Wednesday Reads and Lack of Writing

Here’s what I read the past week:

Dates read: March 2 - 9
Title: “Bite Me”
Year of publication: 2014
Author: Shelly Laurenston
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: The Pride Series #9
# of Pages: 375
Paper or plastic: Trade paperback
How obtained: Free
Blurb from Book: Livy Kowalski has no time for idiots. When you shapeshift into a honey badger, getting through life’s irritants is a finely honed skill. Until she gets stuck housing her nutso cousin and dealing with her dad’s untimely and unexplained demise.
   That’s where Vic Barinov comes in—or his house does. Vic can’t step outside without coming back to find Livy devouring his honey stash and getting the TV remote sticky. It gets his animal instincts all riled up. But he’ll have to woo her at high speed: all hell is breaking loose, and Livy is leading the charge…
My thoughts: I got this book quite by accident. I had ordered copies of my book, Bite Me, I’m Yours, through Kensington. When the package arrived, I anxiously opened the box to discover copies of this book instead. Kensington fixed the mistake and told me I could just dispose of the wrong ones. Well… I couldn’t just throw them out, so I gave some away, but kept one to read. Eventually. Well, eventually finally came.
   This is the 9th book in the series. I hadn’t read the first 8, but didn’t let that stop me. I was slightly confused with the plethora of characters (plethora – I’ll blame Stephan Pastis for that word http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2017/03/09 ), which I’m sure wouldn’t have been a problem if I had started reading the series at book #1, so if you’re confused with numerous characters and this book interests you, you might want to start with book #1.
   This was a crazy-funny story (didn’t realize this when I started reading, not that I minded). The romance was just a tiny bit on the thin side, and I actually wondered what the book was ABOUT until I got about half-way through, but it didn’t stop me from turning the pages.

Two books this week. Whoo hoo!

Dates read: March 10-12
Title: “Hunt the Dawn”
Year of publication: 2016
Author: Abbie Roads
Genre: Romantic suspense (with some paranormal woo-woo)
Series: Fatal Dreams #2
# of Pages: 329
Paper or plastic: Mass market paperback
How obtained: Purchased
Blurb from Book: You can’t hide your secrets from Lathan Montgomery—he can read your darkest memories. And while his special abilities are invaluable in the FBI’s hunt for a serial killer, he has no way to avoid the pain they bring him. Until he is drawn to courageous, down-on-her-luck Evanee Brown and finds himself able to offer her something he’s never offered another human being: himself.
   Nightmares are nothing new to Evanee Brown. But once she meets Lathan, they plummet into the realm of the macabre. Murder victims are reaching from beyond the grave to give Evanee evidence that could help Lathan bring a terrifying killer to justice. Together, they could forge an indomitable partnership to thwart violence, abuse, and death—if they survive the forces that seek to tear them apart.
My thoughts: You know you’re reading a good book when you read it fast. The book is labeled romantic suspense, but it could easily be called romantic horror. Lots of dark and spooky stuff happens (and I LOVE spooky stuff) with two people you just want to be together. You don’t have to have read the first book to understand this one. Some characters overlap, but not in a way that will confuse anyone.

As you can tell from all my reading, I’m not writing as much. I do hope that changes soon, but right now I just can’t seem to deal with my writing with all the other crap that’s going on. You’d think I could use it as a distraction, and I could, but in a way I don’t want to be distracted. I want to be available for my husband. And if that means putting writing on the back burner for several weeks, then so be it.

So… Anyone playing in the March Madness Brackets? I’ve got three going (Buffalo Wild Wings, CBS Sports, and Nathan Bransford's), same bracket, though. Kind of makes it more fun to watch. At least for me. Oh, and don't you LOVE where I found the word plethora? Amazing what you can learn from comics, huh? Haha!

Happy Reading!

Stacy

Monday Mish Mash

On Saturday evening, the Wayne High School basketball team became the Ohio State Division I Champions! Whoo hoo! This is the first time our school has even made it to the final four. Very exciting. Almost makes up for the football team’s loss in the championship game back in December. Almost. J

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This morning I will be going back to the gym. I’m almost afraid to go, though. The last time I did, I got so sick. But if I want to lose weight and get in shape, I have to go. Plus, I don’t want to have wasted my money on that membership. And I need to make sure my hamstring is okay, too. I haven’t been doing my exercises like I’m supposed to and I go back to the physical therapist next Monday. I’d like to be able to say whether or not it’s getting better. I’m hoping it’s getting better because I’m getting kind of tired driving to the base hospital all the time!

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I received a royalty check in the mail on Friday. I’m always excited about seeing how my books are doing, because I can’t find that information anywhere on line. I didn’t make a lot of money from Oct-Dec (less than $100 on 95 books sold), but it was better than the previous statement. My next royalty statement should include the sales for Ghostly Liaison, which I think is probably my biggest seller (based upon rankings). Still, at this rate, it will take me years to make the Published Author Network (PAN) of RWA. I’ve got to make $1000 through a publisher or $5000 through self-publishing on ONE title for that to happen. But I do want it to happen because it’s the next step in my career (and yeah, this is my career—I don’t plan on ever retiring from it).

Gee… Do you know anyone who would love to buy my books? **grin**

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Okay, so Blind Temptation is with my formatter (yay!) and I’m trying my darndest to get back into Ghostly Interlude. I need to just sit down and write ANYTHING to blast through whatever problem I created (because I’m sure I created the problem, who else would have done it? My characters? Hmmm…). After I finally finish the first draft, then I have to decide what I want to do before I start in on the edits. Maybe you can help me decide.

I have this finished novel (Alien Desires—a sci-fi romance) that needs some polishing (okay, maybe a LOT of polishing). I’d like to query agents with it, but then again, I wonder if I should just self-publish it. What’s stopping me from self-publishing? Well… this book could possibly be the beginning of a series and I don’t have any of the other books written or even ideas of what they should be about. Should I put that kind of stress on me? Plus, something way deep down inside still wants that agent and I know getting the agent is the slow way to getting it published, but that also means I’ll have time (and motivation) to write the next book. But… writing the next book in that series could possibly take me away from my other series. Should that matter? I don’t know!!

The other project I have in mind is writing a novella (which I’d self-publish) about John’s & Sarah’s wedding (they are the couple in Bite Me, I’m Yours). I basically have a lot of it written already (from a book that will never see the light of day) and it’s something I could put out fairly quickly (I hope). Problem is, that novella could possibly feed into another book and I have lots of ideas to continue with this series. Should I put my time and effort into something that isn’t selling well? Or is it not selling well because there aren’t enough books yet? Ugh!

So… Should I polish the novel of a possibly NEW series or write the novella of a CURRENT slow-selling series? Which one makes more sense to you?

I know, what a problem to have, huh?

Have a good day!

Stacy

Basketball, Hockey, Baseball, and April Fool's

I pretty much lost interest in the NCAA tournament once Ohio State lost, and while I feel really bad for that kid on Louisville who broke his leg, I’m so glad I didn’t witness it (besides giving up watching, we were traveling from Columbus and couldn’t see it anyway). I do hope he recovers from that injury.

So, while basketball is out for me (I like the NCAA tournaments, but hate the NBA), hockey is still in. Fifteen in a row for my Penguins. Hope they keep it up. Only wish their games were telecast more often. But Columbus is closer, so the Blue Jackets games are usually aired in this area. Bummer!

And I guess baseball is back in swing (pun intended). Think there will be any snow-outs this week? I mean, there’s gotta be at least one, right? This winter has just lasted tooooo long! While the temps were mild this weekend (in the 50s even!), it’s expected to dip back down to the 30s later in the week. Ugh!!! Enough already.

At least the Dayton Dragons (Single A team of the Cincinnati Reds) season doesn’t start until April 11. We own the tickets to the April 12 game (as well as the April 14 game). Sure hope it’s warmed up some by then. Oh, who am I kidding? We’ll be freezing for sure!

I was hoping to come up with something good to April fool everyone, but my brain just can’t seem to think up anything good (that isn’t mean, anyway). So did you fool anyone today? If so, please share. Maybe it’ll give me some ideas.

 

March Madness!

Basketball? Sure, I suppose. But what about the weather? It's crazy.

I think that groundhog lied! Temps will still be in the 30s this week with snow on Tuesday. Where's spring? It was supposed to be right around the corner! Instead all we get is more of the same. Cold, cold, and more cold.

Is anyone here just as sick of it as I am?

Sunday was a day off for me (writing-wise, that is). Watched the Penguins beat the Bruins (yay!), watched Ohio State beat Wisconsin (yay!), and watched Kevin Streelman win his first PGA tournament (okay, I don’t know who he is, but it was fun). I didn't even read. I know, shocker!

Apparently, the two short stories I submitted for my RWA chapter’s anthology have been accepted (well, I wasn’t told they were rejected), but unfortunately, not enough submissions were received by the March 15th deadline, so the deadline has been extended. That’s better than being cancelled! Just wondering if I should attempt to write another. My husband thinks I should. But Alien Desires (Book #5) is begging to be finished (at least ready for someone to critique it), so I will concentrate on that instead. Unless, of course, I wake up with an idea that can be written in a day (not impossible, it’s happened before), then I’ll reconsider. And why do I have time to do all that? That’s because I got my content edits in well before my April 7th deadline. Getting that finished sure lifted a load off my shoulders!

I hope the weather is warmer in your part of the world, just as I wish it were warmer here! This winter has gone on long enough, don’t you think?