MEET MY CHARACTER Blog Hop!

I was invited to participate in a blog hop titled: “Meet My Character Blog Tour” by the lovely and talented Regina Kammer – thank you Regina!! This blog hop highlights a main character from an author’s work-in-progress (WIP) or recently published or soon-to-be-published work. Regina Kammer introduced Joseph Phillips from her Historical Erotica, Disobedience by Design, which I am currently reading and thoroughly enjoying! In this book, which takes place mainly in England in 1860, Joseph is a very experienced and quite gorgeous 21 year old American from NYC. Read more aboutJoseph and Disobedience by Design! More links can be found at the bottom of this entry.

The Character from my Destiny Series that I will briefly discuss here is… dun dun dun... LIZZY

1) What is the name of your character?  Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Her full name is Elisabetta Moretti but everyone calls her Lizzy. She is fictional but please don’t tell her that. She may come after you.

2) When and where is the story set?

The story is set in modern day Sicily, Italy.

3) What should we know about him/her?

Lizzy grows up, the only daughter of a hard working fisherman, in a small Sicilian fishing village some 77 kilometers from the capital of Palermo. She has no mother but she does have a brother that she's never met.

Lizzy becomes a trained thief possessing the paranormal abilities of telepathy and mind control. She's endowed with at least 2 other abilities that are not fully realized until much later. In book 1 Lizzy is a young girl, growing up in Sicily. In book 2 Lizzy is 23 years old, while traversing the Atlantic, aboard a vast ocean liner. In book 2 Lizzy is introduced to her soul mate Vincent. Lizzy, is a stunning Sicilian female of course, who, though well versed in all areas of self defense and other criminal underground activities, is naïve in the ways of love and life.

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

In Book 1 - Lizzy’s main conflict is that she doesn’t fit in. She has no friends as a young child and feels like an outsider looking in. All she wants is to belong… so when she finally finds a place where she does feel a part of - she becomes internally torn because this place is teaching her the prowess needed to be part of the criminal underground. These new skills and new friends come with a price she’s not sure she can pay. In order to truly be a “part of” Lizzy must abandon her father and ultimately relinquish her own integrity.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?

She wants to be loved and accepted for who she is not for what she can or can’t do. She spends a lot of time proving herself and trying to build up a family from a wild cast of characters all imbued with paranormal abilities, who are misfits just like herself.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

The working title is Exquisite Destiny and it is now a projected 5 book series currently being called The Destiny Series. It took on a life of its own and sprouted babies.

7) When can we expect the book to be published?

That’s a good question and I don’t have an answer to that yet. I am currently re-writing book 2. The bulk of Book 2 was written during NaNoWriMo 2013. Book 1 will be written during NaNo 2014. My website will be updated with current information but I’m hoping for Spring 2015 at the latest.

More about the Meet My Characters blog hop!

I was tagged by Regina Kammer who introduced the dashing young Joseph Phillips in her Meet my Character Blog Post.

Regina Kammer is a librarian, an art historian, and best-selling, multi-published writer of erotica and historical erotic romance. She has been published by Cleis Press, Go Deeper Press, Ellora’s Cave, House of Erotica, and her own imprint, Viridium Press. She began writing historical fiction with romantic elements during NaNoWriMo 2006, switching to erotica when all her characters suddenly demanded to have sex.

You can follow Regina on:

Twitter-@Kammerotica

Her website and blog

I’ve tagged Kayla Hampton and Maya Goode who will be posting their blog spots on August 25^th

Kayla Hampton has always been fascinated by the dark and sexy creatures that live in our dreams (or nightmares).  Bringing these characters to life in her books is what she wants to do when she “grows up”.  When Kayla is not writing passionate stories of love and war, she loves spending time with her husband and daughter on the Canadian West Coast. 

Follow Kayla:

Website: kaylahampton.com

Blog: http://kaylahampton.com/blog

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KHamptonBooks

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kayla-Hampton/208367729335283

Maya Goode is a short story author, novelist, and poet. Raised by an amazing mercurial woman who shared neither blood nor race, she lives on the edge of identities and writes deeply honest stories about the human journey. She is an alumna of Dominican University of California and resides somewhere between mountains and the ocean. Her first novel, Remigium Rising, will be published in Spring 2015. You can visit her at www.mayagoode.com

Twitter http://www.twitter.com/quotidianlight

Google Plus https://plus.google.com/+quotidianlight
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/quotidianlight

RWA Conference Overview

I was, not only a complete newbie at the RWA (RomanceWriter’s of America) Conference the week before last in San Antonio Texas, I am a complete newbie in the world of novel writing altogether.

Quickly – the conference blew me away. It exceeded my expectations completely. There were workshops on everything I could think of from How to Write Faster and Better (Cindi Myers) to topics I hadn’t thought of, like Homicide (M.A. Taylor). There were fun workshops like BDSM and How to Write Hot Sex @ShoshannaEvers. There were serious workshops… oh I didn’t go to those :) And in between it all there were speakers like Sylvia Day @SylDay, book giveaways, book signings, and schmoozing! Lots and lots of schmoozing!

More in Depth:

I don’t know how many overall workshops there were, I didn’t count but they went on from 8:30am until 5:30pm for three straight days. For each time slot there were 3 or 4 different workshops going on at the same time. There were also tracks you could choose from like the marketing track or the craft track and for the first time this year there was a self-publishing track. I was told to try and mix it up a bit by going to different workshops in different tracks, which is what I did. Since I could not make them all, I bought the audio because most of the workshops were recorded! Did I mention the handouts? The workshops had handouts too and we got a flash drive with the handouts plus they can be downloaded from the RWA website if you’re registered for the conference. --- a handy dandy app was available with all of the handouts and workshops plus the ability to set your own schedule.

Here were the available tracks:

• ·      Career Track
• ·      Chat Track
• ·      Craft Track
• ·      Industry Track
• ·      Marketing Track
• ·      Publisher Spotlights
• ·      Research Track
• ·      Self-Publishing Track
• ·      Special Topic Workshops
• ·      Training Track
• ·      Writer's Life Track

Another option is pitching. You are able to sign up to pitch an agent and a publisher/editor.  On the day of, you can pick up extra pitch slots as well. A lot of people were nervous about the pitching but this was one of my favorite parts of the entire conference. I love pitching! Disclaimer: I wrote and read my pitches, I did not have them memorized. It was exhilarating.

Now I have a 4 month deadline to finish and polish my novel and send out partials. The best part of the RWA conference is that it filled me up. I am re-committed, re-motivated and excited to put my plan into action. If nothing else, this is a reason to go… but there are so many reasons!

1.     EDUCATION – so much to learn!

2.     Free books and schwag

3.     Meeting your favorite authors and finding new favorites

4.     Pitching agents and editors

5.     Rekindling your motivation and passion for your craft

I cannot say enough about the awesomeness that is the RWAConference. Next year it’s in NYC and I will be there!!!

Why do "we" get more done when we're not "home"?

At first I thought it was because I had nothing pressing to do. For example... I'm kind of on vacation right now in a town I've never visited before. I thought that's why. Here I am, making time to do something that normally I wouldn't have the time to do because I'd be working on one of my other projects or maybe going out, hanging out with friends, exercising - any of the many things I am wont to do. Sitting all day yesterday in a coffee shop, sipping tea and writing was my dream come true, truly. But why can't I take that with me back home? Actually I can. It's just going to look differently. It's going to look like something I've scheduled myself to do on my calendar and not have the spontaneous "excitement" of yesterday.

As the woman I'm staying with here in Austin, Michele pointed out - I also don't have my household life yelling at me to do the laundry, the dishes, cook, clean, nap... whatever it is. And that's true too. Here I have nothing but time, for this moment.

Traveling makes me appreciate things more. I appreciate "home" more, my belongings, my friends, my boyfriend, my house, my car, my dog... but WHILE I'm traveling and staying in the present moment my biggest appreciation is time, having time. I am the person who has traveled to Hawaii for 10 days with nothing more on my agenda than to sit on a different beach every single day and read a book. I'm happy to say I was able to accomplish that at one time. Life doesn't seem to follow me when I'm away. It's as though life has taken a hiatus or remains elsewhere in suspended animation for me to pick up and put back on when I go home.

Plus there are the discoveries. Self discovery, how I don't "need" the creature comforts I'm used to when I'm home. How suddenly "less is more" and I'm happy with a simple bowl of yogurt for breakfast or not showering every single day or sitting outside with mosquitos. There's also the discovery of something new. New conversations, ideas, places and experiences that I could not have or don't have when I'm home caught in my "rut". And I say rut with love because I do love my life (for the most part) and I know how lucky I am - even when things are tough.

This is my first vacation in a year and I feel long overdue. I needed to regenerate, doing absolutely nothing, even if only for a few days.

RWA Post 1

I’m in Austin Texas getting ready for my first RWA (RomanceWriters of America) conference. I’m so excited I could jump up and down screaming and I very may well do just that… at some point on my trip anyway. I’ve never been to Austin. It’s been on my bucket list. As a matter-of-fact I seriously considered moving here about 5 years ago which is pretty crazy, even for me. Moving somewhere I’d never even visited. Still, you know when you’ll like something or someone just from what other people you admire have told you about it or them?  My first concern when I was thinking of leaving California was to move someplace warm, that’s always been very important to me. And warm Austin IS. It’s also hip and fun and filled with myriads of nice people. OK I’ll admit I haven’t even been here for 24 hours yet BUT I like it! I like being able to sit outside at a local coffeeshop, drink tea and write on my laptop for hours. Why can’t/don’t I do that at home, except on Tuesdays when I meet my weekly writer’s group? Probably because I run a business that has nothing to do with writing. And I’m just not sure my heart is in it anymore.

Sitting here with nothing but time on my hands, I am reading the RWA monthly magazines cover to cover. Something I also don’t “make” time for at home and I fell in love with “The Big Picture: Sustaining Your Career for the Long Haul” by Donna Alward. In the article she talks about knowing when you’re not happy doing what you’re doing and quotes Kieran Kramer saying that she is “willing to walk away from any situation that leaches her happiness”. I love that! So powerful. Donna also points out that once we’ve accomplished a goal we’ve set for ourselves it’s healthy human nature to then set another goal and another… Well I’ve accomplished a goal – to get my Masters degree, my CA acupuncture license and open up a large acupuncture clinic with employees and products. And now… I’m no longer happy doing it. I have to really look at this. Is it the chasing, the striving, the trying, the working that I’m addicted to? And once I’ve achieved my goal I’m bored? I don’t think so. I think it was a much bigger “project” than I ever imagined. And now with a huge overhead and 5 employees, a ton of responsibility I can’t walk away from and a slew of patients – I’m miserable.

Would I be happier being a full time writer like I want to believe? Maybe, maybe not… but I’m not the kind of person who can ever be stagnant. I almost always have 3 irons in the fire. I’m giving my clinic another year and moving forward with my writing. I’m asking for guidance and feeling positive that everything will turn out the way it’s supposed to – for the best. RWA2014 here I come J