Angela just sent me an email politely asking where my blog post was. The deadline is on my calendar, but I had not opened my calendar yet. So a few fun things from the past few days.

I like memes. It’s interesting to see how people take a little bit of structure and then get creative. A current meme is stuff people say, and the publishing video was making its rounds earlier this week:

Stuff (or sh*t) Editors and Agents say

Not that the concept of memes in new. In fact, at Harlequin, we decided to highlight the variety of our series by having several authors start with the same opening paragraph and then tell the story as they wanted, and as suited the series they wrote for. We gathered the stories together and asked Christine Bell to write a new steampunk story to represent Carina Press. You can download it free at Harlequin.com. Happy early Valentines Day!

This the opening paragraph:

Charlotte winced as an inebriated party-goer stepped on her foot, but she kept moving determinedly toward the doors that led to the balcony. The Duncans would be delighted with their party; it was clearly the event of the season, and their daughter had been successfully launched into society.

Unfortunately, the noise, the heat and the crowd combined with Charlotte’s pounding headache to make her want to escape for a breath of fresh air. Reaching the balcony doors, she opened them to find two people engaged in a passionate kiss.

“I’m sorry.” The words escaped her mouth before she realized it would have been better to make an exit without being noticed. The couple jumped apart.

“John! I thought you were dead!”

All this, of course, made me a look for a meme about what Canadians say, see below. No, that is not how we Canadians say “out and about” (warning: swearing!).

Last I wrote a post at my blog about why authors should care about synopses — how a publishing companies uses it. Several people have commented they have found it useful so if you wonder why we make authors write synopses, you can find out.

Happy Groundhog Day!

You don’t bat an eyelid at bat shifters and you’re happy to accept a kiss on the neck from a vampire. Werewolves are just cuddly, right? But when it comes to instilling fear, I have them all beaten, for I am a genre-bender.

At least, this is how my brilliant editor, Lynne, described my new Carina release, Under His Influence, and she hit the nail on the head (she’s a champion nail-on-head-hitter, is our Lynne).

So, take a look at the cover and guess. Is it a mystery? Is it sci-fi? Is it erotica? Is it erotic romance? Is it suspense? Is it… Look, the answer’s yes. To all of them, in greater and lesser degrees. And this is where I think Carina have occupied a unique corner of the market – they are not scared of stories that don’t quite fit into one category box. For that, they deserve a debt of gratitude and respect – because it’s the story that matters in the end.

So, do you have a favourite genre blend? Are you always up for erotic suspense, or a paranormal thriller? Do you think there are some genres that just don’t mix? Or is it a case of the more the merrier? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What I’d also love is for some of you to give my genre-bender a whirl, so here’s a bit more detail for you:

“Anna Rice is avoiding a coworker’s advances when she encounters enigmatic John Stone at a trendy London bar. With his impeccable suits, salt-and-pepper hair and suave demeanor, John is unlike any of the boys Anna has dated in the past: he’s definitely all man. It’s not long before Anna is head over heels in love, and experiencing out-of-this world erotic dreams.

Reporter Mimi Leblanc is wary of her best friend’s latest romance. There’s just something about John… But nothing Mimi digs up about him can deter Anna. Determined to protect Anna, Mimi continues her investigations—and what she uncovers about John is the last thing she ever imagined. But perhaps even more shocking is her own growing attraction to him…”

68,000 words

It’s available here at the Carina Press website, or for Amazon Kindle.

Justine Elyot is the UK bestselling author of On Demand, The Business of Pleasure and Erotic Amusements. When she isn’t buried under a pile of new projects, you can find her waving at the world from her website http://justineelyot.com/ or gassing about trivialities on Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/JustineElyot.

The morning I received the call from Executive Editor Angela James about Mask of the Gladiator, things at my house were pretty crazy. We had a contractor, a landscaper, a bobcat driver and an air duct cleaner all working on the house at the same time. While dealing with them, we were also trying to watch our toddler. All of this happened in a four hour period, and by noon, all the workers were gone and three different family members called to say they were now free to watch our little one.

Isn’t it amazing how things in life are either all or nothing? You are either completely slammed or it is so quiet you can hear the crickets chirping. I live for the quiet days but there is a kind of excitement and sense of accomplishment in the busy ones. At the end of a hectic day, I collapse in a chair and congratulate myself for handling everything and keeping my cool in the midst of the insanity. Or I mix up a margarita and vow never to pack so much into one day again.

Packing a lot into a small amount of time is how I approached Mask of the Gladiator. I liked the idea of placing two people in a fast paced situation where life and death decisions have to be made in an instant and the characters must stay on their toes in order to survive. Setting these events in the context of a real historical situation, the assassination of Emperor Caligula, allowed me to indulge my love of history. I particularly enjoyed reading ancient sources like Josephus while weaving my fictional characters into the historical events.

Thankfully, the craziness surrounding the writing and sale of Mask of the Gladiator didn’t involve any life or death decisions. Those came later when I picked out which plants to put in the yard, or, as my family likes to say, which plants I sentenced to death, because I don’t have a green thumb. I am happy to report, some plants did survive and those that didn’t, well, they probably didn’t belong in my garden in the first place. In the meantime, it’s back to writing and to hoping you enjoy reading Mask of the Gladiator as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Georgie Lee

***

A dedicated history and film buff, Georgie Lee loves combining her passion for Hollywood, history and storytelling through romantic fiction. She began writing professionally at a small TV station in San Diego before moving to Los Angeles to work in the interesting but strange world of the entertainment industry. When not writing, she enjoys reading non-fiction history and watching any movie with a costume and an accent. Please visit www.georgie-lee.com, follow her on Twitter @GeorgieLeeBooks or visit her Facebook page to learn more about Georgie and her books.

Oh, Hugh Laurie–why yes, I WILL go to the sock hop with you!

I’ve been watching a lot of HOUSE lately–you know, the medical show with the uber-hottie Hugh Laurie playing the crazypants doctor who somehow manages to figure out what mysterious disease a person has juuuuuuust in the nick of time. One of my favorite parts of the show is how sarcoidosis and lupus is thrown out as possible reasons in every episode; it should be a drinking game. haha

Anyway, I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m so fascinated by this show–both as a reader, a writer and an editor. What is it about his character that draws me in? And I think I’ve figured it out. Actually, there are a lot of reasons:

1–House says what we’re all thinking. Well, sometimes, when we’re honest with ourselves and don’t worry about being polite in society. haha. He’s a jerk, he doesn’t pull his punches, and his blunt lack of a filter makes me laugh. It also makes me cringe. But it makes him compelling because I literally don’t know what’s going to fly out of his mouth. I love characters who keep me guessing like that. Predictable stories get old, fast.

2–House is complex. As mentioned above, he has no filter and he’s often a jerk. He’s addicted to pain meds and seems to have no conscience at times. And yet at other times, he’s so vulnerable it breaks my heart. Characters who are transparent to me, who have serious flaws and yet these moments of utter vulnerability, make me riveted. I remember an episode where he told Cuddy that being in love with her made him a bad doctor and caused people to die, and yet he wouldn’t change a thing–he’d still love her. He was humble and real in that one moment and I just swooned because I knew it was hard for him to admit that. When I read manuscripts or books with characters who have a lot of room to grow, that kind of complexity and rawness needs to be there so I hang in to the end.

3–House is hot.

4–House surrounds himself with great foils and reflections of his own character. His coworkers reveals a lot about him–his odd unhealthy-yet-compelling friendship with Wilson, the way he treats his crew…yet they stick with him anyway. Not necessarily because they’re gluttons for punishment. But because they, too, see the multiple facets and recognize his genius. And I think that deep down, they realize they want to be like that in some way. They serve as our voice on the show, calling him out on his flaws, pointing out those moments of generosity.

I heard somewhere that House is considered to be the most accurate modernization of Sherlock Holmes. Upon considering this, it’s absolutely true. I’ve always been a fan of mysteries, and the way the show HOUSE unravels them keeps me coming back, week after week. But it’s not just the mysteries of the diseases–it’s the mysteries of House himself.

So, what TV show provides a great character study for you? Who is so fascinating that you keep coming back, week after week, eager to see what happens next?

‘Is this even possible? Maybe the car is so old it preceded shatter-resistant glass?’

Here’s what I love about Melissa Johnson, my editor at Carina – she has the nicest way of getting you to really think about your choice of words, and whether the image you think you’re conjuring is as realistic as it could be (like the “magic garage door”. But that’s another story). Right from the first round of edits, the validity of Rachel Miller, the heroine in The Stubborn Dead, being able to smash a classic car’s driver-side window into little pieces was up for debate.

For me, it was a pretty open and shut case. At the time I was taking sword fighting lessons up in Vancouver every Saturday, and not a week went by without at least three cars getting broken into in the parking lot I favoured.** I looked at the way the glass lay around the cars (from a safe distance), and didn’t think twice about using what I’d seen in my writing.

Problem is, there’s a whole industry out there designed around convincing the general public that driver-side car windows don’t break easily (and thus you need to buy their product to help escape in the event you do a movie-style plunge into a dark, frigid river etc. etc.).

Turn to YouTube, you say? There has to be some sort of proof to support either argument on there!

Yeah, no. There are as many wonderful videos showing windows being smashed in seconds, as there are clips of beefy gentlemen (or reporters) struggling to making a decent crack, let alone a clear break.

So I did what any debut author wanting to keep in her editor’s good graces would do – I went to bug an expert for details. Specifically, I took a drive down to our local Speedy Glass Auto Center to chat with their technicians. There’s nothing quite like walking up to the counter and saying something along the lines of, “Hi, I’m an author, and I need to ask you a pretty strange question – can a woman smash a classic car’s driver side window with the back end of a gun?” At which point everyone within earshot has your undivided attention.

It was a fabulous experience. TWO technicians peppered me with questions. Make of the car? ’57 Eldorado. Original or restored? Restored, but by someone who would have gotten the details just right. So he would have made an effort to buy an original Cadillac part? Knowing Kit, most likely. Alright, then that meant that the driver side window would have been tempered, not laminate. What type of a gun was used in the scene? A smaller GLOCK. And the wielder? How big were they? A fit twenty-something year old woman, who would have brought the back end down onto the glass as hard as possible. Well sure, the metal base where the clip pushes into the gun would smash that window without a problem, and the glass would break into tiny, sharp pieces.

Huzzah!

If it’s one thing I’m learning more and more in life, it’s that the majority of professionals and enthusiasts just love to share their knowledge. Which is fabulous if you’re a writer trying to create accurate scenarios, but it’s even better if you’re just plain curious about what people get up to.

So, out of curiosity, what’s the strangest or most obscure piece of information you’ve ever heard from someone else? Or do you have a skill, or outstanding amount of knowledge about a topic, that people find odd or fascinating (even if you don’t)?

**A tip for visitors to Vancouver – leave NOTHING of value visible in your car, especially if you park in a multi-level lot. Even spare change is enough of a reason for a break-in. (And don’t forget to put that GPS unit and your iPod away!) Vancouver’s a great little city full of really nice people, and we wouldn’t want your visit ruined by opportunistic thieves.

~~~

When not devising ways to er, provide conflict for her characters, Natasha enjoys a good adventure. Especially if it involves ‘stumbling upon’ movie or TV shoots around Vancouver, hunting for G1 My Little Ponies at local thrift shops, meandering through book and toy stores, or looking into paranormal phenomena.

She can be found mostly at her blog, Twitter, Facebook or Flickr accounts. She’s also known to pop up on Tumblr, Goodreads, Google +, YouTube and at the Harlequin Community.

~~~

The Stubborn Dead – Book 1 in the Lost Souls series – Available from Carina Press. Also available as a Kindle edition.

‘Rachel Miller thought her next job was a run-of-the-mill haunting. As a member of the Order of Rescue Mediums it’s her duty to release trapped spirits from the earthly realm. But when called to client Sylvia Elkeles’s house, she finds a wraith who doesn’t act like he should.

The Order considers the wraith an extreme threat and Rachel may be forced to use a barbaric ritual to free him—a ritual that comes with a heavy personal price. If she fails to humanely release the wraith, she’ll have her supernatural abilities bound.

When Janus Ostara—local supernatural mob boss—shows up demanding her attention, and Sylvia keeps secrets that may place Rachel in mortal danger, she doesn’t need her abilities to know something darkly sinister is at play.

Between uncovering Sylvia’s disturbing motives, and avoiding Janus, Rachel has enough on her hands without dealing with a wraith who may not realize he’s supposed to be dead…’

We bought land in the mountains last spring, a Shangri-La escape from hectic day jobs. The critters outnumber the people, so when we kick back on the porch with a glass of wine, we watch the wild kingdom. Wood ducks, geese and the occasional heron hang out in the spring-fed pond. Owls haunt the trees at the edge of the woods. There’s even a bald eagle – how cool is that? They’re huge and have the haughty, I rule supreme around here attitude.

But I love the hawks. They ride the wind currents on wide wings until – boom – plummeting into the hay field after one of those irritating voles that dig huge holes and eat flower bulbs.

Spring rolled into summer and we spent long days clearing the property. The Canadian geese resented our work around the pond, departing with loud complaints. The wood ducks were more discrete, quietly fading into the rushes. Then ducks do what ducks do – we do write romance at Carina Press – and soon lines of yellow and brown fluffiness appeared behind the adults.

Gradually though, the lines got shorter and piles of poofed feathers appeared in the meadow. Yep, it appears hawks like baby ducks as much as they do voles.

Did your attitude towards the hawks just change?

Is the hawk a ‘bad guy’ or is it just doing what hawks are programmed to do in order to survive?

I had a lot of time to think about predators while cutting the hay field. I shared that story here. For many authors, the villain is a predator, either physically hurting someone or exploiting a situation for their own benefit. The best antagonists, in my opinion, have a reason for what they do, even if it only makes sense to them.

In the animal world, hawks eat to survive and they keep the world from being overrun with ducks. While a hawk is clearly a predator, is predator status inherently a bad thing? Or does it depend upon your perspective? Does it depend on the predator’s motivation?

What do you think makes the most intriguing villains?

When I write, I create a world, populate it with characters – good and not so good – and invite the reader along for the ride. An important element in making that journey rewarding is figuring out what motivates the characters. In THE PROFESSOR, the villain may have been warped by his childhood, but he chose to cross the line and prey on college women.

Meet the villain in THE PROFESSOR (read the excerpt here) – what’s your perspective on him?

I’d love to have you visit my website or Blame It On The Muse where I hang out with terrific writer friends. Connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.

Photos used by permission. Credits: hawk photograph Eagle Brother ; duck photograph NJ Birds

How did I fall in love with Sobek,  the Egyptian Crocodile God? Why did I decide I needed to tell his story in Priestess of the Nile?

I was dealing with a pesky plot problem in another WIP set in the same paranormal universe and I needed help resolving an issue between two pharaohs – the rightful ruler and the woman who usurped his throne.  In the course of doing research on ancient Egyptian beliefs, I came across the delightful nugget that Sobek could protect pharaoh from black magic. That was one of his duties, along with housekeeping the Nile. In some legends Sobek was even credited with creating the world from chaos but clearly along the way he fell out of the ranks of the most powerful gods, since Osiris and Isis and others were at the top of the pantheon in the later years of Egyptian glory.

So I wrote Sobek into one brief scene in the WIP, solved my plot problem and moved on. But I kept thinking about him.  There were definitely interesting elements in his backstory. So powerful originally, yet overtaken by flashier newcomers? Subject to commands from the later arriving gods, Sobek still faithfully tended to his duties keeping the Nile navigable and flooding as it should. Does he resent his labors? Does he wish for more, for something or someone that belongs to just him?

Sobek is always depicted as either crocodile or half man/half crocodile but one day I had the flash of insight – he was a shifter. Bingo, so therefore he could take human form if he wanted to. The ancient Egyptians just never saw him do it! But I, as his modern day biographer, could tell his full tale (if you’ll forgive the pun).

And most importantly for a paranormal romance writer, he could fall in love with the right human woman. Who would attract the attention of the Crocodile God? As with any love story, the moment and the locale had to be just right. I could see the scene – late afternoon along the Nile, an abandoned temple on a deserted beach…and a young woman with a singularly beautiful voice, singing a paean of praise to – the Crocodile God. Songs he had not heard sung  by anyone in a very long time…ah, but falling in love with Merys, and she with him, was the easy part. And the adventure begins there!

Drawn to his abandoned temple on the banks of the Nile by an enchanting song, Sobek the Crocodile God is even more captivated by the sight of the singer herself. Appearing to her as a man, he learns she is Merys, a descendant of his last priestess. Though filled with lust, Sobek believes Merys deserves to be more than just his mistress. But the rules that govern the Egyptian pantheon forbid anything beyond a physical joining of a Great One and a human.

Merys is attracted to the handsome stranger, who arouses passions in her that no man ever has. But with no dowry and no hope of ever leaving her village, she dares not dream of the future—or love.

Sobek takes every opportunity to visit Merys, taxing his resolve to leave her pure. When he saves her life, their mutual desire must be sated. But can a love between a human and an immortal survive the ultimate test of the gods?

Priestess of the Nile is now available from Carina Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble.

Veronica Scott lives in sunny Southern California with her daughters, a grandson and two cats. You’ll always find her writing or reading when she isn’t commuting to and from the day job on the challenging freeways!

You can find her at her blog or on Facebook page and she is very active on twitter as @vscotttheauthor

Today I’m attending the Digital Book World Book Marketing Summit, which is geared towards publishers and marketing strategies in a digital world. Much of this morning’s topics focused quite a bit on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as conversations about blogs, forums and other marketing platforms. If you’re interested in following along the afternoon sessions, the Twitter hashtag is #dbwsum

There have been a few key concepts discussed this morning and one is about bringing in readers/customers to your site, forum, blog, social media and ultimately your main content via bonus content. Bonus content can take the form of many things. Maybe it’s an article for writers with specific tricks to writing a query letter. Maybe for readers it’s an interview with the author, character interviews, behind the scenes information, cut scenes, video interviews, or other information.

So I’m kind of curious to hear from our readers. You tell us: what kind of bonus content do you enjoy? What could an author (or publisher or magazine) post that would encourage you to click through and look at the bonus content. Do you like to read snippets from authors’ works in progress? Do you enjoy seeing online epilogues. Or free novellas? Interviews with author?

Also, can you think of specific bonus content that an author or publisher has provided in the past that you really loved?

We’ve done a few submissions calls the past few months, I want to highlight those again, since I think they tend to get lost because the blog updates frequently.

I specifically want to highlight the science fiction holiday novella call we announced. This is still an active call and submissions are being accepted until March 15th, so there’s time to get your manuscripts written, still!

A few months ago, some of the editors did a post sharing what each is looking for individually. You can read that post here.

Last month I did a call for submission for my personal list. I’m still looking! I have acquired a few things already from that call, but I’m still reading submissions and looking for a few more special manuscripts to catch my attention!

On Twitter a few weeks ago, one of our acquisition team members mentioned that our team would like to see more historical romances come in, so if you have a historical romance, send it our way.

As a reminder, the submissions guidelines are here. We’re not accepting young adult (no, we don’t have plans to), inspirational, family sagas, literary fiction or women’s fiction. Still no non-fiction or poetry either (we’ve actually had several poetry submissions lately. This is…odd.)

I know every texture, nuance and crack of the bedroom wall in my daughter’s room. This learning came from the countless hours I spend in there nursing her, holding her and spending time in that rocking chair.  Did I enjoy it? Well, it was nice the first 40 or 50 times I did it, but after months of this, I started to get pretty bored of staring at the wall.

I tried listening to the radio or my mp3 player during those long hours, but I’m really a reader at heart. Unfortunately every time I tried a book, I couldn’t get past two pages–how do you turn the page when you’ve only got one hand to work with?

Then there was Christmas 2010 and a brand-new eReader and accompanying reading light waiting for me under the tree.

I cannot underestimate the importance of this device in my life and my enjoyment of the time I spent with my baby daughter. It was truly a revolution. And those times that I’d unintentionally get stuck in the rocking chair without my eReader? Torturous.

First of all, you can hold an eReader and turn the pages with one hand. And then there’s the issue of finishing a book before my daughter decided she was finished napping/nursing–you just download another one!

Of all the gifts I received when my daughter was an infant, this was the one that helped me the most to get through those long days and nights. (Okay, truth time: it was the eReader and the cooler full of frozen, homemade food that my brother gave me that got me through that time!)

Now that I’m expecting my second child, I’m already preparing for the reading I’ll do during the innumerable hours of sitting in the rocking chair. I’ve started downloading tons of books onto my eReader, but I still have space for more! Anyone have any ebook recommendations for a mother of a new baby?