Kindle Fire HD raffle with Graham Parke

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<i>“I'm very polite by nature, even the voices in my head let each other finish their sentences.” – from Completely Flappable</i></center>
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<img width=108px src="http://www.grahamparke.com/images/extrefpics/kindlefirehd178.jpg"><img src="http://www.childhelplineinternational.org/media/800/illustration_birdsonawire.png.ashx?width=225&scale=both&mode=crop"><img width=108px src="http://www.grahamparke.com/images/extrefpics/kindlefirehd178.jpg"></center>
Don’t you just hate it when you have a thousand little thoughts rattling around your brain, good for nothing but keeping you up at night? Ideas, worries, mental reminders for the next day? My voices can get pretty insistent, and mostly this is a nuisance, but sometimes it’s okay, when there’s a story idea or two among the ramblings. And rarely, very rarely, I get what I think is a really good idea, but one that I don't know what to do with.
For instance, a while ago it occurred to me that it’s probably not governments or big corporations that wield the world’s greatest financial power. I think it’s us. All the little people together. Then I started wondering what could happen if we all decided to set 1 month of our incomes aside towards fixing this place up a bit. How many of the world’s problems could we actually solve permanently? Half of them, maybe? All of them? That's a pretty cool picture.
But I’m a pretty dim light when it comes to implementing even small ideas, never mind the big ones. So I’m not sure how to get that ball rolling (heck, I'm not even sure where we keep the balls). But I can certainly start with myself. That’s easy enough (I’ve been in close contact with myself for years; I didn't have much trouble convincing myself.)
So, this December, all proceeds of all my novels will go to Child Helpline International. The CHI is pretty cool because they support toll-free child helplines worldwide and they help highlight gaps in child protection systems. They do all this on donations (click the image below for more information.)
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But what does all this have to do with you? Well, I'm raffling off some prizes and giving out some freebees to boost the donation (expenses out of my own pocket, not the donation :P )
So what's in it for you, besides that warm, fuzzy feeling you'll get knowing the Xmas presents you’re buying include an automatic donation? Well, how about I give you the new edition to the award winning No Hope for Gomez saga completely free?
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And how about a Kindle Fire HD raffle ticket with every purchase while we’re at it?
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CWQR21A"><img width=120px src="http://www.grahamparke.com/images/extrefpics/kindlefirehd178.jpg"></a></center>
Simply forward your receipt emails to nohopeforgomez@gmail.com to participate.
And now, on to the pitch. This is the bit where I try to convince you, using only my words, that my novels don’t suck (or at least, not too much.) That they won’t only tickle your brain, but they’ll actually make your life better, if only marginally. That they are, in fact, worthy donation material. Here goes (fingers crossed)...
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1hvUHBb"><img src="http://www.grahamparke.com/imagesv03/nhfg_pb_sc.jpg"></a>
<a href="http://amzn.to/1hvUHBb">Paper: $6.08</a>
<a href="http://amzn.to/17u3aB5">Kindle:$2.99</a>
(uk <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Hope-Gomez-Graham-Parke/dp/9491919008">paper, </a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Hope-Gomez-Graham-Parke-ebook/dp/B00G8ISLSG">kindle</a>)
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<h2>
No Hope for Gomez!</h2>
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Winner of the Forewords Book of the Year Awards, featured on Kirkus Best Indie List 2011, IBA and USA Book News Award nominee.</p>
It's the age-old tale:
&nbsp;&nbsp;Boy meets girl.
&nbsp;&nbsp;Boy stalks girl.
&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl already has a stalker.
&nbsp;&nbsp;Boy becomes her stalker-stalker.
We've seen it all before, many times, but this time it's different. If only slightly.</td></tr>
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"Extremely witty writing containing keen insights into human nature." --California Chronicle
"Challenges the way we think about, and interact with, the world around us." --Kirkus Discoveries
"The antics in this book will leave the reader laughing. Graham Parke is a genius."--Reader's Favorite</p>
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<h2>
Unspent Time </h2>
Warning: reading this novel may make you more attractive and elevate your random luck by about 9.332%*<p STYLE="font-size: x-small;">
(*These statements have not been evaluated by anyone of consequence)</p>
Permeating the cracks between the past and the present is the realm of Unspent Time. Time that was allotted but never spent. In this realm we find the stories that could have been true. Such as the story of the designer of the color scheme used inside your shoe, or the story of Goki Feng Ho: the Chinese art of decoding the secret meaning of car license plates.</td> <td width=130px>
<a href="http://amzn.to/18VspYV"><img src="http://www.grahamparke.com/imagesv03/cover_unspent_omni_eb.jpg"></a>
<a href="http://amzn.to/18VspYV">Paper: $6.08</a>
<a href="http://amzn.to/1dHixd1">Kindle:$2.99</a>
<a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/138990">ePub   :  $2.99</a>
(uk <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unspent-Time-Graham-Parke/dp/9491919024">paper, </a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unspent-Time-Graham-Parke-ebook/dp/B007EVPK30">kindle</a>)
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“Captivating. Each story fired up my imagination.” – Alan H. Jordan, author.
"Delightfully mad. Graham's vibrant characters shine from the first page." --Tahlia Newland, author.
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<span style="color: #ff0000">Free with this event</span>
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Completely Flappable</h2>
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“He’s completely flappable!”
“Don’t you mean he’s <i>un</i>flappable?”
“Not really. He can very easily be flapped.”</p>
Gomez has never been on a date. In his 27 years on the planet he’s never been able to quite close the deal. For some reason, circumstances always conspire to make his meet-ups with women less than official dates. But now a blond German girl with freckles has moved into his building and he decides it’s time to get his act together.</td></tr>
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If you've read this far, you're already my hero ;)
I hope you like my idea enough to join me in this fun adventure. Let's see how much we can raise this Xmas ;)
Kind regards,
Graham Parke

Released Today! Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Interview today, review tomorrow!)

Hello, readers!


I'm so, so excited about this book, and about the opportunity to share with you the new release of a collection of stories by some amazing female domestic suspense authors who were, unfortunately, forgotten along the way. Sarah Weinman has compiled a thrilling selection of short stories to remind us of their importance as well as offer some good, exciting reading.

Here's the blurb: 

TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic
Suspense (A Penguin Books Original; On-sale: August 27, 2013) is a salute to the real femmes fatales of the domestic suspense genre-and the deceitful children, deranged husbands, vengeful friends, and murderous
wives they unleashed.
 One of today's preeminent authorities on crime fiction, Weinman asks:
Where would today's bestselling authors like Gone Girl's Gillian Flynn,
Sue Grafton, or Tana French be without the pioneering women writers who
came before them and created the psychological thriller?  In this new
anthology, including hair-raising stories by Patricia Highsmith, Shirley
Jackson, Vera Caspary, and more, Weinman brings together fourteen tales
by women who-from the 1940s through the mid-1970s-took a scalpel to
contemporary society and sliced away to reveal its dark essence.

Today I have the wonderful privilege of sharing some of her thoughts about the book.

A Conversation with Sarah Weinman

Q: What inspired you to compile this anthology? Were you working on it before the big splash created by GONE GIRL?

A: TROUBLED DAUGHTERS emerged from an essay I wrote for the literary magazine Tin House. I'd been approached by an editor there to write something for their themed "The Mysterious" issue, and I'd long contemplated why it seemed that a fair number of female crime writers working around or after World War II through the mid-1970s weren't really part of the larger critical conversation. They weren't hard boiled per se, but they weren't out-and-out cozy, either. Hammett and Chandler and Cain, yes; but why not Marie Belloc Lowndes and Elisabeth Sanxay Holding and Vera Caspary? Why Ross Macdonald but not his wife, Margaret Millar, who published books before he did and garnered critical and commercial acclaim first? I knew after writing the essay that I wasn't done with the subject, and when I had lunch with an editor at Penguin on an unrelated matter and started going on, rather enthusiastically, about this widespread neglect, he said, "sounds like there's an anthology in this. Why don't you send me a proposal?" It took a while to organize, but eventually I did, and Penguin bought the anthology. Publishing being what it is, it's taken a little less than two years from acquisition to release date.

To answer your other question, I had just started putting the anthology together when it became clear that GONE GIRL was going to be a massive hit, and that I had a very easy one-sentence pitch for TROUBLED DAUGHTERS: “If you loved GONE GIRL, here's an entire generation of writers who helped make that book possible, and who deserve to be rescued from the shadows.” Flynn clearly tapped into contemporary anxieties about marriage, identity, high expectations, and whether we can really be true to ourselves and the ones we profess to love. So it's fascinating to explore an earlier time when many of the very same anxieties women had manifested itself, even as the very concept of independent womanhood was perceived to be a great threat.

Q: What is “domestic suspense”? What relationship does it have to other kinds of crime fiction?

A: Domestic suspense is a catch-all term for work largely published by women and describing the plight of women -- wives, daughters, the elderly, spinsters, the underserved, the overlooked, and many other phrases used then but thankfully, not so much now -- as World War II was coming to a close and the feminist movement dawned. Without domestic suspense you couldn't have contemporary psychological suspense. Conversely, the work of people like Gillian Flynn, Laura Lippman, Megan Abbott, Sophie Hannah, Tana French, and many more would not be possible without the likes of Hughes, Jackson, Millar, Highsmith, and -- though not included in TROUBLED DAUGHTERS for reasons outside the scope of this interview -- Ruth Rendell, Mary Higgins Clark, Mignon Eberhart, and more.

Q: Which one of the authors in your collection would you like to see get more credit?

A: Bear in mind my answer will change daily, but right now, I'll say Joyce Harrington. She won an Edgar Award for her very first short story – “The Purple Shroud”, included in TROUBLED DAUGHTERS – but she spent most of the 70s and 80s writing stories of equal if not greater excellence. Harrington also published three novels: No One Knows My Name (1981), set in a summer stock theater troupe; Family Reunion (1982), a very creepy Southern Gothic with quite the toxic family; and Dreemz of the Night (1987), a terrific mystery set in the then-contemporary New York City graffiti world. I love that book of hers the best because of the window it unexpectedly opened on a nearly unrecognizable version of the five boroughs.

Q: What was the first domestic suspense you ever read?

Mary Higgins Clark’s Where Are The Children?, back in eleventh grade. That book scared the hell out of me, and only later did I realize what a pivotal book that was.

Q: What is the difference between “classic” domestic suspense and the writing of the new generation (Megan Abbott, Laura Lippman, Gillian Flynn, Tana French, etc.)?

A: Largely the sensibility afforded by contemporary times. But there are many more similarities. For example, Lippman’s most recent novel, And When She Was Good, was about a suburban madam, and the way in which the suspense unfolded and she depicted Heloise’s nose for business and growing internal tensions could have been written by Margaret Millar sixty years ago (albeit with more dated references to technology.) When I first read Megan Abbott I thought immediately of Dorothy Hughes’ In A Lonely Place. The DNA of so many of these earlier writers inserted themselves into those writing today, whether they realize it consciously.

Q: Do you think women write better domestic suspense? If so, why or why not?

A: I'm a big fan of Harlan Coben and Linwood Barclay’s work, both of whom certainly work in the domestic suspense field. Ira Levin’s books work so well because he knew exactly what domestic anxiety buttons to push – Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives absolutely count as domestic suspense (and, to a certain extent, A Kiss Before Dying.) That said, women are still struggling with the work/life balance, if I may drop in some cliches like “having it all” or “leaning in.” So there are more of them exploring these themes in a fictional universe, and that means more of them are doing so with great success and acclaim. I'd like to see more men write domestic thrillers and more women write traditionally “male” subgenres so that we can blur the lines once and for all. But forty, fifty, sixty years ago, there weren't as many options.

Q: You mention in your intro to TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES that the World Wars, particularly WWII, shaped the lives of domestic suspense writers, and consequently, what they wrote. Is there a similar “seismic event” that might have shaped the new domestic suspense, in your opinion?

A: I think these forces were at work already, but I hope that, twenty years or later from now, someone looks back at the current generation of women writers and edits a fabulous anthology explaining just how much the 2008 Great Recession changed everything. Which is to say, I think it did, and we still don't know by how much.

Q: If this kind of fiction grew out of post-war culture, particularly the idealization of women’s role in the domestic sphere and the anxieties and yearnings hidden behind that glossy picture of the happy home, is there anything analogous being written today?

A: Would that these anxieties could disappear entirely! But it’s pretty clear that any day’s headlines shows how far we still have to go. (Case in point: Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In.) I do think it’s why Gone Girl was such a massive hit, and why publishers are now on the hunt for that “next Gone Girl” (best current candidate: ASA Harrison's debut The Silent Wife, just published as I write this, and released more than two months after her premature death from cancer.) Now we have domestic suspense mixed with the anxieties associated with technology, and there's a great deal of terrain to explore there.

I also don’t want to exclude men unduly here; Harlan Coben and Linwood Barclay also write very gripping domestic suspense tales.

Q: At your companion website, domesticsuspense.com, the tagline is “celebrating an overlooked generation of female suspense writers.” Why have they been overlooked? What influence do you think these women writers had, both on the genre and on culture as a whole?

A: The author Tom Bissell wrote an excellent essay for the Boston Review back in 2000 about his time as an assistant editor at Norton, discovering, and then republishing, the work of Paula Fox, and the tremendous responsibility (and related fear) of being responsible for a writer's renaissance. Fate has a tendency to be cruel and quixotic about who merits posthumous recognition and who does not. I feel much the same way about the 14 writers included in TROUBLED DAUGHTERS. So many of them won or were nominated for awards (like the Edgar), sold many thousands of copies, and were well-reviewed. But it's hard not to think that because their subjects were primarily "feminine" and "domestic" they weren't taken as seriously as the men, even though in many cases, the women wrote with less sentimentality and more subtlety.

Some of the writers included in TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, like Patricia Highsmith and Shirley Jackson, may not need my editorial assistance. But looking at Highsmith’s first-published short story "The Heroine" or Jackson's "Louisa, Please Come Home" in the broader context of what was going on over this three-decade period is what's key, as is seeing the importance of domestic concerns to female noir giants like Vera Caspary, Dorothy B. Hughes, and Margaret Millar.

What I really hope is that the anthology allows readers to sample and be introduced to writers who have fallen by the proverbial wayside. Raymond Chandler held up Elisabeth Sanxay Holding up as his equal. Helen Nielsen is something of an enigma to me, but “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree” demonstrates the anxiety of being the other woman-turned-new wife and how it never recedes.  Nedra Tyre was both an avid mystery fan  and passionate about social justice and the poor, stemming from a previous life as a social worker; it’s why “A Nice Place to Stay” packs the punch it does. Barbara Callahan never published a novel during her lifetime, but "Lavender Lady", published early in her career, has the sense of depth and feeling of an experienced practitioner of prose and of emotional stakes.

The Numbers Blog Tour, author interview

Please welcome my guest author for today, author of The Chosen and the recently released sequel, The Numbers, as she talks about the challenges of writing a sequel. Make sure to check out the information on her series below the post.

The Sequel


The Number is the sequel to The Chosen. Initially when I started writing my first novel, I thought that it was the hardest thing ever. When you write a novel, obviously it isn’t the same as writing a short story. You need to really develop your character and refine your world building skills. And then you need to take your simple little idea and write about it for a good 60-80,000 words. For the aspiring writer, it’s a mountain to climb and once you reach the peak, it’s an exhilarating accomplishment.

And then you start writing the sequel.

I had a clear vision of how to end The Chosen, but for the life of me, I had no idea how to start The Number. There is a time gap of five years between the books and I found myself asking: How do I fill the reader in what’s happened to all of the characters during that time span? That’s a long time and my characters have all been doing something. They haven’t just stayed in limbo.

I thought that maybe I should sort of do a countdown. Like, highlight an event that happened five years ago, then four years ago, etc. until we meet our characters in “real time”. But as neat as the idea was, I scrapped it. I liked knowing the timeline for my own personal notes, but it just seemed like I was forcing a beginning. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to tackle this as if I was meeting an old friend again. You don’t just come out and dump information at one time. What happened during the years you haven’t seen your friend is told gradually. You tell a little bit in one meeting and then a bit more in another meeting and so on and so forth. I felt like my characters needed to take their time to tell the others what has happened to them during the five years apart on their own time.

Of course figuring out how to start The Number was only part of the problem. Nobody tells you that all that world building you did in the first book is going to be put to the test in the sequel. My advice: If you’re going to be writing a sequel, be sure to take notes on every little detail. Luckily for me, I had already started on a binder full of details about my world when I started with The Chosen. It really helped during the process of writing The Number because I wasn’t constantly flipping through the first book to figure out a description of a character or place.

Despite the pressure of getting things right, the sequel is still fulfilling to work on. You and your readers already know the characters and if your readers are grabbing the sequel then you know you’ve written characters people want to be invested in. And as a writer, I think it’s fun to keep the adventure going, especially when you know that your characters’ stories aren’t done being told.


Blurb:

Kaia disappeared for five years. Now she’s back and her planet is on the brink of war.
The new “Numbers” program, created by the Tueors’ leader, tracks and isolates demigods. Kaia’s friend, Catrina, refuses to take part, and that makes her the most dangerous Number of all.
It’s Kaia’s duty to gather and protect the treasures of the gods. But neither the treasures nor Catrina are what they appear to be.
As the day a dire prophesy foresees draws near, will Kaia reverse the gears of fate, or will everything she’s ever loved be burned away by the flames of war?

------------

Author Links:

Author Website: http://sheenahfreitas.com/

Twitter: @SheenahFreitas (http://twitter.com/SheenahFreitas)

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheenah-Freitas/215673018511943

Guest Author/Book Release: Nancy Lauzon

Book Launch Party! In honor of Read an Ebook Week, I have a special guest today. Make sure you check out her contest to try to win a copy of her book as well as mine! Today, you can enter to win a copy of The Vigilantes as well. Just share this post on all your sites and leave links below in the comments section (Twitter, FB, Blog, and Google+1 this post).

A Few Dead Men - a Chick Dick Mystery

March 1 - 8

http://chickdickmysteries.com

Drop by anytime during this week to join in the fun! Play games, nosh on virtual goodies (a.k.a. recipes) and win prizes!

Leave a comment on Nancy Lauzon's blog to win a FREE copy of A Few Dead Men.

If you like what you read, post a review on Goodreads, Amazon or the website of your choice anytime to win another FREE copy of any Chick Dick Mystery!

Blurb: A Few Dead Men - a Chick Dick Mystery

Life has dealt part-time mystery novelist Darcy MacDonald a lousy hand. The men she knows are either missing, dead, drunk or demented.

Lying next to the corpse of her boyfriend, the head of Bloodhound Investigations, definitely qualifies as lousy since he’s the man who also issues her paychecks.

The doctor says her boss had a massive heart attack during an orgasm, and it wasn’t Darcy’s fault. But she can’t help feeling guilty, since his orgasms were her responsibility. Or so she believed, until his grieving widow shows up, along with a mysterious, punk rocker chick who weeps inconsolably at the funeral and claims he was murdered.

Nancy Lauzon's Blog Tour Stop #5: Where Do You Find Live Men?

My latest mystery novel, A Few Dead Men, was inspired by my youngest daughter's disastrous dating history. The 'dead men' in the novel are composites of every boyfriend and/or bad date my daughter ever had. Believe me, I had lots of material to choose from. In fact, I didn't have room for all the 'dead men', since I didn't want to go over my word count.

This book raises several questions: Who exactly are dead men, metaphorically speaking? How did they become dead? Are there more dead men than live men? And where do you find live men?

But the book is also about a young woman compelled to solve the mysteries around her, like her favourite amateur sleuth, Nancy Drew. She doesn't go about it in exactly the same way.

Previous stops on the Blog Tour: How Does a Dead Man Become Dead? at http://limebirduk.wordpress.com/ and Are There More Dead Men than Live Men? at http://stacysjensen.blogspot.com/

I'm not sure there are any single Live Men left in the city where I live, or its surrounding areas. Maybe they're hiding.

My daughter has joined various dating sites over the years, with no luck, only some first dates from hell. She's been hooked up through friends and acquaintances, no luck. She spent 5 years in university, no luck. She's worked at various jobs (in a law office, in retail) no luck.

Yes, my daughter's unlucky in love. I already know that. But you'd think by now she'd have come across a few single Live Men along the way and been asked out on one date.

I know what you're thinking. She's got a face only a mother could love, she's got no personality, she's got no ambition, she's got no heart.

All not true.

It is true that she doesn't go out enough. She's a full-time professional, and she's busy. She doesn't like the bar scene, so she doesn't go clubbing. Most clubs are filled with Dead Men, anyway. So she recently joined a mixed Dodge Ball league. They meet every Thursday evening. I have my fingers crossed.

I've also heard it said that you shouldn't go looking for love. It'll find you when you least expect it. But if she stays in every evening, it's not exactly going to knock on her door, is it?

Does anyone out there in the blogosphere know where all the single Live Men are?


Next stops on my Blog Tour:

Saturday, March 10th - http://www.nancydrewsleuth.com
Calling All Sleuths! I'll be blogging at the 2012 Nancy Drew Web Con. What is a Web Con you may be wondering? It's simply a convention on the web! The subject of my blog will be Nancy Drew with a Twist of Lemon.

Tuesday, March 13th - http://theunpredictablemuse.blogspot.com/

I'm over at Ellis Vidler's Unpredictable Muse. Ellis is the author of the brand new novel Cold Comfort, released in December. I'll be doing a Character Interview, featuring Darcy MacDonald, the heroine of A Few Dead Men.

A Few Dead Men - a Chick Dick Mystery is available now at Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/129059

Coming soon to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Chapters/Indigo/Kobo

Author Bio

Nancy Lauzon worked nine years on a hospital ward as a cardiac nurse before the night shifts turned her into a zombie. She got a day job in health promotion and began to write health-related articles for magazines and newsletters.

Life threw out a few curve balls, and to relieve the stress, she began to write fiction part-time. Five years later she sold two different manuscripts to two separate small-press publishers, using a pseudonym. She left nursing in 2003 and began to write full-time.

Nancy lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Visit her website http://chickdickmysteries.com/

Join the Chick Dick Mystery Group on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/127590990661672?ap=1

Follow her on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/#!/@chickdicks

Friend her on Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4840931.Nancy_Lauzon

Avoiding Cliches: Guest Author Luis Vila

Fighting Fate. Challenging Destiny. Fulfilling the prophecy. The eternal struggle of the cliché.


Before we get started, let’s put all the cards on the table. As writers in this day and age (God bless the Internet), it is quite difficult to come up with a completely original and uninspired idea. No worries my great and good friends. Television and Hollywood are guilty of this too. We’re treated to an annual dose of rehashes and remakes to fill us up well beyond our appetite. Even some of the most original programming you can think of has been “inspired” through other means. For example, the original idea for the Emmy award-winning television series Breaking Bad was “a regular man becomes Scarface”. That is the nature of the beast and it’s sad but true (for you Metallica fans).

As writers, we should not shy away from utilizing borrowed concepts but embrace them. It’s hard enough to avoid being inspired by some great idea. That is, unless you are a complete and utter hermit (in which case that point would be moot because you wouldn’t be reading this anyways). Just ask yourself, why are you here now? Weren’t we all at some point given the great gift of inspiration by somebody else? I know I owe my entire writing career to Stan “The Man” Lee and Hideo Kojima. There style of writing and storytelling abilities spoke to me as a child and continue to do so to this day. I’d be hard pressed to say that they didn’t have any influence in any of my original works. And if that’s a cliché thing to say then hot damn, I’m cliché.

Now let’s get down and dirty. The difference between “inspired” and “cliché” is all in the details. Something we, as writers, have total control over. Let’s say someone wanted to do a story about vampire falling in love. In this market, that might be a little cliché. I haven’t checked but I’m pretty sure the fan-fiction crowd has that particular genre nailed to the wall. Well, let’s take it back a bit. Same story, but this time let’s say that once every generation a woman of the village/town/city is forced to love and marry the vampire unless they wish to incur his wrath. You see? Completely changes the game right before our eyes. It’s not the concept that makes something cliché, it’s the details. Now if were to go back down that same road again and say that the next woman in line to marry the vampire was in love with another person who turned out to be a different type of creature, well, that is treading down some cliché waters.

If there’s anything to take away from this it would be the simple (and borrowed) idea of it’s not what you write, it’s how you write it. Never think that something you’ve come up with won’t be worthy to grace consumer bookshelves because everyone else has done it before. Some of the greatest stories of our time utilized borrowed concepts from classic tales everyone has heard before. You don’t have to kill yourself just to appease your originality crutch. If you take something familiar and make it your own, you will be more respected then those who just shoot for sitting next to the flavor of the month.

In the end, there’s nothing wrong with using something another idea to inspire a whole new one. I know this because I’ve traveled down this canal myself. The original concept for my first novel Agent M: Project Mabus came from a 600 year old prophecy crafted by a very respectable man in his field, Nostradamus. There are hundreds of stories that deal with the end of the world (believe me, I checked), but none of which that traversed the path I followed. And really, that’s all it takes. From one idea to a completely new one. Readers will feel comfortable with something they’ve experienced before and greatly appreciate being taken on an entirely new ride once they’re on board.

Embrace the ideas you’ve come up with and put all your effort into making them the best stories they can be. Put little thought into the claims of “unoriginal” and “boring” concepts. If it’s well written, then they will come.

Now where did I hear that before?
L.M. Vila

Website: http://www.projectmabus.com/

Blog: http://projectmabus.blogspot.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1221153284

Amazon.com Book Link: http://www.amazon.com/Agent-Project-Mabus-ebook/dp/B006PMR8JI/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Guest Author: Nancy Straight

Guest Post from Nancy Straight: Support Independent Authors

I’ve been an independent author for nearly 90 days now and have met some of the most amazing people of my life. Independent Authors are a breed all their own. I’ve worked in many industries, and rarely have I been humbled by my peers. As an independent author, I write for a selfish reason - because I love it. I didn’t know that there were thousands of people out there just like me! Each one of them more willing than the last to: offer advice, recommend other authors’ works, and engage with their fans.
These are the people that tell stories that make you laugh out loud, hours after your husband has fallen asleep. Stories that allow you to escape into worlds full of Vampires, Shape-shifters, Angels and creatures no one has even heard of. The same stories are able to drive us to the brink of hysterics when the heroine doesn’t fall for the right guy.
Traditional authors are great, publishing houses are necessary institutions, but over the years I’ve found fewer and fewer traditional authors whose work I felt passionate about reading. Independent authors’ work is different; it feels different to read. The amazing part is, every independent author is anxiously waiting to hear from you on Facebook, their blog, their website or in your reviews.
When you buy books from Independent Authors, and their work moves you – you can tell them. They want to hear from you. The stories I am able to read now, from other independent authors, have made me love reading again. So when you have a choice between that $17 book from a publishing house or a .99 cent story from an Indie – take a chance, I bet you’ll be surprised.
Links to my books
http://www.amazon.com/Meeting-Destiny-Series-ebook/dp/B003U2RUP8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319075880&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Destinys-Revenge-Destiny-Series-ebook/dp/B005FO28PG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1319075880&sr=8-2
Facebook Author Page
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Nancy-Straight/243616005687882?sk=wall
Good Reads Blog
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4114202.Nancy_Straight/blog
Twitter
@nancystraight

Guest Author: Mona Ingram

Hey guys! Please welcome guest author Mona Ingram today. Find her post below and enjoy! And make sure to check out all her info below the post.

Take it away, Mona!

Dear Writing:
I miss you. I miss the touch of my fingers on the keyboard, I miss the sound the keys make as the words spill out onto the screen. And yes, I miss the sense of accomplishment at the end of a long day, when I’ve reached my word count goal.
My eyes are misting over as I write this. I know I told you I’d be seeing you again in a week, but the news is not good. I’ll be away from you for another week.
No, I’m not cheating on you. Well, maybe in a way. I didn’t tell you where I was going or who I’d be with for this very reason. I didn’t want you to be jealous. But please don’t be sad as I develop these other relationships...I’ll always come back to you.
What’s that? You’ll leave me if I don’t tell you right now what I’ve been doing?
Okay, I suppose that’s only fair, but let me start by saying it’s not you, it’s me. Heard that one before, have you? Yeah, but this time it’s true.
You see, my friends and colleagues have been telling me for a year now that I have to expand my horizons, as it were. Get out there and flirt – or at least make myself available for some new relationships. It’s hard for me – damned hard, because you know how private I’ve always been. But I eventually realized that they were right. And in the end it will only make our relationship stronger. This may be difficult for you to hear, but I’ll still be interacting with these new contacts, and I intend to do it on a daily basis.
But there’s an upside to this, writing. You’ll be the star in this expanded circle. I want to introduce you to more people so they can see how great you are. That’s why I’ve taken this time away from you.
You see, I’ve been learning about Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. It’s taken me a while to accept the obvious, but if I want people to read you, then I have to let them know you exist, and what better way than using the best social media tools out there? And when I have those three figured out, I’m going to establish a blog, which I’ll probably link with Goodreads.
Perhaps this break away from you has been for the best. Remember that new novel we chatted about? New ideas have been scrolling through on that screen that runs constantly at the back of my consciousness. Great ideas that’ll make that next book even better.
So please wait for me. I’ll be back soon, and we can take up where we left off.


Website: http://monaingram.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mona-Ingra...
Twitter: @MonaIngram1
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/107...

Creating Believable Characters, a Guest Post by Ben Wallace

Hello, everyone!

Today's guest is author Ben Wallace. He's going to talk about creating believable characters in fiction. So please read, and if you like what he has to say, check out his inspiring, informative blog!

Creating Believable Characters
By Ben Wallace

Creating believable characters is critical to good fiction. Characters are the bedrock, the foundation, on which your entire story rests. If your characters aren’t believable, your story won’t be believable. Here are some tips on how to create believable characters.

Physical description:
Don’t give your character four arms. Who’s going to believe that? Go out on the street right now and tell me how many people you see with four arms. Zero. Right? Four arms may make your character a better combatant or really good at stocking vending machines, but it’s just not very real. Extra toes, fingers or nipples are acceptable.

Note to Fantasy, sci-fi, and cyborg-lit authors: Load ‘em up.

Hobbies:
My neighbor recently told me that he had a hobby. You know what? I believed him. Because, having a hobby is believable. That being said, you must make it a believable hobby. Whittling, guitar, outdoor recreation – all believable. ABBA album collector or Right Said Fred enthusiast? Not so much.

Mannerisms:
Mannerisms are great and believable. Everybody has mannerisms. Just look at how people walk. Everybody has a different walk. Some people even look like they worked on it and practiced in front of a mirror. Some people swagger. Some people strut. Some creep. Some hop (if they just stubbed their toe). But, remember, if you give them a mannerism, you have to stay consistent with it.

Randomly levitating while in deep concentration would be an unbelievable mannerism, however. Your characters shouldn’t levitate unless they have the power to levitate.

Names:
Naming a character can be difficult. A cool sounding name like Blade, or Wolf, or Trigger Finger McGee will be hard to swallow if it’s not a nickname. A good way to find a believable name is to look at what Hollywood stars are naming their kids and then never give your character that name. A fake sounding name like that can make your character unbelievable.

Also, don’t name your character Thad. I don’t have a really good reason except that I knew a Thad once, and the guy was kind of a jerk.

Fantasy authors, if you’ve created a new world, the naming conventions may be totally different.

Pets:
Believable people have pets. Dogs – okay. Cats – okay. Ferrets – um, okay? Griffins – totally unbelievable.

Again, fantasy authors, knock yourself out. Actually, you folks can pretty much get away with anything.


About Me: Benjamin Wallace is the author of Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors, the #3 top rated comic fiction book on Amazon, and the action and adventure comedy Tortugas Rising. And, yes, he thinks he’s being funny.

You can learn more at benjaminwallacebooks.com.