Welcome to My Author Blog
Happy Blog Bounce Thursday! I hope you bounce over to Babs Book Bistro BLOG to check out the lovely 5 star review she gave for With Good Behavior.
I’m looking into organizing a virtual book tour for The Conduct Series for the end of this year. Any interested bloggers, please leave a comment or contact me at jenniferlanebooks at gmail dot com.
Now it’s time to bounce. Check out Omnific Publishing’s BLOG for instructions.
I’m puzzled I don’t attend church more regularly, because I always come away inspired each time I do get my butt outta bed on Sunday mornings.
Recently I visited my parents in Cincinnati to attend a Bengals game (they won in an amazing come-from-behind fashion, yeah!) First we went to church and the sermon was about happiness in marriage. In romance, do we only look out only for our own happiness or do we focus on the happiness of our partner?
Like most things in life, I believe there needs to be a balance between our happiness and our partner’s happiness. If we focus solely on ourselves, we won’t have partners for long! If we focus solely on our partners, we get lost in the relationship. We become spineless, wet noodles.
A folktale I read in Eating in the Light of the Moon demonstrates this balance nicely. The story is about an eel and a lobster working together. On the ocean floor, a lobster sits at the mouth of a dark cave, and an eel lives inside. The cave’s opening is an ideal place to attract food for both the lobster and the eel. However, eels EAT lobsters. So, Ms. Lobster needs to keep one antenna pointed out the cave to sense incoming food, and one antenna pointed behind her into the cave to sense an oncoming attack by hungry gobble-gobble Ms. Eel.
What a wonderful metaphor for successful human relationships. We need to point our antennae both inward and outward, sensing our own needs but also cognizant of the needs of others. When those needs differ, that’s where communication and conflict resolution skills come in. Hopefully we can avoid the “claws” coming out or a shocking attack from behind, hee hee.
What do you think about focusing on your happiness vs. your partner’s, in life or fiction? One aspect I disliked about Twilight was how selfless Bella was, but many readers seemed to love her character.
Time for the Meet an Author Monday Blog Hop, which will run through the month of October and then fade away into the blogosphere. Thank you to Lisa Sanchez for hosting the hop all these months! Check out her blog for instructions.
Today’s special guest is author Debra Anastasia! *applauds* I truly enjoyed her novel Crushed Seraphim, and here’s my review.
Where in the universe can you find an angel with a potty mouth and a devil with a heart of gold? Why, in Crushed Seraphim, of course! Debra Anastasia has created cheeky, clever characters in her debut novel, and the unusual cast kept me thoroughly entertained. The writing is smooth and captivating, particularly when Debra writes the character of Jack, aka the devil. Jack forever sucks on a lit cigarette, its smoke swirling around him as he jokes about cigarettes killing him one day, his motorcycle boots and leather jacket showing off his hot, muscled bod. Sizzling.
This novel is wonderful, but at times it felt a bit uneven to me. There are so many parts that I loved (which I’ll list here) and a few aspects I didn’t enjoy as much. Here are my favorite elements of the story (along with noteworthy quotes):
*the location of the gateway to Hell
*angel Emma’s description of how depression feels in the devil’s sordid hallway of torture
*Emma’s food source when she gets changed (mirrored in her shiny green eyes hee hee)
*calling purgatory hell’s “waiting room”
*the devil’s lone hand reaching up out of the soil, begging for Emma to free him
*Jason’s speech to Emma at the end
My favorite quotes (page numbers from my Nook):
“Her wing was a tightly knit gossamer web. Feathers the consistency of hope shimmered . . . A single slice, welted with melted silver, lined her shoulder where another symmetrical wing should have been. Gentle drops of liquid metal pooled in the snow, solidifying into a small mirror.” (p.16) (Fantastic visuals of angels).
When faced with a massive, snarling dragon, Emma doesn’t reach for a knight or a sword. Instead, she uses more powerful weapons: her love and forgiveness. “But I know better. I know even if you kill me, God loves me. He’ll never leave me. I have hope. And I believe.” (p. 114)
Emma’s advice: “Your heart is your compass. It will always tell you about someone’s true nature.” (p. 159)
Jack cracks me up. “The last time he’d busted a pause button there had been a legal hearing in Heavenly Court. Those righteous types were such sticklers for the rules.” (p. 179)
Everett is deliciously evil. “He nodded when the bloodcurdling noise began again. Everett pretended to hold a conductor’s baton as she hit a particularly excruciating high note.” (p. 202)
Wow! A lot of fun. Yet there were parts I didn’t like as much:
*The presence of vampires. While I found the lore of their creation interesting, my personal opinion is that vampires don’t really fit well in a story about heaven and hell. It does seem the “half-breeds” will have a large role in the sequel though. I have to say I’m not a huge paranormal fan so other readers may really love Jason and his family.
*The direction of the story confused me at times. Freeing God from hell seems like the main thrust of the plot but after a big battle it’s almost like another story begins.
*Emma going from Jason to Jack and back again was jarring for me. I wanted more understanding of her attraction and decision-making. We know she’s impulsive but I didn’t get a good sense of why she’d choose one over the other.
In the balance of things, these are minor points. Overall it’s a fresh, enjoyable story that I highly recommend. Bravo, Debra!
And now we get to hear from Ms. Author.
Jennifer Lane (JL): I’m happy to have you on the blog today, Debra! Thanks for taking time out of your chaotic recovery from the hurricane to visit. Congratulations on the publication of Crushed Seraphim, which I loved. What inspired you to write the story?
Debra Anastasia (DA): First thank you so much for reading it! Crushed Seraphim came from my curiosity about how an angel who was more like a real person would handle adversity. I was inspired by people who do amazing things and aren’t perfect every moment of every day. I love my heroines to have a courageous attitude, so my angel needed to stand on her own two wings. Wait, I mean feet. 😉
JL: Please tell us about your journey toward publication.
DA: Wow. That’s a great question. I’ve been very fortunate to have access to a computer, which has lead to the most wonderful communities. Writing itself took years to try. I would get nervous that people would know what went on my head! It is a revealing process. After numerous different outlets online and tremendous support, I tried my hand at fiction and loved it.
JL: We’re glad you did! What’s been the most surprising reaction from readers so far?
DA: I think I was most surprised with how accepting readers are. They have fantastic imaginations. It is really an honor to try and go as deep as I can when writing a scene. I found if I cry when writing it (or laugh) then I know it will usually come through for my readers. I love sharing that emotion with them.
JL: I feel the same way when writing. How much does your character Emma reflect your own personality?
DA: Well, I love to curse. Not in public or in front of children, of course. I think Emma’s quick temper comes from me and I hope I have a bit of her faith. It’s interesting, as I’m sure you know, even the villains have a bit of the author in them.
JL: Crushed Seraphim deals with spirituality. How have your own spiritual beliefs influenced your writing?
DA: I’m very spiritual. I believe in praying for people and think that the good energy that comes from prayers can help. I’m not tremendously religious now, though I did have 12 years of Catholic schooling. I think I’m trying to tell people a story with Crushed Seraphim about how strong we all are and how we can help each other. Especially women. I’ve found my gender to be just stunning examples of selfless love.
JL: Amen to that! Speaking of spirituality, you’ve endured tough times with hurricane winds causing a huge tree to fall on your house (Read Deb’s harrowing account HERE). How are your family and your home recovering?
DA: Hurricane Irene was kind of a game changer for my family. We are all safe and my pets are safe. I can’t ask for anything more. We were fortunate to have insurance, so although the process is lengthy, my home will be demolished and rebuilt. I do not look at this as any kind of tragedy because there are far worse things that happen to families everyday. I had tremendous support from Omnific and my friends online that has made a world of difference. We are very lucky.
JL: I’ve been hearing GREAT things about your next novel Poughkeepsie. And I haven’t read it yet, so it will be all new to me, yay! What’s the story about?
DA: I’m so excited for you to read it. I hope you like it. The story is about daring to love. I was reading a lot about rich, handsome heroes in love stories and I looked at my husband and thought, “Well he’s not rich.” (Sorry Honey!) and he’s still my hero. I’m crazy about him and we’re total partners. I wanted to write a story about a love that would last even if the hero couldn’t solve every problem with a blob of money, if all he had to offer was his heart. And I wanted a heroine that would appreciate that kindness. So, Blake’s homeless and Livia is smart enough to trust her heart. And of course, because we need a problem, so things go wrong for our lovebirds! Blake has two foster bothers, one a would-be priest and one a criminal. His love for his brothers and his new lady is challenged when they all face a dangerous, deadly night.
JL: Sounds so interesting. Thanks for the interview, Debra.
DA: Thanks for having me. It is such an honor to get to be on your blog. Your writing is fantastic. So glad we are Omnific sisters.
You need to read Crushed Seraphim, people! Find Debra and her novels here:
Debra’s website
Twitter: @Debra_Anastasia
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/debra.anastasia
Goodreads Author Page
Debra’s Blog
Crushed Seraphim Available at Omnific Publishing
Crushed Seraphim on Amazon
Time for the Omnific Blog Bounce. Visit Omnific Publishing’s blog for instructions.
I had the pleasure of reading an advance reader copy of Karen Gowan’s novel House of Diamonds (see my review HERE) and now I have the pleasure of interviewing Miss Karen!
Jennifer Lane (JL): Welcome to the blog, Karen! We met through author Susan Kaye Quinn and then I got to know you better on your excellent blog, especially for the Blog Barbecue you hosted last year. How did you come up with your blog title and design?
Karen Jones Gowen (KJG): Coming Down the Mountain came from the image of the writer being alone at the top of a mountain to write in solitude, and then needing to come down from the mountain to join humanity to promote the book. I originally named it: Coming Down the Mountain: From Reclusive Writer to Published Author. Recently I dropped that part and changed to A Writer’s Blog, because since I started blogging two years ago I haven’t been that reclusive! (And I never actually sat on a mountain top to write, but I can see them from my house in the valley.)
JL: Your blog is quite successful. What tips would you share with other authors who blog?
KJG: The first big thing I did was establish my platform, which is pretty well described above in naming the blog. This attracted other writers as we all tend to be a pretty reclusive, anxiety-ridden group of individuals. The second big thing is to get out and meet people! Follow blogs, and comment, and interact– don’t just start the blog, post and wait for people to find you. Unless you’re a big celebrity.Then the sit and wait approach might work.
JL: Please tell us about your journey to becoming a published author.
KJG: I was published years ago by selling stories to children’s magazines but had never written a novel. My first book, Farm Girl, came to the attention of an investor looking to start a publishing company. He wanted it for the first release, and he brought on members of my family who had edited and designed the book– William and Don Gowen– thus the name of the company, WiDo Publishing, which has since gone on to publish books by many different authors.
JL: You wrote Uncut Diamonds a while ago, and House of Diamonds follows the same characters years later. Would you consider this a series? How did you approach writing the second book?
KJG: I wrote Uncut Diamonds completely ignorant of my intended audience. Like I said, I was a recluse! When I wrote House of Diamonds, I had a much clearer view of my audience, and I wrote for them. I think the second one is a much better book for utilizing this approach. I don’t expect to write a third one because I get bored easily. What I’m working on now is a bit grittier and darker.
JL: What inspired you to write the Diamond books?
KJG: I wanted to try my hand at novel-writing and so I wrote what I know, which is family life. My own family, to be specific. They are both fictionalized, semi-autobiographical novels.
JL: Family life is obviously important to you. How do you juggle your family and writing? How do family members view your writing?
KJG: I have a really supportive family, especially now that my kids are grown and out of the house. They no longer mind that I’m cloistered in my writing room not fixing them dinner. I have supportive sisters as well, who have been very good sports about my fictionalizing them in these two novels.
JL: You and your husband are starting a company to help authors sell books. Where are you in that process?
KJG: Yay, I get to talk about Celery Tree! Celerytree.com is currently in the hands of the quality control guy, who is trying to hack the site. When he’s done, he’ll tell us where the weak points are so the programmer can fix them. After that, it will go out to the authors so they can review their book and author pages, and fill in anything that’s missing, and ask questions. That will be our soft launch. Once the authors have looked it over, it will go live and all of us will promote the heck out of it, because the concept is awesome and people are going to love it!
Thank you for visiting, Karen! I hope you and other authors join us today for the Meet an Author Monday Blog Hop. You can find instructions on Lisa Sanchez’s BLOG.
Fellow author Hannah Downing is turning 30! To wish her a happy birthday I wrote a guest post over on her BLOG exploring the consequences of aging. Please stop by and weigh in on the pros and cons of getting over the hill!
And it’s also time for the Omnific Blog Bounce. Authors and readers, join in! Read instructions HERE.
Book Three of The Conduct Series (On Best Behavior) is coming along nicely. I grabbed my laptop and accompanied my swimming friend Beth to Starbucks yesterday, and she made fun of all the expressive faces I make while I write. Embarrassing! Do other authors do that too? I’m trying to get inside the characters’ heads to feel their emotion, and I guess my face says it all.
To give you a little teaser I went to wurdle.net and entered the text of the manuscript to produce this beautiful word salad. Wurdle is a really cool site allowing you to see the most prevalent words you use as an author.
Obviously the romantic leads–Grant and Sophie–are my most used words. Being in love, their EYES are often ogling each other, touching hands or getting to “know” each other better.
If you look closely you’ll see the return of several secondary characters (Ben, Kirsten, Anthony “Tank”, Roger, and Lucas). On Best Behavior will also introduce some new characters like Andrick, Vladimir, and Ricker. Any guesses where these men were born, given their names?
It’s always exciting when I learn something new on the computer, and wurdle taught me how to “select all” on my word document then use the “screen capture” function and the “Paint” program. Kewl!
Now it’s time for Meet an Author Monday Blog Hop. Bop on over to Lisa Sanchez’s BLOG for instructions, and please join us!
Look familiar? Whether you’re addicted to Twitter, chocolate, or another compulsive behavior, we all have some sort of addiction plaguing us, like alcohol or other drug dependence, gambling, eating disorders, sex, etc. As a psychologist/author (psycho author),I find addictions positively fascinating, and love to write about them. An addiction can give your characters conflict and depth.
Authors, if you choose to torture your characters with addictions, how do you write those behaviors authentically? Readers, how do you explain why your favorite characters continue to engage in behaviors that clearly hurt them? I want to share one simple model of addiction to help answer these questions.
1. This model starts with feeling negative emotion, like anger, hurt, fear, stress, shame. We don’t like feeling this way so we try to change the feeling.
2. Sometimes we turn to addictive behaviors to change the feeling. For example, I’m feeling really anxious about people liking my novel so I start drinking.
3. Many drinks later I’m not worrying about much of anything. I’m comfortably numb. I feel temporary relief. It’s very reinforcing!
4. Alas, the relief is short-lived, because when I wake up tomorrow, the worry about people liking my novel is still there. I’ll probably have even more worry now because I also have a hangover and I’m late to work. I’m angry and disappointed with myself for getting drunk. I feel like a loser. I’m back to experiencing negative emotion.
And here we go again!
Sound plausible? One reason we get stuck in addictive behavior is that temporary relief we feel. We seek the high or the numbness which prevents us from feeling the pain momentarily.
How therapy can help break this cycle is by teaching more effective coping skills for dealing with negative emotion. When I worry about people liking my book I can practice “nonjudgmentally” by listing the facts instead of spewing judgments. Here are some facts about the situation:
1. I feel nervous about reception to my novel.
2. I don’t have control over how readers view my novel.
3. Writing the novel was very enjoyable to me.
4. I have dealt with anxiety before without getting drunk.
5. I feel better at work after a good night’s rest.
Recently I finished reading Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder. (See my review HERE). Muscle is an autobiography by Sam Fussell, who became addicted to bodybuilding, including countless hours at the gym, bizarre diets, and steroids. Sam disclosed how much he disliked himself. He was ashamed of his fear, and he hid behind a wall of muscle so others wouldn’t see who he really was. Every time he felt the pain of lifting enormous weights, he forgot about his fear and felt invincible. It was a perfect description of the cycle of addiction.
And now it’s time for the Author Author Blog Bounce! Go to the Omnific Publishing BLOG for instructions.
Thanks to all who entered the 500 follower giveaway! And the winners are . . .
Congratulations, ladies. You win your choice of With Good Behavior, Bad Behavior, or Summer Breeze.
If you didn’t win, there’s one day left on the giveaway at Megan’s BLOG.
I just finished reading the autobiography Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder, exploring the disturbing world of bodybuilding and steroids. It got me thinking about addictions and I’ll post soon about the cycle of addiction (alcohol and other drugs, gambling, hoarding, shopping, sex, eating disorders, body image disorders) to help authors portray addiction accurately in their stories.
A rainy day AND a Monday? Humph. Meet an Author Monday Blog Hop will have to brighten my spirits! Visit Lisa Sanchez’s blog for details of how to join.
As we pounce and flounce on Thursday’s Blog Bounce, it’s time to alert you to a few events:
*TWO chances to win my books! I’m giving away With Good Behavior or Bad Behavior at:
1) Scroll down to the next post for the 500 Follower Giveaway or click HERE
2) Visit Megan’s BLOG Reading Away the Days to enter. (Both giveaways end 9/20/11)
* Readers, have you ever penned a thoroughly detailed book review, taking your valuable time to write a careful and thoughtful analysis of plot and characters? If so, I love you! As an author, I would LOVE to receive a review like my friend Belinda Kroll received for her novel Haunting Miss Trentwood. Check it out HERE. Reviewer Lazaraspate from the Dear Author BLOG wrote a fantastic review that is every author’s dream, especially if that author wants to improve her writing.
And now time for the bounce! Head over to Omnific Publishing’s Blog to become part of the Blog Bounce.
I started this blog a little over a year ago, and it’s been such a fun ride chatting with readers and writers. To thank those who follow and comment, I’d like to host an international giveaway.
Old and new followers can enter the giveaway simply by leaving a comment with your email address.
Up for grabs is a print copy of your choice of three books I’ve authored or co-authored:
*With Good Behavior (The Conduct Series #1)
*Bad Behavior (The Conduct Series #2)
*Summer Lovin Anthology: Summer Breeze (including my YA short story Swim Recruit)
Check out my Goodreads author page to learn more about each title!
If this blog reaches 500 followers, I’ll add a second prize to the giveaway–an e-book of the winner’s choice of the same selection above. The giveaway ends Sunday, September 18th at midnight EST.
I’m writing book three of The Conduct Series (On Best Behavior) and am excited to announce Omnific accepted my first Young Adult novel, Against the Tide. Look for both in 2012!
Now it’s time for the Meet an Author Monday Blog Hop, hosted by author and friend Lisa Sanchez.
Jennifer Lane Books 