After the Crash

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.

Writing Updates & A New Excerpt

I’ve been insanely busy (partially with my writing!), so here is an update on what I’ve been up to. (This is a bit long. If what you really want is the excerpt, scroll to the bottom 🙂 )

  • I got the first round of edits for Wolf Tracker from my editor on October 23. I went through her suggestions, made some updates and corrections and re-wrote a small but key element of the story. I just sent the edits back yesterday and my editor will be reviewing this week and let me know what she thinks.
  • I received the first draft of the cover art for Wolf Tracker and returned it with a few suggestions.  Lyn Taylor has done all my covers so far, and this one is in the same style. I really love what she does with the covers. I hope to be able to post the final art in a few weeks.
  • I have been working on Eddie’s Prize, Book 4 in the After the Crash series. You know, I love Eddie. I also want to strangle him. He’s beautiful. Seriously, a beautiful man. He is a veterinarian who loves animals. He fought for and won the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. The wedding night is sweet and tender and Lisa thinks she’s found the one man who will always love her, one she can love in return. But Eddie is a moron. He doesn’t deserve Lisa.
  • But I’ve had to abandon Eddie and Lisa for now. My mom had her 5th surgery on the elbow she shattered 10 years ago. The darn thing just won’t heal, and poor mom is in a lot of pain. So I’ve spent a lot of time in October first at the hospital and now at her house. Between mom and the edits, I haven’t been writing anything new.
  • Well, except for a brain worm that Tracker and Tami’s daughter gave me. I was sitting at my desk at work when a story burst into my mind. At least the beginnings of one. About 25 years after Tracker and Tami’s story takes place, their daughter is out riding on their ranch when she is surprised by a lion shifter who claims her as his mate. Unlike the wolves she is used to, the lion man has no intention of courting her. He simply takes her and carries her off. I will be sharing this story with the readers of my newsletter. Chapter 1 went out with the October Newsletter.

And here’s a new excerpt from Wolf Tracker. AS usual, this is still in the editing stage, so changes may be made before publication. The action up to now is as follows: Tami was one of the volunteers who left the plane crash to find help. She and her partner were found by men who sold them to men who abused them. Tami escapes and the men hire a man called Tracker from the Wolf Clan to find her and bring her back. He’s been trying to catch up with her, but Tami is pretty good at hiding her trail. She’s cold, tired and hungry but too frightened to just let Tracker catch her.

 

There he was again.

The sun was almost down, lighting those long blond braids to pale corn silk. He was too far away to see clearly, but Tami knew it was the same man who had come to the ranch house yesterday afternoon. His hair was distinctive. How many men had white-blond braids to their waists? How many of them rode bare-chested wearing only a breechcloth and leggings in the November cold? Yesterday, when she’d first spotted him while checking her snare, she had considered asking him for help. But her experiences in Greasy Butt made her cautious. Instead of hanging around for him to find her, she ran, abandoning the ranch house she’d found before she’d gotten any food or rest. Damn him.

Tami backed one careful footstep at a time away from the lip of the hill. All her knowledge of tracking hadn’t been enough to prevent him from following her. Her hopes that his appearance at the ranch was just coincidence or that he wouldn’t try to find her were dashed. He was definitely following her. But why? Because she was a lone woman and easy prey as she had been for the men in Greasy Butte? Damn them all straight to hell.

Dammit, how was he following her? She wasn’t a novice on the trail and she knew she wasn’t leaving many clues. She estimated the blond-haired man was no more than an hour behind her. It would be after sunset before he got to this point. Maybe she could lose him in the dark.

She went back to Freedom and forced herself back into the saddle. “I know, boy,” she murmured. “I’m tired, too. But we have to keep moving or Blondie will catch us, and that would be bad. Real bad.”

She had been so busy running she hadn’t had time to catch anything to eat, much less cook it. Raw meat sounded just fine right now. Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away, and back home she’d have a table groaning under the weight of a turkey and all the trimmings. Just the thought of it flooded her mouth with saliva. In half the fiction books she’d read the ninny of a heroine would have conveniently found a berry bush or some nuts she could eat on the run. Western Nebraska in November didn’t supply those. Even if Tami found anything like that, it would have taken hours of picking to satisfy her hunger. She didn’t have hours, not with Blondie so close behind her.

So her stomach rumbled, and she rode with her hands tucked under her arms to try to warm them. The weather had stayed unusually warm for mid-November, but it wasn’t summer. Riding hungry and cold meant making mistakes if she wasn’t careful. Mistakes would send her right back to a bed with her arms and legs tied to the bed posts.

After the sun was fully down she slowed the horse to a walk. The plains were giving way to badlands. Rocks of various sizes thrust up through the dead grass, some knee high, others twenty feet high. If she were better rested and had daylight enough to not risk Freedom’s legs, she would keep riding to put as much distance as possible between her and Blondie. But Blondie would have to stop for the night, too. She needed a good place to camp, somewhere sheltered and hidden, where she could get a little rest. Without rest she’d never be sharp enough to get away from Blondie.

This place here, between a tall rock and a jumble of smaller rocks, was a good place to hide. She dismounted and loosened the saddle girth. Every movement was an effort. She leaned against her horse’s side.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here, Freedom,” she whispered to the gelding. “Why’s he following us? What if Blondie found our tracks and only wants to help?” Yeah, right. And there was a Super Walmart over the next hill, too. She straightened with a groan and dug through the sadly empty saddlebag for a crumb of bread. Any little crumb at all would be welcome. There was none. Tami made herself close the bag. “Maybe he wants to find me because I’m a woman and he’s a man ‘with needs,’ like those assholes in Greasy Butte.” Cold sliced through her like a knife at that thought. “Or maybe those guys back in Greasy Butte sent him to find me.”

Would they have done that? Tami wrapped one of the blankets around her shoulders and the other over her lap, and wedged herself into a crevice between two rocks to doze. She drifted off in spite of the little rock digging itself into her hip, thinking of roast turkey and stuffing.

Maybe that was why she woke smelling meat roasting over an open fire? It took a few seconds for Tami to realize the scent was real. A night breeze was wafting it right into her face. Mouthwatering. Tremor inducing. She shouldn’t move. Blondie had probably set up camp and built a fire to cook his supper. How unfair was that? She should not go and scope his camp out. If he had trailed her over thirty miles of empty country, then he knew what he was doing. Why would he have a fire unless he was using it to lure her out? She should either stay put, get some rest, and then head away from him when he settled down to sleep, or get the hell out of Dodge right now. Yeah. So why was she leaving her hidey hole and creeping toward the smell of cooking meat?

Well, because she was starving. It had been a day and a half since she’d eaten, and for a week before that she had eaten only bread, dried fruit, and a rabbit she’d caught in a snare. He had certainly picked a fine way to trap her.

She crept noiselessly until she was only yards from the edge of his camp. The fire was very low, hardly more than coals, with a blob of something that smelled heavenly hanging close above it. Aside from the fire there was nothing obvious to indicate it was a camp. Tami looked around carefully. The horse was barely visible past the fire. Blondie’s gear must be tucked away out of sight. She saw no sign of even a saddlebag. But Blondie was nowhere to be seen. She waited. If he were off taking a piss he’d be back any time. Minutes crawled by. Nothing. This was a trap. It had to be a trap. But how she wanted that meat!

In a burst of either steel nerves or utter idiocy, she skimmed into the camp, grabbed the half-cooked bird and skimmed back out. The bird was hot enough to burn her fingers, but she didn’t care. With every step she expected the guy with the blond braids to tackle her, but she made it back to Freedom, tightened the girth and mounted, juggling the bird all the while. She let the horse walk quietly, to avoid alerting Blondie, while she tore into the bird. It was tough, gamy, and half raw. It tasted like heaven. A month ago the idea of eating it would have turned her stomach. Right now it was the best meal she could ever remember eating. Blondie might catch her, but at least she’d have something in her stomach when he did.

Labor Day BlogHop

Welcome to Maddy Barone’s stop on the Labor Day Blog Hop. If you fall off the bus, you canget back on here.
I’m pretty sure everyone else has treated you to some delicious eyecandy in the form of men hard at work. You might not be doing any physical work but if you’re like me you’re feeling a bit sweaty by this point! Grab a cold drink and enjoy! My eyecandy is a trio of guys that look sorta like three heroes in upcoming books in my post-apocalyptic series, After the Crash.

The first is the hero of Tracking Tami. Tracker is a loner in the post-apocalyptic world I’ve created, famous for his tracking skill. When a woman runs away from her husbands they hire the Tracker to find her and bring her back. Half Lakota and half Norwegian, Tracker is one of the men of his Clan that doesn’t have a wolf. He is tall and slender, with white blond hair in two braids past his waist and a cool expressionless face that shows no emotion. But behind his stone cold face is a man who yearns for a wife of his own to love and cherish. When he catches up with Tami and finds out that her husbands abused her, he knows he can’t take her back. Like most of his kin he reveres women, and Tami captures his heart. Instead he brings her to his cousin’s werewolf pack for safekeeping, where he hopes her fear will lessen enough for him to be able to court her. This fellow’s hair isn’t hip length, like Tracker’s is, but it’s the right color and texture and the face is right.

 

The second is Blue Sky at Midday, the hero of Wolf’s Princess. When Sky was just barely seventeen, his wolf chose sixteen year old Rose Turner to be his mate. He courted her with all the fierce ardor of a teenaged Alpha werewolf. His cousin Taye and Taye’s mate Carla insisted he give Rose time to get settled in her new life. When his clumsy wooing failed to charm his reluctant new mate, Sky left the den to take a job in distant Omaha. After several years with no word from Sky, Rose decides she won’t wait for him. She wants a husband and children, so she goes husband shopping. But Sky hasn’t forgotten her and when he learns his neglected mate wants a husband he returns and carries her back to Omaha with him in triumph. But Sky isn’t the innocent naive teenager he was when he first came to Omaha, and Rose isn’t the unsettled and grieving plane crash survivor he left behind. Their story begins in Wolf’s Glory.  This fellow’s hair is about right, but Sky has startlingly blue eyes and a dimple beside his mouth.

 

The third is the hero of Eddie’s Prize. Eddie Madison is, in the words of the heroine, a golden god. With his model-handsome face and physique, and as the son of the mayor and probable heir to his powerful position, Eddie is widely considered the biggest marital catch in the area. The few females in his town fall all over themselves to catch his attention. But his attention is focussed only on the new wife he won in a Bride Fight. Lisa is already half in love with him and his gentle eagerness to please her on their wedding night makes her believe they will have a happy marriage. But that changes when Eddie learns of her promiscuous past. His naive love turns to bitter rage. Lisa tries to convince him that her previous life is behind her now and she loves only him. Eddie draws away from his bride emotionally while struggling to believe her, but he can’t hide the accusation in his eyes or the mistrust he feels. Lisa puts up with his attitude for only so long.

For the blog hop, the prize I’m offering is a free download of either the first book in the series, Sleeping With the Wolf, or the second book, Wolf’s Glory. But I’m also offering a prize to one person who leaves a comment on this blog post. One commenter will win a paperback copy of Sleeping With the Wolf.  Remember that anyone who has signed up for my newsletter will automatically be entered twice in the paperback giveaway. Good luck!

 

13 Items that COULD Show Up in a Swag Bag

I am preparing the Swag Bags for my street team.  Sadly, I somehow deleted all their mailing addies so I had to send a quick email to them requesting that they re-send their mailing info.  If you haven’t updated your newsletter profile, you can do so now. I plan to mail tomorrow night and perhaps send a few stragglers on Tuesday, after the American Labor Day weekend holiday.

And, hey, I’m participating in a Blog Hop this weekend. It goes from Saturday through Monday. A free download of either Sleeping With the Wolf or Wolf’s Glory will be the prize offered for the hop, plus I will be offering a paperback copy of Sleeping With the Wolf to one commenter here on my blog. So feel free to stop back this weekend!

Now for the 13 things that may be included in a Swag Bag.

1 & 2.  A 5.5 x 8.25 inch postcard of the cover art for Sleeping With the Wolf and Wolf’s Glory.

 

3 & 4. A compact mirror and small tub of lip glass.  These represent Lisa Anton, heroine of Eddie’s Prize. She readily admits she’s vain.

5 & 6. A magnet of the cover art for Sleeping With the Wolf and Wolf’s Glory.

 

7. A set of thin bangle bracelets. These represent Ellie,  the heroine of Saving Ellie. Quill buys them for her, saying they are almost as delicate and beautiful as she is.

8 & 9. A set of Romance Trading Cards for each Sleeping With the Wolf and Wolf’s Glory.

10. A ring with a butterfly on it. Stag gives Sherry a ring like this. To him she’s as elusive as a butterfly he tries to catch, flitting away from him every time he gets close.

11. A charm bracelet. When Sky goes to Omaha, he sends Rose a charm for her bracelet every year on her birthday. At least he does for the first several years. Then the presents stop with no word from Sky.

 

12 & 13. One lucky person will receive a paperback copy of Sleeping With the Wolf and Wolf’s’ Glory! This person will be notified by email on Thursday night, so if you are not the winner, you can certainly leave a comment on the Blog Hop blog post to have a chance to win.

 

Which of these things do you like best? Do you have suggestions for what should go into the April 2012 Swag Bags?

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

Sleeping With the Wolf by Maddy Barone

Sleeping With the Wolf

by Maddy Barone

Giveaway ends August 31, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

3rd Draft of Tracking Tami Done!

Tracking Tami, third book in the After the Crash series, is just about ready to submit. After I received the manuscript back from the beta readers I knew I had some fixes in the timeline to make. That’s the hairy thing about writing a series where so many stories overlap. If Glory is at the Plane Women’s House in Book 2 on a particular day, she’d better be there in Book 3. And if she’s supposed to be in bed with Shadow at the den at the end of Book 2 she better not be in Kearney at the same time in Book 3. And if the hero in Book 3 is supposed to be off killing the bad guys at a distant location during a certain week, he better not show up at the Plane Womens’ House during that same week. Oy! I ended up adding a whole chapter and expending the story by about 5,000 words. But I think I have it all figured out now, and I can honestly say I think it’s a good book. I suppose authors always say that. But I have soft spot for Tracker. Of course, it’s possible that readers  won’t like it. Then I worry that the publisher will reject it or ask for major changes. Maybe the book will bomb! Do all authors fret like this when they turn in a story? I hope so! I’d hate to be the only one. 🙂

I will be strong and confident.  I will re-read the story one last time to verify things, then submit it by Saturday. And there will be great rejoicing.

yay for finishing!!!

Writing Updates as of July 30, 2011


What have I been doing in July? (Besides sweating, that is. Because as of today, July is the 5th hottest on record, and if tomorrow hits 90 as they expect, it will creep up to the 4th hottest July) I’ve been fighting with my blog. I can’t see comments unless I use my mouse to highlight them. I don’t know what to do about that. I’ve sent an emil to someone who might be able to fix it, so here’s hoping she can. Back to updates! Here’s a brief rundown of my writing activities.

 

 

1. I finished the 2nd draft of Tracking Tami and turned it over to the beta readers. I’ve received feedback from one, and she pointed out some areas that will need a little more work.  I’ll wait until I receive the other one back before I begin making changes.  I still plan to have this ready to be turned in by August 13.

 

2. I made minor revisions to Sleeping With the Wolf and Wolf’s Glory in preparation for getting them into print. The cover artist, Lyn Taylor, gave me permission to use her lovely cover art. April Martinez is formatting them for me as I am a complete idiot when it comes to that sort of thing.  She sent me a proof of Chapter One of Sleeping With the Wolf so I could see how I liked it or wanted any changes made. I liked it a lot. So I’m hoping to have those available in a few weeks. We’ll see how long it takes. :)

 


3. I’ve been ordering some promotional material and swag to send my street team. See the pretty Romance Trading Cards for Wolf’s Glory? I still have room for 3 or 4 more people. so if you’d like to receive a package of Romance Trading Cards and magnets, etc please sign up in the top right corner for my newsletter and include your mailing address. I have people in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, so yes, I do ship overseas. :) . I’m planning to mail the first swag packages out around the end of August.

 

4. I’ve been mulling over Rose and Sky’s story.  They were both so young when his wolf claimed her. How have they changed in the past seven years?  Is Rose an Alpha like Glory or a sweet shy thing like her best friend Ellie? How has growing up as the darling princess of an overprotective wolf pack formed her character? What does she want for her future? Is Sky a bossy Alpha like Shadow? Can he be a tender lover like Taye? Why on earth has he stayed away for seven years? What has he learned about the world outside the Pack and the Clan while he’s been in the new Sin City of Omaha? How will the Princess and the Wolf come to love each other so utterly that they can’t live without each other?  I know some of the answers to these questions, but some are still waiting for me to figure out. Sometimes this is the fun part of writing for me. I still need a title. Since Rose is seen by townies as the “princess” of the wolves, I thought of “The Wolf’s Princess” or “Princess of the Wolves” or “The Wolf and the Princess” but I just don’t know. Any suggestions?

13 Sentences From Tracking Tami

I am buried in revisions for Tracking Tami, Book 3 in the After the Crash series. Tami is a modern woman who runs a wilderness survival school but is thrown into a future where women are treated in some places like possessions. She was married against her will and runs away. Tracker is a loner from the Clan who was hired to find her and bring her back. It’s a long hard chase for both of them. The woman that Tracker expected to be an easy job challenges him every mile of the way.

 

1-3

As she turned to leave the kitchen to get her snare set up something on colorless, papered wall caught her eye. Stapled to the wall was a sun faded, age-yellowed calendar. For the year 2017.

4-6

“Sky,” Rose uttered with loathing.

Tracker politely pretended to not notice this sign of discord in his young cousin’s mating.  He would allow himself be amused by it later when he was alone.

7-8

The first thing that struck Tracker when he came back to camp was the rich enticing scent of one particular woman. The second thing was that the damn woman had made off with his dinner.

9-11

“Ma’am?”

Tami woke with a silent gasp. The quiet murmur came out of the cold dark like a lover’s whisper.

12-13

Helpless was one thing she was not. Tracker wiped at the blood on his face with the back of his wrist.

 

There we go. 13 sentences from my WiP Tracking Tami. What are you writing or reading these days?