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Current Playlist: Top 3 Albums March 2014

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Current Playlist: Top 3 Albums March 2014

Lorde

Lorde (Photo credit: GabboT)

 

Current playlist: Top 3 Albums May 2013

Current playlist: Top 3 Albums March 2014 – Adele – 21

 

It’s been a while since I posted a current playlist, but it’s not because I haven’t been listening to music. I’ve been so consumed with putting the finishing touches on my next books, I haven’t made any time.

Heart to Heart (the sequel to Blood To Blood) has been most prominent as it’s currently (still!) going through editing. There is an end in sight though, and soon the book will be available. In the meantime, the artists I’ve been listening to the most are Lorde, Ed Sheeran, and Adele.

As you can see from the Top 3 list, the tone of the HTH playlist is somewhat subdued. But things get a little more lively with the addition of the artists below.

Additional artists in current rotation:

Hole
Santigold
M.I.A.
Skunk Anansie
Muse
Van Cliburn
Beethoven
Daft Punk

English: M.I.A. performing at Outside Lands 2009

English: M.I.A. performing at Outside Lands 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I promise I’ll have a playlist for April. In the meantime, you can always visit me on Twitter to see what I’m listening to at any given time.

 

Current Playlist: Top 3 Albums March 2014

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tentacles Cover Reveal

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tentacles Cover Reveal

Here it is! I know some of you ladies have been waiting for more Sawyer Creed. Well here he is! But just remember, in tentacles he is only sixteen…

tentacles Cover Reveal

tentacles Cover Reveal

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Sawyer Creed’s invisible, yet undeniably real, tentacles have seemingly killed every family member who ever hurt his mom– including his alcoholic dad.

Now on mom’s wedding day, Sawyer’s uncontrollable ability puts his family in imminent danger. When the tentacles stretch purposefully toward mom and her new husband, the first guy who’s treated her well, Sawyer, realizing that he’s on a path to destroy the ones he loves, vows to take charge of his destiny by  making mom tell him the truth about why he’s different.

The tentacles seem to do his subconscious bidding when he’s angry or scared. Sawyer suspects it is a family legacy, a birthright mom denies. There is only one person who has the answers, one person who can help Sawyer have some semblance of a normal life; and that person, his grandmother and the matriarch of the Creed family, is also the person mom has hidden him from all of his life. tentacles is a short story prequel to the novel Blood To Blood.

As I posted earlier, I’m thrilled about this short story and it is my hope that it will hold everyone over until the next book is released.

Readers of Blood To Blood will remember Sawyer: the mysterious, brooding producer Angel Brown vows to hate. tentacles is a family drama which takes us back in time, before Sawyer meets Angel, to a turning point in his life.

As of tomorrow, February 19,  tentacles will be available exclusively on Kindle, but soon you’ll be able to download the e-version on other platforms.

tentacles

Blood To Blood: Official Release

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Blood To Blood: Official Release

Blood To Blood: Official Release

Blood To Blood: Official Release

Today is the official release date for Blood To Blood, and I am so grateful for all the wonderful feedback my debut novel has received over the past few months! Here’s the official press release.

It’s exciting to see your “baby” go out into the world. There’s a sense of liberation and quite frankly relief. The best feeling is knowing that there are other babies close behind waiting to get there turn. Be on the lookout for the sequel as well as more stuff about Sawyer Creed and your favorite blood donor, Justin McCarthy.

Ok, back to the writing desk.

Purchase:[mantra-button-color url=”https://www.createspace.com/4012299″ color=”#47AFFF”]B2B in Paperback[/mantra-button-color] |[mantra-button-color url=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008ONWZ58/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008ONWZ58&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwrapaboutco-20″ color=”#47AFFF”]B2B on Kindle[/mantra-button-color]

Summary: Enter the world of Bostonian teen Angelika Brown: budding pop star and descendant of an immortal race of sun-loving blood drinkers known as Shimshana (the vampire prototype).

Defying her parents’ traditions of higher education (and secrecy), Angel plans to ditch high school to be a singer. She’s got an amazing voice, but she’s also maturing into a full-grown Shimshana complete with fearsome power and insatiable bloodlust. What’s worse, her soaring vocals are now capable of destroying everything, and everyone, within earshot; including her girl group, their mysterious producer and Angel’s hunky new blood donor. To top it off, she must prove her worthiness to live by passing the tests in her Mahá–the ancient, mandatory coming-out-party for new-born immortals.

Will Angel survive her Mahá and quickly learn to control her new abilities? Or will her killer instincts bring her promising career, and her life, to an end?

Read reviews and interviews for Blood To Blood.

Blood To Blood: Official Release

Weekly Word: Perseverance

Quote

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Today’s weekly word: Perseverance

There will come a time when you think everything is finished. That will be the beginning.- Louis L’Amour

This quote can apply to a lot of things in life but it really resonated with me when I was going through the editing process for Blood To Blood.

Contrary to what some people think, there are self-published authors who actually spend much time and money in the editing process, as all writers should. It took me 3 months to write the first draft and 2 years to get it right.

But after all the beta-reads, re-writing and critiques the part that really got me was the copy-editing. You get to the point where, finally, you’re hiring a copy-editor and there’s actually an end in sight. Or so you think. The process took about a month and a half.

But eventually, once I’d read the manuscript 3 more times after the final, final, final submission from my fabulous copy editor, I did get to the point where I, with butterflies in my stomached, realized there was no more editing to do.

Or so I thought…

Yep, as I was reading the book out loud to my 8 year-old, we came across an instance of the word “the” which should have been “then.”

It just goes to show you, no matter how far you think you’ve come, there’s always some more to go. I’m grateful for making it through that journey! How about you? Any tales of perseverance to share?

Weekly word: Perseverance

Current Playlist

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My current playlist

To answer the question of what’s on my current playlist, I’m listing the most prominent artists on my daily rotation. This list changes as my mood changes and I think you might be surprised at what’s on it today.

These tunes are getting ridiculous play regardless of whether they’re connected to a scene, or character, or not. Many of these songs have a direct relationship to what I’m writing, some of them have no connection whatsoever–at least none that I can see right now. Sometimes, I’ll have music on rotation for no apparent reason until one day it either hits me as to why it’s on the list, or it just starts making sense. Sometimes the characters choose the song(s) and I have little to do with it.

For the record I’m currently writing two pieces: a short story and the follow-up to Blood To Blood.

Current playlist: Santigold

Current playlist: Santigold

Current playlist: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Current playlist: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Current playlist: Green Day

Current playlist: Green Day

Artists in current rotation

Santigold
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Green Day

Adele
Andy Gibb
Muse (of course)

Cee-lo Green
Kylie Minogue
Arcade Fire

Blondie
Alabama Shakes
Class Actress

Blood To Blood Excerpt

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Blood To Blood Excerpt #1: “The good thing about having a sister who can fly is that you never have to wait for her too long. Cici soon bounded up the steps from whatever hidden spot it was she had dropped out of the sky. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a slim thermos. “Drink,” she ordered. The smell wafting out of the metal container confirmed it was blood. Before I could even think about it, I drained it quicker than you could say, “Type A.”

And that was that.

No trumpet fanfare. No divine choir singing from parted cumulus clouds or anything else I’d fantasized would accompany such a momentous occasion. Nonetheless, I was now a bonafide blood drinker.

I broke out in a cold sweat. “More.”

Blood To Blood is currently available in pre-release through Amazon Kindle. Buy or borrow it today!

Blood To Blood Available in Pre-release

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Blood To Blood: Available in pre-release via Amazon (Kindle). Buy or borrow today!

Blood To Blood Novel

Blood To Blood Novel

Finally, after 3 years of writing, re-writing, editing and querying over and over again, my book is out and in the world. Blood To Blood, available in pre-release, is my first novel.

*Major exhale* Phew!

I am so very excited to be sharing these characters with everyone! There’s something very liberating about knowing that I did my part to infuse these characters with the personalities they showed me, and now it’s out of my hands.

During pre-release, the book will be available exclusively through Kindle where you can buy or borrow it. The official release, which will see it available across multiple platforms as well as in hard copy, will be in October 2012.

There’s nothing more I can do with this book except hope that readers enjoy it and fall in love with Angel, Sawyer and Justin, too.

By the way, you may wonder how I chose to celebrate this momentous occasion. I went to see Dark Knight Rises. It rocked. However, my prayers and love energy go out to the people whose lives were forever changed by the senseless killings at a screening this past weekend.

Well, I’m off to write the next story. Hmmm…it may include at least one of the above-mentioned Blood To Blood characters. In the meantime, enjoy an excerpt.

 

My Muses: Cosby Show

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Inspiration for the family in Blood To Blood came from what some may consider to be an unlikely source: The Cosby Show.

Cosby Show: The Huxtable family

The Huxtables

Long ago (early 2000s), in a land far, far away (Los Angeles) when I was working on a different project (Star Trek) the idea for a TV show came to me. The family was based, in part and very loosely, on the family from the show, the Huxtables.

Since the theme of family comes up again and again in my work, it’s no surprise that the Huxtables inspired my writing. The series gave us a strong mom and dad who were both successful in the professional world, and managed to translate that success daily on the home front by making their family the priority.

Interestingly enough, when the Cosby Show first came out, some people were blown away by Black American characters who didn’t display any of the stereotypical dysfunction heretofore marketed to TV audiences. The reality of educated, upper middle-class Black American family life had been unseen on prime time. Millions of viewers became fascinated by a typical American family that was once considered The Other.

It’s the concept of Otherness disguised in the packaging of The Everyday that fascinates me.

As with the other family that inspired Blood To Blood, the element of otherness percolating within the framework of day-to-day life (or, as in the case with Dark Shadows, the ordinary percolating within the framework of Strangeness) inspires me to create characters who deal with the same issues we all deal with, but in a slightly “different” context.

Like most families, Angel Brown’s family grapples with the daily challenges of raising children into responsible adults, making good decisions, living a moral life, etc. The fact that they’re witches and blood drinkers is the stuff that makes them different, but it’s the commonality, the connection to all families, that makes them familiar.

 

 

Muse 2012: Grub Street

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You all know I’m a big fan of Muse but this post’s about a writers conference I recently attended.The annual conference is put on by Grub Street, an independent writers’ center in Boston, and has quite a reputation.

Especially thought-provoking was a talk given by Richard Nash:

Whether it’s a multi-day conference or a local writers’ support group, these types of events are beneficial for writers, both aspiring and seasoned. There’s nothing like being in a room with 3000+ writers or a room with just 3 writers for making new connections and getting invaluable information on the business side of writing. Thanks, Grub Street!