Tempting Tasty Tidbits Anyone?

Even though I enjoy watching programs like "Top Chef", I'm not in any way a gourmand. I'm very basic about what I cook and what I eat, and more chocolate is better than less. When in doubt, add bacon. So this week's topic isn't too near and dear to my heart. I honestly don't recall ever being reduced to hunger pangs by a description of any foodstuff in a book.

I remember that the Nero Wolfe detective series featured a lot of fine dining, the allegedly perfect scrambled eggs and a lot of orchids (to admire, not to eat). There was even a Nero Wolfe cookbook issued, I now find out.

I used to really enjoy the Diane Mott Davidson Goldy Schultz mystery series, about a caterer who split her time between the kitchen and crime scenes. No criticism of the series intended - I just drifted away from reading mysteries at some point.

(Interesting that the only books which came immediately to mind as having food are murder mysteries. Hmmm.)

Can I be really candid? If someone includes recipes in their novels, I skip that part. I appreciate their efforts but I'm not going to be making any dishes after I finish the book. I admire people who do, everyone has their own hobbies and fun things, and cooking isn't for me.

I tried to find a passage in one of my own novels where I'd discussed food in more than a sentence or two in passing....this excerpt toward the end of Escape From Zulaire (on sale for $.99!) was about the best I could do. Andi, the heroine is speaking:

“What time is it?”

“Still the middle of the night, I fear. Come, I have some food if you’re hungry.” Rahuna walked over to the couch.

“Starved. You must be my guardian angel.” When was the last time I ate? “Any coffee?”

Rahuna tugged her to her feet with elaborate caution while she clutched at her side. Matching his steps to her halting pace, he supported her as she hobbled out of the office. She picked the closest chair at the first table in the restaurant. Like a waiter at a fancy restaurant, Rahuna pulled the seat out for her with a flourish. “There’s coffee. The soldiers said since this was our last stop before the capi­tal, we might as well finish the supply. I saved two cups for you.”

Before she could thank him, Rahuna hurried out, returning with a large tray from which he spread a bountiful meal for her, including an omelet, fruit, breads, preserves as well as the promised coffee.

“Where did all this come from?” she asked around a mouthful of fruit.

“South Amri was abandoned by its owners in a great hurry. The power was still on when we arrived. There’s a big generator out back, behind the buildings. Corporal Rogers wouldn’t let us use many lights when we got here, but we were able to cook. Well, I was able to cook.”

Andi took a bite of the omelet, which was tasty and, although not hot any longer, still warm enough to eat. “Where is everyone?” Taking some of the toast, she made a sandwich with the omelet in the middle and munched happily.

“Lysanda and the boy are asleep in a small, private dining room over there.” Rahuna pointed vaguely to the other side of the restaurant. “She wasn’t comfortable to be left alone in this big, open space. Abukawal is on guard on the roof, watching the off-ramp. The soldiers are outside behind the restaurant, working on the truck and the other vehicle you brought in.”

“It was Gul Tonkiln’s car.” I still can’t believe he might be dead. Assaulted by memories and the pang of sorrow, Andi closed her eyes for a moment. Yet another person who didn’t deserve to die in this insane Clan war.

“Andi?” Rahuna laid his hand over hers. “Come back from wherever your mind is roaming.” He handed her another triangle of toast. “It would seem Lord Tonkiln has lost his firstborn, as well as the others who perished at the summer compound.” Voice low and hushed, he said, “Tonkiln’s paid a high price for refusing to take the early warnings seriously.”

“You don’t think there’s a chance the rebels might be holding Gul for ransom?” Appetite gone, Andi set the toast down, untouched.

Rahuna shook his head, lips pursed, eyebrows drawn together. “This doesn’t seem to be the rebels’ pattern. I fear poor Gul has passed to the next world, murdered no doubt. I continue to give thanks to Sanenre your captain intervened on my behalf, to spare me a similar fate.”

“Mmm, my captain.” Andi felt like purring. “Has Tom said what he’s planning to do now? How do we get to the capital from here?”

Picking up a ripe fruit and contemplating its bruised skin, Rahuna shook his head. “Not to me. He and his men have been modifying the two vehicles. The captain wouldn’t even take time to eat, nor let the sergeant have a break. I brought them food out back, in the garage. The men gulped bites here and there as they worked. So, I believe we’re going to take the vehicles.” Rahuna bit into the fruit and munched on it, giving a small sigh. “The comlink here at the station was inoperable, by the way. A severe disappointment to the captain. Rogers said several vital parts were missing.”

“Tom hoped to call for an air evac.” Andi sipped her coffee then devoured the last two bites of her omelet, which now tasted like cardboard. 

The story:

Andi Markriss hasn’t exactly enjoyed being the houseguest of the planetary high-lord, but her company sent her to represent them at a political wedding. When hotshot Sectors Special Forces Captain Tom Deverane barges in on the night of the biggest social event of the summer, Andi isn’t about to offend her high-ranking host on Deverane’s say-so—no matter how sexy he is, or how much he believes they need to leave now.

Deverane was thinking about how to spend his retirement bonus when HQ assigned him one last mission: rescue a civilian woman stranded on a planet on the verge of civil war. Someone has pulled some serious strings to get her plucked out of the hot zone. Deverane’s never met anyone so hard-headed—or so appealing. Suddenly his mission to protect this one woman has become more than just mere orders.

That mission proves more dangerous than he expected when rebel fighters attack the village and raze it to the ground. Deverane escapes with Andi, and on their hazardous journey through the wilderness, 

Then Andi is captured by the rebel fighters, but Deverane has discovered that Zulaire’s so-called civil war is part of a terrifying alien race’s attempt to subjugate the entire Sector. If he pushes on to the capitol Andi will die. Deverane must decide whether to save the woman he loves, or sacrifice her to save Zulaire.

AMAZON    Barnes & Noble     Kobo     iBooks

When the Hero Is Knocked Out of the Action

Since my fellow Whores have talked all week about their heroes dealing with injuries in the course of a book, I decided to change it up a bit and talk about something slightly different which befalls the hero in Escape From Zulaire. SPOILER  ALERT!

Rather than being injured, Captain Tom Deverane suffers from a chronic illness, which he has to hide from his superiors in the Sectors Special Forces, and which motivates some of his decisions in the early chapters. Then, at a critical moment, he’s overcome by an attack of the disease, which forces the other characters in the book to make a number of fateful decisions. I had to do some research to come up with my alien relapsing fever, read a lot about malaria and dengue fever and other similar afflictions.  I once came across an excellent quote from a doctor who pointed out that the human body only has so many ways it can be affected by anything, or to let us know we’re in trouble (paraphrasing heavily here).

Here’s the scene from the book,  in which Tom’s problem is discovered, as they’re fleeing through the jungle on an alien planet, escaping from terrorists.

Tom lay full-length on the ground on his back, his eyes closed. His hands rested at his sides, twitching from time to time. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples, pain contorted his handsome face, deep wrinkles marking his forehead. Dismay lanced through Andi like a knife as her heart skipped a beat. Wilson sorted through the contents of the medkit. Discarded in the grass, one used medinject already lay by his boot. 

“What’s happened to him?” She fell to her knees next to Wilson. “How could his condition deteriorate in just a few minutes?” Reaching with one hand to touch Tom’s cheek, she was shocked to find his skin cold under her hand. “He was talking to me and walking when I left to find you. And now he’s unconscious?” Andi grabbed Wilson’s sleeve and tugged on it to make him look at her. “How can that be?”

“Bhengola fever.” The sergeant’s lean frame was tense, his shoulders hunched. He wouldn’t face her. The vein at the side of his throat throbbed as he rummaged through the medical supplies. “The captain gets these attacks from time to time. We were hopin’ to get back to the capital before the next one hit. You know of any local remedies?”

“Bhengola fever?” Andi covered her mouth with both hands and gasped. “Did I hear you correctly? Bhengola?” Wilson nodded once. Chewing her lower lip, she ran one hand through her hair. “He never caught it on Zulaire. We don’t have that here.”

“He’s had it for years, ever since an assign­ment on Panamilla 2,” the sergeant said. “It ain’t a contagious thing, not after the first attack has passed, thank the Lords of Space.”

“Isn’t bhengola usually fatal?” Stepping backward, Latvik swallowed nervously and glanced around, probably to see how everyone else was reacting.

“Can be over time,” Wilson confirmed. “Attacks get more intense. Not more frequent. They’re pretty predictable, as a rule. We carry off-the-books doses of aliquinalone on every mission.”

“Off the books?”  Andi repeated the phrase softly, a question in her voice. Does he mean illegal?

Wilson shot a hard glance at her. “Soldiers with bhengola fever get mustered out, ma’am. No ifs, ands or buts. No cure, you know? And the military is all Captain Deverane has. We’ve used most of the quine we brought because we never expected to be stuck here so long. I haven’t been able to get more on the black market, although I might have a shipment waitin’ when we get back.”

How can he be so matter of fact about admitting to black market activity in front of all these witnesses? Andi felt the blood pounding in her temples. Trying to will away a headache, she rubbed her forehead.

“So do you know of anythin’ local that might help or not?”  Wilson’s face was pugnacious, jaw jutting, eyebrows drawn together. He gathered up the discarded injects and stowed them in a side pouch of the pack.

 She’d studied the symptoms of the major interplanetary infectious diseases one semester at the Loxton Academy. Often the agent on an isolated planet would be the only medical resource for the outworld population and, hence, had to have rudimentary knowledge. Why didn’t I pay more attention in that damn class? She summoned her vague memories of the lecture on chronic, relaps­ing fevers, including bhengola. “Caused by a parasite. Symptoms include fever, chills…”

“Convulsions—it’s an ugly disease, all right,” Wilson said. “The bhengola parasite dies off in the human body after the first cycle of infection, but enough of its loose genetic material remains in the lymphatic system to do the recurrent damage. That’s what makes it incurable.” Having found the medinject he was searching for, he held it to the sun­light. “Last one. And one is not goin’ to be enough.”

He’s right. Bhengola requires around-the-clock drugs to get safely through an incident. Closing her eyes for a second, Andi tried to remember the pertinent section of the Loxton medical-training material. The few facts that came to mind weren’t reassuring.

“He’ll need careful nursing to survive, do you agree?” Rahuna’s head was tilted as he regarded the sergeant. Stroking his chin, the cleric seemed thoughtful.

“Yes.” Wilson jabbed the second inject­able into the captain’s upper arm, rubbing the spot to work the medication into the muscle. “This buys us some time.” Rolling Tom’s sleeve down, he sat back on his heels, hands resting on his knees. Watching his patient relax under the drug’s influence, the sergeant’s face remained set in grim lines. “Better but temporary. He won’t regain consciousness until the entire bhengola cycle is over.”

“How long?” Andi was unable to remember the exact course of the symptoms. A week? Two weeks?

“Could be three or four days, ma’am. Maybe longer, with no quine.”

“Have you the map handy?” Rahuna held out one hand. “We can’t care for him in the open elements, Sergeant. I believe there may be a safe haven we can reach by morning, if we walk through the night, and if Sanenre chooses to smile on this effort….”

Here's the book trailer for Escape From Zulaire:

Loves Book Trailers Here are Three

I love book trailers! And in a nice piece of serendipity, I happen to have a new one for my latest Best Seller, Star Cruise: Marooned, just off an exclusive reveal at USA Today:




My first ever book trailer in 2012 was purely a treat to myself because it was like a mini scifi movie of my book  Wreck of the Nebula Dream. I think everyone knows my fondest dream is to have my books made into movies or TV, so this video was the next best thing at the time LOL. Some of the stock photos have since been used a zillion times for other authors' book covers and trailers so I won't include the Wreck video here. (It's at  https://youtu.be/0oA3NpmxTZI )

When I was ready to have a couple trailers done for my historical fantasy series set in ancient Egypt, I had to find a new provider, since the first person had moved on to to other career pursuits. I'm not at all tech-y so there was no question of my doing a video by myself. My new contractor wanted me to be much more involved in all the choices, but the collaborative process was fun, selecting just the right stock music and finding photos to try to fit the mood (and represent the hero and heroine). We had lively conversations and unusual challenges, such as electric lights in an otherwise great photo of an  ancient tomb! I certainly looked at a LOT of stock photos of people and places. We did several book trailers together. Here are two:




For my latest trailer, the one at the top of the post, I went with Circle of Seven Productions, in part because my individual contractor had pretty much stepped away from the trailer-making, and also because I'd seen a topnotch trailer for one of Christine Feehan's books, Viper Game, that really impressed me. I also like the idea of working with a company whose primary focus is making book teasers and trailers, not a sideline to their higher priorities. I was fortunate enough to work with the same producer at CoS who did Ms. Feehan's trailer, Michel Miller. I love the result on Star Cruise: Marooned. I'll definitely work with them again. Another advantage from CoS is that they include other distribution channels besides youtube in the fees.

I'd love to have them make a full-on live action book trailer for me but that's way above my budget at this stage.

So why do I have book trailers:
1. They make me happy. Plain and simple.
2. They're excellent promo tools, not in and of themselves but because it gives me something else to tweet relating to the books, Share on FB, add to my Amazon Author Central page, my blog...two have been recommended on USAT/Happily Ever After. (Full disclosure, I am a biweekly contributor there with my SciFi Encounters column.)
3. With several of the books, I definitely saw an upswing in sales after the trailers were revealed.
4. A video always has that potential to go REALLY BIG and viral....

I heard what fellow Word Whore Marshall said on Thursday, about book trailers "lacking any sense of the filmic language" and "trailers are not good advertising for what books really are..." I respectfully submit that different folks have different standards, I also think a good book trailer does do what a movie trailer does - it distills the essence of the story and makes you feel you really want to read that book or see that movie.

And further, in this multimedia world we have today, I think it's a good idea to use the video to promote the written word. It works for me!


Buy Links: Amazon     iBooks     Kobo     Barnes & Noble

Gotta Have Audiobooks!

I'm an enthusiastic proponent of audiobooks, because I know there are readers out there who want to listen to good stories in their car, in the shower, while doing housework, jogging, walking, crocheting...pretty much anytime! Some people will read the book on the kindle, switch to the audiobook while commuting and return to the kindle version in the evening. It’s a rapidly growing audience and I want my novels to be available for anyone who wants to hear them. I’ve even presented workshops on the subject to other authors who were interested in the process.

Vicky Hensley of the Audiogals website says audiobook listeners are "double taskers" who want a "seamless listen." In her learned opinion, the narrator or voice actor is the key to enjoyment of an audiobook.

Four of my books are also available as audiobooks. The first two, Priestess of the Nile  and Warrior of the Nile, were picked up from  Carina Press by Audible and I had utterly no involvement in the process and no connection with the person who recorded them. No fun!

When I began independently self-publishing my science fiction romance novels in 2012, I knew I wanted audiobook versions as well. Working through ACX (an Amazon company) I was extremely blessed to find a wonderful actor to bring my books to life. Michael Riffle has now narrated two of my scifi novels and is in the middle of recording a third. There’s nothing like hearing my characters the way Michael embodies them. I knew he was the right person to play the hero from the first words he spoke during the audition for Wreck of the Nebula Dream.

I did a series of blog posts about the process of creating an audiobook and here’s a snippet of what Michael had to say regarding his preparation for bringing the various characters to life:

Michael: I think the biggest influence on what I try to do with my voice comes from your description of the characters.  Not just how their voice is described, but how they hold themselves, what sort of personality do they have, how they are feeling during the whole process.  I try to equate each character to someone I know, or a character I’ve seen in a movie or television, something to ground it in reality.  I might be a little selfish by giving my own voice to Nick.  It’s hard to NOT want to be the modest, able-bodied hero who gets the girl.

To read more details about how the process went from beginning to end, here is the link:

Interviewwith Michael Riffle Audio Book Narrator WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM

 For the second book we did together, Escape From Zulaire, I had the heroine narrated by Mary

Fegreus, another extremely talented actress, while Michael did the rest of the book. I interviewed them about doing the recording for USA Today Happily Ever After.

Here’s what they had to say about the steamy scenes:

Since this is a science-fiction romance, there were some intense and even steamy moments between the characters of Andi and Tom. Did those scenes present any particular challenge?

Michael: I don't know if it's because Mary and I have a very comfortable relationship or if it's because we recorded our parts separately, but I didn't find any of the romantic or intense parts challenging. From a directing standpoint, there was a little bit of challenge in the romantic scene because Mary wasn't entirely comfortable with the intimacy.

Veronica: I know they always say the steamy scenes in the movies or TV are among the hardest to do, because there'll be all the crew members watching and the elaborate choreography of the action. I imagine this must have been a bit similar, as far as comfort levels.

Mary: Mike's being nice about it. Full disclosure: I did a lot of kicking and screaming during Chapter 6, and I may have had a bottle of soju in the recording booth with me. The outtakes from that scene are pretty funny. That's been my experience as an actress with all romantic scenes. The moments that are the steamiest in the final product tend to be the silliest behind the scenes.

The rest of the USAT/HEA interview with Mary and Michael is here.

In closing, if I could afford it, I’d have Michael narrate all my books just for me while they were still Works In Progress, because it’s such a pleasure to collaborate with him. Hearing how he interprets the dialog and embodies the characters always gives me fresh insights and ideas. I’m definitely going to continue having him record the final versions of the novels so there are audiobooks for the listeners out there!

The Strong Hero,Strong Heroine, Romance and Adventure Trope

My overarching trope is always the Strong Hero, with an equally Strong Heroine, throw in much adventure and the romance develops as the story unfolds.

Strong Hero: I happen to really like the alpha male Special Forces soldier type, the kind of person you want to have at your side, watching your six in bad situations. In my science fiction romance, the heroes so far have definitely fit this definition. But they're people first, with complicated lives, more than just the well trained "quiet professional". Here's what Tom Deverane says of himself in "Escape From Zulaire":

 “I went into the military because the abuse and slaughter of innocent civilians do bother me. At least in the service, I can do something to prevent atrocities.”

Turns out he’s the orphaned sole survivor of an alien attack on a Sectors colony planet and hence he’s dedicated his life to exacting revenge on the enemy.

My heroes in the ancient Egyptian paranormals are the Special Forces of their time – members of a regiment I invented (but which I bet every Pharaoh had), the toughest, best trained, most loyal men in the Black Lands, who wear the symbol of Horus the Falcon as their badge.

Strong Heroine: As I’ve discussed in this space before, I have no patience for the Too Stupid To Live (TSTL) heroine. The women in my novels are smart, brave, equal partners in a crisis. Whether she’s an intergalactic businesswomen or the chief priestess running an ancient Egyptian temple, she refuses to be coddled and protected while the guy goes out to fight the aliens or the demons (depending on the era LOL). She’s there. She’s resilient. Strong.

Adventure/Romance: yup, there will be a lot of both. I throw my characters into a bad situation getting worse, like being on a wrecked spaceliner counting down to destruction, or exiled to a realm where the demons roam, and they fight together to survive and solve the problems. But if there’s no romance I’m not interested in telling the story!

My favorite movies are usually science fiction – “Aliens”, “Terminator” – and sometimes you have

to be a shipper to actually detect the romance (Ripley and Hicks have chemistry but run out of time in my opinion LOL). You can see my tropes shining through there, yes?

A non- scifi movie I love is “Speed”, with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.  I think it’s a good example of my tropes at work, although I take issue with the oft-repeated argument that romances begun in extreme situations don’t last. In MY books they do!

What’s your favorite trope?

(Here's the trailer for "Speed". They don't give Sandra Bullock's character enough credit IMHO...)

Show vs. Tell When Writing Emotions

I have no very scientific process for showing my readers that the characters in my books have emotions. When I have a scene to write that's going to demand a lot of emotion on the page, I try to mentally place myself in the moment (versus just writing with the flow, which is good for my first draft but doesn't encompass all the little movements and stage business and etc., that will help the reader relate to what the character is feeling. Takes second draft for me to get there usually!).

I'm sure I still have a LOT to learn about showing versus telling but trust me, I've come a long way since my first stab at writing!

Rather than tell here, I'll show. A scene from Magic of the Nile, set in 1550 BCE:

          Tyema forced her lips to curve in apparent good humor and nodded at the appropriate points as best she could, finishing the day’s work and finally escaping into the private garden a few hours later. The whole time her fingers itched to pull the private letter out of her pocket and read it. The baby was unusually restless as well, perhaps sensing her own inner turmoil.

            She sat on her favorite bench, under a large acacia tree, next to an unruly bed of chrysanthemums. Taking the scroll out of her pocket and balancing it in one hand, she stared at it for a long moment.  Resting the other hand on top of her swollen abdomen, she said, “This is from your father, little one. Do you think he’d write me if he bore me ill will?” It warmed her to think she’d been on Sahure’s mind, wherever he was. “Well, only one way to find out.” 

         She broke the seal with her fingernail, sending little shards of red wax falling to the pavement, and unrolled the scroll.  The writing was bold, slashing black hieratic.  From Sahure, Captain in Pharaoh’s Own Regiment to Tyema, High Priestess of Sobek in the Ibis Nome, may the gods grant you life, prosperity, health. Now posted by Pharaoh to take command of the Southern Oasis. I think of you often.  His personal cartouche was scrawled at the bottom of the papyrus. 

               A bit disappointed, Tyema flipped the scroll over to be sure she hadn’t missed anything. “Not lover-like in the least.” She remembered how proud he was of his station as a warrior. “You never claimed to be a poet, did you, my love?” Shaking her head, she levered herself from the bench. It was frustrating to be so big and awkward. “Still, baby, it’s a tremendous promotion for him.  Huge responsibilities.”

 And the dangerous, remote Southern Oasis isn’t a place he’d take a wife to, so maybe he hasn’t gotten married yet.  Immediately Tyema took herself to task. It was no business of hers where he went, what he did, who he did it with. She’d refused him for her own compelling reasons and nothing had changed. Glancing at her belly as the baby kicked hard, she laughed. “Well, all right, one thing has changed, even if Sahure remains unaware.” 

As she walked into her bedroom, her smile faded. Now that I know where he is, I’m going to have to tell him about our child. He deserves to know. Deciding today wasn’t the day for composing a demanding letter, she pushed the thought away. Time to change out of her simple dress into a robe suitable for singing the evening devotions. But first she put the scroll inside her ivory-and-turquoise embellished keepsake chest, pushing the papyrus to the back, under her tattered doll from childhood and the dried red petals from the flower Sahure had placed in her hair.

Or here's a scene from Escape From Zulaire, set in the far future in outer space, where the

heroine is in a very tight spot:

She stared past the guard to watch the landscape flowing by, trying to make plans, but ideas tumbled one after the other in her mind, useless fragments. The prospect of dying like some old-time sacrifice was too terrifying for her mind to hold. Andi felt herself detach from reality as the vehicle came to a smooth stop beside a partially harvested field of grain. She had the sensation of watching someone else yanked from the vehicle and dragged across the rough ground. That woman twisted, struggled and screamed curses at her captors in four different languages, but Andi remained safe in her quiet cocoon of unreality.

This is not happening to me.

Everything will be all right.

Somehow.

At the center of the field the guards yanked her to a halt, forcing Andi to kneel. Small pebbles and jutting roots dug into her lower legs and knees, the pain snapping her back into harsh reality—this was happening to her, and it was all too real.

As the men held her in the kneeling position, her enemy clutched his long hunt­ing knife in his right hand. A wave of cold determination gave her renewed strength. No, he’s not doing that to me. I won’t make my death easy for him.

Fueled by adrenaline, Andi fought to stand, surprising her captors and actually breaking loose for a second or two. 

More on Marketing???

Whoops, I already partially addressed this topic last week, by mentioning some of the paid promotion I either enjoyed the heck  out of doing (a group ad in a weekly national magazine) or which I felt really did work for me (genuine papyrus bookmarks) or a combination of fun and possibly effective (book trailers).

I like doing Goodreads Giveaways (which are free to me except for the cost of my books and the postage). I've found Goodreads ads to be useful, in moderation. Which reminds me, I need to go set one up for Mission to Mahjundar.

I didn't find boosting Facebook posts to be a worthy use of my funds (40,000 people have seen your post! Two of them Liked it! Some of them may not even be real people!) and after receiving a bill from FB that included someone in South Korea's $575.00 ad, I quit doing ads or boosts there. I will say FB acknowledged that my erroneous bill was a glitch on their part and fixed it immediately. Efficient and much appreciated, FB!

My business cards and bookmarks are essential; hand them out all the time. I bought magnets of my science fiction romance covers to put in a goody bag, not so convinced that was useful. Additionally, the first time I ordered them I was a bit careless on the details and they arrived in the size of the actual paperback! (Not a marketing professional here, folks, don't even play one on TV.) Now THAT is a magnet with impact  LOL. Dominates the refrigerator. Good thing my cover models are so good looking.

Oh, I had little candy mummies to hand out at RT during the book signing and those were a hit but probably didn't do much for my books because there was no association with me or the books. Except, you know, Egypt. Because you see a blue candy mummy and will immediately think of VERONICA SCOTT. Right??? And buy All The Books. Of course you will.

What other promo adventures have I had? Let me think....oh, did a group ad in the DragonCon program one year and I definitely saw a sales spike on my science fiction romances after that. Someone else organized that ad buy and I was lucky to be included.

I did one paid blog tour, for my very first novel, and learned a great deal from that. Now I set up my own informal ones, with authors I know and/or who have hosted me in the past. A formal tour was also overwhelming to me, writing all those different posts in a short period of time.

NEXT year, I may try to be all organized and really plan promo things out...but probably not. I am kind of a whimsy of the moment person.

I did an ad in EReader News Today (ENT) in conjunction with a reduced price on one book and that was wonderful. I would do that again, or Book Bub.

Night Owl Reviews is one of my favorite places to put ads when I have a new release. I love the Big Splash Banner...

I also love seeing my book in an ad in RT Booklovers Magazine, but I really have to budget for that to happen. And think ahead due to the print deadlines. No spur of the moment there!

I've done giveaways in connection with blog hops - gift cards, books, Titanic mug replicas and real shards of coal from the wreck site...I don't do those much anymore. You do get many lovely people stopping by and leaving terrific comments but I've never seen much of a resulting sales boost.

OK, I think between last week's post and now this week, I have nothing more to ad. I'll leave you with the trailer for my 2014 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award Winner 
PLEASE tell me next week's topic isn't marketing LOL.

So do I Write Series or Not?

(I have this deja vu feeling I've discussed the topic in this space but it's this week's subject so here goes!)

First let me share my pretty new science fiction romance cover with you, just revealed! (Cover by Fiona Jayde.)The book is going to be out August 18th. It's the third in my loosely connected "Sectors" series, which is a series by virtue of occurring in the same Universe. Along with Wreck of the Nebula Dream and Escape From Zulaire, this new book is set in the galactic space known as the Sectors and features a hero who is a member of the Special Forces. The three heroes don't know each other (or if they do, it's never mentioned, even to me, the Author LOL). Two of the heroines happen to work for the same company, Loxton Galactic Trading, so they may know each other but I've never addressed that question.

I definitely plan to write more stories set in this Universe and have several sketched out. I might write a sequel to one or more of the existing books. We'll have to see. As with everything else, I'm a seat of the pants planner.

My ancient Egyptian paranormal novels are even more connected, being set in the same time frame, 1550BCE, with the Pharaoh Nat-re-Ahkte as the central point. A number of the characters know each other, having served with this fictional ruler as he fought to take the throne and then to defeat the Hyksos invaders. (The Hyksos were real, by the way.) I've written one sequel (Magic of the Nile is a direct sequel to Priestess of the Nile) and have another in mind. I also have some ideas for an actual series, following one set of characters through three books' worth of adventure and plots.

So, you may be saying by now, if I write a series, it's kind of going to be happenstance? Well, yes and no. I tend to think in terms of one book at a time and I realize to have a successful series I really need to sit down and figure out an arc, and the events for each book and the character growth. On the other hand, if I do too much advance thinking, I never write the book because my Muse grows bored with it.

Sort of funny, the first book I ever wrote, at age 7, was a fairy tale starring a princess and herds of flying horses and handsome princes (the hero owned a riverboat for some reason) and many MANY sisters. So I was clearly creating hooks for the inevitable sequels...which I never wrote. I think doing the illustrations wore me out!

In junior high, when I got more serious about writing, I did a science fiction series with about eleven volumes but I vaguely remember not planning ahead. I did use the same characters and they evolved (well, as much as my teen age Muse could envision) but each new adventure came to me separately. No big arc.

In senior high school I wrote another SF series and I did plan the three volume arc...

(Insert years of college, career, children, widowhood, single motherhood, grandchild HERE)

But when I jumped back into writing seriously in late 2010, it was one book at a time. I think I had to get rev myself up to speed, as it were, because my goal for 2015 is definitely to develop and write at least one series. I love series myself, with Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey being one of my favorites, anything by Nalini Singh as my current Must Buy and our own Jeffe coming close behind with her fabulous Twelve Kingdoms fantasy series. I devour such books and crave more!

So we'll see what 2015 brings for me and my Muse!

And here's the blurb for Mission to Mahjundar:

An attempted assassination left Princess Shalira blind as a child and, now that she's of marriageable age, her prospects are not good because of her disability. She's resigned herself to an arranged marriage rather than face life under the thumb of her cold stepmother. But then she meets Mike Varone, a Sectors Special Forces officer sent to Mahjundar by the intergalactic government to retrieve a ship lost in her planet's mountains. After Mike saves Shalira from another assassination attempt, she arranges for him to escort her across the planet to her future husband. She's already falling hard for the deadly offworlder and knows she should deny herself the temptation he represents, but taking Mike along to protect her is the only way she'll live long enough to escape her ruthless stepmother.

Mike, for his part, resists his growing attraction to the princess; he has a mission on this planet and rescuing the vulnerable but brave princess isn't it. No matter how much he wishes it could be.

But what should have been an easy trek through Mahjundar's peaceful lands swiftly turns into an ambush with danger around every turn. Shalira's marriage begins to seem less like an arranged union and more like yet another planned assassination. The more they work together to survive, the harder it becomes to stop themselves from falling in love. Caught in a race against time, can they escape the hostile forces hunting them and make it off the planet?

Can there be a future for a simple soldier and an intergalactic princess?

Is Ecstasy the Opposite of Apoplexy?

I have a problem today. See, my assignment is to write a nice little post about the word of the week, which is apoplexy and I was ready to do that...except now I'm in the farthest mood from apoplexy you can reach...because my science fiction romance ESCAPE FROM ZULAIRE was named one of the 2014 SFR Galaxy Award winners and I Am Happy. Not apoplectic. Not even close to that state!

Well, ok, having squeed and wooted and THRILLED by my book receiving a nod from my peers, I'll write my originally intended post. (Have I rendered you apoplectic yet? Hope not!)

In search of inspiration, being the Seventh Whore of the Week, I found few to no quotes, even Shakespeare only used the word four times (five if maybe we count a mention of "apoplex'd" in Hamlet)....no convenient LOLcats or Dogedogs in the throes of apoplexy...googled ovarian apoplexy, which scared me to death by the way, just contemplating the concept....dealt with the dryer repairman...locked myself out of the condo complex, which still didn't rendered me apoplex'd (just annoyed)...

I believe I was in the throes of apoplexy once, however, and will share that incident with you. Normally, I'm a pretty even tempered, optimistic, pleasant person to work with. A real team player. If I disagree with you in a meeting, it'll be calm and civilized....we may have more discussion later but I won't be in your face, rude, arrogant, slam my notebook shut and walk out of the meeting...all the while wondering WHY am I acting so unlike myself??? Yup, that happened to me one day. My team members chased after me in great concern, the person who had been presenting fairly bland charts was brand new to our fine institution and of course was now re-thinking their decision to take our job offer, I'm sure...

Blood pressure. Turns out that I inherited my paternal side's tendency to high blood pressure and unbeknownst to me, mine had now wandered into the "you're about to have a stroke territory". So some tiny kernel of  factoid the poor presenter had said kind of annoyed me and on any other day I'd have made a note and discussed it with them privately but wowza, under the fire of compressed, surging blood in the veins, I became Frank the Harvester from Pixar's "Cars". Or maybe Galadriel under the momentary influence of the One Ring. (Ooh, I like that imagery....let me savor that for a moment...)

I went to the doctor the next day, because along with the whole "upset all out of proportion" thing, I also felt

dizzy and ill...and found out it was time to start taking that little high blood pressure pill at bedtime. Darn ancestors anyway!

So that was my moment of apoplexy. Not fun. I apologized to the person but they were never comfortable with me in meetings ever again...and nowadays if I start to be bothered by something more than I should be, I take it as a sign of the blood pressure going out of control. I try to find a quiet place and meditate for a few minutes, which does reliably bring the b/p back down. Whew.

(Pets the shiny SFR Galaxy Award jpeg)

Not Exactly Playlists

When I first started writing, a long time ago, I did listen to music. It wasn't anything as sophisticated as a playlist created for each writing project but more of a compilation of my personal favorites. I have wildly eclectic tastes so there might be a drum-heavy 1950's track followed by a showtune following by Lady GaGa or Ne-Yo. But very shortly after I'd sit down to write, the music would fade from my consciousness and I really didn't pay any attention to it.

In the last few years, I don't play music at all when I write. As others have said this week, now it would be too much of a distraction, instead of a way to guide my mind into focussing on the creative task at hand.

My favorite thing to do is go for long drives on the California freeways, just blasting tunes from my iPod and think over plot ideas. The driving and the music seem to really get the creative juices flowing. The catch here is that now I live only three miles away from work, instead of the hour plus commute I used to have, so I don't get that daily plotting session. On the upside, neither am I subject to the vagaries of the freeways! All in all, I think I prefer the current situation and I'll do my plotting sessions in a different fashion.

Even if I did do playlists, I'd be reticent to share them because what might set my Muse (there she is - I knew you were waiting!) to happily writing a certain scene or character probably has no resemblance to the story I'm working on. It isn't a soundtrack! For example, I wrote one entire science fiction novel basically to the "Riverdance" soundtrack and key portions of the book to the Russian dervish dance music set on endless repeat. Why? I don't know, something about that combination of sounds was just amping up my creativity at that moment in time. Here's the youtube clip and I have to say I really love these dancers, who were amazing athletes and performers.


Occasionally I'll get inspiration for a character from a song though, which brings me to my newly released science fiction romance ESCAPE FROM ZULAIRE. There's a supporting character, a Sectors Special Forces sergeant who at one point had quite a backstory, as far as wanting to sing in bars when he was on leave, and not quite having the sheer musicality to carry it off, shall we say. Well he still has all that backstory of course, but now it's been edited from the novel. I left a few tiny references to his singing here and there to please myself LOL. But in this case, years ago I happened to hear "Nothin But the Tail Lights" by Clint Black and there was Mitch, full blown in my head. (To be clear, I love the song and I've always enjoyed Clint Black's singing - Mitch is not meant to BE him! A wanna-be maybe...) Andi and Tom, the main characters, couldn't make their perilous way across Zulaire without Mitch, trust me. (Or don't trust me and read the book for yourself - shameless pitch now inserted.) Here's the best version of the song I could find. Apparently Mr. Black never made a formal video so I certainly apologize for the quality of the sound.)

 And the book's blurb is below!

ESCAPE FROM ZULAIRE:

Andi Markriss hasn’t exactly enjoyed being the houseguest of the planetary high-lord, but her company sent her to represent them at a political wedding. When hotshot Sectors Special Forces Captain Tom Deverane barges in on the night of the biggest social event of the summer, Andi isn’t about to offend her high-ranking host on Deverane’s say-so—no matter how sexy he is, or how much he believes they need to leave now.

Deverane was thinking about how to spend his retirement bonus when HQ assigned him one last mission: rescue a civilian woman stranded on a planet on the verge of civil war. Someone has pulled some serious strings to get her plucked out of the hot zone. Deverane’s never met anyone so hard-headed—or so appealing. Suddenly his mission to protect this one woman has become more than just mere orders.

That mission proves more dangerous than he expected when rebel fighters attack the village and raze it to the ground. Deverane escapes with Andi, and on their hazardous journey through the wilderness, Andi finds herself fighting her uncomfortable attraction to the gallant and courageous captain. But Deverane’s not the type to settle down, and running for one’s life doesn’t leave much time to explore a romance.

Then Andi is captured by the rebel fighters, but Deverane has discovered that Zulaire’s so-called civil war is part of a terrifying alien race’s attempt to subjugate the entire Sector. If he pushes on to the capitol Andi will die. Deverane must decide whether to save the woman he loves, or sacrifice her to save Zulaire.

(Trust me, Mitch is in the book! See you next week!