Glimmerglass giveaway winner

Hope you're all having a lovely Christmas Eve!

Now, for last week's Friday Fancies winner.

The winner (randomly selected) of GLIMMERGLASS by Jenna Black is...

Siobhan from Love Fantasy Sci-Fi Novels!!

Congrats! And thanks to everyone for playing. Siobhan, if you see this, drop me an email at ez at ericahayes dot net and we'll arrange your prize.

Off to set a trap for that fat bloke in the red coat...

This year, and what I did in it

First of all, just a reminder that today's the last day to enter my giveaway of Jenna Black's fabulous YA book GLIMMERGLASS. Giveaway closes midnight Thursday, California time.

Meanwhile, over at the Deadline Dames, the fabulous Rachel Vincent is blogging about what she's achieved this year, and I thought that was quite cool. So I decided to try it myself. Just to make me feel good, and prove that I do actually do something apart from eat chocolate and hang out on the internet.

Here's a little list of what I've done for the mighty cause of words-on-the-page this year:

- Wrote BLOOD CURSED, my August 2011 release. 106K. Remember yesterday's post, on keeping the conflicts simple? That's exactly what I didn't do when I started BC, and it took a really, really long time.

- In the meantime, I did edits for POISON KISSED (one word: ugh) and suffered through release day/week/fortnight/month for SHADOWGLASS. It may look like fun. Let me tell you, it's fun from the outside. On the inside, it involves madly writing a pile of guest posts where you're trying desperately not to say the same shit over and over, a few moments of OMG, this is the best job EVA!!! and then a month of sheer panic. Highly recommended, but not for the squeamish or thin-skinned.

- Then, I made a proposal for a sci-fi series, and outlined and wrote the first book. 85K. Actually, this was already a novella before I started, so it really only counts as 50K.

- Spent what seemed like the whole of July and August doing conferences. Disneyworld Orlando, Bondi Beach, Melbourne. Breathe.

- Did another pile of guest posts and an absentee release day/week/etc. for POISON KISSED, while I was on holidays in Europe for a month. See above. Good holiday. Bad idea. Note to Self: Self, next time, stay in your own time zone for release day.

- Outlined and wrote HUNTER'S BLOOD, a short vampire romance. 15K.

- Outlined and wrote CHERRY KISSES, a Shadowfae short. 11K.

- Outlined a new paranormal romance series (yay!) and started the first book. 40K.

I think I did okay! I've made... let's see... 220K plus, not counting outlines. It's never enough. But you can only stay awake for so many hours per day :)

Keep it simple, stupid; or, how to write my novel faster

First, a quick shout-out to Fang-tastic Books, where I'm doing a guest post about what my characters do for Christmas, and giving away a copy of POISON KISSED! Yay! Thanks, Roxanne!

And, another shout-out to para romance author Hailey Edwards, who does a great job pimping my books (ahem! thanks, Hailey!) and has managed to find someone who named their Kindle after the magic mirror in my book SHADOWGLASS. 

And, finally, a yell for @Wenj_BL on Twitter from Black Lagoon Reviews, who has created my very first piece of fan art. Awesome! Two words, folks: Aidan Turner. Phwoar. Thanks, Wenj!

Anyway. Now we've got that off our busty chests...

Started a new manuscript last Monday, and I already have nearly 40,000 words. That's 40K in 8 days with the weekend off. This may not impress some of you :) but when you realise you're talking to a girl with a word goal of 2,000 per day that she often doesn't achieve, it's a little more noteworthy.

So how am I achieving this amazing -- nay, wondrous -- nay, prodigious -- feat of stamina and endurance? How have I turned this speedy corner from Slowville and raced off into the land of fuck it, let's get this sucker done in a hurry?

Well, of course, I get up early. I sit down. I write. I don't let other shit get in the way. I wreck my brain. I go to bed. But it's more than that.

I write to an outline, because I'm too scared to do it any other way. And I'm talking a mega-outline. My bad boy for this MS is 20 pages in 12pt TNR. I do scenes, plot lines, character arcs, romantic turning points, the lot. But I still can usually make only 2K a day.

Reasons? Well, the first is that there are a hell of a lot of words in my Shadowfae books. By which I mean the writing is, by design, laid on pretty thick. They're dark, sexy, dripping with colours and smells and sensations. Keeping up that level of sensory input for 100K and not boring the crap out of the reader (oy! no one asked you back there in the cheap seats, okay?) requires a lot of thought. This new MS, bless its skanky little romantic heart, isn't like that. It's fast. It's hot. It's darkly funny. It's got all the moves, baby. I can relax, and just let it dance.

The second reason? The keep-it-simple factor. Because I make such a monstrous outline, I tend to think the romantic conflicts to death. They're subtle and complicated. By the time I'm done, frankly, they're nuanced up the wazoo, and in every scene I have to include so many obtuse motivations that even I get confused. What's more: in revisions, I always end up cutting it all out and sticking to the basics.

Why? Because a simple, high-concept, tell-it-in-two-lines conflict is more effective. The simpler and more primal the conflict, the harder your crucial scenes will hit. The bigger your black moment can be. The more satisfying and climactic the resolution.

For four books I have done this. Think it to death, write it up, cut that sucker out. Learning curve? Very shallow, my friends. No one said I was smart.

But for this MS? What a brainwave! I said to myself: "Self, how about you cut it back to basics before you start? Yeah, it's all real nice that the hero was tortured by a rabid goat as a child and has issues with getting his hair to perm properly. But if the crux of his issue with the heroine (yeah, remember her? She's quite important, being as this is a romance and all) is that last time he fell in love, his demon enemies ate his woman's eyeballs through a straw and consigned her soul to eternal housework just to spite him, and he's terrified it'll happen again? Then fucking say so, you moron. No one cares about all that other stuff."*

Self was flabbergasted. "You mean, save myself days and days of work by (gasp!) keeping to the point? Figuring out what his greatest fear is, and making him face it? Without complicating it with goats?"

Patient sigh. "Yes, Self. No goats. It's not rocket surgery. Get on with it."

So there you have it. The goat and the perm problems haven't gone away. They're still there in my head, and will pop out on the page when I feel like it.**

But the big scenes? They're sticking with the basics. Big concept, big pay-off. Chk-chk-boom. And hence, I can write like a speedy madwoman and not get tripped up by irrelevant details.

And if at some point, demons don't tie Our Hero down and at least threaten to suck his girlfriend's eyeballs out and chain her soul to the Eternal Vacuum Cleaner of DOOM(!!) -- then I'm not doing my job properly.

45K to go. Wish me luck :)

* (As you can see, me and my Self have a tense relationship. We're in therapy. It's working out. For now.)

** Sigh. No, there aren't actually any rabid goats or perms in this manuscript. For exemplary purposes only, folks. Sorry :(

Teaser Tuesday: Highborn by Yvonne Navarro

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading:

1) Grab your current read.
2) Open to a random page.
3) Share at least two 'teaser' sentences from that page -- no spoilers, please!
4) Share the title and author so others can add it to their TBR if they like the teasers.

Basically, it's another opportunity for me to pimp some cool books I've been reading. Sensing a theme here?

'I was looking for a friend of mine,' Brynna explained.


'Then ring the damned doorbell instead of hanging around like a hoodlum!'


'I don't know his last name," Brynna said without thinking.


'Then you're not much of a friend," the woman snapped back. 'You get out of here or I'm calling the police. This is a Neighborhood Watch area!'

--From page 17 of HIGHBORN by Yvonne Navarro.

Friday Fancies: Glimmerglass by Jenna Black

Sorry I'm a little late with Friday Fancies this week. I've been writing like a madwoman this week and worked myself into a stupor. But better late than never, and without further ado...

Friday Fancies is where I tell you all about a recent read I really liked, and then give you the chance to win a copy. Easy? Right.

This fortnight's Friday Fancy: GLIMMERGLASS by Jenna Black, first in her young adult Faerywalker series.

What it's like: a cool mix of faeries and the real world. There's a faery world that you can visit via immigration and passport control (cool, eh?) in a place called Avalon, where the human and faery worlds intersect. The heroine's dad is some kind of big-time faery dude in Avalon (and she ALREADY KNOWS THIS, folks!! It's not a 'OMG I am a FAERY!?!' book) and she runs away from her unlivable-with mother to stay with him. Warring faery hijinks ensue.

Why it's cool: did I mention it's not a lame big reveal? I mean, yeah, there are secrets to be uncovered, but the author has done so much more with them than dump them in your lap and expect you to be gobsmacked.

The heroine is gutsy. There's no mooning around or whining. The adult characters are more than plot-convenient ciphers. And the guys (it's  more a romantic elements than a romance) are interesting as well as hot. Yay! What's more, they don't inexplicably fall for a heroine who would be about as fascinating to them as a mosquito. They all actually talk to each other. Real relationships in a fantasy YA, folks. Can I recommend this any more?

If you're a writer: see above. All that whiny, annoying, unbelievable stuff that drives you insane about YA fantasy? This book doesn't do any of it. The characters' emotions are never allowed to follow plot-convenient lines just because. Also, the 'infodump' parts are really well handled -- there's a lot of explaining to do about Avalon and how the two worlds intersect, and it's never boring or obvious.

Right. Wanna win a paperback copy of this awesome book? Of course you do. Just leave me a comment here, follow this blog, tweet me something nice, etc.. Christmas is coming, you know, so let's all make friends while we still can.

I'll choose a winner at random. Giveaway closes midnight east coast US time next Thursday, 23 December. If you live where the Book Depository ships, you can win.

So you tell me: Do you like books about faeries? What are some of your favourites?

Last day to vote for the Bookie Awards!

A quick shout-out: the Bookie Awards are run by the good folks at the Authors After Dark romance readers convention.

They're nominated and voted for by readers and have categories for almost everything in romance, from BDSM Short Story and GLBT to Historical Romance and Paranormal.

You can see the list of nominees for this year's Bookies here.

And the polls for voting are here. Voting closes today, 15 December.

So go along and vote for your favourites! We need more reader-judged awards.

And if you care to, you can vote for me in the very first poll :) I'm stoked to be up for Debut Author of the Year! So if you enjoy my books, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

Teaser Tuesday: Deathwish by Rob Thurman

WIthout further ado, welcome to Teaser Tuesday.

This is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading:

1) Grab your current read.
2) Open to a random page
3) Share at least two 'teaser' sentences from that page -- no spoilers, please!
4) share the title and author so others can add it to their TBR if they like the teasers.

"Being wise is a burden." There was sympathy in my voice that I didn't bother to hide.

"Being a smart-ass moron is no cakewalk either," Cal retorted.

"So true," I offered dryly. "Yet you struggle on."

--From page 37 of DEATHWISH by Rob Thurman





And, the obligatory self-pimpage :)

Kane smiles, childlike, his black eyes swirling green. "You looked, didn't you? I warned you."

Indigo clenches steely teeth in denial. Maybe he's peeked into the glass, drawn by the shimmering silver surface. Wouldn't be the first time. He's a fairy. he likes shiny things. So what? That was days ago. Nothing's happened. Has it?

--From page 13 of SHADOWGLASS, by me :)



Hope you enjoyed today's teasers. Got any of your own?

How do I want thee? The many faces of insta-lust

Been doing research. You know, the kind that involves reading lots of cool novels. Specifically, I've been looking at insta-lust. The kind of book where the characters are shagging by chapter two, or even chapter one if they're really into it. Why? Because I'm writing a book like that, and I want to see how other authors do it.

That's what authors do, see. We copy. But in the nicest, most imaginative way possible.

So. Insta-lust, it seems to me, comes in several forms, with varying orders of lameness. Because, hey, on the whole, normal people don't walk up to total strangers and start having sex with them. As authors, we have to motivate this strange behaviour. Here, for your edification, are some justifications I found:

1) We're under a spell, goddamn it.
This is a good one when you're doing paranormals. It's magic, folks!

"A curse! Dang it! If I don't shag you right now, my head will explode/a demon will burst from hell and devour me/my dick will shrivel up and fall off!!"

Or alternatively: it's an arousal spell. "Gosh, I'm so damn horny! Oy! You there! Assume the position!"

Lame factor: I'd say 6 out of 10. This can work really well, or it can be totally pathetic.

2) Me caveman. You my destined mate. Ugh.
"Honey, we're fated to be together. Let's have sex, even though we each think the other is a total dweeb... Ooh, actually, this isn't too bad."

Or, alternatively: "You are totally hot. But we cannot be destined mates, because that would be, like, totally uncool. What? You mean it's TWUE? Aargh! My destined mate is rich, immortal and totally gorgeous with a ten-inch {redacted}!!! Oh, noes!!! I WILL not accept my FATE! Bugger off, dickwad!" etc. etc. until they finally give in six iterations later and do the deed, which of course is multi-orgasmic and awesome because, after all, they're destined mates.

Squirm. Some authors make a really good living writing destined mate stories. I can take them or leave them. But on the odd occasion, they can float my boat.

Lame factor: 8 out of 10.

3) Someone else made me horny, but I guess you'll do.
This is when a character is on the rebound from some past lover and just has to get their rocks off with anything that raises their pulse. Then, of course, they fall in lurve and spend the rest of the book trying to convince the other that it meant something.

Alternatively, the revenge shag. "THIS will teach that cheating bastard. Come here, you hot but obviously vapid stud who can't possibly be good for anything but a one-night stand... Oh. OMG. More! Harder!"

I actually quite like the revenge-shag-that-backfires (snigger). I guess I like watching characters squirm.

Lame factor: low. Maybe 4 out of 10.

So what do you think of insta-lust? Yay or nay? What's your favourite/least favourite kind?

Eve Silver giveaway winner

Without further ado:

the winner (randomly chosen) of last Friday's giveaway is...

Chrizette!!!

Yay! Congrats! Chrizette's won a book from Eve Silver's awesome Otherkin Series. 

Thanks for playing, everyone! And be sure to return next Friday for another Friday Fancy.

Blood Cursed cover art

Is this awesome? Or is it, like, totally awesome!?!

This is my fourth Craig White cover and I love it. Love, love, love it. It is so much what the book is about that I can't think of anything I'd like better.

"Sigh. So... what's the book about, then?" you ask patiently? Behold, cover copy.*

Enter the fierce, fantastical world of the Shadowfae, where blood is a drug, magic is a crime, and love is the most dangerous weapon of all…

To a vampire, nothing is sweeter than bloodfairy essence -- and Ember is the most sought-after fairy on the underworld circuit. Selling her blood to the highest bidder -- and robbing her clients in the process -- Ember has unwittingly become a target of dark and dangerous forces. Her enemies are everywhere. And if she hopes to survive, she needs protection...

Diamond is a glassfairy who, for better or worse, knows his way around the vampire underworld. Smooth as silk and tougher than trolls, Diamond is Ember’s only chance to keep her magical blood inside her body, where it belongs. But he also poses a threat to Ember, a strange kind of danger she’s never experienced before: She’s falling in love with him...

Yay! I'm so excited. Release date is 2 August 2011, US and UK and Canada.**

And if anyone out there's doing their Cool New Covers of the Week post, or Awesome Homicidal Chicks in Tight Dresses or suchlike, please feel free to plaster this one all over it, should you so choose :)

In other news:

Today, I finished my demon-hunting witches short story! Yay! It's tentatively titled CHERRY KISSES. Coming soon to an anthology near you.

And lastly: remember, you've got until midnight Friday West-Coast-US-time to enter last week's Friday Fancies giveaway of Eve Silver's SINS OF THE HEART. It's a great book. You know you want it.

*This may not be the final cover copy. But it's near enough.

** Those are pre-order links. The more orders, the more copies they print. If you enjoy my books, you'd really be doing me a favour...

Market research, and how not to be misled

Welcome to Writing Wednesday, where I hopefully have something interesting to say about... well, about writing. Or publishing. Or agents. Or chocolate overload during a Supernatural marathon. Or anything to do with this crazy business.*

I'm in the middle of writing a short story, which is unusual for me -- I've written I think five... no, make that six... six novel manuscripts in a row, and only three shorts in that time, two of them in the last six weeks.

And one sad thing about getting published -- about deciding to do this mad thing called writing for a career -- is that I no longer have the time to write stuff I don't think I can sell. That means I'm always writing to a market, whether it's an established line at a single house, a collection of prospective houses or even just a genre, with all its conventions and no-nos.

So if I'm writing these shorts, they're for a specific market. You think agented writers and published authors don't have to do market research? Bzzt! Lose five points or your pants. It's even more important, because a story with no market is useless to us. A waste of our time. And time, sadly, is money.**

So, market research. That's to say: reading, right? Lots and lots of it. What's selling well in a particular line? What are the really popular big-time authors doing, and how can I do it too?

Right?

Wrong. You are the Weakest Link. Goodbye.

DON'T read the big-time authors in your chosen line/imprint. No no no no no. Don't. 

Well... what I mean is, hell yes, read the big-time popular authors, because they're awesome! Just don't read them for research.

Because what they're doing, they've earned the right to do, with book after book, years of consistent sales, a profitable backlist. If their books go out on a limb, it's because the publisher trusted them to pull it off.***

I, on the other hand (and probably you, too) am a relatively new author, with only a short track record with a single publisher. Sure, I hand in manuscripts on time and do my edits without complaint and tidy up before the copy-editor. But the bestseller lists don't know me from a bar of soap. No house in their right mind is going to trust me to do jack shit.

So whom should I look to for research? The debut authors, of course. They're the ones who are selling from the slush pile, rather than on track record and a three-line pitch to the editor-in-chief from their agent. They're the ones who are dropping jaws at the editorial assistant's desk, lighting up the imprint editor's eyes and eliciting grins at acquisitions meetings.

They're the ones, in fact, who are writing what's selling, without the benefit of track record, RIGHT NOW. Not fifteen years ago when your favourite big-time author was a chicken.

Of course, in print publishing, RIGHT NOW is relative. It means probably twelve to eighteen months ago, minimum. But it's the best indication you'll get. And no one's saying the big-time authors aren't writing good books -- but bestsellers can generally write riskier books than newer authors, especially in category lines like Harlequin Whoever. If you're reading along and wondering how the hell the author gets away with first person present tense and Flashback Hell when the sub guides say third person past only and no flashbacks or we'll come around to your place and kill you -- chances are you're reading a more experienced author.

So read the new authors to find out what's selling last week. Read the big-time authors to find out what you can get away with, in a year or two when you've got credentials.

Then again, what the hell? Maybe your wacky idea will sell gazillions. If you don't try, you'll never know :)

* Yes, of course watching Supernatural for hours at a stretch is part of the writing business. You can't work ALL the time...  anyway, did you and I have that little chat about Sam? Yeah, well. I meant it. Hands off.
** Well, yeah. That's not to say it's very much money. If I worked out how much I get per hour, I'd give up and work at Starbucks. Just don't do those sums, people. They aren't worth it.
***  The book, that is. Not the limb. Mixed metaphors 'R' us.

Teaser Tuesday

It's 11:56 pm right now. I just scrape in for Teaser Tuesday :) it's a weekly meme hosted by MizB of  Should Be Reading:

1) Grab your current read.
2) Open to a random page
3) Share at least two 'teaser' sentences from that page -- no spoilers, please!
4) share the title and author so others can add it to their TBR if they like the teasers.

So here goes, from the open page on my Sony Reader:

'Vinny, eh?'

She leaned even closer. Her lips were but a kiss away from mine. A man should offer some means of thanks for such an offer. But I like to keep my lips away from the suspicious sorts.

'Short for Venezia,' she whispered.

'Isn't that in--'

'My mother had a thing for Italy. Here's the deal, Michael. I'll show you the halo. You pay me ten thousand for the information.'

--From page 8 of HALO HUNTER by Michele Hauf.


And, because I'm an author and therefore supposed to pimp my own books :) here's one of mine:

My thrall bangles tingled, and heat prickled up my arms, sickly sweet. Inside my belly, my drug-sleepy rapture coiled contentedly, lazy like a deadly snake in the sun. Thrall always knows its own, no matter how I squirm and evade.

Kane stared at me, green sparks of amusement dancing in his hair. My heart sank, but at the same time, an unfamiliar, unwelcome warmth shivered through my blood. For once, I was pleased to see him.

--From page 16 of SHADOWFAE, by me :)








Thanks for playing, folks!

In the middle of a new story

I had a few votes against Man-titty Mondays (boo! hiss!) so we'll stick with random m-words until I can think of something better. Muddlings? Madness? Mutancy?

Spent the weekend watching cricket (eek!) and doing my civic duty as a Romance Writers of Australia contest manager. Any of you entering the Valerie Parv Award this year? You'll be dealing with me, bwahahaha...

I'm in the middle of a new short story (demon-hunting witches, yay!) and it's going pretty well so far. It's a challenge to write to a theme, yet keep the story true to the world-building I've already done. It's a Shadowfae story, in case you're wondering. New characters, new messes, same horny fairies. Amen :) All things going well, you'll see it in a St Martin's Press anthology later in 2011.

Writing a 10K short is challenging, too, when you're used to 100,000 word novels. The outline has the same shape - it's just a lot smaller, and everything has to be simplified. World-building has to be slimline. And as for backstory -- forget it, unless you can work it seamlessly into the story. You don't have time for flashbacks or paragraph-long ruminations on what just happened. Efficient scene-cutting (as in, deciding where you start and finish a scene) is crucial... hey, I just had an idea for my writing post on Wednesday! I'll shut up about it now :) you'll have to wait for my wisdom. Sigh. Oh, well.

Meanwhile, don't forget to enter last week's Friday giveaway -- Eve Silver's SINS OF THE HEART.

And here's an interesting link: one author's take on what it's really like to get published. I'd have to say I agree, though I'd never have believed myself two years ago -- selling is the easy part, folks. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm the last to whine about how hard it is to have a contract with an advance and an awesome editor and a big publishing house distributing my books. Wow, this diamond up my ass really hurts, y'know?

But pre-contract, all you have to care about is how good your book is, and researching markets. That's it.  Once you sell, there's so much more at stake. So much more you can mess up. So much more you have no control over. You think rejections are frustrating and beyond your control? Wait till you have to deal with sales figures, and reviews, and why your book is or isn't in stores, and why your book is or isn't an ebook...

But hey, I wouldn't give it up for anything :)

Friday Fancies: Sins of the Heart by Eve Silver

Hello and welcome to Friday Fancies, a new feature on my blog where I'll be sharing some recent reads I loved and giving you eager reading folks the chance to win your very own copy.

This fortnight's Friday Fancy: Eve Silver's SINS OF THE HEART, book 1 in the Otherkin series from HQN.

What it's like: Egyptian mythology, plus romance, plus some lovely icky bits! Hot hero who doesn't posture (he's cool enough not to need to -- and yay! he's blond! see, you can have a blond hero), strong and active heroine who doesn't whine. A good mystery plot. Oh, and bleeding hearts in bags. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Why it's cool: horror and romance. I mean, real horror. Not just dudes we are told are bad-ass who never actually, well, do anything bad-ass. These guys are the real deal. Soul reapers who actually reap souls -- and it's not some nice clean magical process where no one gets their hands dirty. It's messy, painful and scary. An author after my own heart :)

If you're a writer: Eve Silver knows how to mix subplot material with the romance plot without letting the main story get lost. She lets the characters' actions speak for themselves, instead of having to tell us how cool they are. And unlike some writers {cough me cough} she knows when to stop with the horror. Just enough gory details to fill in the picture, and then she lets you go. So it isn't overwhelming.

So. Wanna win a paperback copy* of this awesome book? Of course you do. Leave me a comment here, follow me, tell all your friends about Friday Fancies, do something nice like that (it's the season for nice things, after all!) and next Friday I'll pick a winner at random. If you live where the Book Depository ships, you can win. Easy.

"But I already have this book!" you cry? Well, that's okay. If you win, you can choose any book from the trilogy for your prize -- SINS OF THE HEART, SINS OF THE SOUL or SINS OF THE FLESH. I have them all, and they're all equally cool.

So you tell me: do you like horror, gore and icky stuff in your paranormal romance? What are some other good horror romances? Who's your favourite bad-ass hero? Or,  do you prefer your vampires sparkly and your werewolves to change in a puff of 'it's magic, okay', rather than all that flesh-tearing and tendon-popping?

*I can't gift e-books. Sorry, I'd love to, but this is Australia. We don't have e-books here.

My new blog!

Welcome!

If the Blogger gods are smiling on me, this will cross-post to LiveJournal as planned -- hope it works!

For any LJ folks who might want to switch over, my Blogger site is http://erica-hayes.blogspot.com -- and my LJ remains http://faerylite.livejournal.com. I'll be cross-posting everything, at least for a while, so follow me wherever you like!

If you're wondering where all the posts below came from, I've imported everything from LJ. So not a single pearl of my wisdom will be lost. I know, I know -- what a relief!

Seeing as I've got this new flashy site, I'm gonna kick off tomorrow (Friday) with some Friday Fancies. What's Friday Fancies, you ask? Well, it's where I get all gushy about a book I like, and then give you the chance to win a copy. Simple.

I'll be giving away a new book on Friday every couple of weeks, whenever I read one I feel is worthy of the instant fame and glory my recognition will bring. That's the kind of generous soul I am.

So stay tuned, bat-listeners. I'll also be doing Writing Wednesdays, where I share my latest earth-shattering epiphanies about the mysteries of writing and publishing. And when I can think of something cool and alliterative for Mondays, I'll do that too.

In fact, I'm open to suggestions. What's a good M-topic you'd like to see on that dreaded first day of the week? Mournful Mondays? Monsters and Mayhem? Monday Man-titty*?

*Actually, no. This blog will be a MTFZ (man-titty free zone)! Unless, y'know, it's on a book cover. Or I really feel like it.