Alison Kent's Blah Blog

(A couple of contests/giveaways are ending today. Details here.)

Thirteen Things About My New Website

Yes, it’s true. After almost ten months of having the design, I finally have the content loaded and the pages ready to go up. That doesn’t mean the site is finished. There will be more that I’ll add as I find time, but the important, basic stuff is there. And mostly? It’s all about the books because, well, that’s why you’re here, right? (Speaking of books, don’t forget to stock up on BEYOND A SHADOW, shipping now from Amazon and B&N.) Now, don’t expect the new site to be live at midnight as I have a lot of client web work to do for the first of the month, but it will be up sometime during the day on Friday, or by Friday evening for sure.

1. Every single book/novella/essay I’ve written has a page with the cover, the back copy, and an excerpt. Every single one. Let me just say, that was WAY too much work, heh.

2. I didn’t put up any reviews or kudos or awards or nominations, etc; do you want me to add them? Do they matter? Are they interesting even if you don’t read them as a rule?

3. I didn’t put up any foreign covers; this I do plan to do, but need to dig through all the copies I have and do some major scanning for the ones I can’t find online.

4. I didn’t put up any “behind the scenes” info. I have a little bit of that on some of my book pages now, what inspired me, where I got the idea, etc. I thought about transferring over some of that as I can, if anyone cares?

5. I didn’t put up any of my character pictures.

I know. By now you’re thinking, then what DID you put up?!?!?! But after the blog surveys I took about what you wanted to see, and so many saying you didn’t care about extraneous info, I wasn’t sure the extra effort was worth it. Let me know if it is! And then sign up for my newsletter so you’ll get word on any updates I do after the launch on Friday!

6. In addition to the individual book pages, I put up pages grouping the books by series and by imprint. That way, if you’re a Blaze reader, you can find all those books. If you only want Bravas, you’ll know where to find that list.

7. The bookshelf will have the most up-to-date release information that I know. Always. Even if I have to change it later, heh.

8. If you’ve ever read my long and rambling bio on this site? It’s about a quarter that length now.

9. The site won’t have a dedicated contest page, though I will run the occasional contest on the news page and will ALWAYS announce that in the Access Romance newsletter (so be sure you’re signed up)! Most of my giveaways will still be on the blog, cuz I like the impromptu thing.

10. The news page will have all the latest on any sales, appearances (ha!), etc. It will also have a short monthly message from me about anything I anticipate doing during the month on the blog or site, etc.

11. Though the site is primarily black, the text will be black on a near white so it will be readable. And the text on the blog will be larger than what it is now. Will that help?

12. The design is built to accomodate all monitor resolutions (though it is wider than this one), so if you have a 1280 x 800 screen, which means you’ll have a section of blank space on the right. And it’s not a centered design, so deal. *g*

13. While Bekke is the genius behind the entire design, I had a great time finding new pictures to put on the menu side of the pages. We’d started out with only about five, but there were so many I wanted to include that I went wild.

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

My good friend Jo Leigh has to be able to hear her characters before she can start writing their story. Not hear, as in she needs them to tell her their goals, their dreams, etc., but hear, as in the sound of their voices. The cadence of their speech. The tone. The pitch. The accent. All of that.

An author who once belonged to my local RWA chapter said she has to have a title for a book before she can start it. That would never work for me because I’m very title impaired. I’m only responsible for maybe 50% – 60% of my book titles. That’s a guess; I’d have to actually count, and am too lazy. *g* I’ll often brainstorm them with my editors, or offer a list of several when I can’t settle on one. In some cases, my editors have come up with what works, and I’ve had nothing to do with it!

With my first three gIRL-gEAR books, ALL TIED UP was obvious because of the first encounter with Leo and Macy. My editor wanted to continue the theme, so threw out NO STRINGS ATTACHED for Chloe and Eric’s story. When I gave her BOUND TO HAPPEN for the third, she wavered, saying she wasn’t used to accepting titles without futzing with them, ha, but ended up agreeing that it worked, and we went with it.

The one thing I have to do before starting a book is name my characters and find pictures to use for visual aids. I’m very visual with my writing. This is one reason I often spend a lot of time with descriptions, and get frustrated reading books where I can’t see the locations where the action occurs. I know many readers like to visualize their own version of the setting the author has painted, but I want to see what he or she had in mind when writing. Just the way I am about that. And that’s why I put up a picture board along with my plotting board. I like to include setting pics as well as character pics, but the character part is non-negotiable.

I mentioned the other day that i was having some problems with my pictures of Simon Baptiste. I use pictures from online modeling portfolios, and can do so because it’s all for my own benefit. I’m not reproducing the images on any product or whatever to violate copyright. That said, my Simon issue came up because I was looking low for a representative photo on the site where I license images for web work. I have a promo item planned for my SG-5 guys, and have found pics to license for everyone but Simon. I gave up for now, though will revisit it for the promo items, and went back to my original – a model I found at SMG Models.

Being set with Simon, I needed to move on to my heroine. My editor asked me for a brief blurb on the book a month or so ago, so I had to come up with the heroine’s name on the fly. The only thing I knew about the book at that point was that I was going to set it in the Louisiana bayou. My tribute to several of the romances that hooked me on the genre. SLOW HEAT IN HEAVEN. LUCKY’S LADY. CRY WOLF. Those of you who’ve read DEEP BREATH and BEYOND A SHADOW know that Simon is Cajun, and such a setting is home for him – meaning, I needed a fish out of water for my heroine. Enter Michelina “Micky” Ferrer.

I’ve used a lot of my co-worker’s names in my books. Mixing the first name of one with the last name of another. They get a kick out of it. Recently, one of them asked when I was going to put her in another book. I needed a heroine, and this co-worker had recently lost her 15 year old miniature Schnauzer – Micky. I thought, okay. Micky as a nickname works, but then I decided to make her Italian, and a bit of an urban princess, out of her element in the bayou, and all that. Her and Simon together? Can’t WAIT to write them. In fact, in the review for BEYOND A SHADOW going up at Romance Reviews Today, the reviewer says:

SG-5 agent Simon Baptiste makes an appearance. Whoo wee! That man is as sinfully sexy as Ezra, and just as dangerous.

I’m not supposed to be writing yet, as my brain is still on break, but I do know exactly what I’m doing with the first three chapters. Lots of characters and small town political chicanery. Oh, and Lisa Weston was the winner of my Hero contest from awhile back, voting for Simon’s story to be written next. Lisa will be one of Micky’s sorority sisters, married to one of the major players in the town – and missing.

Anyhow, here are the pics I’m using for Simon and Michelina . . . and I can’t wait to figure out – or find out – what this book’s title will be!

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First up, the important things. BEYOND A SHADOW is now shipping from Amazon and B&N. Go forth and buy. Many copies, as HelenKay says. One can never have too many copies of Ezra Moore. Impossible. One in each room and each car would be good. That way you could pick it up and read it no matter where you are! (Makes a great stocking stuffer, too!)

I found something that I’m going to be doing after the first of the year as part of my recharging the writing batteries. After thirteen years of being published, it’s time. If you read here often, you’ll have seen me talk about Barbara Samuel’s NINK (Novelists, Inc.) column, “The Care and Feeding of the Girls in the Basement.” Great, great stuff. Well, Barbara is doing a 12-week workshop beginning in January called, aptly enough, The Care and Feeding of the Girls in the Basement. Barbara says:

There are a great many how-to-write courses and many great teachers of how to write a novel. This is not one of them. The Care and Feeding of the Girls in the Basement is meant to help inspire and encourage you, to help you learn (or remember) how to nurture your creative spirit. It’s a chance to renew your joy, tap into the original delight you once felt for writing, and start the year with a powerful commitment to yourself and your writing. We’ll draw from several texts, including The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron; Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarrissa Pinkola Estes, and Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, among others.

Okay, now it’s question time. Got any?

Oh, just found the Japanese cover for THE BEACH ALIBI – after the jump.
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Working on the highway laying down the blacktop
Working on the highway all day long I don’t stop
Working on the highway blasting through the bedrock
Working on the highway, working on the highway
~ Bruce Springsteen

When I’m heavy-duty into writing and find something I want to blog about, I grab the links, stick them in a post, give it a title, and save it as a draft. When I go back, I often change the title to something more appropriate and cutesy, but this one I think will stick. Because that’s what I want to talk about. Writing with a day job.

In a post dated September 12th (yeah, you see how long I save things?), Tamara Siler Jones talks about “workin’ in the coal mine.” (Note the theme here? *g*) Go read the whole post because there are too many choice tidbits for me to cut and paste here. But she does say:

First – and this is just my experience so please don’t email me telling me I’m full of shit – try to avoid a job that’s primarily working with words. I believe that creativity is like a muscle. Use it or lose it. And there are a variety of different types, some possibly connected. Visual creativity – like painting; Auditory creativity – like music; Muscular-skeletal creativity – like a gifted athlete; and so on and so forth. Lots of different kinds of creativity. If you keep using the same creative muscle over and over and over at your job, my personal experience indicates that doing the same type of activity is probably not gonna happen in your spare time.

Anyone who’s been reading here long, knows that I went to work on May 1, 1989 at the same company that laid me off on January 31, 2004. In the fall of 2003, our department manager knew that lay-offs were inevitable. Since she knew how much I wanted to write full time, my boss asked me if I wanted to go. I jumped at the chance. Scared to death about it. Jumped anyway. I’d signed with Brava, was working steadily with Blaze, had a decent backlist paying royalties (though royalties are gravy – advances are the meat) and after 15 years, a great severance coming. In her post On Being A Starving Artist, agent Rachel Vater says:

It’s definitely not easy on the finances to switch over to a career as an author. Somewhere in a busy schedule, writers must find the time to write that first novel… or second or third or fourth… that will get their career started. Then it’s a common writer’s dream to get their big break so they can become full-time writers, ditch their jobs, and stay home instead of juggling a writing career with another career. Life would be easier for everyone if we all had giant trust funds or a wealthy partner or patron who would fund us as we explored career options and got our businesses off the ground. In real life though, this is rarely the case.

I remember my first day home. Daughter #2 was home that day, off from work and from classes, and for lunch she cooked chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, fried okra, and we watched Rabbit Proof Fence. Yes, I remember all of that. I also remember that I was writing THE BANE AFFAIR and it was overdue and it needed to go in – which it did on Februrary 22. Yes, I remember all of that, too. (This is one reason my ex-boss loved having me around. She could blurt out an account discrepancy, and I knew what it was, no matter how old.)

Thing was, I was behind on Bane because of something writing related that had happened the year before while I was writing INDISCREET. It was over and done with – but it wasn’t. It carried on, making me late with Bane. Which put me behind getting started with Shaughnessey, and Samms, and Beach, and McKenzie. I had planned out my deadlines so carefully, never anticipating that spring of 2003 event that would throw me off course. So, here I was, all the time in the world, yet scrambling to catch up. Something was not right in my full-time writing world.

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Sorry – Forgot to do this last night, ack!

Infatuation – damselfly
Infatuation – Kat
Deep Breath – Mikaela
Deep Breath – Emma
Deep Breath – Sue A
Beyond A Shadow ARC – Valentina
Beyond A Shadow ARC – Maude

All of you please send me your mailing addresses! And congratulations!

Oh, and BTW? BEYOND A SHADOW is shipping now from B&N!

I’m not posting today (yet, anyway) because my WordPress software is being updated and I don’t want to lose anything in the transition, and because I spent all day Sunday on other web work and quite frankly, had little brain left to compose my Monday post. If things are looking peachy when I get up, I’ll post then. But since I’m doing this bit on my way to bed Sunday night, well, this could be what you get stuck with. I will report that I am halfway through reading THE MEPHISTO CLUB, and loving it, as if there was ever any doubt. And though I posted the 13 books I want to read next, I forgot I’m behind one Lisa Gardner, and it’s almost time for the next, so I may slip that one into the pile!

For the One-Year RWA Membership: Click Here – Deadline to enter, November 30th, Midnight CST

For the International Giveaway: Click Here – Deadline to post, November 26th, 8:00 p.m.ish CST

For the Holiday Gift Giveaway: Click Here – Deadline to post, November 30th, 8:00 p.m.ish CST

For the Beyond A Shadow Winners: Click Here – Deadline to claim prize, November 30th, 8:00 p.m.ish CST

For the chance to win one of 5 B&N $10 gift cards: Click Here for Details

Next week I’ll get back to more informative or interactive posts. I decided since this was a holiday week in the States, and I was trying to enjoy holidaying, that I would just put up a few quickies and giveaways for now.

Monday’s post may be interesting to a lot of you who don’t know what besides writing I’ve been doing the last three months. Tuesday will be for questions, and then I’m thinking I may talk about my next Brava to write on Wednesday. I’ll be easing into that one here before too long. Easing. Eeeeeeeaaassssing. *g*

I spent some time on Thursday (we had our big family meal on Friday – that’s Snickers and my son and d-i-l’s dog, Takumi, on the trampoline where they wrestled all afternoon) looking for the character pictures I need, and realized that all the pics I had for Simon Baptiste weren’t him at all. Back to the drawing board on that, though I did find Michelina “Micky” Ferrer’s picture right away. Interesting how that works!

This weekend’s WEEKEND WINNINGS giveaway is a 4-pack of novellas. Actually, three 4-packs, and I won’t be drawing these winners until the 30th. Usually WEEKEND WINNINGS will be immediate giveaways, but I’ll get into the routine next week as mentioned above.

Now, the 4-packs are the 4 Smithson novellas: THE SHAUGHNESSEY ACCORD, THE SAMMS AGENDA, THE BEACH ALIBI, THE MCKENZIE ARTIFACT. And here’s what I want to do.

These 4-packs will be holiday gifts for you to give to a friend, relative, co-worker . . . whoever you want! If you’d like a 4-pack to give to someone, post here and give me just the person’s first name and your relationship. Such as, “I want to give a 4-pack to my co-worker, Julie.” Something like that; doesn’t have to be exact.

The gifts can go anywhere. I’ll autograph the books, wrap them up (though I’ll forgo a bow since bows get mooshed in shipping), and add a card from you. All those details we’ll work out later. Like I said, I’ll choose and post the winners around 8:00 p.m.ish on the 30th, so check back then to see if you’ve won.

Friday is pop culture day, so today is about books. My books. Specifically, the remaining books never claimed during this giveaway. Remember – You have to contact me by the date in my contest posts to win!

I have available today the following:
Infatuation – 1
Infatuation – 1
Beyond A Shadow ARC – 1
Beyond A Shadow ARC – 1
Deep Breath – 1
Deep Breath – 1
Deep Breath – 1
(the last three are what I’m offering for the unclaimed “any books available”)

I’m going to give these away to 7 of my blog’s international readers, as in, not in the States! < --PLEASE NOTE! Post here the title of the book you would like, and I’ll pick winners on Sunday, the 26th, at 8:00 p.m.ish central time.

Thirteen Authors I Am Most Thankful To For Inspiring Me To Write

I was going to do a blog on Thanksgiving foods (PIE!) or all the people in my life I’m thankful for, but since I’m on a reading binge, I decided to keep to the book theme and thank the following authors for inspiring me to write.

I’m not one of those storytellers who’s been writing for ever. I didn’t even think about writing until I was 30 years old. These authors had a whole lot to do with me putting pen to paper.

I’ve also listed my favorite book(s) by each. (Have I ever mentioned that LaVyrle Spencer sang Janis Ian’s “Jesse” to me at my first writer’s conference?) In no particular order:

1. Sandra Canfield – A Tender Silence
2. Dee Holmes – Black Horse Island
3. Theresa Weir – Amazon Lily / Iguana Bay
4. LaVyrle Spencer – Morning Glory / Bittersweet
5. Tami Hoag – Dark Paradise / Cry Wolf / Lucky’s Lady
6. Lisa G. Brown – Billy Bob Walker Got Married / Sleeping at the Magnolia / Crazy For Lovin’ You
6a. Dana Warren Smith (LGB pseudonym) – High Stakes
7. Barbara Delinsky – A Woman Betrayed
8. Elizabeth Lowell – Love Song For A Raven / Too Hot To Handle / Valley Of The Sun
8a. Ann Maxwell – The Fire Dancer Series
9. Sandra Brown (Erin St. Claire/Rachel Ryan) – Slow Heat In Heaven / Two Alone / Honor Bound
10. Linda Howard – Diamond Bay / Midnight Rainbow / White Lies / Heartbreaker
11. Laura Kinsale – Seize The Fire
12. Penelope Williamson – Heart of the West
13. Nikki Benjamin – Emily’s House

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!