After - Part Two

Happy Halloween!!

What a wonderful Halloween it is. So my surgery is today, and this is the last post I'm sending to you with my crippled hand. I'm nervous and excited! I'm hoping everything goes well and I recover quickly!

Also, I was up past midnight last night, doing my final read-through of After - Part 2. It was around 12:30 when I pressed the save button, tears in my eyes. It's finished. I hope I never get over that joy of completing a story.

And then it took forever for Amazon to get it listed, well, felt like forever. :)

Its finally here and I am so happy!

After - Part Two

And The Race Is On

Hey everyone! I've been missing, I know, I know, but it's for a good cause! I have pretty much been devoting every extra minute I have to making sure After - Part Two gets released in time! I will be working all night tonight on it, and I'm not super 100% sure that I'll be hitting the publish button tomorrow, but I'm damn sure going to try. The good news is, it will be out in a day or two becausseeee.....

I'm having my surgery on my wrist on Thursday, so I have to publishing it before then. Really, it's not that big of a stretch since I'm so close to being done. So exciting!

Also! Off the Beaten Path is on SALE right now! $.99 through Halloween! If you haven't grabbed it yet, better get it now!

Whew... Okay, short and sweet. It's back to polishing! My next post will be the announcement that After - Part Two is up, so be sure to give my Facebook page a like if you haven't yet. I'll be sure to post the link there as well!

Vacation!

So, short post today but I'll tell you what I'm doing.

I took today and tomorrow off so I can sit home, work all day, and play like I'm a full time writer! So here I go! Totally diving right into my manuscript right now. Let's see how I do without anything or one here to distract me!

I will come back to update if anything exciting happens, but it's pretty much just working out a few scenes for the final polishing. I just have 2 chapters to go!

A List of Winners!

I am sorry I didn't get around to listing the winners earlier. I had two giveaways going on at the same time, and both ending while I was traveling! What timing!

First, I'll list the Off the Beaten Path winners. This was the bigger give away. A special shout-out to Angela Roquet for orchestrating this all!

Grand Prize winner of bound book $10 Amazon card: Felicia T.
Triple winners of 2 $5 Amazon cards and Off the Beaten Path ebook: Tanya J. and Amy H.
Double winners of $5 Amazon card and Off the Beaten Path ebook: Teresa E.
Winners of Off the Beaten Path ebook: Tiffany M., Seth C., Kirsty E., and Tiffany K.
Winners of $5 Amazon card: Clare T., Jackie B., and Rose W.

And the two winners of the first edition paperback of After - Part One, which included a rockin' The Phoenix Curse pen (and not so rockin' key-chain) are...

Elizabeth C. and Nate A.

Thanks everyone for signing up, and for those of you who won, I hope you enjoy all the gifts!

Congratulations all!!!

Off the Beaten Path: Monica La Porta

Today's guest is Monica La Porta, author of Priest, the first book in The Ginecean Chronicles. She contributed Home Wet Home for Off the Beaten Path. Before we get to her inspiration for that, let's start with Monica’s Bio.

Monica La Porta

Monica La Porta is an Italian who landed in Seattle several years ago. Despite popular feelings about the Northwest weather, she finds the mist and the rain the perfect conditions to write. Being a strong advocate of universal acceptance and against violence in any form and shape, she is also glad to have landed precisely in Washington State. She is the author of The Ginecean Chronicles, a dystopian/science fiction series set on the planet Ginecea where women rule over a race of enslaved men and heterosexual love is considered a sin. She has published the first three books in the series, The Priest, Pax in the Land of Women, and Prince at War. She also wrote and illustrated a children’s book about the power of imagination, The Prince’s Day Out. Her latest published short, Linda of the Night, is a fairytale love story celebrating inner beauty. In her free time, she likes to build miniatures, sculpting, and painting. She also likes to go walking with her beloved beagle, Nero.

The Ginecean Chronicles is a very interesting series. Here's a more in depth blurb on Priest.

Mauricio is a slave. Like any man born on Ginecea, he is but a number to the pure breed women who rule over him with cruel hands. Imprisoned inside the Temple since birth, Mauricio has never been outside, never felt the warmth of the sun on his skin. He lives a life devoid of hopes and desires. Then one day, he hears Rosie sing. He risks everything for one look at her and his life is changed forever. An impossible friendship blossoms into affection deemed sinful and perverted in a society where the only rightful union is between women. Love is born where only hate has roots and leads Mauricio to uncover a truth that could destroy Ginecea.

Monica has some more intriguing stories on the table. Here's a little taste of those. For more updates, you'll have to follow her blog here.

I am writing Notturno, a fantasy novel set in a world where people are divided between nocturnals and diurnals. At the same time, I am also working with my two editors on three different projects. Two are companion books about the story of Gaia & Elios, a girl and an alien thrown together by fate and Etruscan findings. The third is Marie’s Journey, the final installment in The Ginecean Chronicles.

Here, Monica talks a little bit about how Home Wet Home came about, her short story featured in Off the Beaten Path.

The inspiration for Home Wet Home came from my fascination for anything aquatic. When I was a kid, I used to spend hours reading about the lost city of Atlantis, and I tried, without much success, to establish a colony of sea monkeys in a jar.

We all have those fun little stories of how our writing comes about. Here's one of Monica's from when she was writing Priest.

In 2010, while I was writing Pax in the Land of Women, two characters, Rosie and Mauricio, came to life. I fell in love with them and thought their story deserved to be told, but Pax was already on its way to completion, and there wasn't any space left in it for them. November came along and with it Nanowrimo, the one month extravaganza where authors pledge to the insanity of writing until they drop. It was perfect timing and I immediately jumped at the opportunity to write 50,000 words around the slave and the President’s daughter.  During those thirty days, my husband and I settled on a nice routine, where he played Red Dead Redemption and I sat by him on the couch and wrote The Priest. To this day, I can’t read a word from The Priest without humming the songs from RDR’s soundtrack.

And now we'll finish up with all of Monica's contact info.

Blog: www.monicalaporta.com
Twitter: @momilp
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ginecea
Amazon Author page
Goodreads

Mailing list: http://bit.ly/worldsinwords

Well I hope everyone enjoyed the blog tour and all the featured post! I know I enjoyed working with all these talented authors on the Off the Beaten Path anthology. It has been a blast and a learning experience! I'm so glad I was able to participate and make some new friends along the way.

I'll be taking a brief break from blogging, so there will not be a Tuesday post this week. I will be back Thursday with the news I knew everyone has been waiting for.

Have a wonderful week!

Off the Beaten Path: Angela Roquet

Today's guest is Angela Roquet, who was actually the one that helped open the door for me to this anthology. A very big THANK YOU to her for linking me up with Jason.

Angela contributed Dearly Departed to the anthology and is also the one who has helped get the rafflecopter together. She's got some very interesting projects going on, on top of all the writing and promotions. I'll let her tell you all about it!

Books and upcoming projects: 

I'm currently taking a break from writing. In addition to the short story in Off the Beaten Path, I just released my fourth novel, a YA zombie comedy titled Crazy Ex-Ghoulfriend. 

I've organized a zombie themed prom in my hometown to celebrate the release and to raise money for a local library. We're calling the event the Prombie Apocalypse. It's been a lot of work, and it's definitely the biggest party I've ever been in charge of, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to have a karaoke DJ and a photo booth, and we're also crowning a royally undead court and judging a zombie walk-off contest. 

The Facebook event page can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/PrombieApocalypse 

I'll be back at the keyboard some time in November to get started on Psychopomp, book 4 in my Lana Harvey series.

What was your inspiration for Dearly Departed?

"Dearly Departed" is set in the world of Lana Harvey, the protagonist of my urban fantasy series. It was an opportunity to take a glimpse into Lana's past. The twenties seemed like a fun era to explore, and the story also allowed me to shed some light on the origins of Lana's unambitious work ethic. I think quite a few Lana fans were hoping to catch a glimpse of Saul Avelo, Lana's deceased mentor, but the story actually takes place ten years after his death, which is still pretty fresh, considering the life expectancy of a reaper. I am hoping to feature Saul in a later short story though. 

Before you go, give us some of your thoughts on writing.

One of the most important lessons I've learned while writing is that spell check is not my friend. Spell check does not care if my characters empty their bowls or empty their bowels. It's always best to have a trusty team of beta readers to catch all those lovely typos.

Thanks for having me on your blog! It was a blast working on this anthology with you! : )

~ ~ ~ ~

Absolutely! Angela has a number of ways to get in touch with her. If you enjoyed her little taste of the afterlife in Dearly Departed, I guarantee you're going to want to take a look at her website!

Email: angela@angelaroquet.com
Website: AngelaRoquet.com
Blog: angelaroquet.blogspot.com
Facebook: facebook.com/adroquet
Twitter: @angelaroquet

Also, you can check out all her previous works on Goodreads and Amazon below.

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/angelaroquet
Amazon: www.amazon.com/Angela-Roquet/e/B0030CVZ72

~ ~ ~ ~

I'll be taking a break with blogging tomorrow, but will be back to finish up the tour next week. My next post will be on Sunday with some insider information on Monica La Porta! See ya then!

Off the Beaten Path: Sharon Sant

Today's featured guest is the lovely Sharon Sant. who contributed the chilling story, Soul Trading, to the anthology. 

Here's a little bit about Sharon from her author bio.

~ ~ ~ ~

Sharon Sant was born in Dorset but now lives in Staffordshire, England. She graduated from Staffordshire University in 2009 with a degree in English and creative writing. She currently works part time as a freelance editor and continues to write her own stories. An avid reader with eclectic tastes across many genres, when not busy trying in vain to be a domestic goddess, she can often be found lurking in local coffee shops with her head in a book. Sometimes she pretends to be clever but really loves nothing more than watching geeky TV and eating Pringles. She is the author of a string of YA novels, including Runners and the Sky Song trilogy.

~ ~ ~ ~

Sharon was able to answer a few questions for me, so without further ado, I present Ms. Sharon Sant!

Sharon, do you have anything you're currently working on, or are there any upcoming projects you can tell us about?

At the moment, I'm still promoting a fairly new book called The Memory Game, which is a YA paranormal. Along with the anthology, (Off the Beaten Path) this is taking up quite a lot of my time. I do have plans for the next book in my Runner dystopian series, which has been plotted out and hte first chapter written, and I hope to pencil some time in the diary to make progress with this soon.

What was your inspiration for Soul Trading for the anthology?

Soul Trading began with a simple idea - what if you met a man on a night out who wasn't actually a man at all? And if he wasn't a man, then what was he?

The story pretty much took shape all by itself as I wrote it, almost as thought it had a life of its own. As a kid, I remember my mum being fascinated by the idea of reincarnation and life after death, and all these memories came into play to help shape what I wrote.

Sharon, do you have a message, or anything you'd like to say to the indie community?

I love to interact with my fellow authors, readers, bloggers and general social media-philes, so look me up and chat away!

~ ~ ~ ~

Well, you heard her! Here is all of Sharon's contact information. If she's anything like me, she will absolutely love it if you reach out!

Webpage - www.sharonsant.com

Facebook - www.facebook.com/sharonjsant

Follow her on Twitter @sharonsant

And, last, but certainly not least, take a look at her Goodreads page to see all of her previous works!

Tomorrow will feature Angela Roquet! Be sure to swing back by to read her interview!

Off the Beaten Path: Jason Graves

Welcome back, today!


Here is my first author spotlight for Off the Beaten Path, the man that helped make this whole thing possible, Jason Graves. Not only did he get this project up and running, he also contributed his story, Great Plains, as well as edited the entire anthology.

A HUGE round of applause for Jason! Now here's a little blurb, straight from his Amazon Author page.

~ ~ ~ ~

Jason T. Graves lives in North Caroline with his family and a menagerie of small, domestic animals. He takes his coffee black, and, when he is not conducting mysterious, mad-scientist experiments with his students, he writes mysterious and beautiful fiction.

Many years ago, he was punched, only once and very lightly, by Muhammad Ali.

~ ~ ~ ~

Jason is also the author of the Noctivages Chronicle series featuring Blood Roses and Morning Stars.
See all of Jason's works listed here on Goodreads and visit his website here!

Be sure to come back tomorrow to meet Sharon Sant!

Off the Beaten Path: The Opening Festivities!

Alright folks, it's time to give your fingers some clicking exercises! And who wouldn't want to jump on this sweet giveaway? It's totally win win win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

But seriously, to everyone that signs up and supports the indie authors, it's truly appreciated. I'm glad that we have this opportunity to give back.

Be sure to check back everyday for the rest of the week! I've got interviews and spotlights for all the other authors that collaborated in Off The Beaten Path. It's gonna be great getting to know everyone!