Vixenwriter

Thirteen Summer Road Trip Murphy’s Laws

1. Children will get sick on vacation

2. Usually one after the other

3. Almost always involving horrible monkey troubles or vomit

4. In the car

5. If you do not get them all the exact same things to play with on the road, they will fight incessantly, just on principle

6. One of them will break their toy, lose the book, damage the whatever it is and they’ll still fight when the other kids still have their whatever it is, whole and shiny.

7. Their grandparents will send them something that makes an annoying sound.

8. The batteries in this will last until the next ice age

9. Something will go wrong with the car on a road trip

10. At some point, you will get into a fight with your spouse and will spend at least several hours at your in-laws, in the car or at an amusement park trying to ignore them.

11. However, quiet, furtive and hurried make up sex will be memorable and make you smile the rest of the way home.

12. At least one of your children will do or say something horribly embarrassing and/or so dangerous you’ll fear being thrown out or banned at a restaurant chain or amusement park or get beaten up by the woman whose large mole with the very long black hair growing out of it your son just loudly asked her about.

13. The last day of a road trip will always have tears, a potty accident of some sort, a child in need of roadside first aid, exhausted temper tantrums and a lack of clean clothing.

(14 - you’ll do it all again next year)

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I’ll post more in detail on this later but for now, go check out Bam’s Blog for the details of Nothing But Red. This is a really special project done in memory of Dua Khalil Aswad a young woman who was recently attacked by a crowd of men (some members of her own family) who tore off her clothes and beat her to death while many others stood and recorded the event with their cell phones but did nothing to stop the murder. This was referred to as an honor killing as 17 year old Dua was seen with a boy who happened to be Muslim. Yes, she was brutally beaten to death for being seen with a boy of another faith and no one did a thing to stop it.

Skyla Dawn Cameron, inspired by Joss Whedon’s most excellent outraged essay after the murder has organized Nothing But Red. In her own words: What We’re Doing – We’re putting together an anthology of short stories, essays, poems, and art work, called “Nothing But Red.” The book will be produced as both a trade paperback and an eBook through Lulu.com with the proceeds going to Equality Now. The book will be released on April 7, 2008 (the one-year anniversary of Dua Khalil’s death). We are pleased to announce, officially, that the first essay in the book will be Joss Whedon’s original post, “Let’s Watch a Girl Get Beat to Death.” Our website is currently located at nothingbutred.wordpress.com.

Hop on over to Bam’s to read more about the project from Ms. Cameron.

I’m probably going to regret saying this out loud but I can’t be silent.

Okay, I’m not an oldbie by any stretch. I’m still a relative newbie but I’ve done this a while and on top of that, I get agitated easily and in the last months, there are several things that have worked my last nerve to the point of being frayed. Some of the stuff I’ve seen of late online makes me want to shake my finger and tell those teenaged boys who live across the street to pull up their damned pants I’m so disgusted in general. This isn’t so much advice -because hey, who am I to give advice - as it is several observations:

1. PLEASE for the love of the sweet baby Jesus on his pogo stick can you stop talking about how special your writing is compared to other authors? I know, you’re a storyteller, not a story weaver. We all pale in comparison to your deep POV and whatever else this brand of writer likes to constantly tell the rest of us about your craft. WE GET IT. Now can you shut up?

2. If you plan to talk shit about other authors when you’re wowing your groupies with your fabulous writing prowess, it’s a good idea to say it on the phone, via IM or to lock down your loop so no one can find your stuff.

3. I’m going to revisit 1 and 2 here for a moment because I cannot believe the fucking insane level of hubris it takes for an author, any other author beside Neil Gaiman or William Gibson to get online and talk shit about other authors and tell everyone how great they are. Do other some authors get on my ever loving last nerve? TOO RIGHT THEY DO! But I cannot imagine getting online or talking to other people about how great I am in comparison to everyone else. I don’t know, maybe it’s a failing of mine. It’s just grotesque. In that vein, attacking rivals and attempting to spread scandal is unprofessional to the extreme and it also creates fallout for everyone involved in even an auxillary way.

4. Please, please, please take your shit and deal with people face to face or offloop. Squabbling makes everyone look bad and I DON’T WANT TO KNOW. I don’t. It’s not my business if author A doesn’t like author B or if publisher A doesn’t like publisher B and it shouldn’t be made my business, and it REALLY shouldn’t be made the business of readers. We seem to be forgetting who is watching. Readers don’t deserve to be dragged through this insanity. They deserve good reads.

We are authors. We exist in public and the things we say will get leaked. Just because you’re having a bad day, or are bored, or your mom is sick or you got a bad review or your boyfriend left his beard hairs in the sink or damned cat sharpened her claws on your favorite pair of Doc Martens loafers - it’s no excuse. All this tantruming, all this negative smack about other authors, all this oversharing and blaming bad behavior on everything else reflects on our community as a whole.

Why the hell do we do this to each other? There are people in this community I don’t like. Yep. But look, if *I* can have filters, anyone can. I’m not saying we have to group hug or anything. I’m not saying we all have to be nice to each other. I’m saying can you please stop making me look like an asshole because you can’t keep your bragging about your special snowflake writing to your friends via IM like everyone else?

Dignity costs nothing. It really doesn’t. Graciousness and composure are sometimes more difficult but still, they’ll almost always serve you well, even when you’re a big mouthed bitch like me.

So the five author anthology that has my quickie from last year, Sudden Desire is now out in print!

Sexy Summer Fun features stories from me, Katherine Kingston, Hannah Murray, Nikki Soarde and Ravyn Wilde! To celebrate, I’m going to run a contest (because they are fun and I can). Tell me what your favorite romantic summer activity is! Easy yes? Just leave them in the comments to this post and I’ll choose a winner for the paper anthology at 3 pm pacific on Saturday.

And a quick comment on the RWA PAN/PRO thing: Okay so it’s not quick so I’m going to put it behind a text cut. If you want to read it, click the read more text…

Read the rest of this entry ?

I’ve missed this one a few weeks in a row. So something for adults only behind the cut!

Read the rest of this entry ?

Yesterday, my motley band of five joined 17,000 others and did the Susan Komen 5 K Cancer Run (and walk). What a sight it was to see both decks of the viaduct filled with people all there to raise money and awareness for breast cancer detection and research.

Tracy, a dear, dear friend, is about 70% through her chemo right now. She’s had a very rough time of it and this is her second bout. I want her around for a very long time. I walked for her yesterday. And for our friend Adreinne’s mother who passed last year. And for our friend Karen who is a survivor and in remission. And for the millions of women just like them all over the world. It was a good thing.

So the very clever Ann Aguirre came up with an idea. How about seven of our agent, Laura Bradford’s authors get together and do a group blog. The Bradford Bunch Blog was born featuring: Ann Aguirre, Anya Bast, Cynthia Eden, Jodi Lynn Copeland, Lauren Dane, Marissa Scott and Vonna Harper - Vonna’s link isn’t working today!

Anyway, Ann is going to kick the blog off Sunday and there’ll be multiple giveaways to start the blog right to pop in and say hello. We’ll be blogging in order of our names on the header of the blog but there are some fabulous authors on board so you never know what you may find!

Okay so I haven’t done this for a few Fridays because I had a book release last week and two revisions to turn around and another book release Tuesday - etc. But I have read a lot of truly fabulous books lately. So many I’m going to break this up - today I’ll do print books and Monday I’m going to do Ebooks (including my review of Annie Dean’s My Alibi - yes, that’s right, an ARC - ha!, Mackenzie McCade’s Take Me (another ARC, I IZ Lucky!) and NJ Walters’ Three Swords One Heart)

For today then:

Lara Adrian’s Kiss of Midnight and Kiss of Crimson

Kiss of Midnight is book one in her Midnight Breed series and sets the tone for what is proving to be a fabulous world!

Lucan is a Gen One Breed Warrior - a vampire who protects the race and humans from Rogues - the Breed who’ve given over to bloodlust and have become addicted to killing and mayhem. He’s oh so wounded and defended and alpha uber sexy too.

Gabrielle is a photographer with a haunted past and plenty of her own wounds.

Together they’re combustible but both totally afraid of love but Lucan knows she’s a breedmate, a rare human female who can be bound to them by blood forever.

Lots of emotion, angst and pain here to go with the love but it all works. Just enough but not too much to be soppy. I really enjoyed their back and forth and I loved Gabrielle as a heroine as well.

Kiss of Crimson I got this right before I left for Lori Foster’s Reader Gathering in Ohio so I read it on the plane and LOVED it.

I gave the basic world details above but Dante is one of the Warriors and when he’s on patrol he’s nearly killed and stumbles into Tess’ vet clinic and takes her blood to survive. He’s able to wipe her memory but not the fact that he’s taken blood from a woman who’s a breedmate.

He doesn’t want a mate but he can’t stop his attraction to Tess. Even when his investigation brings them together through her ex, a man more obsessed with her than she imagines.

Neither one tells the other the whole truth and you can imagine that leads to problems but this is a romance and of course you get an HEA but the way we get there is convincing and original and I think Crimson edges out Midnight as my favorite by a tiny bit, probably because Dante, the sexy Italian, is scorching hot.

Both books are wonderfully inventive and I really enjoyed them and can’t recommend them enough.

Oh and speaking of wonderfully inventive - have you all read the Crimson City series? If you haven’t and you enjoy speculative fiction/urban fantasy/paranormal romance - this series is a must read. Read in order though as the world unfolds with each new book written by a group of really excellent authors.

So I’d had Shards of Crimson - an anthology, for a while in my TBR pile and finally grabbed it and absolutely loved it.

Shards of Crimson Anthology, Liz Maverick, Patti O’Shea, Carolyn Jewel and Jade Lee One of the best things about the series is that you’ve got this world filled with humans, vampires, werewolves and the rogues that won’t fit in any camp and each author gives her voice to a different perspective. In this anthology, the strengths of the series works in novella form as well.

Maverick gives us A Time To Howl - Tajo Maddox - werewolf rogue and Gia Asprey, werewolf royalty. Fast paced action, great chemistry, tight story that fits in nicely with the series and best of all, a glimpse of the characters I’ve come to love.

Carolyn Jewel gives us DX - a demon/human I-ops officer love story. Oooh, more delicious angst and hot action from another part of the city where the demons have been let in in previous books - the Lower.

Jade Lee gives us School Bites - human schoolteacher gets bit and turned into a werewolf in a world prejudiced against them. Druid and principal John helps Toni master her wolf in the midst of some excellent lust and the brewings of love. Again, Lee echoes the larger themes of the series - differences, otherness, prejudices, and overcoming that to realize people aren’t as different as they appear.

Last but not least, Patti O’Shea contributes Dark Awakening with the long awaited uniting of Kimi and her demon crush Nic as they face off against a demon foe he’s not sure they can beat. Kimi is young and inexperienced but strong and confident. O’Shea walks a great line here. Nicely written sex scenes perfect for this couple as well.

So then - of course - I had to go back and pick up Liz Maverick’s Crimson City to re-read because I love the world so much.

Liz Maverick’s Crimson City is the opener in a multiple book, multiple author series of some of the best speculative fiction/urban fantasy/paranormal romance I’ve ever read. Crimson City gives readers the groundwork for the rest of the books and although you can read the Shards anthology as a standalone, it’s nice to re-visit characters you’ve come to know and love.

CC gives us the story of primary vampire Fleur Dumont and human B-ops cop Dain Reston. Both have wonderfully tortured pasts and theirs is the “they should SO not be together” story that in the right hands is deliciously angsty and dark. Luckily, Maverick has those hands.

Big themes dominate - forgiveness, overcoming mistakes, courage, honor, loyalty, and love. Fleur is a strong, flawed heroine and Dain is deliciously dark and wounded. The love story is marvelous, the world building is excellent and I think everyone’s shelves should have it.

There were more books - I re-read Rhyannon Byrd’s Triple Play. Man I’d forgotten what a dirty/hot book this was! If anyone actually cares, I do the Harlequin 10K book Challenge and keep a review blog there. The complete blog listing has a wonderful group of readers with all tastes to check out. My TBR pile is already larger because of the blogs I read there, LOL.

The Maverick Authors are chatting tonight, June 14th at 5 pacific/8 eastern

Join us! We’ll announce the winners of our monthlong contest!

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Thirteen Things That Bug Me

1. Bloggers who consistently try to police what everyone else says

2. Authors who can’t seem to speak to anyone else without telling you how great their writing style is, how special they are and how much they rock oh and by the way did you hear about my new book deal with X? Sigh. Dignity people!

3. That weird black hair that I keep having to pluck, what the *uck is up with that?

4. People who talk on cellphones in the middle of any event they should have turned it off for. Like say, the St. Martins press publisher spotlight at RT, the movies, when they’re in front of you in line at the grocery store…

5. Heroes in romances who are assholes and people who keep saying I’m PC because I can’t get behind a dude who rapes the heroine or emotionally or physically abuses her. Whatthefuckever! I didn’t say you can’t publish it, I said it bugs me. And it does. Because heroes don’t abuse women thankyouverymuch.

6. People who make excuses for everything. Suck. It. Up.

7. People who seek to make themselves feel better by tearing other people down.

8. “Light” cheese. It’s just, not cheese.

9. People with terribly communicable, deadly diseases who jet off to Europe without a care.

10. Paris Hilton.

11. Paris Hilton “finding God”

12. Lindsay Lohan’s mother

13. Little girls in clothing made for exotic dancers

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