The Blog Fairies Deliver

So, yesterday, I looked at So 5 and went, "Hm. I should post. Hm. What should I post about? How depressed I am that Skye is leaving? Nope, done that. How much it sucks that Skye's eyeball is useless as of soon? Nope, done that. The loss of my bestest buddy to Ore-gone? Nope, done that. Well hell. What else is there?" As you can see, I'm on a bit of a one-track thought process here. My best friend is leeeeeeaving. What do you want?

But, this afternoon, the fairies of blogdom answered my plea for new blogging material. Ready? Everybody rev up your "weeee" noises. You're gonna need 'em.

I just sold my second short story to The Wild Rose Press! I'm super duper excited and almost spit my M&Ms at my monitor when I found the email in my inbox. Good thing I contained myself since I'm at work. Heehee.

Anyway, I'm totally psyched. If you want to see some info, go to my webpage and click Books. (Yep, I sold Puma Man. How awesome is that?)

Weeeee!

But I'm still sad Skye is leaving and eyeball impaired. Boo.

Oh yeah, two in a row!

I'm taking this oppurtunity to cut in front of Sonja because I wanted to announce the exciting unveiling of my website!

Check me out: www.skyeforbes.com

Whee!

(p.s. it looks best in Firefox. I'm still working on the IE issues. Everyone should use Firefox anyways)

Pimp Yer Book

Some ho-ish tendency possessed me today and I joined a whole bunch of author loops. With author loops come many ways to pimp yer book, and thusly I present to you an interview of Shadow from "Love In Shadow" given by the CataNetwork:

Name: Shadow

Occupation: Wagon driver in my friend's cargo transport business. I know it's not a very ladylike profession, but I never really claimed to be ladylike, did I?

Zodiac sign: Hell if I know. Probably whichever one makes me the biggest pain in the ass.

Tell us about yourself. Where were you raised? What's your family like? Where do you live? You have no idea what a can of worms you're opening here... but I suppose if you insist. I was raised by fairies, since, you know, I am a fairy. But please don't ask me where my wings are. The thing about fairies having wings is a myth, perpetuated by easily amused people like you. I'd be more likely to sprout wings out of my ass than out of my back. Anyway, my family is a bunch of dirty wagon-robbing gypsy fairies and I'm well rid of them. I live on the road now with Lon. We drive transports. I can't imagine a better life. But, um, not because Lon is one hot guy. Noooo. I would never think of my boss and best friend that way. Not me.

What are your short and long term goals? What do you want out of life? Goals? What is this, some touchy-feely gather-in-a-circle and meditate thing? I don't know. I'd like to live long enough to run a few more transports with Lon. Oh, and play with his adorable kids a couple more times. Lord knows they could use someone to play with them, since their mom died.

What's your most embarrassing moment? Eugh. I should have known I'd have to reveal something humiliating when I signed up for this. Fine. Without a doubt, it was getting a little (ok, a lot) drunk at a dinner party and ending up in Lon's tent. In his cot in fact. Wondering if my virtue was safe... And, honestly, kind of hoping my virtue WASN'T safe. There, are you happy? I spilled my guts.

Biggest regret? Not acting fast enough when fairies attacked our transport last time. If I'd been paying a little more attention and been a little quicker, maybe they wouldn't have killed Lon's wife. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for that.

Every been convicted of a crime? Convicted? No.

If you could meet anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and why? Jeez, I don't know. Maybe my future kids... I'd be checking to see if they looked like Lon.

Are you single? Married? Looking? Single. Definitely single. And looking. But only at one man.

What's your ideal mate like? Lon, duh. Tall, dark, and handsome. Strong, good with kids, funny, and annoying as shit sometimes. But I'll put up with the annoying part as long as I can have the rest of him too.

Tell us a secret. What's something others might not know about you? You already made me tell my most embarrassing moment. I think you're out of freebies.

Do you have a nickname? Lon calls me Sunshine. But if you do it, I'll clock you.

Any pet peeves? Too many to list.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why? I'd look good in dresses. I had to wear one for the, um, above-mentioned dinner party and I looked like crap. Of course, it might have helped if it wasn't such a yuck shade of green.

Any pets? Just my horse.

How about allergies? Allergies are for sissies.

Do you support any charities? Sure. It's called the Buy Lon's Mother-In-Law A One-Way Ticket to Outer Mongolia Fund.

Is the glass half full or half empty? If it had alcohol in it, I guarantee you it's ALL empty.

Shadow
from "Love In Shadow"
by Sonja Foust
Available from TheWildRosePress.com

We interrupt your regularly scheduled witticisms...

... to tell you that I am NUMBA ONE at The Wild Rose Press! Check out my screenshot, complete with super-brag arrow pointing at my oneness. (Click the picture to see it in its full-sized gigantic glory.)


THANK YOU, stupendously wonderful book-buying people! I loff you all! (You like me! You really, really like me! *fans self*)

Release Pah-ty

I'm having a release party, ebook author style! (That is to say, in a chat room instead of, you know, a book store.) I'd love to have you come if you're available. It will be at 8 pm Eastern Friday night, March 23 in TheWildRosePress.com chat room. Oh, and here's a snazzy ad, in case, you know, you might want to post it somewhere.

Shadows and Sexy Puma Men

I wasn't going to post again until I gave Skye a looong chance to catch up... but if I post today, my posts totally take over the front page of the blog, and I win. Nyeh nyeh, this blog is all me. Heehee.

Updates on the writing front:

Love In Shadow now has a release date. I know, right? As authors, we're taught to wait patiently for months and months for our release date, only to have it pushed back at the last moment until we scream, "Uncle! Uncle, damn publisher! You win! I don't care about my release date!" But apparently in the eBook world, it's different. I got a contract in the middle of February and my release date is March 23. How awesome is that?

[Plug plug: I now expect you all to have 3 eDollars ready to plunk down for my fantastic piece of American literature on March 23. You have been warned.]

Puma Man (which is totally not what I'm calling it, thankyouverymuch Bryn) is a little more than halfway done. I'm considering where to send it, and am still undecided. My publisher keeps begging for dark paranormal, which is the category in which I'd stick Mr. Puma, but I want a pretty cover. (Call me vain, but pretty covers make me happy.) Anyway, be looking for a sexy California cougar shifter coming soon from moi. Added bonus: The setting is my sweet, quaint hometown of Redlands, California. It really has become more of a character than a setting in the story and I love that. It makes my spidey-sense tingle. Added added bonus: Um, sexy cougar guy. Need I say more?

I Was Drinkin' When I Wrote This

... so sue me if I go too fast.

Oh, wait, this is a blog, not Prince karaoke. Sorry.

Anyways, since Skye is, you know, stuck in the hell that is Hawaii, I'll fill in the gaps with what's been going on in my dull-but-writer-like life. Instead of cleaning, organizing, or folding laundry this weekend, I instead wrote the first half of a shape-shifter short story. I know, right? I'm so 5. Who needs a clean kitchen when you've got a shape-shifting puma-man? Seriously.

I also watched a couple of Grey's Anatomy reruns. Seriously.

Since I know you're all dying to see what brilliance I've devised for my shape-shifter story, I'm going to give you an excerpt.

Sike.

Seriously. Did you think I'd actually post the tripe that is a First Draft? Instead, I leave you with this image from Fark.com that is now my desktop background. Enjoy:

Remove Tongue From Cheek, THEN Post

In the romance eBook world, cover art is infamous for its... well, shall we say, interesting male specimens. I believe the Smart Bitches over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books coined the term "Man Titty." Romance eBook covers overflow with abundant Man Titty. Sometimes it's computer-generated Sims-people Man Titty, which is even awesomer.

So imagine my excitement when I found in my inbox this morning my brand new cover art!

"Hooray!" I squealed, immediately quivering with anticipation at seeing my very own book covered in computer-generated Sims-people Man Titty.

Now, if you can, imagine my heartbreak at discovering, not a cover composed entirely of male pectorals, but the following:

"Oh woe!" cried I. "Oh spite! The universe doth surely hate me to deny its bountiful Man Titty... Though I suppose," I sighed, "the picture very much resembles my heroine. And, I suppose," I sighed once again, "there really isn't any Man Titty in the actual story."

I squared my shoulders, wiped away my tears, and resolved to love my (sadly lacking in Man Titty) eBook cover.

It's growing on me. What do you think?

Mine Is Bigger

To all who were worried about why Skye never submitted Misdirection, her manuscript of action and intrigue, to The Wild Rose Press, don't worry, I've goaded her into finishing her edits and submitting, mostly just so she can say "nyah nyah I'm published too and mine is bigger." What, you thought we were above that sort of thing? Nevah.

Also, we could collectively make peoples' brains explode with our awesomeness, were we to come at you from the same ePublisher. That's my theory anyway.

We'd have to work on that whole separation of identity thing though. I'm pretty sure at least half of HCRW thinks we are the same person, which I guess is understandable in a group socializing mostly via email. We are both S.F.s (which is so 5, by the way), we both use gmail, and we're both twenty-somethings who use the word "awesome" a whole lot. (Alright, Nora Roberts, I admit that you were correct in writing your last twenty-something heroine's dialogue with the word "awesome" sprinkled liberally in lieu of real adjectives. We twenty-somethings suck at adjectives.) It doesn't matter that Skye has way awesomer boo-- uh-- hair than me and we really look nothing alike, because people only "see" us via email.

So, here's a visual aid to separate ourselves a bit for our faithful blog minions:

Sonja:

Skye:

Sonja:

Skye:

Sonja:

Skye:

Helpful, no? Everything all cleared up now? Good.

News!

In Skye's absence, I get to run around screaming, "I have news!" Only it's more like, "I have nyoooooooze!" because I'm super duper excited. Head on over to my blog and check it out! Thanks!

Hang on! I'm actually posting about writing!

Yeah, like the title says, this post is actually going to be about writing. Sonja's dying of shock somewhere, but hey, I like to shake things up every once in a while. Okay, always. :)

I had a story idea. Now, that's not anything unusual, given I consider myself a writer and almost any writer will tell you that they often have ideas and if they're really lucky, they remember them and then can eventually spin them into a story later which they sell for lots of money and, lucky them, Fabio appears on the cover. So it hasn't worked exactly that way in my case, I do have a lot of story ideas. I keep a file for each, usually and add to it when i think of something that relates.

At any rate, I need to preface my post a little bit with how this idea came about. I was lucky enough to get an xbox 360 for my birthday this year. Along with it came a bunch of arcade games. I've been wandering through the arcade games, seeing what there is to see. Tonight, I was playing Bejeweled 2, which is a totally brainless game involving gem swapping to get rows of 3. Or something like that. So I was sitting there playing it, not really focusing, and I started daydreaming. And in to my mind popped a story idea about a girl who plays video games. (Now you'll never ask an author where they get their story ideas from ever again, right?)

And the longer I played, the more fully formed the idea became. I started expanding on the main character... and who her hero was going to be. I started pondering how much research it would take (because, let's be honest, no one's going to read a book about Bejeweled 2, and that's pretty much the only game I know anything about), and other facets that i will eventually need to bring this book to life.

Obviously, the moral of this story is that I need to turn my brain off and let it do it's thing. For the first time in a long time, I was actually inspired to write. Which is a bummer, given I'm in the middle of packing up a 2 bedroom apartment to fit into a 10 x 10 storage space and also, theoretically, working on my work in progress (forever after referred to as my WIP) which is entitled A Girl's Guide to the Afterlife, and is, to my egotistical way of thinking, a really great concept. I mean, who wouldn't want to read about Valkyries? I know I do! Besides, there's so much potential for Fabio to be a manly Viking on the cover.

So, my writing goals (which Sonja has been wanting me to post since the beginning of the year) are now thus:

1) Finish the damn book. A Girl's Guide to the Afterlife really needs to be finished. And I need to make the hero less lame.
2) Send massive amounts of paper to Sonja so that she can take 2 years to edit my book, much like the last one :)
3) Work on new book, an as yet untitled project about competative video gamers

and finally,

4) Play Bejeweled 2 a lot more in the hopes of sparking more writing brainstorms

Almost Famous

Oh my god, I just met Skye for lunch and she got me the greatest present ever. It is so 5. Wanna see it? Of course you do:

Click it, because it won't let me save the image.

Did you click it? Didja? It's my wonderful Photoshop-impaired banner, printed on a t-shirt! I have the bestest friend ever. Also, if you want one, buy it, dude. $16.95 to spread the So 5 love. Does that mean we're official, now that we have So 5 merchandise? I submit that it does. Welcome to official-ness.

We are super duper official because we are also now on TheBestStuffInTheWorld.com. Alright, yeah, I put us there. But still. It counts.

Sorry, I know this post has been all over the place, but I just have one more thing to add: We got, like, a billion hits the day Skye posted about Fabio. So thanks everybody! You made us feel all warm and squishy and lurved.