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emaginings: Indie Challenges and Rewards

November 17, 2013 by in category The Romance Journey by Linda Mclaughlin tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

This has been a year of challenges for me, since I started seriously indie publishing. I’ve learned it’s a lot harder to do everything myself, even though it has been rewarding. The one thing that has got me through it is the support and camaraderie from the romance community, including OCC.

Two of the challenges and rewards have involved group projects. Being part of the Romance Super Bundle brought me together with a group of wonderful indie authors: Amy Gamet, Dale Mayer, Donna Marie Rogers, Edie Ramer, Kate Kelly, Pamela Fryer, Lois Winston, Barbara Phinney and Wendy Ely. I’ve learned a lot about marketing and promotion from these ladies, including my first ever Facebook Launch Party.

Monday, Nov. 18, is the Facebook launch party for the other project. I was honored when Debra Holland invited me to be part of her second holiday anthology: Sweetwater Springs Christmas: A Montana Sky Short Story Anthology (Montana Sky Series) by Debra Holland and Friends, namely E. Ayers, Linda Carroll-Bradd, MJ Fredrick, Paty Jager, Jill Marie Landis, Trish Milburn, Linda McLaughlin, Bev Pettersen, Tori Scott, and Cynthia Woolf.

Writing my story, The Best Present, was both challenging and rewarding. It’s not easy to write in another author’s story world, plus I was unfamiliar with Montana in 1895 (or any other time.) Some research was required. (That was okay since I love research.)

For once, I shed my romance persona and wrote about a ten-year-old girl having the worst Christmas of her young life. I drew on some personal experiences, including my memories of my tenth Christmas, which took place two weeks after the death of my grandmother. Allison’s story has a different ending than mine did, but it’s the most personal work I’ve ever written, and it was an emotional experience. I was reminded of the old saw about opening a vein.

Sweetwater Springs Christmas: A Montana Sky Short Story Anthology releases Nov. 18 on Amazon but is available for pre-order now.

I hope some of you will join us on Monday to celebrate the release of the anthology at Facebook. It runs from 9AM to 6PM, Pacific time, and I will be there alone (gulp) from 10-11AM.

Happy Thanksgiving and happy writing!

Linda McLaughlin

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I GOT NOTHIN’

November 15, 2013 by in category Archives
nothing
It is now 5:00 P.M. on November 14 and I have not written my November 15 blog for A Slice of Orange.  I’ve been staring at my computer screen for two hours. Dinner isn’t started and probably won’t be.   I owe a thank you note to a friend but seem to have forgotten where I put the notecards and can’t find the energy to go searching.
Basically, I Got Nothin’.
While that does not technically describe my current state (I do have a cold) I feel like I have nothing to offer on any level: no words of writing wisdom, not mom intelligence, certainly not dinner.  Admitting that, I have to ask myself the following question: Is this a bad thing?  The answer is: Nope.  The reasons are as follows:

  1.   Admitting I got nothin’ is honest.  Honesty is always the best policy.
  2.  I Got Nothin’ is an admission that I have actually thought about the problems at hand (in my case a blog entry, the last ten pages of a 400 page book, dinner) and have come up short.  There is no shame in coming up short. The shame is in not trying.
  3. I Got Nothin’  is not an admission of defeat, it is a sigh of relief, a gentle begging off, a request to the universe to pass me by WITH the implied promise that soon I will rally and have something. The universe (and my hungry family) have faith that something will eventually appear.
With this new understanding, I threw in the towel, pulled up a couch pillow and cuddled with the remote control.  The day was gone before I knew it. My husband and children didn’t starve – in fact they seemed quite pleased to fend for themselves – my book looks better this morning than it did last night, and, while this blog entry is a little late, I can feel my nothing start to become something. Those quiet hours recharged me. I am now running at a nice idle. Idle, contrary to popular belief, is not doing nothin’.  Idle is the purr of a motor just before the engine fires up.
May your days be filled with something but if they aren’t plop on the couch, turn on the T.V., and admit you Got Nothin’. The universe can wait.

Happy Thanksgiving.
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For Veterans Day: A Soldier’s Italian Christmas by Jina Bacarr

November 11, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

UPDATE: A Soldier’s Italian Christmas is now for sale on Amazon.

On this Veterans Day, we honor those who have served in all wars. For that, we say thank you. As we approach the Christmas Holidays, I’ve often wondered what it was like during World War II for the boys so far from home. In A Soldier’s Italian Christmas, the first of the O’Casey Brothers in Arms series, we meet Captain Mack O’Casey, the oldest of four brothers from Brooklyn who join the fight.

It’s December 1943, one of the coldest winters on record, and the Allied advance to Rome is bogged down on a long stretch of road leading from Naples to the Eternal City.

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A Soldier’s Italian Christmas      

O’Casey Brothers in Arms 1 
 
Captain Mack O’Casey and his sergeant have been separated from their unit after intense fighting in Central Italy. They find their way to a small village hit by shelling. Everyone has gone, or so they think…
 
Excerpt from Chapter One:
 
Italy
December 1943
 
Mack edged closer to the door, taking his time, knowing a barrage of bullets could be waiting for them on the other side, cracking their skulls open with sharpshooter precision. Or deadly explosive traps that could blow their legs off. 

He nodded to his sergeant to cover him. His heart pounded in his ears. It never got easy staring the enemy in the eye, but it didn’t do any damn good to stand out here waiting to be picked off like wild turkeys. He kicked the door open and did a clean sweep of the courtyard when a cold chill stopped him.

He froze. Someone had a gun aimed at his back. His instinct never failed.  

“Don’t move,” said a low, sultry voice in Italian. “I know how to use this.”  

For chrissakes, a female. 

“We mean you no harm,” Mack said in English, hoping to gain her confidence. She couldn’t see him in the dark. “We’re Americans, not Germans.” 

“American?” Her voice changed. “Oh, thank God,” she said in English. 

Mack turned around slowly and saw a young woman holding a gun on him. She bent down and turned up the wick on the lantern on the ground next to her and light flooded the small courtyard. He didn’t breathe until he was certain she wouldn’t shoot him. Dark, beautiful eyes sucked the fatigue right out of him. Flashing with a wildness that surprised him, she never flinched. Looking him over with intense scrutiny, she waved the lantern up and down his body. Over his boots, his uniform, the silver bars on his shoulders, and then his face. Her eyes locked with his, her lips parted. Full lips that rendered her face with an exotic aura held him transfixed. The girl was a beauty. Creamy complexion with a straight nose tipped at a perfect angle, expressive dark brows crossed in thought. She clenched her jaw, but her gaze never wavered. An absolute show of power on her part. It was clear she was relieved to see him, but she didn’t fully trust him.  

“I thought this village was deserted,” he said, taking a moment to return her scrutiny. Dressed in a man’s dark pants and heavy jacket, he noticed mud clinging to her boots and the knees of her pants with a torn cuff. A navy blue beret fit snugly over her head, hiding her hair. Curly wisps of silky brown hair escaped onto her cheeks making him wish he could smooth them back with his fingers. Kiss her cheek. “My sergeant and I have been walking for miles since the Nazis big guns cut us off from the main road.”   

Satisfied he was telling the truth, she said, “We’ve been holed up here praying the Allies would come.”
 
As she spoke, half a dozen little boys came from out of nowhere and crowded around her. Mack smiled. Round, cherub faces, black unruly hair. They reminded him of his brothers back home in Brooklynwhen they were kids. The oldest boy couldn’t have been more than ten, the youngest about three. What surprised him was how clean their hands and faces were. Most children he’d seen in Naples since landing near Salerno were dirty and barefoot. 

A familiar itch up crawled his backside. First, the shining cross in the sky. Now a beautiful woman with a brood of scrappy angels. What holy place had he stumbled into?  

“Are you alone?” he asked, wondering where her husband was. Most likely fighting in the North. Ever since the devastating Allied losses in Bari, most partisans had fled into the hills. By the looks of the destruction, the village had been under attack for weeks. 

“No, Sister Benedetto and I stayed behind to care for the children when the town was evacuated.” 

“You’re in danger. The Germans have fortified this whole area with armed defense. Barbed wire and mines.” 

“We are never truly alone, Captain. We have God to protect us.” 

“And now the U.S.Fifth Army, Signorina.” 

She lowered her chin, but her eyes looked directly at him. “I am called Sister Angelina.”
 
======================
 
A Soldier’s Italian Christmas (O’Casey Brothers in Arms 1) is the story of a soldier and a nun who discover forbidden love in war torn Italy during the winter of 1943.

It is a sweet romance 35,000+ word novella and is now available as an e-book on Amazon…


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If your Christmas reading is on the spicier side (as in erotic), check out A Naughty Christmas Carol about a modern day Scrooge named Nick Radnor. A New York Wall Street hottie who has it all…except the woman he loves.


Can three sexy female ghosts save his soul on this naughty Christmas Eve?

Find out in A Naughty Christmas Carol.

Happy Veterans Day!
Jina

www.jinabacarr.com  
www.facebook.com/JinaBacarr.author
https://twitter.com/JinaBacarr
http://www.pinterest.com/jbacarr/

 

Cover Design for A Soldier’s Italian Christmas and A Naughty Christmas Carol by Ramona Lockwood
www.coversbyramona.blogspot.com
http://www.romancenovelcovers.com/
 
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Book Review: Strait of Hormuz by Davis Bunn

November 10, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as , , , ,

Strait of HormuzIt is with great pleasure that I participate this week in Davis Bunn’s blog tour for his newest book, Strait of Hormuz! I’ve been looking forward to reading this third installment in the Marc Royce thriller series because I loved Lion of Babylon (which is free on Amazon this month!) and Rare Earth, the first two books.
Marc Royce is a former CIA operative who still does “odd jobs” for his old boss, Ambassador Walton. He has been in dangerous situations all over the world, and he’s incredibly good at his job. But things are changing in his personal life, and just maybe he wants to live long enough to make some big decisions.
While struggling to find out where the new threat to America is coming from, sometimes at odds with his own government, Marc meets a really interesting array of people – a Swiss operative and a Swiss police inspector, a Persian art dealer, a knighted English art collector, and many more, as well as several people he’s worked with in the past. (I love it when you see characters appear in multiple books. It feels like you get to know them better.)
I loved all the action from the very first page. It gets off to a quicker start than the first book, which I almost didn’t read because I was bored by the political talk at the beginning. In Strait of Hormuz, I was hooked immediately and soo glad I’d set aside an uninterrupted afternoon to read. It was so fun to try to figure out what was happening as Marc and his cohorts were trying to do the same.
Without giving anything away, I was also really glad when Marc and one of the other characters finally sat down and decided to pray about what to do, and to pray for each other instead of just for the impossible thing they wanted. It seemed like they finally had a minute to put their faith in action in their relationship. Granted, there was an awful lot of trying not to get killed going on – LOL! – so I was okay that it took them awhile to finally sit down together.
I really enjoyed Strait of Hormuz, but not quite as much as the first two books. For one thing, this was the first of the three where twice I stopped and re-read what was happening. I wasn’t sure how we just went from point N to point P, so I just shrugged and made a mental leap and kept on going. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t confusing so much as it felt like I missed part of an explanation of what was happening.
Also, this was the first of the three books where the fact that Marc kept running into people with a Christian faith and/or background seemed less believable as the book went along. This element was one of the things I liked most about the first book, Lion of Babylon – that Marc found a few Christians who understood him and helped him in places you wouldn’t expect. It seemed real and natural in the first two books, but this time…I don’t know.
StraitofHormuzSweepstakesGraphicforLaunchTeamOther than those small things, I had a great time reading this book. Davis is so good at weaving action and thrills through a story, keeping you guessing the whole way! If you want to read the first three chapters for free, click here and “Like” his Facebook page, and you’ll see the beginning of the book there for you to read. Trust me, you won’t want to stop!
4 stars, Really Liked It
Help Davis Bunn celebrate the publication of “Strait of Hormuz.” Enter to win His & Hers Luxury Swiss Watches or a $150 Amazon Gift Card! You can enter once per email address per day. Rack up bonus entries by sharing the contest with your Facebook and Twitter friends!




I received a complimentary copy of Strait of Hormuz from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for my honest review.

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, came out in 2011. Her new novel, Unexpected Superhero, book one in The Adventures of Lewis & Clarke humorous urban fantasy series, is now available in print and ebook format. Love at the Fluff and Fold, book one in The Strays of Loon Lake romantic comedy series, will be released later this year. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.

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RWA National 2014?

November 6, 2013 by in category Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston, Writing Conferences tagged as , ,
It’s been about a week now since I submitted a proposal for a panel for RWA National’s 2014 Conference in San Antonio, Texas.  Will it be accepted?  I certainly hope so.
 
The proposed topic?  It involves writing concurrently in multiple genres or subgenres. 
 
The fellow panelists I proposed include a delightful and successful agent (my agent!) plus a RITA finalist and a bestselling author.  Their credentials exceed mine–but then again, I’ve had a lot of books published so far, with more to come.  And recently I have found myself juggling them a lot among multiple genres.
 
So, my fingers are crossed that our panel is accepted.  Will I attend the 2014 conference if our panel isn’t accepted?  I hope to!
 
I realize I’m posting this when it’s now too late for you to come up with an idea and propose it.  Sorry!  The deadline was November 1, five days ago–and that’s why this is still on my mind.
 
How about you–are you attending the RWA National 2014 Conference?  Did you submit a panel proposal?

Linda O. Johnston
http://www.lindaojohnston.com/
http://www.killerhobbies.blogspot.com/
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