Friday Nibble

Okay, so here's the snippet of the week, from Chapter One:

Compared to the noise of the street, the dark hush of the store was almost unsettling. The faint smell of old books, leather and silver polish tickled her nose. Wandering over to a set of marble bookends, she brushed her fingers over their cool surface. This place is deserted – maybe it’s closed after all, she reflected uneasily.

As the thought lingered in her mind, she noticed to her relief a spot of bright light coming from the back of the store. She moved towards it, passing by a row of tall wooden shelves holding hundreds of leather clad volumes. Eva took a couple off the shelf and flipped through them, then stopped to admire a case of vintage costume jewelry, arrayed like exotic birds and flowers captured in a terrarium. The low light made the colors look rich and deep, swimmable depths of sapphire, topaz and ruby.

Happy Friday!!!

Daydreaming

So, writing friends, I thought I'd periodically have a daydream topic for us to all imagine we are famous writers and have awesome literary careers.  For this first foray into dreamland, I pose the following question: describe your book release party, in full grandiose/funky/artsy detail (pretend there's no budget).

Here goes mine.  So, first, I hire the Ace of Cakes to make some kind of super amazing and stupendous cake because A) they rock and B) it would be awesome to have my book talked about on TV.  Did anyone ever see the fabulous cake they made for the Ghost Girl book?  It was ridiculous. 

My book is about a witch, so I would have a very dark theme going on.  Black tablecloths and centerpieces with dark or dark purplish flowers.  Maybe a raven and moon motif... something sparkly to represent magic.  Of course wine and martinis.  And I'd tie the whole thing together as a charity fundraiser, maybe supporting the environment or troubled teen girls.  Live music, classical, as a nod to my MC.  But then after lots of wine something more upbeat.  I had the brilliant idea of having shirtless men passing hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, to represent the sexy shapeshifters in my book, but my husband just rolled his eyes. 

So, do tell - what's your ultimate book release party fantasy?  I can't wait to hear all the juicy details!

Halloween, pumpkins, football - oh, and rejection

So, this weekend I got the quickest rejection thus far... this chic had some super powered form rejection skills.  I submitted a query late Friday night and when I got up Saturday morning, already turned down.  Now, granted, this agency only asked for a query letter and no sample pages, so she didn't have a lot to read.  But impressive for a Friday night.  Maybe they've created a robot that can automatically respond to queries... AI for agents.  He he he...

On a more happy note, Halloween is coming up. Don't you just love Halloween? I never end up getting a cool costume, but if I did, I'd be Hit Girl from the movie Kick Ass - eleven-year-old assassin with a foul mouth.

On other Halloween related topics, we bought our first pumpkin the other day... my son picked out a cool orange and white speckled one.  Also, yesterday I took him to his first football game and here's a secret - it was actually my first, too.  Living in a big university town it's kind of weird I've never been, but I could just never get at all interested in football.  After seeing the game, I'm still not interested in it, but I did have fun just being in the stadium surrounded by such excitement.   Phrases like 'line of scrimmage' flying about the crisp October air. 

Here are a couple pics I just took.  Enjoy!

Maximus

Teaser of the week

So, on FaceBook I started posting a little snippet of my novel once a week, just two or three sentences.  I figured I'd do the same here, but longer.  This is from my prologue.

She wore a pale blue skirt that just touched the back of her knees. His eyes traced the moon pale curve of her bare calves, down to her black stilettos, then back up to the raven hair cascading halfway down her back in loose curls. And although she was turned away from him, he knew her face – the full lips, thin nose and most of all the deep green eyes. Green like a highland meadow or a piece of lustrous sea glass.

Only twenty feet separated them now. He moved forward with calm assuredness, closing the distance. Ten feet. He could smell her now, her soft fragrance of blossoming jasmine tingeing the air. Five feet. Reaching out a thin hand, his fingertips touched one perfect obsidian curl. Taking a deep, focused breath, he called on the dark magic that would end her existence, not only her body but her soul as well. His only regret was she had no idea what was about to hit her.

Begin the Begin

For any of you R.E.M. fans out there, you'll recognize my title as the name of one of their songs.  I was listening to it yesterday, and I really felt like it was meaningful for where I am right now.  I'm at the beginning of the beginning.  No matter what path I go down with my first book, I'm at the beginning.  The plan is for that beginning to be getting an agent and getting published and starting a kick butt career.  Of course, there are a multitude of other options, too, which I won't get too bogged down about now.  Maybe later - ha!

I got another rejection today, but I'm still feeling pretty good.  I suppose I might start to panic a bit if I get through the remaining 15 or so on my list, but for the moment I'm cool.  It only takes one person to like my work.  I don't need all of the New York agents to get in a hot cat fight over my novel, though of course I've fantasized about it.  Snicker.

Anywho, on a personal note my son rode his bike for the first time yesterday without training wheels, and it was a very exciting day.  He'd fallen down quite a bit in the few times we'd practiced before and seemed no closer to discovering his balance than he was when he started, then all of the sudden he had it.  Super neat.

Random Thursday

Not much new to share, other than I sent out a couple more queries last night. And I got lots of compliments on my not-quite-black Purple Rain nail polish at work today, especially since I rarely paint my nails.

I've added some links to my website and the blog... as I distract myself from waiting to hear back from agents I'll undoubtedly scour some more writing sites and keep adding to it.

Last but not least, I thought I'd upload a few pics that I've taken recently, because my blog seems to lack nice pictures. Sometime soon I'll have to start playing around with creating a book trailer for Eternal Memory and can post some of the pics I'm considering using. Fun!

The first hydrangeas I've grown (my favorite flower)

Literary Kitty, the purring prima donna known as Aislinn

Live Oak tree - being from the South, I'm obsessed with them

Query Crazy

So, this weekend I fired off four new queries, and did some rather exhausting research on Writer's Market to come up with a list of another fifteen agents to begin querying next. Oh, the fun. I've already gotten one rejection... but, the good thing about that is it doesn't feel quite so devastating as the first few. I can handle it calmly without feeling really personally put out.

So, today I promised to do nothing pertaining to my book other than write this post. I took my time doing normal stuff like make dinner, read the mail, help my son with his book report. Now I'm about to take a bubble bath and read Alice in Wonderland (which I picked up the other day; never read the whole book), maybe drink some wine, and then paint my toenails. Good night!