Yay! Halloween is here! And so is my book Haunted Dreams!
(Click on the cover to purchase)
A handsome stranger haunts Kara's dreams, and she's stunned when she meets him at the Halloween charity ball. Staying the night in a haunted house just might bring her closer to Hayden, but will it be close enough to satisfy the ghost lovers who need them to unite - forever?
Don't forget about the contest that I'm having today! You could win a $15 gift card from Bath & Body Works just for purchasing my book today. Check out yesterday's post for details.
Everyone have a safe and Happy Halloween!
I'm exhausted. My mom's visiting, and that's enough to set my kids into a tailspin. Yesterday my friend and her kids came over to bake cookies. Today we shopped, went to the pumpkin patch and got ripped off, then carved pumpkins all night. The pumpkins turned out soooo cool! I should post a pic of them to show you guys.
This is not one of them but it's cool.
Okay, here's a repeat of the details for my Haunted Dreams contest! It comes out on Tuesday! Whoo hoo! And if you buy it and send me the receipt, you'll be entered to win a super cool prize!
Here's how it works:
~~ Buy Haunted Dreams on Halloween (when it's released!) at Cobblestone Press (www.cobblestone-press.com)
~~ Send me a copy of the receipt (take out any info you don't want me to know - just copy and paste at least the part where it shows you purchased my book and the price, or forward the email)
~~ Send the receipt to karen @ karenwritesromance.com (minus spaces)
~~ You'll be entered to win a $15 gift card to Bath & Body Works! Buy yourself an early Christmas present.
You must send me the receipt by November 1st! And the purchase date must be October 31st to be entered!
It's as simple as that! I will draw the winner on November 2nd and announce it on my website.
Okay my mom is here and she helped me draw the winning name.
Drumroll please...
Danielle!!!!
Danielle, please email me at karen @ karenwritesromance.com so I can get your address and mail you the special fall goodie basket!!!
Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who participated!
Details about my Haunted Dreams contest will be reposted again tomorrow.
Yet another naughty pic...
...at the Word Flirts on Friday.
I will count all comments over at The Flirts today, but this is the LAST DAY to leave a comment and be entered into my fabulous Halloween/fall goodie basket contest! So go check it out.
Whoops another naughty picture.
So I had a flash of inspiration last night and after I put the kidlets to bed, I jammed on down to the local B&N with my laptop and $5. Bought a grande Pumpkin Spice Latte (my favorite) and sat down at a table, hoping to get some writing done. LOTS of writing done.
I'm stuck right now. I'm at a transitional spot that's difficult to write. I know what I want to do once I'm past it but man, I'm having a hard time getting past it. Ugh.
I wrote about 2k words, but none of it I like much. I'm hoping today with hubby home I can work a little harder on this thing. Wish me luck. I want to be finished with it by Halloween. Yeah right!
Speaking of Halloween...
I like these chicks. They make me want to write a story about them.
Do you find this offensive?
I find it both funny and, "Oh, man, that's naughty."
Lemme know what you think.
I sold my Christmas themed novella, Fairies & Wishes, to Cobblestone Press!
Here's the blurb:
Lily the Christmas fairy must teach a lonely doctor how to love again, so she makes him fall in love with her. Big mistake since she always leaves earth the day after Christmas. But how can she leave the sweet, sexy doctor when she's fallen in love with him, too?
Lily was so much fun to write. Here's the pic that inspired her creation:
Isn't she cool?
Halloween is almost here - hurray!
So I'm going to have a contest for my blog readers. Just leave me a comment (one per day please) today through Friday and you'll be entered to win a special Halloween goodie pumpkin. Yeah, a pumpkin basket filled with fall fun stuff. Yay!
I'll announce the winner on Saturday, October 28th. Spooky!!
And then there's this...
I'm celebrating the release of Haunted Dreams with a contest!
Here's how it works:
~~ Buy Haunted Dreams on Halloween (when it's released!) at Cobblestone Press
~~ Send me a copy of the receipt (take out any info you don't want me to know - just copy and paste at least the part where it shows you purchased my book and the price, or forward the email)
~~ Send the receipt to karen @ karenwritesromance.com (minus spaces)
~~ You'll be entered to win a $15 gift card to Bath & Body Works! Buy yourself an early Christmas present.
You must send me the receipt by November 1st! And the purchase date must be October 31st to be entered!
It's as simple as that! I will draw the winner on November 2nd and announce it on my website.
But this one is interesting. Both Sue and Sharon nabbed me to do this one.
Sharon keeps a file of a list of everyone she knows with a note of their past or current experiences, who could one day become precious contacts for research purposes.
So she tagged other writers to share their personal experiences so everyone could have possible contacts for future references. And then we're suppposed to tag five others, etc., etc.
So here's my contribution to the list:
~~ I used to work at a newspaper - I even wrote obituaries.
~~ My father in law was a monk! I know that's not me in particular but hey, I find that interesting.
~~ Did the retail thing for five+ years - stories about that, lemme tell ya.
~~ Worked at a RV dealership for seven years - hubby still works there. Wanna know about RVs? I can hook you up.
~~ I'm a mother of 3 - with a big age gap between #1 and #2 (almost 9 years). I was a single mother of my oldest for five years.
Okay, not very exciting but it's all I got damn it! I'm taggin' Shelli, Emma, Kelley, Stacy and Tara. :)
Message from Sharon:
"PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL ‘PEOPLE COLLECTION’ POSTS:
Remember that it isn’t always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it :-)"
On another note, I'm announcing my new contests here TOMORROW! Be sure and stop by!
...I've decided that I'm going to host a block party at my house next week and y'all are invited. Corset wearing optional (see post and comments below). Big burly men watching seems to be a favorite of my blog visitors so hence the invite, lol. Maybe if you're lucky I can spy and sneak around and snap a few pictures. Men in hardhats on big tractors who fill out their jeans? I know you want it!
On another note I have been writing like a crazy fool! Yes, the 11 page golden nugget I found Sunday night has turned into a 51 page soon-to-be novella that's going places. I'm so excited. I love my characters.
My hero is an alpha - I've never really written an alpha so I find him pretty sexy - and totally difficult. He's got everything so under control and the heroine really throws him for a loop. I mean a serious, forever life changing loop. And he offers to do the right thing, grudgingly. Doesn't understand his feelings towards her so he shoves them deep inside. That way, he doesn't have to deal with them.
He makes my poor heroine nuts. But that's okay, he's supposed to. I think I need to go back and reread that Alpha male workshop Kate Walker hosted at Harlequin a few weeks ago. I'd link it but Blogger is acting like a b*@ch so sorry. I'll be lucky to get this posted.
Halloween is getting closer - and so is the release of my book:
I'm announcing contests on Monday so make sure to check it out!!
Yeah, I've got big burly men hanging out on my road. Which says a lot because I live on a sparsley populated dirt road in the middle of no where.
These guys work for our local telephone company, and they're putting in big fat red and blue cables. For what I don't know but I'm assuming they're new lines of some sort. Maybe it'll make the service better (I have country phone, is what I call it - I'm surprised we don't have party lines - and I don't mean 900 call party lines), though it'll probably really mean we'll have to pay more money for said service.
Back to the big burly men. Now trust me, not all of them are big and burly. There's a nice variety out there. Even a few that are rather attractive. Let's just say they fill out their jeans quite nicely.
So they're up the road right now, been on our road all week. I'm sure they'll be here next week too - and soon they'll be directly across the road from me where I can spy on them through my blinds.
I have problems. :-)~
A writing fool, that is. I think I wrote close to 6,000 words over the last two days. That's just crazy. I hope I don't burn myself out before Nano in November...
Nothing else going on. Going to Costco tomorrow - aren't you jealous? Hah. I don't mind going, but when the two munchkins go with us, it's a little crazy. Okay, it's a lot crazy.
I wanna take the kids to the pumpkin patch but I don't think we'll have time tomorrow, and hubby only gets one day off so guess I'll have to wait.
This is like the most boring post ever!
Oh, man it's a beautiful morning. It's cool outside but the sun is coming up, the birds are chirping, the cats are hunting in the field for mice (well that part is yuck since they always have to bring their kill to the back porch and munch on it. Leaving little presents behind. Ewwww).
And I had a major breathrough last night while writing. Major. It goes a little like this:
I'm writing a themed novella for Cobblestone and I wrote a sketchy crappy proposal for it months ago. I'll be honest - I've struggled with it ever since, never completely happy with what I've come up with. Hell, I've deviated from the original proposal already and what I've written was starting to remind me of a Harlequin Presents novel gone bad. Not that Presents novels are bad, just that this -- mess I've written reminded me of one, but my own awful version.
That is soooo not the angle I was going for.
Anywho, I was browsing through half written, three pages written, silly little documents I'd started and stopped over the past six months. And I found a nugget consisting of 11 pages of spectacular stuff. Really, hard for me to believe I wrote it. What kind of mind set was I in when I wrote it? I have no idea cos I kicked ass. Why did I stop? I have no idea cos it's worthy of continuation.
So I tweaked it a little bit, stayed up till midnight and added 1500 words to that bad boy. Now it's my new novella and I'm kicking the 16k I'd already written of the other one to the curb.
I'm so excited!! I can't wait to write again today!! I haven't felt that way in a while, just so damn excited I can barely stand myself. It's awesome!
Ever been unhappy with your work (well, duh, I know you're all gonna scream a resounding yes) and found something else you've written and blow your mind with it? I'm not tootin' my own horn, and in about a week I'll probably think my novella is total crap, but right now I'm lovin' it. And I'm thrilled.
Okay, Cora Zane tagged me so I gotta do it:
1) One book that changed your life: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Read it in high school, such a powerful book. One of the few assigned books I actually read from cover to cover.
2) One book that you'd read more than once: The Stand by Stephen King. What a book! It's huge but it's worth the read. Makes me cry at the end every time. I need to go read it again - it's been a long time.
3) One book you'd want on a deserted island: A blank journal with endless pages (I stole that answer from Cora - I agree).
4) One book that made you laugh: Exes and Ohs by Beth Kendrick. I bought her book My Favorite Mistake last year at the book signing at Nationals on a whim. Both of them are funny but Exes and Ohs is hilarious. Laugh out loud funny.
5) One book that made you cry: Way too many to even mention.
6) One book you wish you'd written: Gosh that's a hard one cos there are so many good ones out there! I loved Nora's three witches trilogy, the first one (Dance Upon the Air) was so good, I felt like I was on the island, in the bookstore with her characters. Sigh...to write as descriptive as she does...
7) One book you wish had never been written: Okay, I'm mean. But I can't stand Danielle Steel books (like she's gonna read my blog, but I feel bad for bashing her). I think they all suck. And yet she keeps selling them. She's even got a perfume out now!!! And like all of her books are made into TV movies! I don't get it.
8) One book you're currently reading: I'm rereading Julie Cohen's Delicious cos I'm waiting for her next book Married in a Rush which is tied in to Delicious. Julie is AWESOME.
10) Tag five people: Hmmmm, sorry. I tag Sarah, Julie S, Emma Sinclair, April, Stacy and Cole. I know that's six but I went ahead and tagged all the Word Flirts!!
Check out THIS pic!
...I'm flirtin' on Friday so go check it out.
...is one of my favorite holidays. Love it. And I'm seriously feeling the Halloween spirit this year, partly for my two youngest (my daughter is just as in to it as I am) and partly because -
My book Haunted Dreams comes out on Halloween!!
I'm going to have some wicked fun contests for the release of this book - I have a few brewing right now and I'll be making an announcement soon. I just thought I'd start promoting it now cos I'm proud of this baby - my first attempt at a paranormal! Spooky ghosts, a haunted house and hot sex! Whoo hoo!
Are you scared yet?
I love my little munchkins but my husband has been working for 11 days straight which means I've been working 11 days straight too. And I'm tired!!
I don't know how women who are single parents with multiple children do it (I was a single mom of one for years and that was hard enough). It is WORK people! My husband leaves for work by 7:30 and usually doesn't come home til after the kids are asleep so I sometimes feel like a single parent. Sigh...
Plus, I've been trying my hardest to keep those two in their beds (daughter has always had a problem, son was the perfect sleeper till a couple of months ago - I don't know what happened). This morning they woke up at 5:30!!! OMG!!! And I went to bed at midnight, something I haven't done in a long time. Needless to say, I'm exhausted.
Okay, I'm rambling, but I just wanted to say I'm glad hubby is getting a couple of days off so I can have a few breaks myself. I need to do a bunch of stuff (see last Friday's post) and I swear I'm gonna get it done!!
I'm stumped. I don't know what to blog about.
I had an uneventual weekend. Actually, that's a lie. I went to the mall with the kids yesterday and spent money. Had a good time, too. Man, that mall was packed. All of the stores are already gearing up for the holidays. Crazy! I used to work retail - I did the retail thing for five years. And even though it drove me crazy, when I get in a store and see all the displays, smell the clothes and perfume, etc. I miss it.
Yeah, sometimes I actually miss working retail. I haven't done that in 10 years! But I always said I could write a book with all the crazy experiences I had during my retail years. Maybe I will. It'll have to be a book of antecdotes (did I spell that right?), though, cos it's those little things the customers do that count.
Okay, look, I thought I had nothing to say and I ended up talking about something. Maybe it wasn't very interesting but at least it was something...
Any lame job of your younger years that you had - do you miss it? Or thank your lucky stars you don't have to deal with it anymore? Share! :)
That's what I feel like I've been doing - spinning my wheels and getting nothing accomplished.
I have a lot to do this month. I've been on a cleaning frenzy around the house but it still looks like I've done nothing (grrrr). I need to finish putting together my newsletter and nope, haven't gotten around to that. Need to update the website - whoops, haven't finished that either.
Ugh.
The only thing I've done is write! So I guess I've been doing something.
So here's to a non-spinning wheel weekend to all of you and especially to myself!!!!
Here's a sexy pic to get you started for the weekend.
I don't know about you, but I think this guy looks pretty fine.
Well, besides the fact that I'm all over the place reading all kinds of stuff, the main thing I'm reading right now is How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich.
Okay, I gotta admit that when I heard this was coming out I was like, "nah." I've read a lot of craft books this last year - I think you can get a little crafted out.
I'm browsing the book section at Target this past Saturday and there it was, Janet smiling at me, looking very pleasant. Nice big 20% sticker smacked right next to her face. So I thought, "Oh why not?" and tossed it into my cart.
What a fast-paced, easy read! Done mostly in question and answer form, I think she gives some great tips on how to write. And she explains it in basic language, which I appreciate. Ina Yalof gives some practical tips in there as well.
Now here's the really super duper smart thing Janet did in this book - all of her examples are from the Stephanie Plum series. And all I gotta say is this:
WHY HAVEN'T I BEEN READING THIS SERIES? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?
Okay. Next time I go to Target I'm snapping 'em up cos I know they have practically the entire series all lined up at that store, I've seen it.
Janet, you're brilliant. I can't wait to gobble up these books. Sheesh, there goes my bank account.
Warning: Picture Heavy Post!
The sunset at Brookings, OR. Gorgeous! This was our view from the motor home! I couldn't sleep cos the ocean was so loud.
Here's my son after a sand eating session topped off with a binkie. Yuck.
My daughter playing in the sand at Gold Beach.
Hubby frustrated with his $12 kite. He can never make a kite fly but this time there really was no wind!
One of the few times he got the kite in the air. Daughter did a better job than he did!
