Excerpts Update & Vacation Report
I have been on vacation this week. It’s been wonderful! I’ve slept late everyday. I have read some books, re-read some old favorites, knitted, had supper with friends and gone to see Puss in Boots. (really liked Puss, btw). Also, at the beginning of my vacation I turned in the third round of edits on Wolf Tracker, received and approved the second draft of the cover art of Wolf Tracker. All in all, it’s been a fantastic vacation. And I deserve it! For the last year and a half I’ve been working the day job, often with overtime, plus I’ve spent about 15-20 hours a week writing. I also spend a couple hours a week at church (services plus some volunteer work), a couple hours a week on SCA stuff, a couple hours a week at my knitting group… All of which leaves me little time for reading and relaxing. I enjoy all those extras, but for me, the best way to re-charge is quiet time by myself. Many people are the opposite. They get more energy by being with people. Me? I’m a loner. What can I say? 🙂
I have spent a little time re-organizing the Excerpts Page. The first couple chapters of Sleeping With the Wolf, Wolf’s Glory and Wolf Tracker are now up. By the end of the weekend I will include snippets from other books in the series so come back and visit in a few days.
The Starlander Frontier by Melisse Aires
The Starlander Frontier: Starlander’s Myth by Melisse Aires
My mixed genre steampunk spacewestern novella The Starlander Frontier: Starlander’s Myth releases today from Whiskey Creek Press Torrid
Being a gryphon shifter has put widow Mrs Sophie Farrel and her small daughter Flora in jeopardy. A corrupt mining officials knows she can detect valuable cryst and plans to sell her to the highest bidder.
Being a gryphon shifter has put widow Mrs Sophie Farrel and her small daughter Flora in jeopardy. A corrupt mining officials knows she can detect valuable cryst and plans to sell her to the highest bidder.
Starlander’s Myth is the first in a trilogy set in the Starlander Frontier universe, a world that is reminiscent of the Old West. It is a mixed genre novella, with elements of the paranormal, and is most definitely a romance between Jack Starlander, asteroid miner, and Mrs. Sophie Farrel, a widow with a small daughter. The Farrels also happen to be gryphon shifters.
Heat level: Sensual Romance
You can read an excerpt *here*.
Thursday 13 – SCA Music
One of the things I love about the SCA (the medieval historical re-creation group I’m in) is the music. Some songs are beautiful ballads, lyrical, with breathtaking melodies. Others are filks, which are songs sung to a familiar tune but with very different–sometimes mocking–lyrics. Many songs are sung a capella, others are accompanied by drums, harps or flutes. Here are 13 SCA songs sung by SCA folk, some of whom I know and see often. I am not musically talented, but I sure make a good audience. 🙂
Enjoy!
Born On the Listfield – a female fighter is made a knight
Pennsic Drum Song – funny! At Pennsic, which is the largest SCA event where 15,000 people all camp, fight, take classes and dance, the middle eastern drums pound ceaselessly into the night.
Master Daveed drumming – Master Daveed is a middle eastern drummer par excellence, and here he and Carmine are showing off their best riffs, trying to outdo each other.
My Mother’s Savage Daughter – the iconic song of my kingdom
Sons of the Dragon – One of those ballads with a great melody and lyrics
Haul On the Oars, Ladies – Viking women get bored and go shopping (aka pillaging)
Strike the Drum – A battlefield song
Beware of the Vampire Penguin – Hm. Can you say silly but fun?
Regin smidur – An actual Faroese song sung in Faroese. Great.
Mongol Doodle Dandy – Remember I mentioned filks?
Shoulder To Shoulder – Another rousing battlefield song
The Muster – Love it! What a voice!
If I Were A Young Man – Great ballad
Thursday 13 – Medieval Names
As an author, names are very interesting to me. As a reader of medieval romance, I find myself rolling my eyes at some of the names which are obviously modern given medieval knights and ladies. I would like to see some more realistic names given to romance heroes and heroines. On the other hand, to have half the male characters named William, John, Henry or Richard would be mighty confusing. It is fact that boys’ given names were not very imaginative in Medieval England. The ten most common names account for 57.8% of all male names listed in the Rolls of Henry III. (found at www.finerollshenry3.org.uk) That means that well over half the men shared 10 names. Only 3.4% of the men listed had a name that showed up only once. So, imaginative names were pretty rare for men. For women, 9.94% had names that showed up only once. A little more diverse, but still, the majority of parents were content to name their children for saints, kings and queens. Can you imagine a passionate relationship between a William and a Matilda?
Well, get this: Willam the Conqueror, who was previously known as William the Bastard because his parents weren’t married, proposed marriage (not in person, but by messenger)to a daughter of the Count of Flanders by the name of Matilda. Matilda laughed at his envoy, saying a pure blooded princess born in holy matrimony wouldn’t lower herself to wed a base-born bastard. Her father the Count agreed that a more profitable and seemly alliance could be made elsewhere. William was so furious that he rode all night, caught Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse by her hair and left her in the street while her guards and servants were too shocked to protect her. True story? Maybe. They were married a few months later.
So what were the most commen names in the first half of the 13th century in England? (yes, I know this is more than 13, but which names shoule I leave out?)
Top Ten Medieval Male Names
1. William
2. John
3. Richard
4. Robert
5. Henry
6. Ralph
7. Thomas
8. Walter
9. Roger
10. Hugh
Top Ten Medieval Female Names
1. Alice
2. Matilda
3. Agnes
4. Margaret
5. Joan
6. Isabella
7. Emma
8. Beatrice
9. Mabel
10. Cecilia
My Friends Rock!!
My birthday is right around the corner. Some of my good friends at work surprised me yesterday with FIFTY roses to mark my fiftieth birthday. That vase is so heavy it made the shelf above my desk sink a little. Fifty roses have a good bit of weight to them! Can you imagine my surprise at seeing this huge vase full of roses? I still get teary-eyed when I lean over to enjoy them. 🙂
AND my friend Tina Holland (author tina holland www.tinaholland.com) made me a book trailer as a present!
I’ll have a complete post about my birthday party on Thursday.
T13 / 13 Facts About the After the Crash World
My attention has been pretty well fixed on the world I’ve created for my After the Crash series for about 2 years now.I told myself that after I submitted Book 3, Tracking Tami, that I would take a two week break from writing. I submitted the manuscript on Saturday, August 13, and I haven’t actually written anything since then. But I can’t seem to let go entirely. I’ve been thinking about the man that Sky has become since he left the Pack to go work in Omaha. I’ve been considering Sherry’s fear of Stag, the wolf who has claimed her as his mate. I’ve wondered how Quill has coped with knowing that his mate is married to another man. Here are some facts about the world I’ve created.
1. The Clan is made up of descendants of Native Americans who left the reservation in South Dakota to live as their ancestors did before the reservation days. They left to isolate and protect themselves from the plagues decimating the population.
2. The Woman Killer Plague flares up again in the late spring of 2065.
3. Jelly’s full name is He Eats Jelly.
4. By the time Quill returns to the Pack after working in Omaha for a few years, Taye and Carla are the parents of two sons.
5. Glory gives birth to the Clan’s first girl baby in 30 years in January, 2066.
6. Shadow is delighted and terrified to be the father of a daughter. He wishes they would have had a few sons first so he’d have some help protecting the precious girl. But she’ll have plenty of male cousins to watch out for her.
7. Sherry Rowe is the illegitimate daughter of an African American soldier who was stationed Korea, and a Korean woman. Sherry lived with her mother in Korea until her mother died when Sherry was six. She was sent to live with her father in America, with the children he’d had by his legal American wife. Sherry never fit in with either family.
8. Unlike most of the unmarried or mated men in the Clan and Pack, Tracker is not a virgin.
9. Glory’s high school enemy Heather has become the high priestess of a cult that worships sex. I wonder if she regrets it?
10. Sky has been a naughty boy while living in Omaha, the new Sin City. It all started out innocently enough, but if Taye knew what his cousin has been up to he might not let Sky claim Rose as his mate.
11. By 2073, Omaha has some electricity as well as a municipal waterworks.
12. Shadow’s brother Jimmy White Elk dies in a bar room brawl and his widow leaves her three teenaged sons with the Clan when she remarries. She is much happier with her townie husband, but visits her sons several times a year, and they often stay for months in the winter.
13. Co-pilot Connie Mondale breaks her vow to never marry.
Paperback Copy of Sleeping With the Wolf
I have had my first book, Sleeping With the Wolf, put into print through CreateSpace. It is available through Amazon, or I believe you could ask your local bookstore to order it for you. Book 2, Wolf’s Glory, should be available by August 29. You know, I really love the ease of digital books. But as an author I have to admit that it is fun to hold my book in my hands. Here is a picture of me, Tina Holland and Laura Ficek (two lovely ladies from my critique group) and I’m the short dark haired one holding the book 🙂
I’m also offering two copies in a giveaway on GoodReads, so if you’re a member there, go enter the giveaway. If you’re not a member you might like to look into it. It’s a fun placefor book lovers.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
by Maddy Barone
Giveaway ends August 31, 2011.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
And the Winner of Wolf’s Glory is …
Etal!! Congrats! I’ll be emailing you in a minute. 🙂
Thanks for entering, everyone!
Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Get Together 2011
I’ve now been to my first ever writer conference and it was great! I was afraid it might be a bit of an ordeal for me since I tend to be overwelmed by crowds, but it wasn’t like that at all. I wandered around after registering, looking for online friends, but I didn’t see anyone I knew so I sat at a table with these three lovely people.
Maureen,Wendy and her daughter Lilly were very friendly, and Wendy had even read Sleeping With the Wolf! I felt like I had made some new friends.
Later that evening I did find some Divas. It was marvelous to meet them. Now when I am online it will be even nicer because I’ll be able to put faces with names.
I didn’t know I’d have a place at the book signing table so I was totally unprepared. I was seated beside Dana Marie Bell, who was very friendly. I got a lot of great ideas about what to bring for a signing when your books are in e-format. I handed out the rest of my romance trading cards, signed a few shirts, bags and even a kindle cover.
Steph Smith, who recently moved back to Cincinnati, dropped in to say hi and have a drink. Here she is with Romance Diva Neith (Elise Logan)
I even got to meet a couple Diva’s husbands. this is Paige Tyler and her husband Paul. I really enjoyed them. 
I didn’t get half the pictures I wanted to. I met so many people that I wish I had photos of like Mary Quast and Rita Sawyer and Nalini Singh. Virginia Cavanaugh and I goofed around in the photo booth. My scanner isn’t the greatest, but here we are, being silly and having fun. It was a great weekend for me and I’m looking forward to doing it again.
Reviews
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.
