Romance Readers Paradise

To find out more, you can visit Cynthia Eden's blog about a fabulous give-away some authors are having.

http://www.cynthiaeden.com/romance/big-romance-giveaway-fun/

Meet Author Amber Scott

Happy Friday! Today, I'm so pleased to have author Amber Scott (occasionally aka Amber Dayne) with me. I'm also pleased that she graciously is also interviewing me over at her blog today as well. So, let's get started....

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KS: Hi Amber, it’s great to have you here today. I mentioned you in my blog a few days back, and I’m excited that you agreed to allow me to grill…er, interview… you today about your writing.

Probably the most common complaint from writers is that they never have enough time to write. I know you have two small children at home, yet since I met you four years ago, you’ve had a baby, had six books published (Irish Moon aka The Last Templar, The Best Revenge, Jessie’s Girl, Wanted, Soul Search, and PlayFling) and now you’re also working on screenplays. This doesn’t even count the stories you’ve written which haven’t been published yet. Can you give us an example of your “typical” writing schedule?

AS: I tell you, when you throw articles and blogging in there, too, I get dizzy thinking about it. Thankfully, I’ve figured out how to take each task one at a time, or like Anne Lamott’s book explains, Bird by Bird. With two young children and a husband vying for my attention, I’ve learned how to write in small spurts and with a little one on my lap. A few years ago, I let go of the notion that I should be able to carve out a couple hours a day reserved for writing. Instead, I gave up TV and am constantly back and forth to my computer, to the kids, back to my story, over to dishes and so on. It’s an imperfect system I find I have to tweak and adjust to every day but I’ll get there.

KS: Well, you must be doing something right! I listened to your interview on Romantically Speaking w/ Danielle Monsch (http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=73538&cmd=tc) and you mentioned your love of writing in different genres (I’m totally on board with you on that!) and I’m wondering what has been your favorite of the stories you’ve written so far, and why?

AS: Thank you so much for listening. Danielle is a lot of fun and made the interview really easy. It was like talking to a great friend. I wish I could pick one genre I prefer! It seems like it’d make the career building part of all this easier. Alas, I go where the itch takes me. I’m polishing an urban fantasy, called Realm, right now, continuing the doomed cupid series Play Fling, and started plus two screenplays, D-Word and Threshold. I’d say the two things I tend to stick to are paranormal elements and comedy but not necessarily together.

KS: Any one particular scene/hero/heroine out of all the genres that has really stayed with you?

AS: Jessica Hayes in Jessie’s Girl has really stayed with me. I think gay and lesbian fiction is regrettably still seen as taboo but I hope it will become mainstream. Love is love, right? Jessie has such a difficult decision in this story. She falls for the girl her brother, who is also her best friend, thinks is ‘the one’. And Sabrina falls as well. Only Sabrina hasn’t quite come to terms with what ideal life versus real life means. Their story was heart-wrenchingly wonderful to write.

KS: It was a great story and the conflict was very moving. Speaking of conflict, most writers are familiar with the “inciting incident”, “the dark moment”, and the “return with the prize” in stories. I’m wondering if you may have experienced some of those in real life on your path to publication, what they were, and if you’d like to share them?

AS: My inciting incident to novel writing came with my first NaNoWriMo. It took me from dreaming of being a writer to actually writing and I got hooked. My dark moment came when I read Stephanie Meyers Twilight saga and had an epiphany: If I didn’t love my own characters as thoroughly as she clearly loved hers, was it worth pursuing this career? I took a break and realized, yes it’s worth it. The pain, the fear, the lack of sleep. And I stopped writing with that lingering desperation to find some secret formula and simply write for the fun of it now. My writing improved. My return with the prize has to be my first contest win, an Honorable Mention in the Save the Cat! Last logline of 2009! contest. The late Blake Snyder, author of the series and whose site hosted the contest, is my biggest writing hero. I really wish I could have met him.

KS: Congratulations - that's quite a journey, Amber! Where can readers find your work now, and what can we expect next from you?

AS: Right now Play Fling is at Smashwords.com and Scribd.com for a limited promotional release while I submit it to agents and editors. I’ll be placing a couple of freebie novels up on each site as well this summer. My screenplays may join the novels once they’re polished and registered with the Writer’s Guild. I see self-publishing as a great way to earn readers and share the process with them. I’m shopping my urban fantasy, Realm, also but contemporary erotica has been whispering in my ear again. I hope to have another novella completed and submitted to Liquid Silver Books soon. I adore this publisher and hope to continually add to my booklist there. You can also find me at 1stTurningPoint.com, a place for authors to learn and share all about promotion.

KS: Wow, you sure do keep busy, and I look forward to seeing more from you. Is there anything else you’d like your readers to know?

AS: Simply how much I appreciate their taking the time to share my inner worlds. Having a reader feels like sharing a favorite song or movie with someone. I cherish it. As a thank you today, I’d like to offer a free ebook download of Play Fling at Smashwords.com. This is the story of a doomed cupid determined to match a repressed divorcee with her ex. There’s just two problems: a too young, too hot college boy distracting her matchmaking target and the fact that she stinks at playing cupid. Simply enter code: SE77K. It expires March 17th. Thank you so much for having me, Kate. We’ve come a long way and here’s to much, much further! KS: Here, here! Thank you, Amber. :)

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So, what questions do you have for Amber? Side note: Amber is generously giving away copies of Play Fling for the time being, but my publisher would kill me if I gave away so many books. :) However, not to be selfish, everyone who comments here and/or on Amber's blog today and wants to be entered to win a copy of Managing Maggie in one of the following formats: .PDF, .mobi/Kindle, or .LIT simply has to state their preferred format in their post.

Second Chances

A few nights ago, I couldn't sleep. I don't know why - could have had something to do with getting a call after midnight from the police department a few towns away to come pick up my daughter - my daughter whom I had naively thought was spending the night with a friend a few blocks away. It seems she was found in a highly dangerous, gang infested area out past curfew with a couple of her friends. (Long story about the why of that)

Anyway, once she was home and in bed (her second chance used up there - I let her live) I found I couldn't go back to sleep. I had been on a reading spree, but had nothing new around, so I decided to pick up some books from our condo building's library in the lobby. As I rifled through them, I found to my surprise an old category romance by Maggie Shayne. I didn't know she had written category before (I discovered her after her single title series had taken off.) I took it upstairs with me, though I don't often read category, I decided to give it a chance. It was Maggie, after all.

The book was called "The Littlest Cowboy". Sherriff Garrett Brand finds a baby on his doorstep - a baby he's sure isn't his, even though the note attached says the baby was named after him. Chelsea Brennan arrives at the ranch in search of her nephew and answers about her sister's death.

Sounds like normal category fare, no? In many ways, it was. But I also saw glimpses of what made her so popular in other genres. Parts of the book tugged at my heartstrings even when she wasn't trying, some made me laugh out loud. The hero was lovable, the heroine a little hard for me at first, but I came to care about her at the end for her bravery.

I've read a few categories lately and have been happy to give them a second chance. The Silhouette "Raintree" series is another example of category that I really liked.

Another second chance book for me was Nora Robert's "Morrigan's Cross." I'd tried to read it a few times since I'd heard such good things about it, but couldn't get into it. In desperation one night because I had no new books, I decided to give it another go. I didn't reread anything in the first few chapters even though I didn't remember any of it because I'd never made it beyond that point before. So, I started around chapter 3 or 4 and ended up really liking the book and look forward to reading the rest in the series.

I don't often give books a second chance. In fact, if a book does anything to seriously annoy me in the first few chapters, I'll usually toss it aside never to look at it again. (See Marcia Colette's funny take on this issue.)

Now I'm wondering if perhaps I've been too hasty. What about you - are there any books you decided to give a second chance and ended up liking?

Romance

I was blog hopping this morning through some of my favorites, still a little crabby from a long, hard week, still questioning whether I should even attempt to write romance being the cynic I am, and came across this.

Love Letter

I'm going to go find some more Kleenex now.

 

Free Fallin' Friday

I'm probably about to offend lots of people here, but never let it be said I left the thing half-done. :)

I recently discovered there is actually a new fiction genre out there--Christian Erotica. Yep. It's true. And, if like it did to me, this comes as news to you, I hope you weren't drinking something when you read it. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a joke. They're kidding, right? I mean, isn't that an oxymoron? What's it about? What defines it? Is it because they scream "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God" in the throes of passion? Is it Jim Bakker's life story?

Apparently not. From what I can gather, it's hotter right now than a simonist in the eighth circle of hell. I still can't wrap my head around it. Maybe that's because I spent so many years in a fundamentalist Christian cult (sad but true, and probably TMI) so I can't imagine what this could be like or who would read it. Just boggles the mind. Are they giving them away as prizes during Bingo? Does the marquee outside the church read: Our fundraiser needs your support--come Sunday for pancakes and porn!

OK, I'm sorry. In fact, I know of a very talented writer who is writing one now, and I'm sure she can pull it off, though even she admitted to struggling with the concept. So with that in mind, I'm offering my sincere (and I do mean that) apologies to the writers and buyers of CE. I may not be able to understand it, but that could be because I'm a mannerless cretin who giggles during church. Ask anybody.