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13 People I Hope to Meet This Weekend

Published June 1, 2011 | By Maddy Barone

This weekend I’m going to be at Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Get Together in Cincinnati. I’m a brand new author and tho I feel i’ve amde friends in the4 writing community I only know them via the internet. So I’m really hoping to meet them in person!

1. Nalini Singh. This lady is no one I’ve even chatted with, but I LOVE her books. I’m bringing Kiss of Snow and hope to have her sign it for me. I hope I don’t go all fan-girl on her.

2. Monette Michaels/Moni Draper. An editor at Liquid Silver Books, she has been very kind and encouraging to me.

3. Virginia Cavanaugh. A fellow writer who stepped in when I needed some help and encouragement with Wolfs’ Glory.

4. Emily Ryan Davis. Years ago I read her Dragon Queen trilogy and when I first joined Romance Divas I squealed at seeing her name. Then she actually posted a response to one of my questions!

5. Sasha Devlin. A fellow author who was kind enough to say she loved Sleeping With the Wolf.

6. Paige Tyler. A fellow author (who has way more experience in the romance pubosihing world than I do) and Thursday 13 participant.

7. Robyn Bachar. Another Romance Diva I want to meet.

8. Ann Christopher. This author kindly volunteered to give me a ride to the airport on Sunday.

9. Keri Ford. A fun loving fellow author and Romance Diva.

10. Eliza Gayle. Another of the Romance Diva crew.

11. Jeanette Murry/KJ Reed. Romance Divas everywhere! This is going to be SO FUN!

12. Linnea Sinclair. Another author I’ll probably squeal over like a fan girl.

13. Mary Quast/Cindy Spencer Pape/Elise Logan/okay, I’ve run out of numbers before I ran out of people I want to meet!

This will be my very first conference as an author, so I’m a little nervous. But I’m going to do my best to put my “I’m-not-shy” face on and get to know some of the marvelous people I’ve rubbed shoulders with online. If you’ll be at Lori Foster’s please come find me and say hello!

Posted in Thursday Thirteen | 7 Comments

Updates + Contest! Win Wolf’s Glory

Published May 30, 2011 | By Maddy Barone

Until 5pm tonight (central time) you can make a comment on my post below to win a free download of Wolf’s Glory or Sleeping With the Wolf.

I have made a few updates to my website. I have fixed the broken link for the excerpt to Sleeping With the Wolf on the Excerpts page. (I hope) Let me know if it still doesn’t work. I also have finished buying my swag to give away at Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Get Together. Just have to assemble the little goodie bags. Hard to believe it’s less than a week away! I am hoping to meet lots of people there.

Wolf’s Glory is releasing today from Liquid Silver Books. If you don’t want to enter my contest to win, you can go there and buy the book. But since the winners will be announced at about the same time the book is made availoable, what can it hurt to enter? Go ahead. Make me type more names into the random name generator. 🙂

Posted in After the Crash, Excerpts, Promos | 1 Comment

Win a Free Download of Wolf’s Glory!

Published May 27, 2011 | By Maddy Barone

Enter to win a free download of Wolf’s Glory, book 2 in the After the Crash series. Or if you haven’t read book 1 yet, you can enter to win a free download of Sleeping with the Wolf!

 

After the Crash Book 2: Wolf’s Glory will be released on Monday, May 30 fromLiquid Silver Books! In honor of my new release I’m holding a contest. One winner will receive a free download of Wolf’s Glory and another will receive a download of Sleeping with the Wolf.

Posted in After the Crash, Promos | 12 Comments

Reviews

Published May 22, 2011 | By Maddy Barone

Last week, Sandy from All About Romance  made a blog post about romance reviews. She was speaking specifically about how easy it is to form online friendships between authors and reviewers and how such friendships could produce a review that was not completely honest. I was interested to see it, since I’ve been thinking about reviews with my next book coming out in a couple weeks. I would far rather have an honest review than one that just said vague, nice things.

No author wants a review that goes like this: “This book was awful. The only reason I finished it was because I had to post my review of it. Take my advice and don’t waste your time or money.”  This is a prefectly valid opinion of a book, and the reviewer is entitled to his or her opinion. However, a review like that isn’t helpful. As a reader I want to know what it was about the book that the reviewer found so awful. The thing they hated might be what makes me happy. The same goes for a glowing review like this: “I loved this book! I’ll be reading this author again!” To be perfectly honest, I’ll take the good review over the bad one any day, but  as a reader I want to know what the reviewer did and didn’t like about a book. It helps me decide how my limited book budget will be spent.

Do you review? I don’t mean just the people who review for a site, but also those who review informally on Good Reads and Amazon and those places. If you read Sleeping With the Wolf or Wolf’s Glory and want to leave a review but hesitate to be completely honest, don’t. Hesitate, that is.  If you disliked my book, say so. Please be nice about it. “This book sucked!” may describe your feelings about it, but it isn’t helpful for other readers. “This book started off good but lost steam half way through and I just never got back into the story” or “I didn’t like the heroine. She was too operfect for me to relate to” helps a reader know why it sucked for you.

A reviewer should never have to soften a review so as to not offend an author. Then it’s no longer a review but an ego-stroker. We authors can always use some ego-stroking, but a review may not be the place for it.  A negative review can be hurtful, but if the reviewer is honest and resepctful, an author accepts it and moves on.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Thursday 13

Published May 18, 2011 | By Maddy Barone

I’ve always kept myself busy with work, church, the SCA, the Loopy Ladies Knitting Group, the Boucle Yarn Studio Sock Club, the Harry Potter Knitting Crochet House Cup, etc, etc … I’ve enjoyed doing those things (except work, but hey, gotta pay bills, right?) But lately I’ve felt like it was a chore. Something I had to do, not something I wanted to do for fun.

I am exhausted! I’ve written very little in the last six or eight weeks because I have so much other stuff going on that I can’t squeeze it in. I’m stressed and frustrated and tired.  It might be the pneumonia I had last March, or the stress from the expected flood, or Mom’s surgery in April or the stupid allergies that have taken over my sleep, but I don’t think that’s really it. I think it’s because I’m still living my life as I did before I became an author. I’m still spending my evenings and weekends helping others sew SCA garb,  working overtime, teaching people to knit, volunteering at church, etc, etc. But being a writer is really a second job. I can’t focus on writing and also do the things I used to.  Something has to change!

Here are 13 things I am going to STOP doing and START doing:

1. Stop imagining I have all the time in the world.

2. Stop working overtime. The money is nice, but I just can’t keep up.

3. Stop volunteering to do things when people don’t even ask me to do them.

4. Stop agreeing to do things when I am asked.

5. Stop feeling guilty for saying no.

6. Stop feeling like I have to attend knitting meetings/SCA meetings. (Not that I go to all of them now, but I feel like I SHOULD go and I feel guilty when I don’t)

7. Stop putting my writing second.

8. Start thinking of myself as a person with two jobs.

9. Start practicing saying “I’m sorry I can’t help you/attend that meeting. My time is booked.”

10. Start scheduling my writing time, just as a second job at McDonalds would have a schedule, and not changing it for any little thing.

11. Start scheduling “ME” time so I don’t get burned out. Reading for fun, going to a movie, getting a manicure, etc.

12. Start believing saying no and guarding my writing time doesn’t make me a bad or unloving or lazy person.

13. Start enjoying my life again.

Has anyone has to deal with this? Did you wake up one morning feeling like your life was a bullet train rushing off without you? What did you do?

Posted in Thursday Thirteen | 12 Comments

The Beta by Annie Nicholas

Published May 15, 2011 | By Maddy Barone

I’ve the read the first two of this series and am thrilled the next is out! Take a look.
The Beta book 3 of The Vanguards is released!

Three days of hell, in charge, and running out of antacids.
 

 

As the pack’s Beta, Robert needs to watch over the Vasi werewolf pack for a few days. He hates the responsibility, but his job is to dissolve any problems while his alpha honeymoons. Nevertheless, trouble comes to town and her name is Esther. She’s beguiling, beautiful and picks his pocket. Although Robert doesn’t trust her, he still wants to possess her.
 
Esther arrived in Chicago with the intention of slaying a vampire named Daedalus. While trailing her quarry, she encounters Robert who unhinges her world. He doesn’t know her trade, and she doesn’t know his connection to the vampire. Disturbed by her attraction to this unusual werewolf, she can’t decide which prey to hunt. The one who’s stolen her heart or the one who’ll fill her bank account.
 
Hot graphic werewolf sex, growing body parts, and one pissed off Nosferatu.
Buy Link: www.lyricalpress.com/the_beta
Want a chance to win a copy? I holding a week long contest at this link.
http://annienicholas.blogspot.com/2011/05/mega-author-blog-hop-ticket-to-paradise.html
Annie Nicholas
http://www.annienicholas.com/
Posted in Promos | Leave a comment

13 Characters In Wolf’s Glory

Published May 11, 2011 | By Maddy Barone
For Thursday 13 I’m going to introduce you to thirteen characters from my upcoming book Wolf’s Glory. Some of these characters were first seen in Sleeping With the Wolf. Others are brand new. Some play large roles, some are mere mentions. Ready? Here we go:
1. Wolf’s Shadow. Hero. Second in Command of the Wolf Clan. He’s claimed his mate and will not accept no for an answer.
2. Glory Peterson. Heroine. Mouthy goth princess. She’ll say yes to a few things, but only on her own terms.
3. Jill Lampett, the Clan Lupa. Called Grandmother by all because she’s the oldest woman in 500 miles.
4. Arthur Muddy Wolf. Alpha of the Wolf Clan and Shadow’s father. He loves his son, but has to act in the best interests of the Clan. 
5. Jumping Stag. A wolf of the Clan who has also found a mate. Stag courts her, but won’t force his mate to accept him.
6. Sherry Rowe. A plane crash survivor who is terrified of the wolf who claims her.
7. Blue Sky at Midday. Shadow’s younger brother who had been living at Taye’s den. He sees a survivor and his wolf claims her.
8. Rose Turner. A plane crash survivor, barely 16, who fiercely denies Sky’s mating claim.
9. Two Bears. Not wolf-born, he wants a wife and decides that Rose will suit him well.
10. Connie Mondale. The co-pilot and only surviving member of the plane’s crew, she takes charge of the surviving women.
11. Quill Wolfe. A quiet young wolf assigned to be Glory’s guard in Kearney, he tries to ignore his wolf’s claim to Taye’s cousin.
12. Tami Casper. A plane crash survivor who didn’t fare as well as Carla in the husband department. She escapes her “husbands”.
13. The Tracker. A lone wolf from the Clan known for his tracking ability, he is hired by Tami’s men to find her and bring her back.
Posted in After the Crash, Thursday Thirteen, Writing | 12 Comments

May Updates

Published May 8, 2011 | By Maddy Barone

I am really looking forward to going to Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Get Together  in Cincinnati the first weekend in June. I’ve been collecting goodies to put into little gift bags to be handed out at the conference. So far I have my Romance Trading Cards, some magnets, some chocolates, and I’m trying my hand at making some rings. We’ll see how many turn out!

 What else has been going on in my life these days? A lot. Everything except writing, it seems.

My mom had to have another surgery on her elbow. It was supposed to be sometime in May, but they moved it to the Thursday before Easter. I spent a good deal of that week with her at the hospital and  at home. Then, the following Saturday was Silks & Needles, the SCA event I was autocrating and teaching two classes at. Plus I had two lovely ladies from Winnepeg staying with me, so I had to clean, right? In between all that, I was working on the edits for Wolf’s Glory. I was already delayed in that because of the pneumonia that struck me down at the end of March. I’m still not entirely recovered from that.  Next weekend is Crown. Thankfully, I am not in charge of anything for that. I am having a crasher stay, but she’s an old friend, so I think she can suck it up and ignore the dust and c at hair. I am also helping Isabella sew garb for Quest For Camelot. She has such an elegant figure that it is fun to sew for her. But what this all amounts to is poor Tami is still languishing away at the den with Carla and Taye instead of getting it on with her hero.

Actually, I’ve completely neglected doing any housework so I could write. I wrote quite a bit this weekend. Tami has proposed to her strong, silent-type shy hero and he is currently riding through a snow storm to fetch a priest, keeping himself warm by daydreaming about their upcoming wedding night. Tracker is full of contrasts. He’s tough and merciless to those he considers enemies (which would be anyone who hurts Tami in any way), but he’s careful and gentle with Tami. There is one scene where he kills some men who are trying to capture Tami, and callously leaves them where they fell. But in a later scene, she cries and he is absolutely wretched, because he wants to comfort her, but is too shy to do more than hover anxiously and offer her a scrap of fabric to wipe her nose. I love Tracker.

I won’t have much chance to write this week either. I’m taking mom shopping tomorrow, sewing with Isabella on Tuesday, I have church Wednesday, my local Writers’ Guild meeting on Thursday, Friday Sete comes and I should do at least some cleaning, and Sat and Sun are Northshield Crown Tourney. If only I didn’t have to work a day job! 🙂 I’m expecting the final line edits for Wolf’s Glory around the end of the week, so the following week will be filled by the last edits. After I turn those in the book should be out in a few weeks later. Maybe mid-June? Or earlier? Fingers crosssed!

Posted in After the Crash, Promos, Writing | Leave a comment

Viking Wire Weaving Jewelry

Published May 2, 2011 | By Maddy Barone

A lovely handmade necklace and matching bracelet made of sterling silver wire in the simple and elegant style popular in northern Europe from 700 to 1100 AD. This was made to be a prize in the Not Going to Conference Conference on Romance Divas. Or maybe it will go to Diva Fest at nationals. 🙂 I’ll let Cup decide.

Posted in Promos, Uncategorized | 2 Comments
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