Best Laid Plans

Hello my lovely readers, we have an exciting guest post today from author Anne Conley, sharing her story. For those who are fans of romance, this looks like a fun read! 

Let me let Anne tell you about her story.

Once upon a time, I wrote a short story for an anthology.  The anthology didn't do all that well, and after about six months or so, I decided to re-write the story, and make it longer.  It's a cute story, fluffy, not like most of the Stories of Serendipity.  But I like it, and the readers that I've heard from so far like it too.

This go-around, I'm trying out KU, so at the moment, The Best Laid Plans of Boys and Men is only available on Kindle.  But it's FREE to KU members, so I'm hoping it will help me gain some exposure and maybe even a few new fans...

The Best Laid Plans of Boys and Men tells the story of the whirlwind May/December romance between Taylor and Alexander. While Taylor is completely caught off guard by Alexander’s maturity and the difference between him and every other boy she’s dated, Alexander’s busy trying to figure out how to tell her he’s the lawyer suing her pants off. 

Here is the Amazon Link I hope everyone enjoys this little story of mine, about Alexander and Taylor.  I sure did enjoy writing it!

Excerpt from the first chapter of The Best Laid Plans of Boys and Men:

Alexander

The bell tinkling over the door announced his entrance into The Unique Hairtique, and Alexander was immediately assaulted by the scents of chemicals and shampoo.  Why did women put this shit on their hair?  This was why he went to a barber shop for his trims.  Clean smells were what he was used to, not this…

“Hi!  Can I help you?” He looked into the eyes of an angel—eyes which were a deep hazel, moss green fading to an earthy brown at the edges.  She was standing at the station nearest to the door, sweeping hair from the floor.

“Uh…yeah.”  He found himself swallowing past a sudden lump in his throat, wondering where it had come from.  Alexander Gibson was never at a loss for words, but the dark blonde hair piled into a messy bun with tendrils artfully escaping called to him.  “I need a trim.”

“I can get you.  Come have a seat.”  She emptied the dustpan into a trash can and opened a drawer on a rolling cart, whipping out a smock for him to wear.  “Same style, just a little shorter, right?”  Her fingers ran through his dark hair, sending a tremor of goose bumps up his arms.  They toyed with the silvery hairs at his temples, lightly plucking the shock of hair over his forehead.  “You like this long on top?  Or do you want it out of the way?”

“What do you think?”  For some reason he wanted her opinion.  She was quite a bit younger than him, but he was fascinated by her—her lips, her eyelashes, the rosy bloom on her cheeks.  He’d always had that shock of hair there; he didn’t particularly like his hair super-short.  It was one of his best features, not that he was vain about it, but women seemed to like to play with that particular part. 

“I think it’s sexy,” she grinned at Alexander, and he felt a stirring under the smock at the way her lips formed the word.  He thought she was sexy too, but he kept that to himself.

He grinned back at her, suddenly feeling twenty years younger.  “Then I’ll keep it.”  He watched as she grabbed the spray bottle from the cart to wet his hair.  “Um… can I get the works?  A shampoo and everything?”  He suddenly wanted to prolong this experience.  What had started as a chore had turned into something he needed to savor.  He’d never had everything done for him at his barber shop, but the need to feel this angel’s hands in his hair was suddenly extreme.

Her eyes widened in surprise, but that was the only reaction to a man asking for the pampering afforded by a place like this.  Most men he knew only let the stylist wet their hair and then cut it.  She swiftly hung the spray bottle back on the cart and smiled again.  Her smile aligned something in Alexander’s insides.  This woman was doing something to him, and he couldn’t explain it.  Nor did he want her to stop.

“Sure.  Follow me back here.”  She turned and strode to the back of the shop where a row of sinks waited.  He watched her backside move under the tight black capris she wore, pretending he had ex-ray vision, ridiculously glad for the smock hiding his stiffy.

Five minutes later, Alexander was officially in some erotic heaven he’d never experienced before, and he’d completely forgotten why he’d come here in the first place, only that he never wanted to leave.  “…Christ…”  Words could not describe the feelings of her hands on his head, massaging his scalp, running through his hair, lathering it up.  “That feels so good.”  He looked up at her to see a smirk on her face.

“It’s the best part of the whole hair-cutting experience.”  Her smirk turned to a wicked grin, and Alexander was helpless to stop his raging boner.  He crossed his legs to hide the bulge.  Instead, he focused on what he could see of the woman hovering over him, rocking back and forth with her movements.

This was quite possibly the most sensual thing he’d ever experienced.  While she washed, his eyes crept to her exposed cleavage and the black lace peeking from the black v-neck t-shirt she wore.  He watched the cleavage bounce—smooth white skin, marked with a tiny mole at the top of her left breast—as she lathered his hair vigorously.  Her toned biceps and forearms flexed with the movements, and he was powerless to do anything besides close his eyes and relax with a groan.  As soon as his eyes closed, her scent overwhelmed him—a light floral scent, mixed with an underlying musk that screamed female.  He inhaled deeply, desperate to cling to the images of skin sliding across skin, tangled sheets, and sweat that suddenly invaded his mind.



Who knew haircuts could be so steamy?!

Anne was kind enough to send me a copy and I will be reviewing it in the coming weeks. Anyone want to read along and do a group review? Go download your free copy and let me know in the comments below. I will get in touch with you before my post to get your thoughts on the book as well! 

Book Review: Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary

Genre: Midgrade Fiction

Back of the Book: Ralph, the adventurous mouse, sets out for a children's summer camp on his motorcycle after being teased and chided by his family.

My Take: I loved this book as a kid, and am amazed how well my garage sale copy held up! My youngest picked it off the shelf for our family reading time as we are in between series until after Christmas ;)

It was unfortunate timing, as we had just put out poison because over a month of live traps had not cured our mouse infestation. But the book was as fun and as charming as I remember, and left me feeling very guilty when my son begged me to go back to the live traps and pleaded to keep one as a pet. Alas, the poison did its job. 

Cleary's writing is far from brilliant, but her storytelling is superb. She breathes life into her characters and now I have a bit more insight into why I don't like cats, I feel guilty for putting out poison to kill mice, and I always dreamed of going to summer camp!  Still loved it after all these years! 

Until next time, 

Keep Reading!

Happy New Year: My Goals for 2015

Image from Happy New Year Wallpapers

Hello lovely readers, if there are any still out there. I do apologize. There have been some major changes in my life this last year.  Because of them, I have struggled with reorganizing my limited time and making time for writing. But I am actively working on my Stalker series, and plan to publish the first book in the series, Hell School: Fresh Meat, this year.

I have been doing A LOT of thinking on whether to pick the blog back up, how I would go about it if I did, and if it was truly beneficial to my writing, or would only distract from my limited writing schedule.  Here I am, so I guess we are going to do this!

My goals for 2015 are around focusing on my writing. I had to take a "real job" in 2014. (You have no idea how hard it was to write that. I have published 5 books, but can't consider it a real job since I am not making a real living from it... yet)  On a plus note, this job allows me the money to pay for decent covers, to pay for marketing and to pay for promotion. The downside is that it takes up 40 hours a week. That's a lot of writing time. But in 2015 I will be working on making writing a priority outside that 40 hour work week.

I am focusing on putting my marketing dollars to work; getting my books out there more, and building up a readership. I have great reviews from those who have read my books, but two years working social media has shown me that it isn't enough to get out there and build up my reputation. There are too many other authors competing for the free space.  I am not going to completely disappear from social media, but as I am sure many of you have already noticed, I don't have as much time. I will be there more in 2015, but my main focus is going to be producing quality writing to entertain you. That doesn't necessarily include clever posts, pretty pins, or 124 character tweets.

I have seven books beating around in my brain. The four-part Hell School series, the sequel to The Hunters, the Third book in the Clear Angel Chronicles and an Infection story I actually wrote two years ago, but lost in the move. I don't expect to finish them all in 2015, that would be insane! But I definitely need to get them going!

That, on top of my personal goals will keep me pretty busy! Look forward to staying in touch with all of you in 2015!


 Until next time,

Keep Reading!

Eternal City, Book 5 in The Castleton Series is out!!

Hello lovelies!

I am so excited to announce that the fifth book in The Castleton Series released yesterday!!

Genre- Sci-fi, YA

Synopsis- Seven generations from now an island rises out of the ocean between Brazil and Africa. Archaeologists are stunned to find the ruins of an unknown city. Chaz Newcomb and his team arrive to begin a dig, but are forced to abandon their work when all but he fall into a mysterious trance. There is only one way to identify the city: go back in time and visit it before it disappeared. Once again, the Auckland’s and the CT 9225’s crews combine their efforts. Their quest takes them to the dawn of humanity where they encounter the last of the Neanderthals, about to go extinct. They also find the lost city, inhabited by an unknown species of humans with amazing technology. The inhabitants have been overtaken by a trance, all but Carolus Nukium, and the city’s three leaders, a set of triplets that call themselves the Triumvirate. When the city sinks below the sea, the Triumvirate goes into stasis; reappearing 12,000 years later at the archaeological dig. There, they discover that humans can now time travel and head for the Time Institute to seize its technology, knowing it will make them invincible. The crews follow in hot pursuit with no idea of the price they are about to pay.

My Take:  My boys are so excited to read this, and I am excited to read it with them! They have absolutely loved every single one of The Castleton series! But I try very hard to read what they are reading before we read it, especially after awkward questions from Rick Roirdan's books caught me completely unprepared! The Eternal City is an exciting and unique take on the lost city of Atlantis. I love the educational elements of all of Mike's books. After The Triangle, my boys were wanting to learn more about pilots and we just watched Flyboys as a direct result of reading Mike's book. I am eagerly looking for information to expand on the myriad of questions I am anticipating about Atlantis, Neanderthals, and Greece. When was the last time your kids read a book that made them want to learn more about history? 

Love, love, love this series!! 

Here are the links to get your own copy in e-book format or paperback. 

Start an exciting adventure with your own kids, or for your own pleasure, today! 

Review: The Unfolding of a Rose by Mamie Smith

Genre: Biography, Spiritual

Synopsis: Author Mamie Smith recounts her daughter Meta Rose's life, and untimely death due to cancer and botched surgery, sharing lessons she learned from Christian Science along the way. The story starts out in 1962 when Meta is just a toddler and the family is moved to Germany because Meta's father is in the military. It follows their lives as they move to Japan, and then back to the states, but never really settling down. It follows Mamie's introduction to Christian science in Japan, her later encounters with it, her eventual conversion, her daughter's conversion, their lives and experiences that led up to Meta finding out that she had cancer, treating it with Christian Science, turning to modern medicine and the surgery that Mamie believes caused her daughter's death. It follows the long hard road this mother walked, holding her daughter through sickness, trying to heal her with her beliefs, and then ultimately losing her, and processing that loss through her beliefs.

Good

The story is heartfelt, deep, and emotionally involving. A mother's loss and pain is a great burden to bear. Mamie's catharsis (this book) to process the good, the bad, and the ugly of her experiences; and move to a place of healing is a wonderful experience to witness. Her love and devotion to her daughter is heroic and endearing. Her guilt over her daughter's death is heartbreaking. The emotions run deep in this story, so keep a box of tissues handy.

Bad

This book was clearly a self-published, or at best a vanity published book. Being self-published is not the problem, but this book desperately needed a non-biased editor for content and flow. The story portrays itself as being about Meta, but it really isn't. It is about Mamie. And that is fine. The story of a mother's conversion, her love for her children, her processing of grief after losing one of them, that is an acceptable story. But without the focus being in the right place, the story is split. Sometimes it is about Meta. Sometimes it is about extraneous details about the family's life, mostly it is about Mamie and the way she saw these events in her life. A good editor could have helped her cut out parts that were not relevant to the story, to fluff up parts that were probably more relevant, and to help re-align the focus. They could've helped Mamie show the story, instead of telling it all.

The Ugly

I try very hard to be respectful of other people's beliefs, religious and otherwise. I respect many religious believers' right to not believe in modern medicine, to put their faith in God healing them. I do question the practice when it endangers others, however.  I found comfort in the story Mamie shares about when she decided that she would heal herself of her need to wear glasses, and a man from the church man pointed out to her that by refusing to wear her glasses while she was driving, and relying on God to heal her, she was endangering others. The man gave her several citations to read on "spiritual sense". It gave me a different perspective on what I thought I knew about Christian Scientists.

And yet, Mamie condemns cancer treatment in this book. She blames the doctors who "botched" the surgery, for her daughter's death. Yes, she goes about it in a very sweet way not blaming them for their shortsightedness. Looking at their sin of fear as the reason that they would not take responsibility for butchering her daughter, and turning her own belief of her ability to heal her daughter and her seen failure into a spiritual lesson of healing the spiritual part of her daughter and therefore not failing.   All of that is good, I guess, but the overall message that she is spreading to others is not to trust doctors, to trust God to heal you.

A wonderful message, except that science and medicine cure hundreds of thousands of people every day!  Early prevention and detection increases the chance of success of treatment. Who knows what might have happened if Meta had not waited to get treatment? It may have turned out the same way, because medicine is fallible. It is not perfect. Then again, Meta may not have had to have such invasive surgery in the first place. I was raised that God made man in his own image, that our cleverness was a gift from God. What we do with our cleverness is up to us, but medicine is a product of that cleverness. A product that, for the most part, does more good than harm. Yes, we should use wisdom in how we implement medicine. Yes, we should weigh the pros and the cons of any given surgery. But to ignore the tools that God has given us through the gift of ingenuity is as much a sin of fear, in my mind.

The spiritual growth and learning in this story is worth the read, but I cannot get on board with the overall message and theme. It hits too close to home for me.

Update: It's Been Awhile

Hello Lovelies,

It has been awhile, and I apologize for that. I have been super busy getting ready for FanX coming up in April, working a full-time job to pay for all the snifty merch, prepping new books to launch, and being sick. Yep, I am home sick (so please excuse any and all spelling/ grammar/ general errors).

I had this lovely schedule planned where I would post once a week while doing all this other stuff, but it just hasn't happened. Yet here I am laid down low by strep and it is time to  touch base with you guys again. Get you up to date and let you know that I have not quit, I am just doing a lot of rallying.

I have joined the rank of authors who work a full time job, and write. (Ok, in my case I am working two full time jobs, still as vp of Soul Star, and now a new job to fund Soul Star's endeavors) It is tough. There are never enough hours in the day. So while out sick I came to some conclusions. I need to blog. I need to keep in touch with you guys. But you will find the posts a bit shorter.

I need to keep doing book reviews. I have about ten books that I have finished reading and not posted the reviews for. That is crazy! There is no excuse for that! So, you will be seeing more reviews coming up. I'll be taking on a different format, I think. Following the short and sweet. But they will be coming.

I need to learn to ask for help. This is something I have always struggled with. Partly because I feel that asking for help makes me less independent, but mostly because I am a little OCD and feel that no one will do it as well as I do. And yet, I have found a couple of fantastic artists who are redoing the covers for several of Soul Star's books. They are wonderful! They do it far better than I could. I need to get past this inability to ask for help.

So here goes: I would like to ask each of you who read this blog to share it with others. Seeing that it is being read will help motivate me to keep writing.

I would like to ask each of you who have read any of my books to post reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, Smashwords, and even on your own blog (if you haven't done so already).

I would like to ask you to share my social media updates. Help me tell people about our books!

If you have read books by Soul Star, I would like to ask you to post reviews for them. We have published some really wonderful Sci-Fi and Fantasy books. Share them with your friends!

If you haven't read any of our books, I would like to ask you to find something you like, read, and post a review.

I would like to ask you to share the love!

Until next time,
keep reading and writing

A Special Holiday Gift

Hello lovelies,

I started this blog in February, 2011. It was "the first step" in "building my author platform".  and it has been a rocky road the last three years. Gosh, it has only been three years?!  Anyway, I'm not really sure that anyone even reads most of my posts. I suppose that is because I don't post consistently or something.
I have been all over the map of marketing, trying to promote my writing, build an audience, get reviews, and all the things "They" say I am supposed to be doing to get my books out to the world.

And you know what? I am tired.

I am doing a lot of soul searching and one of the things that I am doing, in a last ditch effort to reach the masses. (most of which don't read this blog, so this post is probably pointless.) is to offer my e-books on Smashwords for whatever price you are willing to pay. Here is the video I made to announce it. It has all the details, if you are interested in getting one of my books.

It was supposed to be a cute and funny video. I had planned to do my little Ely Preston speech, mention that he suggested that the key to being funny was surprise, show off my books with details about how awesome they were, end with a little blurb about how this was a gift from my family to yours, have my boys and I sing  the chorus of "We Wish you a Merry Christmas, and then my boys were going to hit me with snowballs. Surprise laugh. Cute, right? But the one thing that kept hitting me was "be authentic." and I couldn't make it through the recording without crying. A lot. (And for those of you who have known me for a long time, know that I don't cry.) I went on my little rant and voila. I probably should've just not posted it. Scrapped the video. But I can't. That would not be authentic. I am tired of putting the Pollyanna spin on everything I do.

This last year has been really rough on my family. In some ways, the changes are for the better, but in a lot of ways the changes are just changes. They cause upheaval, but have not left us better off in the long run. Some have even left us worse off.

Since I began this writing adventure, I have published five books. All the "writing advice" out there insists that you cannot expect to make a living as a writer until you have at least five books under your belt. Well, here I am at that magic five book number, and yet I would be making more at McDonalds working part-time than I am currently making.

And I am tired. I spend more time marketing, promoting, pitching, and pleading for reviews than I spend writing.

And I am tired. I've spent more money buying books, merchandise, advertising, and images than I could've made working part-time at McDonalds.

And I am tired. I've worked more hours a week than I ever have in my life. More hours than when I was going to school full-time, working full-time, and raising two toddlers.

And I am tired.

The only reviews I have are ones that I have specifically pushed for from blog reviewers, a few friends, and one or two family members. Out of the (literally thousands) of reviewers I have personally submitted my books to, I have gotten a total of  43 rankings, and 34 reviews. I am grateful to those who were willing to post those reviews. Very grateful.

But I am tired. I am tired of spending most days not writing, for the sake of marketing and promotion and selling. I am tired of spending hours writing special requests to reviewers that almost never get open. I am tired of not selling books.

I am tired of not being able to pay my student loans. I am tired of my house always being a mess. I am tired of scrimping and saving, in the hopes that I can afford to send out the "freebies" and "promotion items" in an effort to get readers and reviewers to pay attention. I am tired of the tension this is causing in my family. I am tired of not being able to write, which was the whole point of this venture in the first place.

I have been running this campaign for about a week now, and have almost doubled my downloads. Sadly, most aren't willing to pay. They are picking the "free" option. I've gotten exactly two reviews from all those downloads. Now, hopefully others will be reading the books over their holiday breaks, and more reviews will come in eventually. (There goes my Pollyanna again, putting the good spin on.)

But I am tired of pushing and promoting and pleading and giving my hard work away for free. What is the point?

Another author commented that most authors of any talent were never famous in their lifetime. Isn't that a tragic condemnation to the arts? I don't want fame, I am just tired of being ignored. I don't want fortune, I just want to be able to feed my family.

I guess I've got a lot more soul searching to do.