As many of you know, I haven’t been around her much recently, if at all. Some of you might have asked, what happened to Lynn or even wondered why I had abandoned you and my blog.
I can tell you there were many reasons with the biggest being the time investment versus the return on that investment. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate each and every one of you, I did and I still do. You have to admit posting daily, even when I schedule those posts, can be a tedious thing to do. I was tired of tedium as well as writing.
Don’t get me wrong. I still wrote. I made attempts to move my career forward but I just wasn’t motivated to do so. Again, the reasons are many. I had new grandsons and needed to spend time with them. I was finishing a really big novel. I’d had personal upheaval in my critique group. You name it, I had it all in a six month span.
And I was tired, so tired of just doing things day after day for a career, which seemed to be giving me little in return. I know I’d gone through writing funks before but this one was different. Life was different.
In August, my husband came home from his Vienna trip to announce they had invited him to apply for a job. No big news there as my husband is good at his job. Then I discovered where the posting would be...Vienna, Austria...we’d known a long time it would be coming. Now, I was angry as I felt comfortable in my position: comfortable in writing, comfortable in family, comfortable in life.
Too comfortable. So much so, I made a run for it. I pulled back from a lot of my online social things. I didn’t want to blog, I didn’t want to post in my yahoogroups. I didn’t want to try any more because it would all change if I moved. A lot. Sigh.
Then I decided to go back to the account I’d started on Twitter earlier in the year. Here was something I could do. It didn’t require much effort at all. I mean, how difficult was it to type in 140 characters of good stuff?
Suddenly, I was hooked. I tweeted and tweeted and tweeted. Sometimes hundreds of messages a day. I started to follow other authors, editors, publishers. I got to know some of them. A lot of them. If truth be told, I was spending more time on Twitter but was it quality time.
Then I got my first royalties after I really put my all into the program. Wow. Sales are up. This is good very good. But now, how to make them better. I started attending Twitter classes at places like the Indie Book Collective on how to get more followers, how to turn those followers to buyers and so on. I even do Twitter giveaways. The point is, those 140 characters gave me my writing mojo back. There is just something about 140 characters that pulled me in and makes me stay.
So, I haven’t abandoned any of you. I’ve just shifted to a new medium, Twitter. You can find me there every day at @oddlynn. Come visit me and I’ll answer you. My blogs will be sporadic but I tweet daily.
Now, I just have to find the off button so I can get some real work done. LOL!
See you all next time...actually...send me a tweet!
Lynn
Welcome to Tuesday and my input for the day. Notice the 2 instead of the word to...yes...in many ways I’ll be going totally digital. I believe I told you all about the new phone I’ve gotten, which is the most kick-ass item I’ve had in a long time. Once I get Twitter loaded on it, I will start using it almost exclusively for those posts with very little time on this computer. And since I’ve learned to abbreviate things to the max, I might just use it here. LOL!
What does that mean for this blog? Not much. The blog and most everything will stay the same but what will happen is that I will be doing business here first thing in the morning and then go to a non-internet computer to do my writing. IMHO, I am on this machine way too much and it does take a lot away from my writing time. And right now, I’m behind on my personal word count. But mail always has to be answered from this very spot as this is where my Outlook resides, another program I just can’t do without.
True, August is a happening place around here with the DH being gone and me helping the youngest get ready for college. This is a first for me because the oldest took a totally different route since he really didn’t know what he wanted to do. He took one semester in college then decided it wasn’t for him. He continued to do roofing with my brother then one day woke up and decided he wanted to do something else. Freaked out me and my brother immensely but he knew himself. For a while, he did sales and then got the offer of a lifetime for him. The Surveyors union was looking for apprentices and one of his high school buddy’s Dad who owned a surveying company asked him to apply.
That one phone call took him on a journey he’s loved. The union paid for all his training resulting in a AA in Surveying and continues to pay for his classes. Even though the job market in the Las Vegas area is way down, he knows he’ll find work as he was the Apprentice of the Year as well as one of the two graduate surveyors to pass the national certification from his class. I think he hopes one day to teach the trade but doesn’t know when that will or can happen.
Now the younger one has a completely different path charted out for himself. Along the way through high school he discovered math then physics. Heaven help me but he wants to be a physicist. I hate physics but love Math where as my DH loves physics but could take or leave math. He has declared his major as Physics and we’ll find out on Thursday just what classes they are going to put him in for the first semester. I think he’s looking forward to the adventure with a lot of trepidation. He’s never been a real go-getter and tends to be very shy when with new people. College will be good for him but a bit traumatic at times I’m sure. We’ll see.
As for myself, I want to take some classes this year but have decided that the MFA at the local college isn’t the one for me. Unless I want to do a Gaelic translation of something. LOL! The interesting thing about the program is it has an international component to the offerings. Students can actually go into the Peace Corp and use that experience to get some class credit. But I’m a genre writer and will need to find a different program to actually look into before I commit.
The only class I know I’ll be taking so far is one for my phone. Yup, can you believe it? Verizon actually has a free class in regards to this phone I just purchased. The Droid is very cool and I hope to get really savvy at it so I can show off in a variety of places. LOL!
What all are you guys doing to prepare for the coming school year? Do any of you have children that need to get ready? And how about yourselves...any of you considering classes to take?
I’d be really interested in knowing what you all are thinking about during this very eventful part of the year. See you all tomorrow for Wednesday’s Classroom!
Lynn
Yeah, I know I’m usually an up person but some days, even those who are happy have a down day. Today is mine and it had such promise when I woke up. Sigh. It is so not a great day here. The DH is getting ready to go to Vienna and this was a trip I should have been on. But I’m not, so I have to deal with all the computer problems I’m suddenly having.
Blogger is being a bear and while I can upload the actual blog information, it immediately goes to draft and won’t post. I’ve got a help ticket into Google but I’m not very hopeful as it takes them forever to answer questions it seems. I’m hoping it will resolve itself but with the latest issue of me not being able to upload pictures as well, I’m not sure what’s going to happen.
Then there is yahoo...what the heck happened to it while I was gone? :-( This is not good and again, things I thought I posted aren’t there and it took forever to get last Saturday’s post to show. All I tried to do was let everyone know I was out of town. There are some days where I wonder if computers are a help or hindrance.
And I remember the dark ages. No, not those times between the Roman Empire and the start of the Anglo-Saxon realm, but when computers were just beginning. Recently, when cleaning out an old box of odd things, I ran across an eight-inch disk. You heard me. I had an old eight-inch floppy disk stuck between two books in a box and I had to laugh. First, floppies were – well – floppy for one. Later they had a hard shell and now they’re flash drives or DVDs. But I know very few people who actually use anything but a flash drive.
I have what my husband calls the flash disk. It’s a passport that I transport between computers instead of saving everything on one machine. It actually saves on the problem of losing things when the box dies or the brain of whatever machine you might be on goes belly up. Right now, I have three backups and there are times when I wonder if that is enough. I’m praying it is. I never want to lose another story again. I haven’t recovered from the last one yet.
Now, back to the internet issues. The thing that gets me about this is these aren’t mine but extensions of what I do. Amazing how two things that are free on the net have become very important to authors and their promotion efforts. In many cases, these are the very essence of promotions. I know I do the majority of my promos on these groups and they give me access to thousands of people.
What’s an author to do when these freebies are bombarded with problems? Punt? But who can we punt to? The fact is that these two social media, along with a few more, are the basis of many an author’s web presence. And if you don’t have a web presence these days, you won’t have readers. Just think, if market standards hold true you will actually hook point one percent (0.1%) of all the people who see your name on the internet. If you can get that number to around ten thousand, that means a thousand people will look at you and supposedly one percent of those will purchase your product so about one hundred people will buy your novels. Therefore, you have to been seen by at least ten thousand new people a day in order to get any real sales.
All I know is that if my web promotions keep getting hit by mysterious ailments, I won’t even get the chance to be seen. And I apologize for not being where I’m supposed to be this week. I’ve been tired from my trip and then having a slew of computer issues, which are slowly getting resolved as I’ve outlined here.
Have you ever had computer problems so bad that all you’ve wanted to do was pound your head against the desk? That’s been my week since I got back. Tell me about your worst time and I’ll put your name in for another five entries for this month’s drawing.
See you tomorrow for This & That Friday.
Lynn
Recently I was chastised by a friend from Twitter who told me I wasn’t utilizing my talents to the best of my ability. She had noted over the time we had known each other that I spoke often about sci-fi erotic romance, I wrote sci-fi erotic romance and totally knew the language. Matter of fact, the point that brought it to a head was the fact I’m going to a sci-fi type convention over the Labor Day weekend called Copper Con.
She basically came back at me and said I should change my bio in Twitter to reflect my sci-fi writing. I immediately went in and changed what I said about myself on Twitter for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is she is correct. Sci-fi and fantasy are my first loves. Writers should stick with what they love.
I know this for a fact as there are many times when I’m writing a contemporary where I get bogged down and never want to finish it. I think the reason is I like to totally use my imagination, add a little science then see what shakes out. Most of the time, it is more interesting than anything I can come up with in the real world.
I just love to tweak science to make it do my bidding. Most of the lively conversations around my house are science based. These discussions can become quite heated because we are a group of scientists by trade and nature. My youngest wants to be a phyisist, my older on is a total whiz at math. My husband is a geophysist with a second degree in history and I’m a geologist with a computer science minor top by an ongoing Ph.D. study of natural medicine. Most of our heated discussions revolve around space and getting off this rock. I have my opinion and they all have theirs.
My house is never dull and we either have one of the History Channels on, the Science Channel or Syfy. My youngest watches G4, which I’ve found to actually have some things of value when I’m writing my sci-fi. Many times that station has thrown me off into a tangent where I get a wild hair and a new idea. How boring is that? LOL! It’s not really.
So, what does all this discussion have to do with us? Well, I have about 10 contemporaries I’m committed to completing, maybe a few more, once those are totally done, I may permanently switch to writing sci-fi or fantasy erotic romance. This is my first passion and I love the freedom it gives me.
Let me give you an example. As you all know, I write about 5K a day. What you probably don’t know is I work on multiple stories at one time. I make sure the story due is the one that gets the most time but I include things like this blog, my other blogs and any other writing project I might need to do. Some is for my writing organizations, some are just ramblings about this and that. Some of the time is spent on perfecting a story, doing that final edit before submission or sending it out to an agent. But I write consistently every day and a lot.
This month, the main thrust of my daily work is a little story called The Taking of An Apprentice. Now this story is finished at about 22K and it took me less than a month of daily writing to get it done. Some people thing that’s flying whereas I think it is incredably slow. The point is that I had the story plotted and knew exactly where it was going from Chapter 3 on. This is incredible for a pantser. But note, this story is a fantasy and hence I’ve seen I can plot the thing out with little problem very quickly.
Now for a contemporary, I have to mull it around, think about just the right words and inflect and god knows what. I have to get it perfect. Sci-fi plotting for me is about the same. I might actually be a non-pantser in that area but everything comes together very quickly. I’m like a demon to get it done so I don’t forget and because of this, there are days I can do an incredible 10K. I kid you not.
So see, my Twitter friend is correct. I am not using my talents to the best of my ability. I need to do better. And I will.
How about you? Do you have any hidden talents you aren’t using as well as you should? Tell me about it and you’ll get five extra spots in this month’s drawing.
Now, what you’ve all been waiting for...the winner of this month’s contest...the winner of the $20 ARe gift certificate and a book of their choice is Rhobin! Come on down and claim your prize! This month I have two winners for the most comments portion: Carol L and Diane Deeds come on down and claim your prize. Hope you all had some fun this month...and be prepared for more...we’re building up to a blowout at Christmas. This year is my last elf book and I will be giving away a special prize for that one...keep posted...and thanks again!
See you all tomorrow!
Lynn
I don’t know if you are all aware of it but besides my Twitter and this blog, I have a yahoogroup as well and every Saturday is known as Sexy Saturday.
What happens on Sexy Saturday you might ask? Well, what doesn’t. I talk about books, post excerpts and generally try to have a fun time with it altogether. I mean, why shouldn’t we? It’s all about sexy men and wonderful romance stories, right?
I am also likely to post something from my works in progress there to see what the audience review just might be, same as here. But it’s more of a way to talk to you, one on one, about life and everything else that happens to us.
Here’s just some of the things which have happened on Sexy Saturday so far:
I have posted the following excerpts:
An Elf’s Desire
A Love for Eggther
An Elf’s Magic
Night of the Blue Moon
There has been an announcement for a blog-a-thon that a friend is happening. There has been some chit-chat.
I’m getting ready to start posting some sexy videos, some sexy pictures and talk about writing and the RWA conference which I didn’t get to attend.
All great stuff in my book. LOL!
I’m also going to talk about getting an agent, the next conference I’ll be going to which is CopperCon as well as one in October in Ohio if I can get it together in time, and I might even talk about my grandkids and Twitter.
See...this is a full disclosure place...LOL! So drop on by today and get the inside scoop about me. I hope to see you there!
Here’s the link for those of you who haven’t subscribed yet:
XtraOrdinaryRomance-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
All you have to do is to send me an email and I’ll approve you the moment I see it. I will also give you five more entries into this month’s contest which ends tonight at midnight. Remember that there are three separate prizes: one chosen at random to get a $20 ARe gift certificate and a book from my backlist, one for the person who comments the most which is a surprise and maybe one more...I’m not sure yet. I’ve had a lot of comments this month and I really want to give everyone a chance at a prize. Yeah, I’m a sucker that way. LOL!
Until tomorrow!
Lynn
As many of you know, I am thoroughly in love with Scotland. On any given day, one may find me perusing the reality for sale in some of my favorite spots in the country. This summer is very sad for me because I was supposed to spend the whole months of June and July on a farm near Stirling then join my husband in Vienna, Austria the middle of August.
Alas, this did not happen for a couple of reasons. Money being the main one. I started looking for cheap airline tickets almost eighteen...yup, that’s right...eighteen months ago so I could get the best deal. The unfortunate thing is there was no best deal. The cheapest deal I could get was roughly $1400 to cross the big pond.
Now I have never paid more than $500 for a ticket to Britain and I wasn’t about to start now. I was so certain something would come up that I didn’t panic. About six months ago, I started looking weekly and for the last three months, daily. There was nothing to be had. Nada. Zip. I was out of luck for my trip this year.
The other reason was closer to my heart. My two bundles of joy called Michael and Joseph made the pain a little less because I’ve gotten to spend more time with them. They are adorable and I’ve been having fun as have the rest of the family.
What does this have to do with Gaelic you ask? Well, last year in September I started taking a class in Gaelic and loved it. If I had actually gone to Scotland this year, I was going to do an immersion class on the Isle of Skye. Unfortunately, I had to drop out in November because I got really sick and couldn’t participate.
I bet you’re wondering just how I participated in a Gaelic class. Being the native language of Scotland, you could assume I would need to go there to enjoy such a class. Not anymore. I had looked for years into finding a Gaelic class near me to no avail. It just wasn’t going to happen. Then came a wonderful thing called Skype. The whole class was done with Skype. We had lectures, question sessions, practice sessions and everything in between.
Matter of fact, the first thing the instructor told us was that we would be taking the class again. Most people have to take every class at least twice because it is that difficult because of pronunciation. A person basically has to retrain their tongue to make the sounds needed in Gaelic. Some do it naturally but most have to take things slow. My instructor at the time said he had been speaking Gaelic for a fair portion of his life but had to take most of the classes twice himself.
Gaelic is like any foreign language and has a whole different set of grammatical rules to learn. The one I had to remember always was that there are male and feminine ways to say things. An example would be the Mac names like MacLeod, MacKenzie and so on. MacLeod is for a male and NicLeod is the female version. I had so many questions during that lesson it wasn’t even funny. LOL!
Again, I’m sure you’re still wondering just what this has to do with you. Well, as you know I am trying different things with the blog: Wednesday’s Classroom, This & That Friday...well...I thought that I would occasionally give you some Gaelic phrases to munch on for Thursdays. So here goes.
Now this is for all the tweeters out there:
English: Thanks for tweeting. Gaelic: Taing airson tweeting. Pronounce: Taheeng ersson tweeting.
Yes, I will use it...I promise...but if you’re not following me on Twitter, you’ll never know. LOL!
So, here’s one more for you:
English: Perhaps. Gaelic: 'S dòcha. Pronounce: Iss dohkha
When hearing Gaelic, I’m reminded of the Nordic languages. After all, many of the Scottish people did come from the Vikings. To me it sounds a lot like Swedish or Norwegian. There are even some sounds, which come across like Finnish to me. Believe it or not, if you saw Lord of the Rings, you’ve heard Finnish as the elven language is based upon it. I answered a question correctly in Scotland because I could identify what language a man doing a demonstration. I had to ask him to repeat the phrase but once I really listed to him, I knew right away what language it was. Gaelic has the same guttural flow. Sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes it’s harsh.
All I know is that I have at least ten books where I use it. And if I have my way, I plan to use many, many more.
What languages have you studied in your life? Do using an authentic language puts more into a story or takes something away? Can’t wait to hear what you all say.
Have a great evening...see you all on Saturday...enjoy This & That Friday!
Lynn
This week has been a busy week so far and it’s only Tuesday. Actually, it started last week as we looked at houses because we’ve decided it that we may want to expand. I’d personally like my own bathroom and a pool. Tired of sharing with the guys. LOL!
Then on Saturday, my youngest decided to twist his ankle and it’s a weird sprain. It still pains him but it’s not bruised or swollen for the most part. But he can’t walk well and this will necessitate a visit to the orthopedic surgeon. Sigh.
Monday was a writing day although I tweeted more than I wrote it seemed as I had the kid and the dog to contend with. The dog you ask...yeah...the dog. Seems that when Kyle got hurt and was Jekyll and Hyde on us, the dog freaked and decided he needed to chew a bit of his own flesh off. He needs to go to the vet but he made for an already hosed day.
I so hate Monday’s for the most part. Instead of complaining I decided to do a little cop out and find a quote, which I think absolutely appropriate. Here it is.
"Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing and life doesn’t." ~Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman wrote Stardust for which I am very grateful. I love that story and follow him on Twitter. He is so dead on with his quote that the moment I saw it this morning, I knew I had a winner.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people when they’ve asked me what’s up, that they wouldn’t believe me. And Neil has told me why. LOL!
What has been your worst people-will-never-believe-me day? Tell me and you’ll get an extra ticket tossed into the hat...so to speak...LOL!
Have a great day...don’t forget...tomorrow is Wednesday’s Classroom and Lesson #1 of Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes will be posted.
See you on Thursday!
Lynn
Okay, I know that is a very cryptic title but true. LOL! For some reason, today is my hump day, not yesterday even though I got little accomplished, the things I did do, got me to thinking. A lot. It’s almost a bad thing when I think. I plan things when I really get right down to it and sometimes those things aren’t as productive as I would like.
We all have those moments. I mean, I didn’t even get on Twitter very much yesterday. Do you know how hard that is? LOL! I love to Twitter...it’s quick and easy...it’s fun. Most days you can find me there. You can imagine my withdrawl from it for even one day.
One of the many, and I do mean many, things I thought about was promotions. I’ve told you some of the things I have planned like revamp this blog and website and those things. One of the items I didn’t mention was book trailers. I love book trailers. So when I opened my email today and ran across this trailer at this site http://www.sunlightsucks.com/ I just melted. Winterheart Designs is one of the places I just love to explore and this trailer is one of theirs.
It just speaks to me and I do know the person behind the scenes. We’ve talked on many, many occasions and I just love her. I’m hoping I can get her to do one of mine in the near future. We’ll see how it all stacks up but my bet is on yes.
Yes, I normally save all the links until Friday but this one was so hot and sexy, I just had to share early. LOL! Don’t you sometimes become that kid shaking their Christmas present? I love those days where I revert back to a younger state of mind. If we all could keep our minds as young as those wide-eyed days of wonder, we’d never lose our zest for life. I know I never, ever will.
One of the things which hit me today was the fact I got a piece of mail today that wanted me to start planning for my funeral. Are they kidding? Or another one which says everyone is a senior when they turn fifty...yes, that’s right...5-0. Again, I want to know just who they are talking to because it can’t be me. I just refuse to admit I’m growing old. Maybe it’s because I am a firm believer in the fact, you are only as old as you feel. Today, I feel like I’m in my early 30s because I want to do it all. LOL!
Have you all had days where all you did was think about what you should do? Or how about dream about what you didn’t? Or know you’re younger than the number shown on your driver’s license? Share your thoughts with me and I’ll give everyone who comments two extra slots in this month’s giveaway!
See you tomorrow for This and That Friday!
Lynn
Every once in a while people ask me where I am on the web. I laugh then tell them everywhere but people like specifics. So here they are with a little update on each.
This is my website. Expect it to be updated in the next few months with a new look and all the new books I’ll be having published between now and the end of the year.
www.lynncrain.com
I have a presence on MySpace but I have to admit I don’t use it much anymore. My daughter-in-law was doing all my updating for me and when she got pregnant, all that stopped.
www.myspace.com/lynncrain
As with the website, I will be updating this myself very soon. Blogger has some wonderful new templates and I’ve been offered help to complete it by another author friend. I’ll warn you first since I do post every day!
www.lynncrain.blogspot.com
This is a blog I’ve had to a few years to show people my journey with the battle of the bulge. I have updated it and would love to know your opinion of it. I’m a few days behind on it but am slowly catching up as I can. Yeah, I’ve been dieting for seventeen days now and you all didn’t even know it...LOL!
http://journeyfromfat2fit.blogspot.com/
This is another medium I have but haven’t done much with except sign up for the darn thing. I try to get to it once a month but it’s sketchy at best.
http://lynncrain.livejournal.com/
This is my yahoogroup and I do a variety of things here. I have a weekly get together I call Sexy Saturday and if enough people show, I will give out free ebooks. eMail me if you want to join and I’ll send you an invite. I try to post at least once a day but mainly on Saturdays.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/XtraOrdinaryRomance/
Now, this is the place you can always get me. Twitter is absolutely addicting and I love it. Who would have thunk what 144 characters could give you? I have a special prize waiting for the person who becomes my 100th follower! Sign up today! It’s a blast!
www.twitter.com/oddlynn3
Again, I’ve been on Facebook a long time but it hasn’t been until recently I’ve actually logged on more than once a month. Why? My whole family is there and I have tons of people who love it. It’s the older generations MySpace in my opinion. Everyone I know has a Facebook page. I do try to get to it weekly so I can see all the new pictures of my grandsons. If you want to befriend me, let me know beforehand and I’ll approve you right away!
www.facebook.com/oddlynn3
I absolutely adore YouTube and used to create tons of videos for my books. You’ll find a lot there if you go to look. I haven’t updated it in a long time but I feel the creative urge coming on. I’ll keep you posted. After all, I do know how to put them in this blog now. Good thing. LOL!
http://www.youtube.com/lynncrain
There are a few more I belong to but these are the places I am at the most. If you belong to any of these and want me to follow or join you, just let me know...pass them around to all your friends...thanks in advance!
Tomorrow we have a special guest...see ya on Thursday!
Lynn
I have been looking at other people’s websites and blogs for a long, long time. After months of deliberation, I am changing the look of everything. That means my website will be updated with a new look and some graphics as well as this blog.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love this sexy, sexy picture on this blog. But I want – no need – it to reflect me and how I think. I don’t know anything about programming, nor do I really want to any more. I mean, yeah, over twenty years ago, I started as a hacker and moved up to what they called a power user. A power user is similar to today’s beta testers. I knew a little about programming and a little about testing. I could wing my way through minor corrections and understand what I was seeing. My real talents, even now, consist of the fact I can break anything and I see the big picture.
The big picture this time is me and my web presence. I want something people enjoy coming to and seeing. After a full month of promoting and writing every day on this blog, interest has waned. I can take it a couple of ways: 1) I’m not writing things which are really that interesting, which means I need to change it up and 2) my blog and websites are ugly. My personal opinion is that they are a little of both.
For right now, I’ve looked at the fact that I love what I’ve seen on Wordpress but I’m basically a lazy person and don’t want to change what I have. This means I have to get someone or myself to do something in blogger similar to Wordpress and incorporate everything I want in it. I also would love everything to match my website, blogger, twitter, MySpace, Facebook and any other social network I belong to at the moment. I belong to a few more but someone else owns them and I can’t change them at all.
All in all, this is a big dilemma for me as change is hard on anyone let along a writer. So today, I took one of my lesser known blogs and looked into the new templates Blogger has. All I can say is OMG! I don’t know what I was waiting for as far as that goes. Wait a minute, I know exactly what I was waiting for, time...I wanted a day to devote to playing with it...but I decided when I lost twenty pounds I would revamp my weight loss blog. You can go see it at http://journeyfromfat2fit.blogspot.com/ and I really shouldn’t say new. I’ve had the darn thing for almost three years as I try to win this battle. I might just do it this time...nope, wrong thing to say...I WILL make it this time.
So, let me ask you all a few questions: do you like erotic romance blogs to be plain? Do you like them with people? Or do you just want them to look nice and don’t care about the other graphics? See, I’m a widget gal and I just love the widgets on other people’s blogs. I’ve seen one with book covers and release dates, I’ve seen them where they track all my work-in-progress so you all know exactly where I’m at. What do you think would be cool in a blog?
Let me know...see you all tomorrow! And don’t forget to tell me about the new blog...I’d love your opinion!
Lynn
Today we have the wonderful, A.J. Llewellyn with us. Help me welcome him to XtraOrdinary Romance.
Thanks for being here today, A.J.!
At what age did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
Hi Lynn, thanks so much for having me here. I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was eight years old. That was when I wrote my first book. Yes, I did! I wrote it in an exercise book by hand. It was called “Ararat” and I thought it was a masterpiece. It was about a little boy who finds out he is dying of cancer and he loves horses. Everybody died at the end, even his horses. My father encouraged me to get away from writing after he found the book. He suggested I take up soccer instead!
What has been your biggest influence on becoming a writer?
My mother’s death when I was six has influenced my whole life I think. I have always filled every second, particularly since she died at the age of 36 (colon cancer). I honestly thought I would be dead by 36 and so I wanted to make sure I lived a full and productive life. Surviving my 36th birthday in good health was a milestone. A sad one however. Had colonoscopies been available when she was alive, my doctor who routinely checks me and my brothers, told me she would probably still be alive. I started writing very young as a way of communicating with her.
How did you feel when you got your first publishing contract?
I was very excited. I ghost wrote a celebrity memoir and I didn’t mind my name not being on the cover. I minded working with the celebrity (who shall remain nameless) who was a complete head case, but I got a book out of it – Beyond the Reef, published by eXtasy Books in August 2008 was based on my experiences. So I am grateful. I worked on a movie with this guy who, like a lot of A list actors has it in his contract that extras and crew members can’t look them in the eye. I’d never heard about it before but it’s very common. Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk to someone and not be able to make eye contact? LOL…
How many novellas/novels have you published to date? When did you have your first sale?
I have 36 novels and novellas, several short stories and many more in the editor’s queue with a few publishers. eXtasy Books is my predominant publisher, but I have books coming out elsewhere too. My first sale to eXtasy in 2007 but the actor’s memoir came before that, plus I was a published journalist long before this.
Tell me about your latest release. Please include if it is part of a series or a stand alone book.
I actually have release dates every two weeks, but my current release as of November 15 will be Bad Cops, the second of a series of movie/webisode tie-ins with Massive Studios, a division of Falcon Films.
What was your inspiration for this book?
Director John Bruno who is a very good friend of mine was staggered by my output and also the heat of my sex scenes. He read my book Phantom Lover and he was excited at the prospect of it possibly becoming a movie. He directs gay porn but is very big on story, which porn is not exactly known for…so he brought four ideas to me, the first of which was Laid (published September 15) and I am excited about Bad Cops because the webisodes are available at the time of the book’s release. It’s the first joint venture of its kind for an erotic fiction novel and a studio. Eventually the webisodes will all make it to DVD – early next year I believe.
How do you categorize yourself: pantser or plotter?
A mix of both. I allow the story to wander if it feels like it. My characters are kinda bossy, you know lol…
How do you handle the editing/revision process?
Edits are vital obviously so you don’t look like a dumb-ass when your book comes out but I don’t require many revisions. I am a storyteller and I just power through the drafts. My problem is stuff like commas and the odd typo because I work so fast.
You’re received some fantastic reviews...how do you feel about them and why?
I love my reviews, honestly but they don’t ensure sales, so I keep them in perspective. I prefer the reviews where you can tell the reviewer has actually read the book. When they use the wrong names for your characters and depict a storyline that has nothing to do with your book, that’s a big give-away!
Did anything odd happen while you were researching this story?
Yes, I went to the set of Bad Cops and I probably shouldn’t say this – but my readers know I am a stickler for details and research, so I insisted that I needed to see the warehouse depicted in my book, but I got all excited and went down to the set and the actor on call that day blew off the shoot! He never returned calls or text messages and said later on that he was busy and unable to call her text. It’s hard to lie about these things when you are an avid Twitter (and so am I) and I see that during the time we were waiting for you that you were tweeting every five seconds from the set of another movie!!
Porn is like this though. I’ve discovered that flakiness is second nature and that all that hot sex requires a lot of nurturing from the director and the videographer.
Now, if you had a choice of taking the place of any character in any book you have ever read, who would it be and why?
I would be one of the characters in the Chronicles of Narnia, because those are the most magical books ever. I think I would want to be Peter – or Lucy even though she is a girl. I love those stories and re-read them often. I would love to meet Aslan and have all those adventures that take years and years in fantasy but only minutes in real time!
If you could time travel, where would you go?
I would go back to 1896 and to the city of Honolulu during the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. This was the United States’ first foreign invasion and its first overthrow of a sovereign rule. I would give anything to have been there helping Queen Lili’uokalani protect her throne. I wish I had come to know her. She must have been a wonderful woman. Hawaii during this time would have been both incredibly beautiful and dangerous, with the islands still undeveloped, but also with so many different cultures meeting at a climactic moment in time. Great change brought with it disease and destruction. I would like to have been witness to all of it.
If you could spend the day with anyone in the world who is famous, who would it be? Why did you choose them and what would you do?
Without question, it would be the Dalai Lama. I have so many questions for him and would like the chance to meet him and to ask his thoughts on so many things. I have read many of his teachings but I am curious about ordinary things as much as his view on the state of the world, the environment and I also want to know if he has any guilty pleasures such as cupcakes. If not, I would take him out for tea and ask him a billion questions and send him home with some Hawaiian music, one of my books and some coconut cupcakes!
What is your typical writing routine? Do you count words, pages or time?
I write every day and I count words. I write 3-5,000 words minimum. Any less and I get agitated because I have so many deadlines. I am always writing one book. Editing another and researching more. I read a lot too and get lots of ideas for books from everything including conversations I overhear, travel magazines and…well, everything! I write as soon as I have made my first cup of coffee. I work for a couple of hours and walk my dog. If I am not rushing off to work, I tackle the business end of things, emails, blogs, twitter, that sort of thing. I write every chance I get, even when I am walking my dog, I carry a notebook and pen with me.
Who and what are you reading now?
I read constantly. You can’t be a writer and not read. It’s one of the many things I have learned and I read as much as possible. Right now, I am reading a wonderful book, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. I work in a library and this is the book everybody I work with has been reading and they passed it on to me. The last book that got us all worked up was Beethoven’s Hair. Three Cups of Tea is a remarkable, true story about a man who built fifty-five schools for girls in the most strictly-controlled Muslim sections of Pakistan. I strongly recommend it.
What authors and books have influenced your writing over the years?
I love memoirs such as Isabella Bird’s Six Months in the Sandwich Islands and Armine Von Tempski’s memoirs of growing up in the islands. I also read all her Hawaiian novels. I devoured Victoria Nelson’s book My Time in Hawaii and loved it. She also wrote a fabulous book on writer’s block. I think the definitive, go-to guide for writers however has to be Stephen King’s On Writing. I don’t believe in writer’s block, by the way. I believe if you’re stuck, move on to something else. That was one of the first lessons I learned from William Goldman. If you get stuck, it’s because your story has gone off the rails. Leaving it alone and coming back, you’ll find where your train train off track and you can fix it!
I learn from non fiction writers…I love travel journals and love the sort of writing that makes you feel like you are there. I hope my books read that way. I love when my readers tell me they feel like they just visited Hawaii by reading one of my books!
Did someone every give you a great piece of advice along the way? What was it?
Yes! I just spent and evening with actress/author Harley Jane Kozak who passed on some great advice, which was about research. She said she learned that when she’s researching an unfamiliar topic for a book she doesn’t go out and buy the fanciest, newest adult, or even YA book on a subject. She gets children’s books because the facts are distilled to their most basic level. I loved that advice!
A.J.’s Bio: A. J. Llewellyn lives in California, but dreams of living in Hawaii. Frequent trips to all the islands, bags of Kona coffee in his fridge and a healthy collection of Hawaiian records keep this writer refueled. A. J. loves male/male erotica, has a passion for all animals (especially the dog, the cat and the turtle). A. J. believes that love is a song best sung out loud.
Find A.J. here:
www.ajllewellyn.com
email: aj@ajllewellyn.com
www.twitter.com/ajllewellyn
www.facebook.com/aj.llewellyn
www.myspace.com/ajllewellyn
Thanks for having me here, Lynn!
You are so welcome! I really enjoyed this A.J.! It was interesting to hear you enjoyed Three Cups of Tea as much as I did...it was very inspirational...as you well know.
Thanks for taking part in my 2 for Thursday promotion.
Also, for those of you just dying to know...A.J. will give one lucky winner their choice of books. I post these winners late Wednesday night and all you have to do be entered is to leave A.J. a comment.
Good luck everyone! Thanks for dropping by!
Lynn
