Merry early Christmas!

So my awesome husband let me have my present early.

This is my new camera Moggle. His name comes from Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. In the book, Moggle is a little hovercam that follows the main character around. The Moggle in the book looks something like this:

And as our technology often does, there is already something very similar to Moggle that you might one day see flying around.

Lilly

My Moggle doesn't fly though. I can, however, control him with my phone (AKA Max), which means I can take really cool author photos soon. He also does video, and I'll be using him to do a book trailer for A Broken Howl. So since I got my present early, I have a present for everyone else. 

Right now, It's currently only available on Smashwords, mainly because that's my faviorite ebook website. It's a available in a variety of formats, and all are free. Click on the cover below for the link to get your copy!

Don't forget to leave a review! A Broken Howl will be out early 2016. I'm doing Q&As again. Last week I had Sarah Winter and Samantha Chase. This week Rue Volley will be stopping by to chat about The Devil's Gate Trilogy.

If you're interested in doing a Q&A, send me a message using the form to the right.

Q&A with Samantha Chase

Meet Samantha Chase

 

New York Times and USA Today Bestseller/contemporary romance writer Samantha Chase released her debut novel, Jordan's Return, in November 2011. Although she waited until she was in her 40's to publish for the first time, writing has been a lifelong passion. Her motivation to take that step was her students: teaching creative writing to elementary age students all the way up through high school and encouraging those students to follow their writing dreams gave Samantha the confidence to take that step as well.

With twenty-three titles currently to her name, she has no plans to slow down. The success of the Montgomery Brothers series has her working on six new titles in that collection as well as two new exciting series set to start popping up on bookshelves in 2015. You won't find her books with the erotica or paranormal titles, all of her works are pure contemporary romances.

When she's not working on a new story, she spends her time reading contemporary romances, blogging, playing way too many games of Scrabble on Facebook and spending time with her husband of 25 years and their two sons in North Carolina.

What inspired you to become a teacher?

I was homeschooling my son and was part of a small group of families who did a co-op together. One mom taught science, the other did math and so I said I would do creative writing – since that was something I felt that I was pretty good at. As the years went by, my classes grew and I sort of kept moving up with my students so I’ve taught from 4^th grade through 12^th and loved it!

What are some books or authors that you recommend your creative writing students read?

That’s a tough one because I am a firm believer in reading what interests you. That can also cause a problem because kids will always try and say that nothing interests them but primarily, find a genre that you like. It’s been so long since I’ve taught that I’m completely out of the YA loop, but I would still say the Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games – books that show an entirely different kind of world. Books that would stretch your imagination.

What writing advice do you give your students the most?

To not be so hard on themselves and not expect their work to be perfect. So many times a student would not want to hand in their work or share their work because they thought it wasn’t perfect. It really never is – especially to the writer! So I encourage them to share their work and be open to brainstorming with others.

What's your writing process like?

I am all over the place! Sometimes I plan/plot, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I have a book in my head for a long time before I write it, others it just comes to me and I start writing and don’t stop until I’m done. I can write two to three books at a time – although I try to avoid doing that. I have an office in my house that is my domain and it’s filled with things I enjoy and love to look at and when the mood strikes, I sit down and write.

What made decide to work in the contemporary romance genre?

I fell in love with reading it. It’s my favorite genre to read and that makes it fun to write.

Have your books required any research? If so, how did you go about it?

Not a whole lot. My stories tend to take place in places that I’ve been to. I did set one in Maine and it had been YEARS since I had been there so I sort of did an online refresher and my latest book, “I’ll Be There” had its origin in Alaska. I had never been there before so I had to really do my research on that one.

What do you feel makes a good story?

Characters that are well-defined – they literally jump off the page. If you don’t flesh out your characters, they’re always going to feel flat – to you and the reader. So you need to work on creating good characters first. And for me personally, I enjoy a fast-paced story. I don’t like to get bogged down in a lot of descriptive writing where it takes the readers pages upon pages upon pages to get from one scene to another with no dialogue. You want to keep your reader interested.

What's your writing space like?

I LOVE my office. I have a wall of bookcases that have all of my paperbacks on them and then gifts from readers and examples of swag I’ve made over the years. On the walls are posters of some of my newest book covers, pictures from events I’ve gone to and I framed the cover of RT Book Reviews Magazine that I was on the cover of. My husband bought me a fabulous chandelier for my birthday that he just hung so it’s a little like a princess room for me!

What are you working on now?

I currently have a lot that I’m working on. I’m doing edits on a couple of books, I’m writing a novella for an upcoming secret project and just starting my next book for my publisher which will be part of a brand new series!

What projects are you working on next?

There are two more books in the Shaughnessy series that I’ll be writing this year along with three indie books that will be coming out throughout the year. All in all, you’ll be seeing releases from me almost every month in 2016!

More on Samantha:

 

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, Website, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and iBooks. 

 

To be featured in a Q&A, please contact me by using the form on the right.

 

Q&A with Sarah Winter

Meet Sarah Winter!

I hate writing bios, but people like a looky-loo into what might make a writer tick. I shall oblige. Hopefully it makes sense.

I started out life in northern Wisconsin, hunting and fishing and living the Northwoods life. It's the sort of place where nothing really happens, and everyone knows everyone. I grew up an avid reader, in a house full of other avid readers, with books on every available surface.

I've been married since I was 19 to my high school sweetheart, and we have two adorable sons. We moved to Wyoming in 2007 and decided to lose our minds completely in the fall of 2015, beginning the process of buying our first house! Should be fun (she says with her eyes rolled back in her skull). My life has a very sarcastic definition of 'fun.'

After quitting my job in summer 2013, I started writing my first novel, something I'd dreamed of doing for years but never thought I would ever get around to doing. I amazed myself and everyone else by finishing it within a few months. I self-published Snowbound, in January of 2014 and entered it in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest a month later, where it went on to the Quarter-Finals. My second novel, Over the Line, won a contract with Kindle Press through Amazon's Kindle Scout program, and was published in June 2015. 

In my writing, I strip my characters of everything that makes them what they are outwardly, and return them to their basic selves. I want to see how people react to situations that force them to act on instinct, and to take away what makes them what they are so we can get them back to who they are. I also like taking common concepts and tropes in fiction and reinventing them to create different, unexpected outcomes. 

My third novel will release on February 14th, 2016. It is entitled Beauty and the Beast, and it is (obviously) a bit of a departure from my previous two. It is my reworking of the original fairy tale.

Q&A

What are some books or authors that inspired you before you started writing?

I adore Stephen King, and have since I was a child. And yes, I mean that literally. I was an early reader and by the time I was nine, I was reading King's work. It was dark, scary, and very real. The first of his works I really remember being an inspiration was Rose Madder because of his character Rosie McClendon. I still reread that one every year, because her overcoming an abusive asshole of a husband was incredible to me.

What's your writing process like?

Brain vomit. Whatever comes to me, in whatever order, no editing until I'm done with the rough draft. I usually write the beginning first, then the end, then random scenes that make up the middle, and the last step to finishing is putting it all in the right order and adding anything that I missed, then fixing plot holes. I can only work on what interests me, or my brain flips me the bird and redirects me elsewhere.

Have any of your books had alternate endings or scenes that were changed during editing? If so, can you describe them or why they were changed?

My debut novel, Snowbound, had two endings. My heroine, River Tennison, has a choice to make between her long-time boyfriend and a man she rescues during an epic blizzard. I wrote both possibilities (and still have the alternate on hand), and copy-and-pasted each one in to see which one was the right one. When I pasted the wrong one on, I almost felt physically ill, and knew that the other one was the right one.

Have your books required any research? If so, how did you go about it?

I love research, so I tend to choose subjects that I know little about so I get to learn as much as possible. I haven't begun writing it yet, but my current project has required some very intense research. So much research that even after six months of hard learning, I still only have a bare outline and am still not sure I can start writing it for awhile yet. I use every resource at my disposal. I start with the internet, which is getting to be the source du jour for many a writer. If there are books I need I hit up my local library, which had a large network of other libraries I can get books from. If the libraries come up empty, I'm not afraid to buy the books I need. I am a documentary whore, as well, and watch the hell out of them when I'm in research mode. I am also a big believer in getting a hold of knowledgeable people to discuss your research, if needed.

What do you feel makes a good story?

Fast pacing, realistic dialogue, unique and dynamic characters, believable conflict. And for the love of God, do your research! If I find poorly researched information in a book, I'm out. It clouds everything else in the story and I can't get past it. When I read a well-researched book, though, I can dive in with both feet.

How important do you feel book covers are and is there a certain style you like your covers to have?

I think covers are very important and should not be overlooked by authors. I've bought books based on their cover alone, and left others on the shelf for the same reason. I love covers that are evocative of the story. I don't want the cover to tell me the story before I open the thing, but I want to see something on that cover that I will recognize at certain points in the prose. Each of my covers has an element that is in the stories I told. The cover for Snowbound is a snowy scene with a split-rail fence, which is part of hero Liam Freeman's journey. Over the Line has a plain cover with a beautiful tea bowl on it, which plays a role late in the novel. And the cover for my third novel, Beauty and the Beast, features a rose, which should be obvious to anyone who has ever seen or read any adaptation of this story. The covers are different, but as they all contain images from the stories I've written, rather similar. I like to keep them simple but visually stunning and I like using symbols and images written about in each novel.

What's your writing space like?

My writing space is my living room. I don't use a desk but a couch or recliner. I need to be comfortable, and I need noise in the background. I either have the TV going or earbuds in my ears. I usually have a couple things to drink, maybe a snack, and my phone near me so I can set an alarm for real life stuff. It's usually cluttered but cozy and warm, and full of everything I need to get my write on.

If you could go back in time to when you started your first book and give yourself advice, what would it be?

“Relax.” I hurried through the process because I didn't think I would ever actually finish a book on my own. I outlined, wrote, edited, and published it in under nine months. I wish I'd taken more time to perfect the book before putting it out in the world.

Your newest book, Beauty and the Beast, is a different genre than your other works; what inspired you to switch gears and take on reworking a classic fairy tale?

Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairy tale, and my favorite Disney movie. I watched the Disney movie for the thousandth time right after finishing the first draft of Over the Line and thought to myself how fun it would be to write my own version.

What projects are you working on next?

Beauty in the Beast is, obviously, publishing soon, and my focus is on that right now. It's still possible I might be able to get it out sooner than the current date of 2.14.16. After that, my next major project is still in the research phase, and I have no plans to start writing that one anytime soon. I do, however, have two short stories outlined that I hope to get done and published in 2016-2017. One of them is already half-written, and the other is about a quarter of the way toward finished. I've been writing balls-to-the-wall for almost two years now and would like to take it easy next year. Of course, I had no intention of starting another novel right after finishing Over the Line, but I outdid myself by not only starting Beauty but writing my longest, most ambitious novel yet! So I guess we'll have to see how it goes.

For more information on Sarah's books, click on the covers.  

Available for pre-order from Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, and Nook!

Preorder now to get it on February 14, 2016.

 Available exclusively from Amazon in eBook and paperback!

Available in eBook and Paperback from Amazon, and eBook from Kobo, Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Scribd!

  

For more on Sarah:

Website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

 To be featured in a Q&A, please contact me by using the form on the right.

These boots are made for walking

Something absolutely terrible happen a couple of months ago. I resolved that my cute black wedge-heel boots were not worth trying to salvage.

They're just a cheap pleather pair I picked up off an online garage sale page for $2, but I loved them. Like it often does, the pleather coating was separating from the fabric.

That's just one spot. It was happening all over the front part of the boot. I had a lot going on at the time, and let's face it, my recon stash is so big that it's a miracle my husband still currently tolerates it.

I resolved myself to simply give them away. They were tossed in the back of my Jeep, aka Box, in anticipation of meeting with their new owner. The woman who wanted them, however, proved difficult to meet with. Since I live in south Texas, and this was during the heat of our summer, the boots literally melted togethor.

I sadly do not have pictures of the great mess that they were. I was too upset over it to think to take any.

I know it sounds silly, to be that damn upset over a pair of shoes, but for me, it's much more than that. Pretty much every piece of clothing I own, with the exception of my legging collection and my undies, are things I have made from other things. . . mostly t-shirts.

Even my wedding dress was made completely of discarded t-shirts I obtained from a local thrift store. I know other people who use new items to reconstruct or upcycle, and while I do this from time to time, I prefer everything I use be used (and this would be I don't recon undies!)

The head-thingy and my bouquet were also made from t-shirt. So were our decorations. The base was just a simple dress I made from t-shirts, and then I hand-stitched flowers from strips of t-shirt. The top part of the dress, the flowers are tacked down. The rest of the dress the flowers were left fluffy. Yes, it was all done by hand and with t-shirts. Yes, it took as long as you're thinking.



I could have bought a dress. I could have bought a new pair of boots. I actually have other boots, and oddly enough I had a dress I had purchased as a back up dress in case my wedding project didn't turn out.



I don't reconstruct stuff just for the end product. It's not just what I make, but how I and from what I make it. I work with used materials, things nobody wanted. It was something I did as a little girl, playing in the scrap fabric bits of my mom and my grandmother. As a teen, I think I was just so used to using leftover bits that it was just normal for me.



As an adult, I got really into reconstructing clothing after the end of my first marriage. Part of it was the freedom to be able to do such. Cutting stuff up like I do simply wouldn't have been an option then. It was also in part to the fact that I found myself with an abundance of used clothing, from well-meaning friends trying to supply me with a work wardrobe, that just didn't fit right.



There was a deeper part though. A part that has followed me, and now looking back, it's always been there, even in other parts of my life. It's a pull to take the unneeded, the unwanted, and make it something new, something unique, and most of all, something needed.




That is why I made my wedding dress out of t-shirts.



I couldn't bring myself to throw the boots away. I tucked them away sadden that in my next purge of my stash, they would likely end up in the trash. The melted boots came at a bad time though. Shortly after that, I received a bit of shocking news. The same news that sent me into my emotional mess that led to the adoption of Riot. I was upset. When I'm upset, tearing into t-shirts makes me feel better. But those damn melted boots were at the top of my pile. I started ripping the coating off them.



It then came to me that since the coating came off easy enough, and still seemed to be okay on other parts of the boots, that they could be painted.



So I did.

They turned out well. I used just a small, and cheap, bottle of fabric paint.

They, of course, had to be purple.



I know it's just a pair of damn boots. Maybe I've taken one too many English literature class, looking for symbols and deeper meanings where there are none, but my pretty new boots came at a time to remind me what it is I do.


I save shit other people toss out, and this time, I got a kick ass pair of boots out of it.

When God gives you a kitten

I haven't been myself lately. Call it depression. Call it a funk. Whatever the hell it's been, I don't like it very much. It sucks. The world kind of sucks. Random crying. Not being able to sleep. Not being able to write. Not being able to eat (and yet that hasn't sped up the removal of body squish). I've spent way too much time thinking about situations I can't control. I've had too many discussions with God lately that have involved cuss words. Have I mentioned it has sucked?

Then the other night, my husband and I heard a tiny little cry from inside the boat next to our house, and we found this tiny kitten.

First, we're not cat people. I prefer dogs, which explains our fur-baby Assie the awesome pibble. It was clear that this little kitty had been abandoned by his mom. He (we haven't decided the kitty's gender for sure, but I'm now thinking we have a boy) is likely only about 4 weeks. He still needs lots of milk and walks on little wobbly legs.

But something inside my head kind of clicked. We couldn't leave him out there all alone. We went out there to check on him. He was so scared that it took a while to get him to come out to us. One look at the tons of free kittens on our town's pet page, told us how unlikely it would be to find him a nice, safe home.

We named him Riot.

He knows how to re-purpose t-shirt scraps. He likes to use them as blankets.

He likes to play with t-shirt scraps too.

He likes to watch me write.

He likes to help me write.

He falls asleep watching South Park.

He likes to cuddle.

He's really playful.

I still don't like cats all that much, but this one is kind of cute. There is something about seeing another living creature be so helpless that can snap you out of any strange head space. Putting energy into something I can't control is useless, but I can control helping a little kitten. I can do something in that situation. Adopting one little kitten isn't going to change how much the world might suck.

But Riot doesn't think the world sucks.

That makes me feel better.

Winter is coming

Okay, so I live in south Texas, so it's more like, less hot summer is coming. I also get cold really easy, but I hate regular winter clothes. Enter a new recon project: the hooded scarf.

I got the idea from this blog. 

There's nothing wrong with the original project, but it called for me to go get actual fabric. Yeah, not this little recon girl. I used a t-shirt for mine. 

There's there thrift store shirt I used. I paid .10 cents for it, and this project allowed me to not use the part with the stain. The shirt I used was a 3x, so it was the perfect size for a scarf for me. If you use a t-shirt, make sure the shirt you use doesn't have side seams.

First, I chopped the bottom seam off. Then I slit it right under the armpits.

I used a hoodie to cut out the hood just like the original project. I never use chalk to draw out my cuts. You'll like want to.

Then I was left with something like this. I sewed now open back of the hood. Turned it inside out, and I have a hooded scarf.

Here I am with a finished scarf I made. I added a little t-shirt flower to the side from some scraps I had in my recon stash. It can be worn with the hood up to protect my ears (since I'm forever getting colds this time a year), or I can tuck the hood under the scarf and it looks just like a scarf.

I love being a tutor

My day job is at a local community college as a writing tutor, or writing consultant as we've recently changed our title to. It's much snazzier and doesn't have the same negative connotation that the word “tutor” can often carry. I love my day job. 

I'm also a mom as I've mentioned in previous posts. My children are 8 and 10. Often people are startled by the fact that both of my children frequently complete works of writing here at home. My children have been creating pieces of writing from the time they started being able to write groups of words together to form sentences. We do momma school during the summer, which normally includes several papers. When my children have behaviral issues, as all children do, a normal part of their punishment is to write a paper about the issue or a letter if their behavior impacted someone such as a teacher. 

This week my little padawan made some poor choices at school. As a result, he was told to write a letter to his teacher. I know what you're thinking; this practice is going to make my children hate writing. I disagree. In fact, the actions of my children also disagree with that statement. November is just around the corner, and this year both of my children are excited for National Novel Writing Month's Young Writer's program or NaNoWriMo's YWP. I do not think my children would be so excited for the challenge of writing a short story and novelette if they hated writing.

My children don't just get to scribble out a rough when I've given them an assignment though, be it part of momma school or as part of a punishment. No, my children have to produce at least one rough draft and work with a tutor to develop that draft. Good thing they have a tutor living in the next room. My children have also been having writing sessions for as long as they've been writing.

I've had other parents remark that it must be very difficult to be my own children's writing tutor. It might be one day. Right now though, it's not, and I contribute that to how I handle sessions with my children. I do not normally work with young children. In fact, I have actually turned down requests from other people asking me to work with their children. My youngest student at work is normally 16. The only younger writers I have ever worked with have been my own kids. So how do I change my tutoring style to accommodate my young children?


The short answer is I don't.

I might adjust the levels of concerns to accommodate where they are as writers, but I'd do the same thing for my college writers. When I first started, I did shorter sessions with my children than I would at work, but I've even decided that practice was unnecessary. Our normal session time at work is 30 to 45 minutes. My son's session tonight was 45 minutes. He'll have several 45 minute sessions this weekend before his letter is finished. 

Tonight we focused on organizational issues because his letter was all over the place. his writing was also rather redundant as he repeated the same basic details and added far too many "very"s in there to hit his required page length. Yeah, guess what the average college student does when they have an assignment they don't want to do with a length requirement they have to hit? Guess what I do in the same situation?


My son is a writer, and there is no reason to treat him like anything else. During our session, my son and I both had pens. Guess which pen was used the most? It wasn't mine.


I encouraged my son to read his rough draft to me. My son works best when he reads the paper to me. It's the opposite of how both me and my daughter do things. He knew to read slowly. He knew I'd be circling things on his paper as we went. He knew we'd talk about each thing I marked. He knew I'd want to talk about the big stuff (or the hard stuff as he calls it) before we looked at other things. He also knew that it was okay for him to stop reading to ask a question.

My eight-year-old child stopped reading a letter he didn't want to write to ask me to remind him what the rule for commas was when you used a conjunction because he "heard a pause" when he was reading.


What my son had to write was not something fun. One of the main reasons he had to write the letter was because we knew that the writing of the letter would force him to slow his racing eight-year-old thoughts down to really think about his behavior. That is not something fun to write. That sucks to write.

My son was smiling for the first time since getting in trouble because he knew he was having a productive session, and he felt accomplished. He wasn't proud of his actions this week. He wasn't proud that he had to write about them. He was proud that he could communicate to his teacher how much he regretted his behavior and how he planned to do things differently. My son was proud that we were working to make those jumbled up eight-year-old thoughts into something that made sense to him when he read it to me.

Will this letter be perfect? No. Will this letter be something written on the academic level of a college student? No. He's eight. It'll be written on the academic level of an eight-year-old, who took the time to revise.


My children will grow up to be writers because I've always treated them like writers. And even if the only things my son ever writes is Star Wars fanfiction, assigned papers, and apology letters, I know I'm giving him the tools to be the best writer he can strive to be.