Grandma's Advice

Is anyone still out there? I'm sorry I've been away for so long. I've been trying to figure out how to do this whole "contracted author" thing. The first book I ever completed (Desires of the Soul, scheduled for release June 2013) took me 1 year to write and 2 years after that to get it right. Then I become contracted through my awesomesauce publisher, Entangled Publishing, and suddenly I find myself in a situation where I need to write an entire book in a fraction of the time it took me for DotS.

I'd wanted to write my As-of-Yet-Untitled Indulgence in less time that it took, but I still finished an entire book in less than two months!! So, for my first time, I'd say that's not too shabby. Hopefully I'll be a little more present on the interwebz now that the rough draft crunch time is over...you know, until I'm in editing crunch time. ;p

But today I want to share something with you I found earlier this week while going through a container of old kid projects and other such things. It's a letter from my grandma, dated October 19, 2004. 

She's referring to an email I sent to my family giving the blow-by-blow happenings of when I accompanied my baby sister to the American Idol auditions in Las Vegas. As you all know, short-and-sweet is not my thing. I think it was some 4 pages long detailing the crazy trials and tribulations of our amazing 3-day trip. Since my grandma doesn't have a computer, one of my aunts gave her a copy, and this is the letter she sent me after reading it. I didn't remember this letter, so it was a sweet moment to read it again.

(I'll leave out all of the impertinent things with ellipses, but the rest of it is just as she wrote it.)

Gina, Loretta sent me a copy of your experience in Vegas. The way you wrote it I could just see you girls with all the problems you faced. And the humor you faced it with... It is so well written and so much detail that I could see everything as though I had been there. We all agree that you should be a writer. Jerry had that talent too... Anyway, I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your story and I still think you should take up writing. Love, Gramma

Jerry was my father who passed away when I was 10 years old. His brother, Tom, is an incredible writer as well, so the writing bug is definitely in the family. I loved that I found this letter now, eight years later, just as I'm about to embark on my authorial debut.

When I finally signed my contracts I had called my grandma (who is now 95 years old and has a brain sharp as a tack) to give her the good news. She was ecstatic and told me how proud she was and how she couldn't wait to read my books.

O_o <---- That was the look on my face when I thought about my sweet, almost-century-old grandmother reading some of the scenes in my books!

Then my (wonderfully fantastic) Aunt Marlene tells me a couple of days ago that she was discussing my books with my grandma who again mentioned wanting to read them. My aunt told her that some of my romance scene descriptions were "hot and racy" and we weren't sure she'd feel comfortable reading things like that.

To which she replied, "Oh, well, I'm a big girl. That's not gonna bother me."

(Bwahahahahaaaa! I wonder if dear old Grandma Bisbee has any idea what she's in for. ;) I'll make sure to report back when I get her review.)

Anyway, thanks, Grandma, for believing in me years before I even knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I love you dearly. <3

Sincerely,

Jerry's eldest, Gina Leigh

Word Count vs. Words That Count

As many of you know, I'm in major crunch mode. I gave myself a deadline of finishing my first Indulgence category romance by Monday the 16th. As you can see by the handy-dandy word counter in the side bar, I still have a ways to go. BUT, I do my best work when under the gun, so I'm doing a-ok.

What's really been suffering is this blog! Poor bloggy has been grossly neglected as of late, since I just don't have the time to write epically long posts (What was that? Write short posts, you say? *snort* Yeah, right, as if.) while trying to exceed my daily word count goals in order to make my deadline.

SO...I decided to RE-post one of my oldies-but-goodies (originally posted on 5-25-10) that has a huge relevance to what I'm going through in my writing at the moment. I haven't edited the original content of this post even though I feel the writing is sub-standard and it's killing me not to make changes to make sure it's up to snuff. However, I think either way, it'll get my point across. Make sure you weigh in on the comments section! I'll take the time to respond and discuss. :)

Ciao, bellas!

P.S. Now that I'm a writer with contractual deadlines, I absolutely and positively understand the need for word count goals. But I still think we need to evaluate our obsession with high counts versus slightly less counts with higher quality. End verbal disclosure. :)

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It’s in the progress posts on our blogs. It’s in little widgets in our sidebars. It’s what we obsess over. It’s our Literary Odometer.

It’s our WORD COUNT.


As writers we measure our progress by this term. It’s universally understood in the writing community as the success – or lack thereof – of our daily, weekly, or cumulative progress on our current Works In Progress (WIPs).

It seems that the majority of writers have a specific goal in mind. Whether it’s 500 words a day or 5000 words a day, it’s a way of keeping oneself motivated and on-point with an estimated date of completion for a rough draft.

But at what point does that ever-present, ever-looming Word Count goal become counter-productive?

If we get wrapped up in how many words we can “put on paper” as opposed to the QUALITY of those words, we’ll officially be hurting ourselves when it comes time for revisions. I can write 2000 words in one day and feel like I accomplished a whole helluva lot, but when I go back to revise that section, if the words weren’t quality to begin with, I bet I’m going to be spending a lot more time trying to fix them than if I would’ve just taken a little more time to make sure they were somewhat decent to begin with.

I’m not saying that our rough drafts will be all but flawless and revisions will be a piece of cake with this method – the day that happens will be the day I turn down dark chocolate (NEVER). But what I am saying, is that maybe we should find a happy medium.

If I sit down to work on my WIP and I only have a few hundred more words than when I started, I shouldn’t have to feel that “OMG, I suck” sense of failure. I should be able to look at those few hundred words and say, “That was a really good addition to that section – nice job, Maxwell.”

So I propose that we change our concerns of a generic Word Count, to a positive mindset of putting down Words That Count.

What do you think?

Do we have too much emphasis on our Word Count? Do you feel that sometimes a high Word Count compromises the quality? Or do you feel that a strict Word Count goal is the only thing that keeps you moving forward at a steady pace?

**This post has a word count of 424, and THE shortest post I've ever written, ironically enough.**

Coolest Book Trailer Ever

I'm not a huge fan of book trailers. The fact of the matter is, they're expensive and tricksy and in my honest opinion, they don't do much to sell books because I don't think they do the books justice like a damn good back cover blurb does.


HOWEVER...

Tara Fuller, a fellow Entangled author, has COMPLETELY changed my mind. I'm not ashamed to admit (well, maybe a little) that I'm strictly an adult romance reader. I don't read YA because I prefer to read about adult relationships with all of the adult facets (if you know what I mean). But I will BUY this book. And I will READ this book. Because of  THIS book trailer.



Isn't it amazing? I love how it's told from the male character's POV. It's so incredibly compelling, so romantic. The thing that sets this book trailer apart from 99% of other book trailers I've seen? The video action of the characters. Usually stock photos are used which isn't as interesting for obvious reasons and also causes a problem with the subjects in the photos not being the same people, but merely people with similar traits (i.e. dark hair).

Congrats, Tara. This is phenomenal.

Here's the info for Tara's book, INBETWEEN, releasing 8-14-12 from Entangled Teen.

Since the car crash that took her father’s life three years ago, Emma’s life has been a freaky—and unending—lesson in caution. Surviving “accidents” has taken priority over being a normal seventeen-year-old, so Emma spends her days taking pictures of life instead of living it. Falling in love with a boy was never part of the plan. Falling for a reaper who makes her chest ache and her head spin? Not an option.

It’s not easy being dead, especially for a reaper in love with a girl fate has put on his list not once, but twice. Finn’s fellow reapers give him hell about spending time with Emma, but Finn couldn’t let her die before, and he’s not about to let her die now. He will protect the girl he loves from the evil he accidentally unleashed, even if it means sacrificing the only thing he has left…his soul.

For your viewing pleasure...Parker Hurley covered in grease. You're welcome.

My girl, Ruthie Knox, and I are a bit of what you might call Parker Hurley fans. You might also call us Parker Hurley obsessive, but we don't like to label things. Anyway, since we have slightly different tastes in men, adoring Parker works out perfectly for us because he's clearly two people rolled into one, amazing guy. And although I think I can safely say that Ruthie and I love both sides, we each favor one over the other.

Ruthie prefers Parker with his longer, wavy hair and a his brilliant boyish smile.

I prefer Parker with short hair and his serious, brooding, don't eff with me look. (I also kind of have a thing for guys covered in grease, if the title of this post didn't give that away. Which is probably why the hero of my 3rd PoS book is a mechanic and spends ungodly amounts of time, well, covered in grease. *sigh*)

That's why this video of a recent photo shoot of his is absotively, posolutely the best of both worlds for the both of us. It's simply Parker, in all his amazing glory. Enjoy.

P.S. Parker is the character inspiration for my debut novel for Entangled's Indulgence line, which is as-of-yet untitled, but you can check out the character image and the book blurb on my Project Pipeline page at the tippy top up there.


Parker Hurley from INVTmedia on Vimeo.

Update: Damn "the man" always tryin' to bring us down! Apparently they didn't like the video going viral & password protected it. Oh well. At least it's etched into my grey matter!

Wee-Bit Wednesday: Lucky 7 Edition

Faye Robertson/Serenity Woods tagged me in this fun little thing making the rounds on the writing circuit.

Here are the rules:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
4. Tag 7 other authors

For starters, both of my WIPs at the moment haven't reached 77 pages, so I had to go back to Desires of the Soul, which is technically still a WIP because it still needs to be edited by Liz and then fixed by yours truly (probably several more times) before it's considered a done deal.

I lucked out; this tiny snippet gives you a great snapshot of Dom's charm that Angelica brings out in him.

So, here's my 7, I hope you enjoy. :)

*******************************************

“So what are these powers you have?” he asked. “Just so you know, if they’re greater than mine I’ll probably suffer from severe emasculation issues.”

Angelica laughed. “I have no intentions of ever emasculating you. With my powers or otherwise.”

Suddenly his eyes turned smoky, and he leaned into her. “Good,” he rumbled, just before cupping her face and kissing her breathless. Hours later—no, it was probably only minutes…seconds?—Dominic pulled back and gave her a wicked grin. “You were saying?”

*******************************************

Now I tag:

1. Jessa Slade
2. Abby Niles
3. Charlotte Stein
4. Chloe Jacobs
5. Rachel Harris
6. Kate Douglas
7. Cari Quinn

So there's this guy who reads romance novels...

No, this is not the set up to a joke...although I'm sure if I thought about it long enough I could make one up...but that would take away from the fact that there's ACTUALLY A GUY WHO READS ROMANCE NOVELS! And I'm proud to say I now call him "friend." And sometimes "fucking nutjob." But mostly the former.

His name is Romance Man, or RM for short. But if you're like me and you're not real fond of calling people by initials (like with my friend Lea Ann who also went by LA, but it made me think of the city and it didn't roll off the tongue properly, so I decided to pronounce it Ella, which is how she got her pen name--yay me!) you can call him Remy. I'm now 2 for 2 on creating successful nicknames. Let me know if you're in need of a new identity. Apparently I rock at giving them out.

Anyhoo...

I found Remy when he did a review of my BFF, Ruthie Knox's debut novel RIDE WITH ME. He totally loved it, by the way, and loved the heroine so much that his wife now goes by the online personality of Lexie, which is the heroine's name in Ruthie's book.

At any rate, Remy is a total hero in the romance world (pun intended). He's not a literary buff in touch with his feminine side who can relate to the female psychosis. He's ex-Navy, swears like the sailor he is, and is just as naturally insensitive as the next guy.

What I mean to say is, HE'S A REGULAR DUDE!

So why would a regular dude read romance novels? Excellent freaking question. But I'd rather you get the story from him here because he tells it better than I ever could paraphrasing him. Since he began this strange journey of discovering that romance novels are indeed worth their weight in gold when it comes to understanding the opposite sex, he's blogged almost daily and accrued a group of women followers who eventually named themselves the BBL--Braless Bawdy Ladies.

Remy has accomplished with his blog something I've only seen with one other blog, ever. He averages over 100 comments per blog post! But whereas that other blog I'm referring to has thousands of followers with hundreds of regular commenters, Remy has a lot of lurkers but only about 15 regular commenters. But his topics spur conversations, like an open forum. So these women go back again and again to read the latest comments from the other BBLs and then put in another two cents themselves.

But these are not boring conversations, nor are they for the timid and meek. Besides the obvious cursing, words like pussy and cock are thrown around occasionally. Okay, maybe more than just occasionally. And a lot of these women are my mother's age who are discussing things like sex, blow jobs, and bedazzled vaginas. They're fearless in their candid openness with the rest of the online group. It's a place where they can remain anonymous or take on an identity like Lady Godiva, Vibrating Vixen, or New York Girl, and discuss things that are normally too taboo to ask even their closest friends without getting strange looks.

And the best part? Getting a guy's point of view in the mix! And what's even better than that? Getting the guy's wife's point of view on things! Lexie doesn't pop in often (we're trying to change that), but when she does, it's a real treat. One night she gave her husband the acronym nickname of NGL, which stood for Not Getting Laid because he was in the doghouse for something. We all thought it was hysterical. Him? Not so much. LOL


To give you an idea of his topics, here are some post titles:

• WHY CAN'T I STARE AT YOUR BREASTS
• THINGS MY WIFE HAS SAID TO ME DURING SEX
• HOW TO PLEASE YOUR WOMAN EVERY TIME AND GET LAID WHENEVER YOU WANT
• HOW NOT TO BE ROMANTIC
• BLOW JOBS AND THINGS THAT KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT
• WOMEN WHO READ ROMANCE NOVELS AREN'T STUPID, EXCEPT FOR ONE I MET YESTERDAY
• THE ROAD TO NO ORGASMS IS PAVED WITH FAKE ORGASMS
• AN OLD BOOK, A NEW FRIEND, A NEW BOOK AND A POSSIBLE MISTAKE (this one is about me and my book, Desires of the Soul)

And those are only a handful of the posts he has in his BLOG ARCHIVES. I highly recommend you go and check some of them out. And if you're really brave--and have literally hours with nothing better to do--you can read through the comments as well. Sometimes they're just as funny as the post itself.

For those who are interested in Remy's specific thoughts on the books he and his wife read (they now read together at night, which has brought them closer together both in and out of the bedroom), he has a REVIEW PAGE.

What Remy is doing is nothing short of amazing for those of us in the romance world, whether we're readers or writers. I, for one, am extremely thankful to have found him and gained his (and Lexie's) friendship. I predict it won't be long before he goes completely viral. His readership grows every week. Pretty soon me and the rest of the BBL will have to share him with the rest of the world. But for right now, we're enjoying the hell out of our little group. I guarantee if you read his stuff, you'll be wanting BBL membership in no time. So come on over and join the party. We'd love to have you. :)

Romance Man...

Able to read an entire book without turning the page (I have an e-reader). 

Can easily identify cheesy romance cliches, such as  "they hate each other so much that they end up ripping each other's clothes off."

Understands the phrase "throbbing love muscle."

Manly enough to admit he reads romance novels and has an anonymous blog to prove it.

IT FINALLY HAPPENED: I'M A CONTRACTED AUTHOR!!!

That's right, friends, your eyes doth not deceive you! 

(Why did I switch to Shakespearean?)

The amazing and taking-the-industry-by-storm publishing house,
Entangled Publishing, has contracted me for a 3-BOOK DEAL with my
paranormal romance trilogy, Prophesy of Souls! SQUEEEEE!!

Liz Pelletier, co-founder of and senior editor at Entangled Publishing is my new editor. (OMG, I have "an editor!") She's one of the best in the business and when I interrogated politely questioned several of her authors, they had nothing but glowing remarks of both Liz and her company. I'm so confident I found the right home for my books, as well as myself, with Entangled. 

And though writing is my passion, and now my livelihood, I cannot properly
articulate how incredibly blissed-out I am right now.

The first book in the trilogy, Desires of the Soul, will be part of their Entangled Select line, targeted for release in June 2013 in both digital format and MASS MARKET PAPERBACK!!! Sorry, I had to put that in all caps because I truly thought I'd never see my books on the shelf of a Barnes & Noble (my favorite store in all the world), and now I've been handed that dream in triplicate wrapped in a very pretty contract. :)

But wait! The Good News Train doesn't stop there! Liz has asked me to write a contemporary romance for their Indulgence line to be released in digital format THIS SUMMER! I'm so excited about this. Yesterday I brainstormed with one of my BFFs and favorite authors, Ruthie Knox, and I think we came up with a premise that totally rocks! Incidentally, when I emailed the "back cover blurb" to Liz, she was freaking ecstatic and actually put "Gimme gimme gimme gimme!" in her response. LOL

I will keep all of you apprised of any news as it happens. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to those of you who have been with me on this blog from the beginning. And also sincere thanks to those of you who have just found me and plan on sticking around to follow me on this fantastic journey. Until next time...

Ciao, bellas!