Thrills and Chills Book Signing

Are you going to be in the Coeur d'Alene area this Saturday, October 25? If so, be sure to drop by Hastings between 1:00 and 4:00 p.m. for the Thrills and Chills Book Signing!

I'll be there, along with four other local authors: Brooklyn Ann, Shelley Martin, Bonnie R. Paulson and Frank Zafiro.

I can't think of a better way to warm up for Halloween, or a better opportunity to meet some very interesting authors and pick up a few new reads! Think: vampires, gargoyles, serial killers, zombies, fey and plenty more! Plus, there will be plenty of swag and prizes up for grabs.

This is my first multi-author book signing, and it promises to be a real party. Come say hi!

Meet My Character Blog Tour!

Welcome to my stop on the Meet My Character Blog Tour! Here's how it works:

"This tour highlights a main character from your WIP (work in progress), recently published work, or soon to be published work. The person who invites you will have a set day to post. You will post one (or two) weeks after that, the authors you tag will post one/two week(s) after you, and so on."

Sounds like fun, right? I thought so, too. I was tagged by the inimitable Ren Cummins. Here's his bio, as posted on his site:

I write. I’m a writer, perhaps much the way my act of breathing makes me a breather. Wait, that’s a poor example.

I began with sketching, but my love of music and math turned me into a musician, and from there prose and poetry fashioned me into a writer. My first series, the young adult (steampunk) fantasy series “CHRONICLES OF AESIRIUM” about a young girl who becomes an angel of death, marked my work as a light hearted and optimistic look into death and darkness, but I’m sure that’s just the lip of the rabbit hole. 

I also helped found Talaria Press, a loosely affiliated gang of misfits whose work can be found at www.talariapress.com – come join the parade, there’s space enough for all. 

Also, feel free to follow me on Facebook and Twitter!

And here are my answers!

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historical person?
The main character of my WIP (Book 3 in the Flicker series) is Lee Capren.

2) When and where is the story set?
The story is set in present-day Washington State. I took creative license with some of the locations, such as Siren Island, a fictional island in the otherwise-real San Juans, where mermaids swim in the coves and curses occasionally befall the residents. But you’ll also find a number of real Washington locales, including Deception Pass and the Seattle Underground.

3) What should we know about him/her?
Lee’s a pretty ordinary girl, right up until she’s spirited away by faeries to serve as a portrait artist. Now she’s a girl with a little magic and a lot of determination.

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?
Lee’s a pretty ordinary girl, right up until she’s spirited away by faeries to serve as a portrait artist. When she finally escapes (with the help of Nasser, a boy whose magic has always been more of a curse than a gift), she discovers that what felt like a few nights in Faerie spanned years in the human world, and her entire life has crumbled away. Lee soon finds herself living above a shop that caters to the city’s beguiling magical crowd and struggling to cope with her new life, all while dodging the denizens of Faerie who will do anything to get her back.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?
At this point in her life, Lee would settle for living peacefully—no evil faeries, no curses, no brushes with death. She’s coming to terms with all the magic and weirdness that have become part of her life. The constant threats her and the safety of her friends that come with it? Not so much.

6) Is there a working title for this novel if it is a WIP, and can we read more about it? Or: What is the title of this novel and where can it be found?
The title of this novel is Lights. The first two installments in the series, Flicker and Brightly, are available now, as both ebooks and paperbacks—and Flicker is free to download on Amazon, Kobo and Smashwords!

7) If a WIP, when can we expect the book to be published?

I hope to publish Lights in late 2014 or early 2015. Check back on my blog or my Facebook page for updates on the book’s progress!

Now, I've been challenged to tag a few more authors. I've picked two of my favorite dynamic duos. First up: Allana Kephart & Melissa Simmons, authors of the Dolan Prophecies.

Allana Kephart has been making things up and bending people to her will from a very young age. She loves animals and reading and spends a large amount of time thinking up ways to torment her characters. 

Melissa Simmons is an avid reader who married her soul mate and is the proud mother of a spoiled cat. She spends her days helping promote independent authors and doing what the voices in her head tell her to. 

They share a love of coffee and the color purple, as well as a brain.

My second tag is Frog and Esther Jones, the minds behind the Gift of Grace series: 

Frog was born at a very young age in a small town in Eastern Washington, where he still managed to grow up nerdy despite all social pressure to the contrary.  Oh, sure; he bucked hay and rode truck with the good ol' boys, but he also played a fair amount of D&D when he could.  An Eagle Scout and a jazz saxophone amateur, Frog came out of his childhood a little twisted, just perfect for an artist. 

At Eastern Washington University, whilst wearing a fedora and a trench coat and carrying a cane, he met Esther, fell in love, and graduated with a couple of worthless degrees.  Frog then went on to the grand University of Idaho Law School, wherein he passed with honors.   

Frog now practices in Washington, and writes from his home in the Olympic Peninsula. He has hand-constructed a Roman onager, which sits in his garage.   

Because it is Frog drafting this website, Esther is the most wonderful lady to have lived ever.  Of all time.  Born and raised in Renton, Washington, Esther began her stay at Eastern Washington University aiming for a degree in creative writing.  She missed, and ended up with a degree in technical writing instead. 

Almost a decade later, Esther once again began writing creatively.  In order to prove to herself that she could still write a short story, she set herself a goal of entering the SpoCon League of Extraordinary Writer's competition.  To do so, Esther consulted with Frog, and began generating the world that would eventually envelop The Gift of Grace trilogy.  The short story produced as a result not only entered, but won that competition. 

Following that, Esther has collaborated with Frog on The Gift of Grace, as well as more short stories.  Her interest in writing has driven the team of Frog and Esther to heights that neither could have reached alone.

Self-Publishing 101: Part 3

Read Part 1 in this series: Should You Self-Publish?
Read Part 2 in this series: Self-Publishing Supplies

It's time for our third lesson! This week is all about book covers.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of a professional, eye-catching cover. If your cover is ugly, cheap-looking or amateurish, that alone will kill your book.

I’m not exaggerating. You might’ve written the greatest book in all of human history—but if the cover is bad, nobody will read it, and all your hard work will mean nothing.

This week, I’m going to show you how to keep your book off of Lousy Book Covers.

Self-Publishing 101: Part 2

Read Part 1 in this series: Should You Self-Publish?

Welcome to our second lesson! This week, we’re going to discuss how to prepare your book for publication.

Self-Publishing 101: Part 1

Today, I'm kicking off a new weekly series, in which I break down the self-publishing process, one chunk at a time. Welcome to our first lesson! This week is all about determining if the indie route is best for you, and if you've got what it takes to make it work.

Should You Self-Publish?

Naturally, the first step in your journey is to decide if self-publishing is really the right option for you.

Self-publishing is ideal for smaller, more personal projects: For instance, if you’re writing a family history or a memoir to share with your family, then you’d be best served by self-publishing that bad boy and producing enough copies to go around. A project like that just isn’t suited for traditional publishing, or even a small press—but if your dreams are a little bigger, you should weigh all your options. Let’s explore those options together.

SpoCon 2014

I sat down to write a post summarizing my weekend at SpoCon 2014, and quickly realized that we would all be better served by a photo round-up instead. Check out all the cool cats I got to hang out with:

These two lovely ladies having name placards, making my job much easier. Bonnie and Shelley are both author, and I was lucky enough to speak on panels with both of them. They're also fellow Idahoans--which, let me tell you, is a surprisingly rare thing to find at SpoCon! Spokane is just across the border from Idaho, so you'd think it would be crawling with Idahoans, but that's just not the case.

Also, in the background, you can see the charming Jessica Rising (center, wearing a cute hat), who writes some really cool middle-grade novels. (I took a photo of her individually, but, ah, my photography skills are really lacking, and it turned out all blurry, and I'm way too embarrassed to post it. But I wanted to point her out, because she's fantastic.)

Okay, let me talk about these two for a minute: Frog and Esther Jones. I met Esther at my very first SpoCon, before either of us had published any books. We were both finalists in the SpoCon writing contest, and we met at a sort of early-morning breakfast event. Naturally, I adored her. There's not a living person who doesn't adore Esther Jones, because she's actually perfect.

The next year, I met her husband, Frog. (No, his parents were not so cruel as to actually name him Frog, but that's what everyone calls him.) Frog and I are basically the same person. He's a riot, by the way, and I never have more fun at SpoCon than when I'm on a panel with him.

Anyway, Frog and Esther are co-authors of the Gift of Grace series, an urban fantasy series that I highly recommend. The first two installments, Grace Under Fire and Coup de Grace, are out now. They also run the Friday Indie Review, where they--you guessed it--review indie books.

(It's so funny when I think about it: When Esther and I met, we were both unpublished writers hoping to have Real Live Books out there someday--and here we are, both with two novels out! It's wild.)

And speaking of people I met at my first SpoCon.... The beautiful blue lady to my left in this photo is Natalie Rogers, who Esther and I also met at that fateful breakfast event. She wrote a really, really rad short story, so it's no wonder why she was a finalist in the contest. Esther and I are still bugging her to publish a book already! (On a side-note: At least once per SpoCon, I run into Natalie while she's in cosplay, and I am completely unable to recognize her. She's that good.)

This is Sam Knight. I met him at RadCon earlier this year, and let me tell you, it's been a wild ride ever since. He came all the way from Colorado, which seems like a lot of effort to me. (I like my conventions conveniently located. Like, no more than one state away.) I got to listen to more his pearls of wisdom on our Self-Publishing 101 panels, and the two of us palled around outside a bathroom afterward. That's how we roll.

Look at this little moonbeam. Her name is Aascot, and we've been Facebook friends for some time. But we didn't meet in person until last weekend, when we met up at SpoCon! I could not have prepared for how cute and tiny she turned out to be. There's something really special about meeting Internet friends--in particular, that moment when you finally get to hear their voice!

Well, that just about sums it up. I'm already getting excited for next year!

My SpoCon Schedule

Just a few days until SpoCon 2014! It's shaping up to be another great con. Here's where you'll be able to find me this weekend:

Friday:
Building Dynamic Supporting Characters - 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Middle Grade Vs. Young Adult - 2:00-3:00 p.m.

Saturday:
Character Motives and Psyche - 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Self-Publishing 101 - 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Sex, Violence and the Modern Young Adult Story - 8:00-9:00 p.m.

Sunday:
Reading - 10:30-11:00 a.m.
Diversity in Science Fiction and Fantasy - 11:00-12:00 p.m.

Don't forget that there will be a giveaway at my reading on Sunday! (Now all I have to do is choose which passages to read. That's always the most stressful part of convention prep for me!)