Clarification

Apparently my previous post sounded a little down. I’m not depressed or upset about anything. Not really.  Maybe a little frustrated with the absence of my muse lately, but certainly not depressed. There’s no reason to be. The print edition of THE WAGONMASTER has met with very positive reviews. 🙂 Gotta love that.

The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys move And the part about not making any money at writing wasn’t a complaint, just an explanation as to why I don’t feel I should really make myself miserable spending all my spare time on promotion and stuff.

I don’t write for the money. (Right now there isn’t much money to consider. LOL) I write because I enjoy it. Maybe one day when I make the big time, money might play a bigger role in my decisions, but not now. Now I write (and promote my writing) when I want to– because it’s fun. When it stops being fun, I have to take a step back and reevaluate things.

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The last post was just about that reevaluation. That’s all. I think my muse’s defiant refusal to cooperate is because I was spending too much of my free time doing stuff that wasn’t bringing me any enjoyment.  There were things that were causing me stress. I don’t like stress.  LOL 

Blue Collar full movie Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning trailer So, as evidenced by the lack of posts, I’m currently spending my free time doing things I enjoy, like reading, having lunch with my daughter, or playing video games with my son. I’m thinking that maybe if I let go of some of the stress related to writing (and especially the promotion of it,) I can coax my muse into returning.

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Nita

Big Sigh

So I haven’t posted in a month. I tell myself I should, but my response is: Why? Nobody ever reads this thing. And if they do, they don’t leave a comment. Seems like a waste of time, really.  I’ve tried sprucing it up with different layouts. I’ve tried having guest bloggers with some really great posts. I was embarrassed by the lack of response my guests received. 🙁

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As you can tell by the lack of posts, I’ve decided that it’s just not worth the time and effort. I’m sure I’ll post occasionally when I have something special. There’s no reason to shut down the blog completely. I spent hours setting this thing up– I’m not going to ditch all that work.

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I’ve entered a couple of contests with The Wagonmaster. If I make the finals in either one, you’ll see it here. If my muse ever returns from her currently AWOL status, I’ll post about my writing. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial rip

For now, I’m just not going to work so hard at this second job of mine. I’m a little burned out. As RWA is very quick to point out, electronic and small print authors don’t make much money from their writing. I write because I love to write. Usually. But if I’m not really in the mood, it becomes a chore, a job. And it’s one that doesn’t pay well at all. Other than a very few dollars, the salary I gain from writing is the pleasure and enjoyment it gives me.  

Some of you who aren’t electronically published will think I’m exaggerating. I kid you not. For my tax return, I had more than double the amount of expenses (web hosting, advertising) than I had in income. And I didn’t even include my RWA and chapter dues or $500 worth of expenses I could have claimed for a conference I went to.

So if you don’t see me around much, it’s because I’m trying to get away from the mundane work of promotion and get back to the joy of writing. So many friends and fans (yes, LOL, I do have a few fans) have asked me when my next book is due out. Heck, I don’t have anything finished, much less contracted. My muse has apparently gone on strike. I need to focus on why I started writing to begin with and spend less time blogging and promoting. If I don’t get back to writing, I won’t have anything to promote anyway.

Nita

Guests are coming!

Ali G Indahouse hd I have an interview with Cate Masters on Monday. She’ll be giving away a free pdf copy of her latest release to one lucky commentor!  And Celia Yeary will be by soon for visit, too!  Stay tuned for more info.

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Nita

Counting down…

Only 3 more days till vacation!  Yay!  We leave Friday to drive to Ft. Lauderdale.  We’ll spend the night in a hotel on the beach there and drive into Miami on Saturday morning. We set sail on our cruise Saturday afternoon. 🙂 

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I think I have all the shopping done.  I still need to pack, but that shouldn’t take too long. I’ve got my base tan to help prevent a sunburn. And I’ve lost 31 pounds, so I’m in much better physical condition for all the activities. 🙂 

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I’m so excited I can hardly stand it!

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Nita

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THE WAGONMASTER is now available at Fictionwise Looking for Eric dvdrip . Yay! But even better… It’s #1 on Freya’s Bower Bestseller list at Fictionwise!  🙂 WooHoo!

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Nita

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Please Welcome Laura Hogg

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For the Love of a Queen

Could a man allow the woman he loves to die in order to save everyone she loves?

This romance is set slightly in the future in a war-devastated world.  NAYDA JANAK is a woman of unusual talents.  She was recruited as a teenager by a secret government agency and trained as a spy.  Now she uses her various skills to help people who can’t help themselves, traveling the countryside with her small group of companions.  She comes across a village and changes the lives of the desperate people living there.  For her trouble, she is crowned queen, a warrior queen who trains her men to be soldiers.

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 JEFF LAWRENCE’S entire family is wiped out in the war, and he hits the road as a teenager with a bag of food and his sword.  One day he is stopped by CURN, the cruelest warlord roaming the streets.  Curn raises his sword to Jeff, and Jeff puts up a valiant fight.  Curn then discovers that Jeff is the nephew of a world-famous sword-fighter and was trained by him.  Jeff then has no choice but to accept this warrior’s offer and become initiated into his army of thugs.

Years pass.  Some of Nayda’s soldiers battle some of Curn’s and her people kill his.  For this, Curn seeks to execute her.  He sends in Jeff, his top general, as a spy to get information and bring back the queen for harsh punishment.  Jeff goes to her camp and asks to join her side, pretending to be a deflector from Curn’s army.  She accepts him with hesitation. 

Spending time with her brings Jeff to the realization that he has met his match.  He falls deeply in love with Nayda.  They get married, but Jeff is inwardly tormented, the threat of Curn constantly on his mind.

He doesn’t want to bring her back for execution, but if he doesn’t, her people will be slaughtered.  For love, he chooses to save those she cherishes.

He watches while she’s taken captive, not lifting his sword in her defense; watches her suffer punishment and in agony can do nothing about it.  This queen and her warrior will battle evil, but will the price be their love or their lives?

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***

Hello, Laura Hogg here. Thanks Nita, for letting me be on your blog! I write a variety of romance and some paranormal. For the Love of a Queen-think of the Middle Ages superimposed on the near future, and my time-travel, Romeo vs. Juliet-a wife chases her husband through different eras of history to stop him from killing people-are out with The Wild Rose Press, as well as a couple of vintage pieces set in the 1920s and an inspirational. Oh, Wings ePress has my historical romance, The 12th Kiss, set in the year 1820, and Aspen Mountain Press has my paranormal, Double Vision. With that one, I asked myself what exotic setting could I place a romance in, and thought of it-the astral plane. J I have a Western coming out with Eirelander Publishing next year.

 

Excerpt from For the Love of a Queen:

Curn’s arms crossed over his chest. “It’s been awhile. Too long.”

Jeff didn’t move. Angry skies rumbled in warning.

“Come back with me now.”

“I’m staying with my wife,” Jeff stated.

Curn lowered his arms, and fury darkened his features, but he seemed to get a grip on his stormy emotions. “Why do you defy me? You know what I’ll do if you don’t follow orders.”

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Jeff touched the hilt of the sword strapped at his side. The first drops of rain moistened his face and hands.

“Uh, uh, uh!” Curn wagged his finger.

Jeff’s hand hovered over his weapon. “Fight me, Curn, no armies involved. There’s no need to bring the others into this.”

Wallace and Gromit in A Close Shave divx Laughter burst from Curn’s gut, harsh and disbelieving. “I don’t think so!”

Curn stepped close, and Jeff inched his weapon out of its scabbard. Curn dropped his hand on top of Jeff’s and squeezed it.

He spoke in a whispered hiss against Jeff’s ear. “I have three hundred men circling her village from a distance, unseen. Cooperate with me, or I’ll send a man to give the word to kill them all. I warn you, do not tell your wife when she’s captured that you didn’t know about this. Never, never! Defy me again.”

Curn moved back and whistled, and several large warriors stepped out of the trees and stood behind him, glaring. Rain pelted down.

“Jeff, I…” Nayda’s voice dropped off as she turned the corner around the boulder.  She froze on the spot.

***

Click here to purchase For the Love of a Queen.

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http://traveltheages.blogspot.com/

Please welcome Beth Trissel

Mysterious old homes, shrouded mountains and valleys hidden between misty ridges; the lure of Eastern Woodland Indians and Scots-Irish settlers in colonial American…this is what I know, what I love.  But I spread out from my Virginia home base to journey into the Carolinas at the height of the Revolution.   Enemy of the King God on Trial ipod is my version of The Patriot. Zathura: A Space Adventure divx

buy Pueblo Pluto Step into the graceful parlor of Pleasant Grove, an eighteenth century Georgian plantation built high on the bluff above the Santee River.  Admire the elegant lines of this gracious brick home and its exquisite décor. Stroll out into the expansive garden between fragrant borders of lavender and rosemary. Bask beneath the moss-hung branches of an enormous live oak, then saunter back indoors to dress for a candlelight dinner in the sumptuous dining room. But don’t plan on a lengthy stay, you’re about to be snatched away for a wild ride into Carolina backcountry.

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Pleasant Grove, the home featured in Enemy of the King, was drawn from Drayton Hall, the oldest preserved plantation in America that’s open to the public, located outside of Charleston, SC: http://www.draytonhall.org/

chapel_hillsmscaled_picI also incorporated elements of my Virginia ancestral home, circa 1816, located outside the historic town of Staunton.  Called Chapel Hill, this Georgian style brick house has been in the family for going on eight generations.  The old kitchen, or summer kitchen, a separate building from the main house, is no longer standing but I remember it from my childhood. The smokehouse, stable and some other outbuildings still remain.  The house itself is filled with a wonderful collection of heirlooms.

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The ‘snake thing’ in Chapter One of Enemy of the King is drawn from an incident that happened to me at Chapel Hill when I was a girl.  Back in my contest circuit days, more than one judge told me a snake couldn’t possibly get into a house and wind around the antlers of a buck mounted up on the wall.  They can and one did; a rather horrifying discovery for a child to make in the wee hours on her way to the bathroom.   And then there’s the fact that I always suspected the house was haunted…not sure by whom.

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1780, South Carolina: While Loyalist Meriwether Steele recovers from illness in the stately home of her beloved guardian, Jeremiah Jordan, she senses the haunting presence of his late wife. When she learns that Jeremiah is a Patriot spy and shoots Captain Vaughan, the British officer sent to arrest him, she is caught up on a wild ride into Carolina back country, pursued both by the impassioned captain and the vindictive ghost. Will she remain loyal to her king and Tory twin brother or risk a traitor’s death fighting for Jeremiah? If Captain Vaughan snatches her away, he won’t give her a choice.

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year is 1780, one of the bloodiest of the American Revolution. The entire Southern garrison has been captured and Lord Cornwallis is marching his forces deep into South Carolina. ‘Bloody Ban’ Lieutenant Major Banestre Tarleton and his infamous Legion are sweeping through the countryside. Revenge is the order of the day on both sides and rugged bands of militia are all that stand between crown forces and utter defeat.

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