I’ll find a home for my fantasy.

Eight nonfiction metaphysical books later, I landed an agent and she found a home for my eighth novel—a paranormal mystery, of all things. Now, I’d never planned on writing a mystery but that’s what the book turned out to be. So I wrote two mystery series for awhile, thrilled to be telling stories again instead of writing nonfiction, but still wanting to break into my favorite genre. In specific, urban fantasy.

And then, a few years ago, I sent in a new proposal. My editor loved it and my agent negotiated a contract for me for a third series—this one urban fantasy/paranormal romance. And so my bestselling Otherworld Series (aka Sisters of the Moon Series) was born. And I finally felt like I was ‘home.’

Now, as I’m starting work on the seventh book of that series—Bone Magic—the fourth one is about to hit the shelves. Dragon Wytch will be out on July 1st, and it’s my twentieth published book! Best yet, I’m still head-over-heels in love with writing this series. I’ve finally found an outlet for my wild, over-the-top imagination. And my readers seem to agree: what I knew when I was three years old—that I needed to write fantastical stories—was right on target.

So tell me, what’s your favorite genre? What do you love to write and/or read? Has it changed since you were a child, or have you had a lifelong favorite?



You can contact me through my website, MySpace, or Live Journal.
Keep watching the skies!

Yasmine Galenorn

Jenna Petersen | Accidentally Dark: Or I Didn’t Mean to Make Him Alpha

I am funny. Okay, I may not be stand-on-a-stage-do-The-Last-Comic-Standing funny, but I can tell a funny story and I have a quirky sense of humor. I really like to laugh and I am silly more often than I care to admit in a public forum. When people meet me and they find out what I do, they often assume that I write light-hearted romantic comedies with a sarcastic sense of humor that matches my life "voice".

They are wrong.

No, I don’t write romps. I don’t do slapstick. I can’t tell funny to save my life. Instead, I write highly sensual, intensely emotional, dark historical romances set in the Regency period for Avon Books and Avon Red (erotic romances, those are written as Jess Michaels). People emailed me after my debut, Scandalous, came out in October 2005 and told me I made them cry. And I was happy about it!

So how did this happen? How did I go from being a reasonably happy person with a high sense of the absurd and the amusing to writing super dark romance?

I tell you what, I blame the men. That’s right, it’s not my fault, it’s my heroes. You see, I tried my hand at a few light stories in the dark days before Avon came calling. I sat down and I told myself that there would be no angst. There would be no brooding. There would just be a nice, normal, sexy hero with a sense of humor.

And then he whispered to me, “By the way, I accidentally killed my brother three years ago. I’ve never quite gotten over the guilt.”

No!!! Bad hero. BAD. You aren’t supposed to be wracked by a guilty secret. You aren’t supposed to be torn apart and broken by emotional turmoil. And yet, as soon as he said that… I knew it was true. And it made him far more compelling to me. Although that story never sold, ten books have and all of them feature the common thread of a emotionally tortured hero in one way or another.

My latest book, Lessons From A Courtesan (which just came out Tuesday) features a hero, the Earl of Baybary, Justin Talbot, who isn’t any different. Like many of my previous heroes, he has a dark secret that he’s trying to keep. He has a complicated relationship with the members of his family. Oh yes, and he was blackmailed into a marriage of convenience with his wife, Victoria, who just showed up in London posing as a courtesan.

Well, that’s just enough to make any man dark and brooding, isn’t it?

So, as a reader do you like the tortured, brooding, darkly sexy hero? What do you think draws us to these alpha male types? And is there a twelve-step program for writers who are addicted to tormenting their characters?

Jenna
www.jennapetersen.com/

Jill Marie Landis | Celebrate Every Day!

Aloha to all of you readers out there in cyberspace. How exciting to be back on the Fresh Fiction Blog and in such good company.

This month I have plenty to celebrate. HOMECOMING, my first book for Steeple Hill, will go on sale today.

Set in the 1870's, it's the story of a young woman who is “rescued” from the Comanche clan that abducted her as a child. She has no memory of her past when she is taken in by Hattie Ellenberg, a woman who has suffered at the hands of the Comanche herself. Joe Ellenberg is Hattie’s son. He’s a man who has lost his faith and his hope for the future—until this lovely young woman searching to know “Who am I? Where do I belong?” comes into his life.

It's a book I truly enjoyed writing, even though I began with a little trepidation. I've never written an inspirational before and I wasn't sure I'd be able to achieve the goal I was going for: a page-turner filled with emotion, tension and characters readers would remember long after the last page was read.

So, when I finished, I gave the book to two friends and fellow writers to read. Stella Cameron (A MARKED MAN, Mira) was the first. She was here for R and R and I gave her only the first fifty pages and she came back begging for more until she'd read the entire book. Not only that, but she gave me some ideas for elements to put into the final "happily ever after" scene--which I never write until the final final draft.

The second read was by Kristin Hannah (FIREFLY LANE from St. Martin's). Kristin has a home here in Hawaii and we share a lot of beach time doing plotting and brainstorming while she's on island. She also blazed through the read. Whew.

Next, HOMECOMING was off to my editor--and as it turns out, she loved the book so much for the first time in what seems like forever, I had not one revision! I was so fired up I've already finished my second book for Steeple Hill. AN ACCIDENTAL LAWMAN will be out next year.

I've spent the past couple of weeks "touring" around on various blogs to promote DESTINATION: MARRIAGE and HOMECOMING. (It's a lot easier than leaving the island, believe me.) It's been fun and exciting. Writing is a solitary endeavor and at times it's hard to stay inside when there is so much to see and do all around me. When I'm in the writing "zone," sometimes a lose a whole day. I get up, shuffle to the kitchen, make some oatmeal, sit down to write and look up and it's two in the afternoon. Lately I've been trying to turn over a new leaf and take short ten to twenty minute breaks at least every hour or so. I've been walking the neighbors' dog. Riding my bike to the post office and back. Walking myself around. Puttering around the garden. It sounds like avoidance, but it's actually working! I'm getting more done and enjoying what I'm doing. It's a mini way to celebrate every day and not let life slip by while I'm plunking away at the computer.

Speaking of celebrating, July is definitely the month to have fun. Not only are my brother and his wife coming to visit us here in Hawaii, but the 4th is just around the corner. Here we celebrate by attending a friend's fantastic bar-b-que and pot luck at a nearby beach. She has an invite list of 400 and they bring friends! Not only that, but there's live entertainment all day long, which includes hula. You can bet I'll be dancing.

Thanks for spending some time with me. If you want to know more about HOMECOMING, visit my author page here at Fresh Fiction or my home page at www.jillmarielandis.com/

Above all, enjoy your day, enjoy life, and celebrate!
Jill Marie Landis

C. C. Harrison | Strong Women

I admire strong women, don’t you? I’m not talking about famous women who have made important world changing contributions to science, literature, medicine or other areas of our culture. I’m talking about the young women of today who set goals, plan their lives, and make intelligent decisions for themselves. Women like Amanda, Tricia and Melissa, the three college students who were with me on the Navajo Indian Reservation as VISTA volunteers. They were smart and sharp, knew what they wanted, and deliberately set out to get it.

But I’m also talking about fictional women. My favorite is Scarlett O’Hara. I read GONE WITH THE WIND scads of years ago, but I will never forget the feeling of empowerment that came over me when time after time, Scarlett stood firm and met seemingly impossible challenges while everyone around her was going to pieces. Remember when she stood in that weather-ravaged potato field swearing she would never go hungry again? It gives me a thrill even now.

And I loved all the fictional heroines of those wonderful gothic novels of the seventies written by fabulous authors like Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, Norah Lofts, and Phyllis Whitney. When the women in their stories heard all those creepy noises and thumpy bumps in the attic, did they slam the door and run away? NO! They went up that creaky staircase to check it out! I loved that! People joke about it, call those women TSTL (to stupid to live), but I thought then and I think now it took guts to do that. To me, courage is being afraid but doing it anyway.

I’m also talking about the women in my books who I hope readers find inspiring in the courage they show over the course of their story.

In THE CHARMSTONE, set in Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation, Amanda Bell leaves the comfort zone of her ordinary life in Beverly Hills when she is called upon to travel to a place she’s never been, and where she didn’t know anyone in order to fulfill her estranged father’s last wish. When she arrived in Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation, a place as foreign to her as if it were in another country, she felt uncertain, out of place, and, yes, afraid. Over the course of the story, she made mistakes that she learned from, overcame doubts and fears, faced mysterious threats, and despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, persevered.

In RUNNING FROM STRANGERS (due out from Five Star in September), child advocate Allie Hudson finds herself running for her life with a child in her care. She raced across the country to the only person she could trust, hoping he’d forgive her for leaving him practically at the altar. Once there, she endured scorn, uncertainty, rejection, and danger, but she never backed down. She had a child to protect.

In SAGE CANE’S HOUSE OF GRACE AND FAVOR (written as Christy Hubbard, scheduled for release in July 2009 from Five Star), lack of finances propelled Sage Cane, a prim and proper city woman, to relocate to a rough and rugged mining town in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains. She had to learn to survive in a whole new — and to her, impossible — environment. It wasn’t easy, but she found a way to empower herself and the other women in town, and together they turned the entire place on its collective ear. Sort of Girl power in the Old West!

Before beginning that book, I did a lot of research on women who traveled into the historic frontier, and I am in awe of them for the colossal courage they showed in going to a place that was not only new and strange, but dangerous too. Sage Cane is my tribute to them.

Who are some of the strong women you admire, fictional or otherwise?

C. C. Harrison
www.ccharrison-author.com/