The Spasmodic Blogger

Well, where has she been? you might have asked. I admit I'm not very good about blogging. Many authors and other people in general are so clever, so astute about this. Not me. But that's not to say I haven't been busy. For a while it seemed like I was passing myself in my own hallways. Between deadlines, rewrites, family stuff, house stuff, animal-kid stuff, and more stuff than even George Carlin considered, I was running on about four or five hours of sleep a night. Yes, I know, for some of you that's SOP. I don't do very well on less than seven or eight. Anyway, every time I thought about this blog, I'd manage to push it to the bottom of the list.

My 13-year-old cat, Josie, passed away after an unhappy lifetime of major anxiety and resulting poor health. At first I thought I'd wait for quite a while before I got another cat. But then I found myself trolling shelter sites, looking at feline pictures on the sly, and searching for my favorite of all cats, a tabby. I didn't want a kitten. Oh, they're so cute and loveable, but an adult cat has an established personality and you know what you're getting. I was cruising Oregon Humane Society's site when I saw this photo.

Murphy

He's a seven-year-old cat with three legs. Apparently, he lost his right front leg as a kitten in some vaguely described injury. He'd been surrendered for equally vague reasons. His coat was a little rough, and he needed a good home and quality diet. Of course, I took one look at him and I was a goner. He needed me. I printed out the page and carried it to the shelter to meet him. What a doll! Even if you aren't a cat person, you can understand why my heart went out to him. He's so affectionate and loving. And while his gait is off, he gets around pretty well, and he's fit in with the dogs just fine. Good food gave him a sleek coat, and he's a sweet, happy guy. I named him Murphy.

 

Here's the cover for my upcoming July release, Home by Nightfall. Check my website in a couple of days for Chapter One (www.alexisharrington.com). Home By Morning is a best seller, in the top ten of all Amazon Publishing titles so far. Wow! I'm glad so many of you like it--it was a labor of love, as is this new title. Each book stands alone, but if you're following the characters in Powell Springs, here's the next installment.

 

 

 

Then there was mundane stuff like having a huge poplar in the backyard removed. It was about 60 feet tall and only about half grown. The arborist who looked at it said that it could fall down (right into the house) and its roots ran everywhere, making the backyard as bumpy and uneven as a wild forest but without the glamour or romance of the real thing. Now that part of the yard looks nekkid but I think I'll leave it to the dogs for a while.

While all this excitement was happening, I was also working on my next project. More news about that to come soon. I'll be in NY for Book Expo. If you go, drop by the Amazon booth on the afternoon of June 5th and say hi. I'll be doing a signing.

 

Home By Morning On Sale Now

Amazon's Kindle division released Home By Morning like a freed bird on Christmas Eve. And like a bird seeking a suitable roost, it flew to the Top 100 sales chart in short order. As I write this, it is currently #11 in all Kindle book sales (out of more than 750,000 titles available) and #1 in Historical Romance. This bird is on fire!

Now I'm in the throes of finishing Home By Nightfall, the second of this two-book series. Never having had children myself, I still compare the exercise of writing a book to being pregnant: I get an idea and nurture it along, pleased and a bit uncertain; after a while I settle in for months of work with episodes of emotional jags along the way when things don't feel right. Then I get down to the last parts of the job. The end is in sight but we're not quite there. I'm literally saying, "Get this thing outta me!" as I toil away to finish. The dogs wander in and out as I labor, unconcerned by the drama. At last, surrounded by empty Burger King drink cups that once held Diet Coke, a wastebasket full of used tissues (there are always tears), and an empty dental floss dispenser because I floss my teeth while I proofread, I have a book. Or will have.

During breaks in this particular endeavor I'm stopping to check on the progress of my high-flying bird child, and I'm so proud.

A Time For Thanks and Reflection

This has been an amazing year for me, probably the best one of my life. So many good things happened and went right for me (a change I'm not used to!), and I am extremely grateful for them all.

My readers--people who remembered me from my early days in print--and new buyers who were unfamiliar with my work and willing to try something new, all came together to contribute toward this success. I know what it means for me. Here's what it means for you. I will now be able to bring you new stories published on an independent basis, giving you the kind of tales you want to read but can't seem to find in print. The e-book revolution has made so many things possible.

Thank you for your support, your kind words, and your encouragement. You and I have a writer/reader partnership that is very dear to me.

May the peace and joy of the season fulfill your hopes and dreams as you've fulfilled mine. An author couldn't ask for a better readership. New things are already in the works for 2012 and I'm hoping the coming year will be as exciting as 2011 has been.

A New Face for Home By Morning

Here's the cover for Amazon's Montlake Romance imprint of Home By Morning. I first dreamed of writing this book years ago, and the dream finally came true last year when I indie published it. Then Amazon came calling. I'm hard at work on the sequel, Home By Nightfall, which will be out in July 2012.

Home By Morning makes its new debut in both paper and as an e-book on Christmas Eve. How great!

Take a look: http://tinyurl.com/82tlye5

Kindle is selling all the major formats so, jingle bells, you can get the e-book on December 24. The paperback is available now for pre-order.

Silent But BUSY!

In October I attended the Novelists, Inc., conference in St. Pete Beach, Florida to party, um, I mean to improve my mind and learn the industry latest. It was not only very informative, but I got to see people who are usually only e-mail names to me. A good and smart time was had by all.

I was also fortunate enough to catch up with a very dear old friend whom I hadn't seen since 1997. That reunion was the best part of the whole trip (certainly the airport/airplane part was a drag, especially since it's a major distance for me).

But even more exciting news for my readers! On Christmas Eve, new Kindle-only and paperback editions of Home by Morning will be coming out through Amazon's Encore publishing arm. I am thrilled to be able to bring this book not only to my Kindle-owning readers, but also to those who've yet to make the leap to e-reading technology. This paper edition is available NOW for pre-ordering so you might very well have yours delivered to you on the release date. Check this out: http://tinyurl.com/7h4p4bs
 
Home By Nightfall, the second book, will be out this summer. Even as I type this, I'm only taking a break from that project. And yay, Jackson, my beautiful but majorly energetic Great Pyr is off to doggy daycare tomorrow. Roxanne, who's mellow and content to sleep on the sofa in my office, will stay here with me.

As soon as I have a new cover to show you, I'll post it here first!

Stay tuned!

Object Lesson

One of the elements that is extremely important to writing fiction is conflict. For some reason, that was always a stumbling block for me. I never liked books in which the hero and heroine are always bickering, bickering, bickering--pointlessly. That's a clumsy use of the story building block and a lame substitute for true conflict.

I understood what it was, but I couldn't get the knack of how to make it work for me. In that way, it was like all the math classes I ever had to take in school. To this day, the idea of math makes me shudder. Just give me a calculator and I'll be okay. (I did actually see a friend use algebra once--for real--but she's got a science background so it doesn't count. And the weird thing is, she had her paper and pencil and foreign symbols, and I had the calculator and I got the answer first.) I did catch on, though, and while it's still not easy, I understand the use and importance of conflict. And it's more than just bickering.

Anyway, the other day I happened to have a camera handy for once and caught this picture. It made me remember the classic lesson I heard in a writing workshop many years ago. The simplest definition of conflict in writing is two dogs and one bone. There are a lot of nylon bones around the house for these two, but no matter which one Roxanne has (right), Jackson (left) wants it. It turns into a tug-of-war with lots of growling and shoving. It's not a fight, just a contest of supremacy. Jackson is definitely the alpha--he outweighs Roxanne by a good 40 pounds--but she doesn't just give in and slink away. She hangs in there to the end, and sometimes she even wins. When she doesn't, I give her something better--a cookie. Not exactly a strategic victory, but a reasonable substitute.

Technical Problems

Desperate Hearts reader reviews:

" . . . I absolutely love the story lines Alexis Harrington brings to life in her books. Strong characters, with lots of depth to them, that you discover as you read along. The only downside to her books is the horrible editing! This book was the worst one so far, it had words missing or turned around in a way that made it difficult to follow if you weren't absorbed in your reading of it. Such a great writer should not have so many errors in a book! The ONLY reason I gave this book a 4 Star rating was because of the number of grammar errors!"

" . . .My problem was that I bought the book on Kindle. It was soooo badly transcribed to kindle format that it was hard to follow. At one point Jace was kissing Kyle instead of Kyla! Give me a break! Buy the book. Don't buy it on Kindle until they fix the mess the publisher made of it."

A Taste of Heaven reader reviews:

" . . . As the title of this review suggests the Kindle version of this book is not formatted properly to the point of interferring [sic] with the reading of the book. I would not recommend it for Kindle."

Now then. Authors of all sorts and across all genres are accustomed to lacerating reviews. We don't like them--we work hard to bring the best story we can to our readers--but they go with the job. For all the glowing and truly appreciated reviews, there are always a couple of clinkers. Sometimes they are downright vicious. I admit to a certain amusement to read a hurtful review that is so badly misspelled and constructed I sometimes think, back atcha, dear reader.

But--

Julie Ortolon, author extraordinaire, has a few answers to the type of complaints above. I found her blog to be very informative because I've wondered how I could have slaved and proofed, and proofed and slaved over a file, only to incite these sample reactions.

I don't want to repeat her words or steal her thunder. So take a look and learn something even I wasn't aware of.

Why Do Ebooks Have So Many Typos???