Q & A with erotic romance author Nicole Morgan

Thanks for being here today, Nicole. Would you please share a short bio about yourself?

Thanks for having me! I am a multi-published author of erotic romantic novels, which more often than not have a suspenseful back story. Erotic romance mixed with a good old-fashioned whodunit.
In additional to her books, I also have a recurring column called, "Sex and the Single Woman" in BT Showcase's online eMagazine. Also, I have recently partnered up with three of my author friends and became Four Seduced Muses, a blog dedicated to the steamier side of romance.

Do you consider yourself a shy and/or introverted person? 

I’m definitely not shy. I may appear quietly polite to strangers, but I’m not shy. I have no problem meeting new people and interacting with them.

What’s the hardest part of this business for you? 
Coming up with new material on a consistent basis. You can’t just write a book and expect to become a huge success with that one story. You need to work at it constantly, putting more books out there several times a year. Sometimes the monotony of it can be a bit much, but in the end I also find it very rewarding – as cheesy as that may sound. 

Tell me about a time that you had to step outside your comfort zone either in your writing career or in your personal life? 
I’ve recently starting writing under a new pen name (Ssshhh… I’m not telling what it is either *winks*) and that was a bit hard for me. Nicole Morgan books have been such a huge part of my life for the past several years I found it hard taking on new genres and getting comfortable in those shoes.

What’s one tip you could share with shy and introverted people that’s helped you?
I would say, nothing is as bad as you think it is. If you’re too nervous to say hi to someone or break the ice, chances are they’re thinking the same thing. Appearing outgoing (even if you’re not) with a smile on your face will often times make you the life of a party and people will soon seek you out for conversation.

Would you please share a short blurb of your book and where my readers can buy it? 
Jenny manages a resort and works tirelessly to maintain the lush property. Thomas is a drifter. Sexy and confident, he’s the last thing she needs in her life. Still he relentlessly pursues her. Will his charms be too much to resist? Will she act on her desires and be...impetuous? 

PURCHASE LINK:

http://bookstrand.com/impetuous

Where can my readers find you on the web? 
Nicole’s website: http://nicolemorgan1.webs.com

Nicole’s blog: http://nicolemorganauthor.blogspot.com

 

Q & A with romance author Josie Malone

Thanks for being here today, Josie.

Hi Becky. Thanks, for inviting me.

Would you please share a short bio about yourself?

As Josie Malone, I write mainstream western romance. Under my “real” name, I write young adult realistic and paranormal fiction.

I live on the family farm, a riding stable in the Cascade foothills. I organize most of the riding programs, teach horsemanship around my day-job as a substitute teacher, nurse sick horses, hold for the shoer, train whoever needs it – four-legged and two-legged. And write books in my spare time, usually from 8PM to 2AM, seven days a week after a long day on the ranch.

When I can’t write, due to the overwhelming needs and pressures of the “real” world, words and stories fill my mind.  Even when I muck the barn, I think about books or short stories or pieces in progress and map out the writing in my mind. My newest project is a spin-off of The Daddy Spell, the story of Audra Dawson who has been holding out for a hero and actually finds one.

Do you consider yourself a shy and/or introverted person?

Yes, I am shy.

In what ways has being shy or introverted hindered your writing career?

It’s always been difficult for me to speak up to outsiders and that includes editors and agents in a face-to -ace meeting. So, I really like the new email approach. I feel much more confident at the computer.

In what ways has being shy or introverted helped your writing career?

I think it’s easier to identify with my characters. They’re usually brave, bold and risk-takers. When I’m feeling wimpy, I pretend to be one of them and as Louis L’Amour used to say, “Attack, always attack!” It’s also one of the reasons why I use my grandmother’s name as a pseudonym. She was incredibly strong and a real hero to me. So, I know when people call me, Josie, it’s time to step up.

What’s the hardest part of this business for you?

Oddly, it’s social media – I love my emailing and staying connected, but I had a real tough time figuring out Facebook and I still don’t have a handle on Twitter.

Tell me about a time that you had to step outside your comfort zone either in your writing career or in your personal life?

Writing for me has always been a case of stepping out of “my comfort zone.” The expectation in my immediate family was that I’d marry during high school or as soon as I graduated. Instead, I followed my uncle’s advice. He told me, “Don’t settle!” So, I opted for a life of adventure not one that I saw as “quiet desperation.” Or as Robert Frost wrote, “…I took the road less traveled by and that has made all the difference…”

What’s one tip you could share with shy and introverted people that’s helped you?

As the cliché goes, “follow your dreams,” and never “give up on yourself.” Or as my uncle still tells me, “Don’t settle.” By that he meant for me to hold out and keep writing even when my books weren’t selling. After 20 years of only selling newspaper and magazine articles, I’m an overnight success! I have three books out from BookStrand and my new young adult series will start coming out in the fall of 2012.

Would you please share a short blurb of your book and where my readers can buy it?

My newest mainstream western romance will be out next month from BookStrand.

Trailing a serial killer, Homicide Detective Beth Chambers is thrust into 1888 Washington Territory where she encounters injured Rad Morgan, a ruggedly handsome marshal who believes A Woman’s Place is behind her man. Now, Beth must save Rad’s life, apprehend the killer, and prove herself capable as a law officer.

Former soldier and survivor of Andersonville Prison Camp, Marshal Rad Morgan faces his toughest challenge in Beth Chambers, a determined woman from the future who’s never learned “her place.”  But when he is shot and left for dead, he must put himself in Beth’s hands if they both want to survive.

Can these two headstrong people put their pride aside and work together to find the deadly killer and stop him before he destroys this world and their future?  As they fight for justice, love helps them discover A Woman’s Place is what and where she chooses to make it.

A Woman’s Place will be available through Bookstrand, Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com

Where can my readers find you on the web?

I have two websites, one for my mainstream western novels – www.josiemalone.com and one for my young adult stories, www.shannonkennedybooks.com

Thanks so much for being here today, Josie!

Good luck with the newest book!

Q & A with author Michele Hart

Thanks for being here today, Michelle.

A Thank you, Shy Writers, for having me. Hi, shy readers out there!

Q Would you please share a short bio about yourself?

A I spent my childhood on a lone piece of property with no one around, babysat by a TV and a set of World Book Encyclopedia. Star Trek and Batman were the best parts of my day. Along the way, I studied a lot of myth, my first love in fantasy fiction. Then I met a young man who convinced me I could be creative. He put a pen in my hand. Well, not a pen, a keyboard. It was the best gift to give to another person, creativity.

Q Do you consider yourself a shy and/or introverted person?

A Oh, yes. I can talk myself into not going everywhere.

Q In what ways has being shy or introverted hindered your writing career?

A It’s not easy for me to get out and sell. An author really must learn how to promote herself. There’s no substitute for it. If she hid behind a keyboard to stay lone and protected, it’s a rough revelation to learn she must sell her books one at a time. The days of authors “just writing” are over, if they ever existed.

Q In what ways has being shy or introverted helped your writing career?

A I’ve developed the good discipline it takes to stay at the computer until the story is told.

Q What’s the hardest part of this business for you?

A Everything that isn’t about writing. :-) Although it’s great to reach the readers.

Q Tell me about a time that you had to step outside your comfort zone either in your writing career or in your personal life?

A Checking the mail is out of my comfort zone. But I recently joined an action group to help people with foreclosures, and we’ve planted a city garden.

Q What’s one tip you could share with shy and introverted people that’s helped you?

A Do what I do. Pack a gun wherever you go, and if things go wrong, you can shoot your way out of there! I’m just kidding, of course. Or am I…?

Q Would you please share a short blurb of your book and where my readers can buy it?

A Here’s the blurb for my latest angels & demons/Sci-Fi Romance, Gangbusters:

Daniel Tierney and his fellow I-Marshals take down the organizations producing the most dangerous substance in the Alliance. But reporter Faith Vedder turns up at the worst times, including Danny’s near-assassination. He’s had enough of her interference and requires her source of information.

Faith won’t tell him anything that compromises her Pulitzer-worthy story, not even under the magic of hot attraction. She doesn’t know she’s surrounded by fallen angels at war. Danny’s not finished making demands. She doesn’t understand until a giant, snorting, winged monster slobbers down her back, threatening to flay her.

The gangbusters can’t delay in their mission to shut down gangs until Danny learns the new criminal kingpin of their world is a man who once held Faith’s heart. In the guise of a gangland executioner named Heretic, Danny will destroy him. Even if it destroys Faith.

Angels are watching. Demons are plotting. Faith is the key.

***

Gangbusters can be found here:  http://www.BookStrand.com/gangbusters

Read hot, peril-packed excerpts, watch a woe-filled book trailer here: 

http://www.MicheleHart.com/b28-book.htm

Q Where can my readers find you on the web?

A Find me at http://www.ILoveShape-Shifters.com/. Come over to my place in space. Watch a few book trailers under the stars, read a steamy, action-filled excerpt or two. Check out the reviews. I have worlds of adventure awaiting you.

Twitter: @MicheleHart

Facebook: MicheleHartBooks

LinkedIn: MicheleHart

Thank you, Rebecca and Shy Writers! I wish you love and adventure in 2012!

Thanks for coming on today, Michele.

Many sales to you!

Wheel of Fortune

Guest blogger: Maya DeLeina

I am at a time in my life where I am incredibly comfortable in my skin. I’ve learned to accept they way I look and appreciate who I am. Ok, so I am a bit weird, yet it hasn’t caused me to make a b-line for a darkened corner of a room in a social setting and I am far from being timid. This is me, like it or not.


But I haven’t always been this way.


If I had to pinpoint a time where I first started being uncomfortable with myself, it had to be the moment I got satellite equipment on my face- orthodontic headgear. This was the start to my very awkward-looking stage. I didn’t shy away from doing things completely, but I certainly had reservations that I never had before and I did everything in my power to blend in so I wouldn’t standout. And that is pretty dang hard to do with blinding metal on your face.


All in all, I wasn’t a cute kid. In fact, I remember my younger brother and I took photos together. He was so perfectly adorable in the foreground and then there I was, looming in the background and ruined the portrait. To really paint the picture, at one time, I donned braces with the rubber-band closures, the headgear, pimples and chin-length hair that was so extremely poofy, I looked like a walking mushroom. Then, my nose grew from a cute button as a baby into what looked like a freaky arrow. I remember one kid in school, Jason, would constantly call me “Wheel of Fortune”, you know, because my nose looked like that little white arrow on Pat Sajak’s wheel?


I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Free Spin”.

So this is where my shyness developed. Seems a bit shallow, but this had a real impact on my self esteem and confidence. I didn’t want to get teased, so I stayed low. Although a lot of the adolescent years experience this, for me, I was unable to shake it completely. Later in life, I was still enraptured with the thought of blending, taking it as far as fantasizing about the day I could afford plastic surgery so my nose would look like everyone else.


Then something just hit me like a flash.


If we all looked, thought, dressed like each other, what a boring world this would be. The headgear is gone now, but my nose ever present. The thought of plastic surgery for a new nose is no longer in my thoughts (boob lift, maybe). It’s me. It’s who I am. And suddenly, when I accepted this, everything else started to fall in place.

Acceptance is a powerful tool.


Today, I am an erotic vampire author of all things, unleashing my wicked, twisted and weird creativity in my writing. No reservations or shyness here! And it is all due to acceptance. This acceptance has given me an inner strength I never felt before. This inner strength promoted confidence. This confidence helped breakthrough that wall I built years ago that has allowed me to find my true voice.


It’s crazy when I think back on this.


In Tarot cards, the Wheel of Fortune is all about luck and change. The wheel symbolizes completeness, the rise and fall of fortunes and the message that what goes around comes around. The card indicates happiness and elevation; a change that just happens, and brings with it great joy.


This is where I am now.


Makes me wonder what Jason is up to these days.

***

You can learn more about Maya on her website 

and Facebook. Her newest release, Flesh Fantasy

is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble

and Siren-Bookstrand.

JOSIE MALONE: Writing in the real world

Please welcome romance author Josie Malone to the blog. Josie's second book with BookStrand, Daddy Spell, just released. Josie will give away a copy of one of her books to one random commenter this weekend.

Here's Josie: Writing for me has always been a case of stepping out of “my comfort zone.” The expectation in my family was that I’d marry during high school or immediately afterwards. Instead, I opted for a life of adventure, not one that I saw as “quiet desperation.” Or as Robert Frost wrote, “…I took the road less traveled by and that has made all the difference…”

I am a writer. I have always been a story-teller. It’s a family tradition. I remember my grandmother as the queen of pithy comments who served putdowns at her Sunday dinners, along with her pot roast. Grandma never swore. It wasn’t ladylike, but insulting someone’s intelligence, morality, behavior, manners and children or mate was an art form. Grandma ran the Pine Tree Tavern below First Avenue in downtown Seattle, and kept a “cuss jar” for her clientele. Funds collected from the foul language paid for the annual Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas party at the bar, while the leftover money went to Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

I started writing down Grandma’s stories as a young teen although I knew nothing about the techniques or mechanics of what would become my passion. Most listeners, my parents, my aunts, uncles, cousins squirmed at her turn of a phrase. I always admired Grandma’s use of language. When I graduated from high school, I was determined to be a writer. My creative writing teacher had told me I had talent and suggested college. I came from a poor, single-parent household, and higher education wasn’t possible. No one in our extended family had ever attended college. The girls got married and the boys went to work.

I was the first girl in the family to graduate from high school and the last thing I wanted was a husband. I went to work for a temporary office service and washed dishes at night in a restaurant. I wasn’t able to fulfill my dream of joining the Army because I was needed at home to raise my younger sisters. I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve instead. When the wolf was at the door with a litter of pups, as my grandfather used to say, or when times were even harder, the civilian liaison of my Army Reserve unit would put me “on orders.” He didn’t care what I typed as long as I looked busy and didn’t allow anyone at his desk when he was out playing golf with the General who commanded Fort Lawton. So, I began my first novel.

My orders ran out about the time I finished the novel, so I bundled up my baby and shipped it off to Harlequin Books in Canada. I didn’t know anything about the publishing business, so I mailed the only copy I had. In addition to this no-no, I also didn’t have a clue about setting up a manuscript. I finished each chapter and began the next one on the same page, a fatal flaw. I also used up every scrap of paper and didn’t worry about such things as margins, or double spacing the lines of text.

Worst of all, while the man my heroine thought she loved was dashing, romantic and charming – he was also unfaithful, dishonest and nasty, a little too much like the real life I knew about. She ended up with her nice, quiet, dull best friend, Toby – the kind of guy a woman could spend a lifetime loving, but he wasn’t a traditional romance hero. Even so, Toby survived the trip to Canada and Harlequin. Eventually, I received a letter. Harlequin liked my book. However, all the purchases at the time were made in England, so my book was going somewhere I HAD NEVER BEEN, LONDON!

It took a few more months for the book to finally be rejected, but by then I was hard at work on my next romance novel. At eighteen, I had almost made it and I was determined to become a successful novelist. College still wasn’t an option. I began to attend talks by published authors. Many offered classes in writing for nominal fees. I saved every extra cent to pay for these courses, usually by riding the bus and not driving the car to work.

I also attended conferences and workshops.I started to learn the mechanics behind the mysteries of creating saleable work. I joined Romance Writers of America. I also submitted my work to editors and literary agents and began to collect rejection letters.

Prior to attending Washington State University to attain my BA degrees in English and History, I sold two novels. I’d sent in a query – a chapter and an outline of a proposed novel. While the editor turned that one down as well as a story about horses, she suggested I call her. I did and we wound up discussing what would become my first book for her company, Daddy, Please Tell Me What’s Wrong. It sold out the initial print run of 50,000 copies. The first fan letter I received after the publication of this YA novel that dealt with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder showed me once again how great an impression language makes. The young girl wrote, “I really liked your book….her dad killed himself….so did mine. Have a nice day.”

I love to watch a story unfold on the pages. Nothing compares with the feeling of success when I read my words in a newspaper, magazine or between the covers of a paperback. It’s the writing that matters most of all. I agree with other writers who say if they never published again, it would not matter – only the writing does.

However, this past spring, BookStrand bought one of my romances, a historical about a woman who masquerades as a man in the old West. Then, this summer they bought a second book, a contemporary about a divorced mom who runs a pony farm and falls in love with her new horseshoer. The teenage dream I had of being a romance novelist is coming true, even if Grandma never saw it, but she always believed in me.

Grandma’s love of language was the legacy she passed on to me. As she told me more than once, “Your words have power. Use it wisely. Don’t shout when a whisper will do.” So, when I chose a pen name for my romances, I opted for part of hers as a tribute. Josie Malone.

When people ask what I do, I say, “I’m a writer. Telling stories is a family tradition. I just write down mine.”

About Josie: As a child, I loved to dream away the days in an old cherry tree on my family’s pony farm. In my imagination, the tree became a beautiful Arabian stallion, a medieval castle and even a pirate ship. I got in trouble for making my little sisters walk the plank, but hey, they never broke any bones. On rainy days, I headed for my fort in the hayloft. While the rain thudded on the cedar shingled roof, I read books, eventually trading Carolyn Keene for Georgette Heyer.

Today, I live on the family ranch in the Cascade foothills of Washington state in what was once a summer vacation cabin. I usually write at night after a long day on the ranch. Some days are longer and harder than others, so I’m happy when I manage five days of writing in a week. As a substitute school teacher, I love the school breaks but I’m just as busy, since there are 37 horses to look after, along with other assorted animals.

You can learn more about Josie on her website.