BMG

Why is it when you tell people you’re writing full time they think you’re not working.  I had to paint my house recently and do some of it myself.  When I told my neighbor that I couldn’t come over during the week because I have to work – “he asked me if I got a job?”  Recently, I tried to hook up with an old friend for lunch.  She asked me, “how did it feel to be retired.”  What the..#$%..?

 I’m working my arse off people.  Let me help enlighten those who don’t know - writing full time is a business.  Yes, I don’t have a paycheck every week but that doesn’t mean I’m twirling my fingers. Because I hope to get paid some day for my work.

Here is everything a writer does or what I do:

• Write every day on my short story for Romantic times book lover convention;
• Write every day on my manuscript — Seduction of Terror; 
• Create character sketches for my next work;
• Enter contests
• Update myspace (get friends, update events, check emails, comments, etc.)
• Update my site and blog 
• Weekly update a blog for the Butterscotch Martini Girl site
• Work on my portion of the speaking program for the BSMG’s at the Glendale Chocolate Affaire
• Work on Valley of the Sun program - I’m the February speaker
• Work on Valley of the Sun publicity chair program
• Attend chapter meetings - twice a month
• Attend VOS office meeting - once a month
• Do critiques  - could be as much as 7 chapters in two weeks
• Attend critique meetings
• Getting ready for conventions (promotion stuff, business cards, register, get hotels, etc.)
• Check emails, loops (I have 8 so far) daily
• Work on getting my name out there - promote and market me as a product!!!!
• Setup yearly goals and make sure I’m doing them

These are activities that are just off the top of my head.  Writing is a career and there is a business side that goes with it.  As Tina Gerow  speaks (she has a great program) about - It’s not just eating bon bons all day.  Just because I can work in my pajama’s, get up at 8am, do laundry at lunch doesn’t mean I’m not working.  There is a down side too, which is I don’t have set office hours.  I’ll be doing emails at 10pm at night, or writing on the weekend to make up for not getting enough done during the week.  I’m a lucky one because I don’t have a family to take care of while I try to do all the above.

 So yes, writing is WORK!!!

 Isabella 

Share This

Cover by Trace Edward ZebarThe Blood Club
by Brit Blaise
ISBN-13: 978-1-60272-196-8 (Electronic)

Psychiatrist Amanda Montgomery never dreamed she’d enter the infamous Blood Club on the arm of a handsome detective to see a group on stage performing sex acts for a full house. And her adventure goes from strange to bizarre when she becomes a reluctant participant of the show. Amanda’s medical specialty is delusional patients who believe they’re vampires…little does she know!

As token vampire on the force, Detective Mark Philips’ position in the community and at work is already causing him no shortage of complications. With the vampire numbers growing disproportionately to the general population, a day of reckoning grows nearer with each passing second. Just when he thinks things can’t get worse, a sassy doctor and an old foe join forces to bring him to his knees.

Detective Philips needs to find a vampire-wanna-be assaulting visitors of the Blood Club. He doesn’t need the complications falling for the doc will bring and he especially doesn’t want an old lover adding drama to an already explosive situation. Amanda’s dormant sexual desires aren’t just awakened, they’re roaring out of control. But when she discovers Mark’s ex is not only a vampire but a man, her new sexual exploits are some she’d never imagined. Can she handle the man-on-man vampire heat?

Genres: Dark Fantasy / Vampire / Ménage [M/M/F] / Group Sex / Exhibitionism / Public Places / Voyeurism
Heat Level

Brit BlaiseThe Blood Club – Just Released!

Cave Creek Cowboy Ménage – Now Available!
Cavecreek Cowboy Kama - November Amber Quill Press
Slayers Inc - Vampires and Werewolves - Amber Quill - October bestseller list
Jax and the Corporate Giant - December - RT Website
 Lady in a Box - Coming April AQ
A Sure Thing - Coming April AQ

www.britblaise.com
www.butterscotchmartinigirls.com

Share This

This is a question I’m asked quite a bit by pretty much everyone except for other romance writers or people who already love the genre.

Our genre takes quite a bit of flack from those who don’t really understand modern romance novels, and, in fact, quite a few of them have never read a romance novel.  That part always amazes me, but then again people often criticize without full information in this day and age.

I remember when I was younger, borrowing my mother’s Harlequin romances and reading about heroines who waited for alpha males to save them and swooned at the slightest provocation.  I wanted to shake some sense into them and tell them to grow a backbone!  My twelve-year-old sensibilities just couldn’t stomach more of that, so I didn’t touch another romance novel for sixteen years.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for Harlequin.  Those were the kind of romances the core romance reader wanted at that time, and that’s what Harlequin provided, and they have grown and changed with the times and are still a strong company today.  However, from my “worldly” twelve-year-old perspective at the time, those books made me shudder!

That’s not to say that I wasn’t an avid reader during those years.  No, just the opposite.  I devoured Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan and anything else that caught my interest in the sci-fi/fantasy section of the bookstore.  But I made a wide berth around the romance section.

Now here’s a funny side note.  My parents and most of my friend’s parents thought we were reading books with wizards and dragons and spaceships in them, which was true.  But if they had only known the amount of steamy sex (and yes, even romance) in those books, they would’ve taken them away from me post haste!  In fact, my son KNOWS I know what he’s reading and what he’s not since I’ve read most of the books he is starting to pick up, and if I haven’t read it, I’m such a quick reader that I finish it before he gets very far.  (Poor kid!  LOL)

Anyway, back to my main point.  I spent those sixteen years of my life sneering at the romance genre without really realizing all the changes that had taken place.

But then, fate intervened.

I went on vacation with a friend and ran out of books.  (I mentioned I’m a quick reader, right?  I meant it…lol)  We weren’t close to a book store (sacrilege!), so I borrowed one of hers–BORN IN FIRE by Nora Roberts.

I can still remember diving into that book and becoming thoroughly hooked!  Not only did it have a rich plot, great setting (one of the richest descriptions of Ireland I’ve ever seen in a novel), characters that jumped off the page and made me believe that if I got off the plane in Ireland today that these people actually live and thrive there.  However, it also had some great love scenes and took me through an entire range of emotions before I got to the words “The End.”  I was hooked!

I finished it within the day and the next day drove an hour into the next town to find a book store.  You can imagine my surprise when I found the other two books in the trilogy (BORN IN ICE & BORN IN SHAME) in the romance section!!  A little more time spent perusing books in this section I hadn’t stepped foot in in sixteen years showed me that many of my favorite genres had now blended with romance.  There was sci-fi romance, fantasy romance, horror romance, paranormal romance, romance with suspense and even erotic romance, just to name a few.  This was my kind of romance!

Needless to say, as I sit here today, a multi-published romance author under two different pen names, I’m very glad to have stumbled onto that Nora Robert’s book when I did.  And, in fact, I did thank Nora when I finally met her at a Romance Writers of America conference in 2004, and she weathered my fan adoration with poise and a smile. :)  Thanks Nora!

So, what made me think of this blog?  I just finished a book that sucked me in, kept me interested, introduced me to characters who will stay with me for quite a while, and took me through a gamut of emotions from outrage to sadness to joy, and there were tears of happiness in my eyes as I read the last line of the book.   The book was THE PERFECT KISS by Anne Gracie, a historical romance, and I highly recommend you read it if you haven’t yet.

If like a lot of others, you haven’t given the romance genre a try lately, or at all, you may be missing out on some of the best books you’ve ever read.  Not to mention some great gargoyles, vampires, fairies, Klatch witches and angels. (self promotion, plug, plug, plug…lol)  But seriously, give it a try and you won’t be disappointed.

Cassie/Tina

Share This

VOTE!

#351 It Can Happen to You by Brit Blaise

Share This

Butterscotchmartinigirls guest blog

Hey, Brit, Isabella, and all my martinigirl friends - thanks for inviting me to stop by and chat with all your fans. I’m really gonna miss seeing you ladies at the Glendale Chocolate Affaire this year! Do think of me shivering in the Cold North while you’re basking in the sunshine eating those fantastic chocolate-covered strawberries.

All of you out there within driving distance to the Chocolate Affaire, do try to attend. Besides chatting with lovely and talented authors, and buying chocolate in all its forms, there’s non-stop live music and tons of craft booths selling all kinds of wonderful things.

Now, it’s confession time…

Do you know, I’ve never had a butterscotch martini–or, actually, any kind of martini.

Yep, that’s right. Truth is, I’m a total pathetic wimp when it comes to alcohol. One drink and I’m looped. Two, and I can’t walk straight. My husband doesn’t mind this in the least. Says I’m a really cheap date, lol.

Let’s see – some other random thoughts…

Music - I like The Killers, My Chemical Romance, and Green Day. I don’t go out of my way to listen to music from my high school and college days (ie Oldies that are older than I like to admit), but I like hearing them when I run into them. I don’t care too much for country or rap. I enjoy some hip hop, if it’s not too whiney or repetitive. I like classical music, but not jazz.

TV - I don’t watch a lot of it any more, otherwise I’d never get my books written! But I became majorly addicted to LOST in the past couple years. I’m looking forward to the new season starting in a couple weeks, though I hear it’s going to be shortened because of the writers’ strike. Other than that, I’ve introducing my kids to my TV addictions of the past on DVD. X-Files (we’re up to the seventh season, just before Mulder went on the lam), and Star Trek - went through the entire Original Series, and now just getting into The Next Generation. We’re also working our way through Seinfeld.

Kids: I got three of ‘em. Insanely, they were born within four years of each other. Pretty much, the not-so-little-anymore ex-rugrats suck up all my free time.

Husband: Still on my first  We met when I was eighteen & he was twenty, and got married six years later. He was an Officer and a Gentleman, I was a Navy Wife. After a couple years of that, we left the military and started having kids. We celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary last autumn. Yes, now the mathematicians among you can now figure out how old I am!

Pets: My dog is the best. She’s a sweet nine year old liver-spotted Dalmatian, Maia. She’s very sweet, and gets me off my butt for a walk most days. She comes over when I’m typing on the computer and head-butt my hands off the keyboard. She loves all people, especially kids, but hates other dogs and the UPS guy. Currently, we also have two hermit crabs in residence. My son’s asked for every kind of lizard imaginable, but I keep saying no to any animal whose food has to be alive.

Housework: minimal

Cooking: Ditto. What with each kid in different afterschool activities, we do a lot of take out at my house.

Hobbies: Reading, of course. My very favorite thing to do. (Well, maybe my second favorite ). I also like movies - new and rented. I like gardening, both flowers and vegetables. I grow heirloom tomatoes, started from seed, every year. And basil and sweet peppers. My favorite flowers are sunflowers. I grow a dozen different kinds.

Exercise: Supposed to be good for you, right? Take that with a grain of salt! I know more people with sports injuries than I can shake a running shoe at, so my motto is: don’t overdo a good thing. I walk my dog, and ride indoor and outdoor bicycles. I avoid running, aerobics, or any form of yoga like the plague. I’ve tried all of them, and have come to the conclusion that all three make me look and feel like an uncoordinated klutz. That thing about Tuesday’s child being full of grace? Well, I was born on a Tuesday, so I know it’s not true!

Shopping: Hate it, hate it, HATE IT. After one hour in a store, my brain starts to glaze over. Unless it’s in a bookstore. Then you can’t get me out of the place.

Best things about being an author? Getting emails from readers who really connect with my stories and characters. Hanging out with other authors, (the most fabulously creative people I know!) and getting lost in discussions of our characters and plots. Oh, yeah, and seeing my name on the book cover. That never gets old.

Book I’m currently hawking? DEEP MAGIC, out this month (January) from Dorchester Lovespell. Deep Magic is the second in my Druids of Avalon series, after The Grail King. The series follows a band of Druids, ancestors of King Arthur, as they reclaim their sacred home on the isle of Avalon, and delve into forbidden magic that will shape history in the ages to come. My first book with Dorchester, Celtic Fire, is a “prequel” to the Druids series. Brit was so kind to post the cover and blurb here a couple weeks ago.

Up next: Immortals: The Crossing (October 2008). Very soon, I’ll be submerging myself in deadline hell for this one.

All the best! Thanks for reading to the end.

Joy

Share This