If you’re not on Spotify, I recommend it, despite the occasional tampon or laundry detergent commercial. If nothing else, to listen to the soundtrack to The Redheaded Stepchild, of course! Enjoy.

Click here to get the soundtrack.

Running From Reading

Go check it out if you’re so inclined.

http://www.ola-maes.com/2012/05/pearl-snap-sundress.html

KH: You mentioned to me that you didn’t even know you were writing a book until you threw the characters of Ricky and Eli into the mix. What did you start out thinking you were writing?

DD: I started out doing what I always do with my emotions, putting them to the page. I’m not the type to cry on anyone’s shoulder.

KH: How long did it take, from the first word you wrote to publication, to complete Rose’s Will?

DD: I started writing in September of 2001 and got published in September of 2011.

KH: Why did you choose to go with 48fourteen as your publisher?

DD: 48fourteen’s submission process is respectful of an author’s work. They ask for 3 sample chapters, provide an online form to fill out with room to add unsolicited comments, all of which they read in a timely fashion and deliver a personal response to the submission. They were about to open a new eBook division when I submitted and offered to feature Rose’s Will on the launch. I liked the idea of being a big fish in a small pond, but most of all I really appreciated their sense of commitment to the process. They were also very good about negotiating the contract.

KH: In Rose’s Will, Glory is what you might consider a late-in-life lesbian, after a conventional marriage and children. What kind of message do you think Rose’s Will has for late-in-life lesbians?

DD: Glory is in her mid-twenties when she enters her first lesbian relationship, so yeah, maybe a bit of a late bloomer. I didn’t intend to convey a particular message about that, but if you want a message, here it is: Everyone has the power and the right to fully explore life at any age. We come through this way only once and there is absolutely no reason to be constrained by fear and narrow minded beliefs. So, go for it.

KH: Rose’s Will is a perfect example of how we continue to seek our parents’ love and approval long after childhood, no matter what they do to us. If you could say anything to someone dealing with parentally-inflicted childhood scars, what would it be?

DD: The first and most important thing to say to people who have been wounded is to validate the experience. After that, support whatever way they choose to deal with it. Instead, we often urge adult victims of childhood abuse to let it go or move on, as if that’s all it takes to solve the problem, even when the physical abuse turns to verbal abuse in the adult relationship.

KH: God, the gay gene, writer’s block. Which of these is real?

DD: <Laughing!> I’m going to have to choose writer’s block.

The whole god thing seems no less a myth than Santa, Tooth Fairies and Unicorns. In Rose’s Will, Eli, my Bulgarian Holocaust survivor is an existentialist/humanist. He is one of the most moral characters in the book.

As for the gay gene, I’m not a scientist but I don’t think it’s a gene. I do think that A) sexuality is fluid, B) there might be a physiological component, and C) even if we choose not to play the “born this way” card, no government or religion should regulate love. The world would be much more pleasant if we put our energy into improving the well-being of humanity instead of policing affinities.

KH: What’s your next great project, and when can we expect to see it?

DD: I can’t decide whether I want to edit the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo last November or edit my Tenants Straight From Hell series. The novel is kind of heavy and TSFH is horrifying and hilarious. I guess I’ll see how I feel after the move. We just bought a house today, so for the next two months I’ll be re-nesting. I’m hoping to have something ready to go by the end of the year, but look for the release of the print version of Rose’s Will in the next couple of months. My publisher just finished re-formatting it.

KH: And finally, if you could have any superpower, what would it be?

DD: I probably would have said something entirely different 20 years ago, but right now I’d like to zap politicians with a truth serum. I’m seriously sick of their lies and I am dreading this election year. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to vote, though. DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF BECOMING SO DISGUSTED THAT YOU DON’T VOTE! There truly is such a thing as the lesser of two evils.

A big thanks to Denise DeSio for giving me an interview right in the middle of house shopping. You’ll hear me talk more and more about Rose’s Will, but if you haven’t picked it up yet, do it. Today. Or when you get paid next, whatever. It is a recent winner of the Reader’s Choice award for general lesbian fiction, an award well deserved. I’d tell you more of my opinion of it, but I think you get the point. You can always check out my Goodreads review of it as well.

BUY ROSE’S WILL for KINDLE
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LOOK FOR THE PRINT EDITION THIS SUMMER!
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In this story, we meet Kasey, a young woman in denial about the aggressive nature of her mother’s cancer, a denial that takes the form of trying to give her another grandchild, thinking it will restore her will to live.

Kasey’s birth mother had only been thirteen when she became pregnant, and her birth mother’s aunt (whom Kasey had lovingly referred to as Murr for years) had stepped up to take care of her, become her mother in the loosest definition of the word.  Murr was a lot easier to say than “Great Aunt,” and lot less awkward than calling her by “Grace,” her first name.  Kasey watched her through the glass, seeing tears of what Kasey hoped was joy (but could have easily also been from one of her increasingly frequent coughing fits) collect in the wrinkles on her face, creasing starkly as she laughed watching her grandson dance in front of the fire.  Hopefully he wouldn’t take after his father and think the fire was a toy.

“Is Gracie really going to get a tattoo with you tomorrow?” Shannon asked, her bottom lip shivering in the cold air.

“She says she is, so she better,” Kasey shrugged.

That’s all for now! Be sure to check out all the other talented peeps at Six Sentence Sunday. We all toil away in obscurity; this is just one way we get our names out there.

Be sure to pop over and check out the review, and leave a comment or two on the blog.  Book bloggers are the lifeblood of our community!

Check out the review here

Five years from the time I wrote the first word, I finally got an email from an acquisitions editor at a publishing house, while playing pool and drinking beer in a dive bar on a visit to my hometown.  My book was in the batch they were going to accept during their next publication period.  I probably played my best lifetime game of pool that night, because I was over the moon, thinking I’d finally gotten the big break I deserved.  I won’t say who it was – because as you can tell from the title of this post, I turned them down anyway…

The happiness ended the minute I started digging deeper into the company and I got the contract.  For the most part, it was pretty standard for what I read in the reference book, except for the following teensy line items:

• They weren’t going to let me have any input on the cover.  They were going to throw my book over a wall to their creative team and give the nod to whatever came back.  Still, the covers I saw looked pretty good, so I was willing to go with it.
• They weren’t going to give me any marketing support.  Sorry, but my minor in advertising in promotion did not prepare me for how to successfully market my book.  When I asked about this, they gave me a stock response about how the author is the best person to do the marketing because they are closest to the project.  Okay, true, but don’t you guys do this like, professionally? I’m just a wordmonkey.
• And here’s the kicker… they wanted me to pay them a “non-refundable deposit” as remuneration for taking a risk on my book.

Um, yeah… that was the red flag for this redhead.  When I told them I was uncomfortable with this, they sent me a list of their author references as a way of reassuring me that I would be happy, successful, and quickly earn back my “refundable deposit” if I took the deal.  I read all the references, but then I went and found the authors’ websites.  Most of them had long since given up on their books from this publisher or hadn’t published any more books, but there were a few still kicking around, so I contacted them.  They all told me the same thing… it was not the greatest decision they’d ever made in their lives.

But still, this was a book deal, a real one, the thing I had been waiting for for five years of my life.  Who was I to say it wasn’t good enough?  I’m a nobody, and they want to take a chance on me.  I did what any girl would do – I called someone smarter than me.  Specifically, my most-likely-to-succeed counterpart from high school (or would have been, if I’d been popular enough to even make that section of the yearbook’s radar), a lawyer pal with a lot of contracts experience.  No, he’d never seen a book deal contract, but a contract’s a contract, right?  And yeah, he said it sucked.  He wasn’t going to tell me what to do, but he didn’t mince words about the drawbacks of the contract.  He was even kind enough to draw up a list of suggested revisions, reminding me than any contract is just a starting off point for negotiations, and that if I really wanted a book deal, I should fight for one that worked for both me and the publisher.

Well, negotiation must’ve been Swahili to them.  I emailed my carefully crafted list of negotiable revisions to their people.  And waited a week.  And emailed them back, asking if they’d had a chance to view my revisions, to which they assured me their legal team was giving it “careful consideration.”  Then I waited another week.  And emailed again.  Finally, they came back and said they weren’t willing to make any concessions with their standard contract (gee thanks… you coulda just told me that 2 weeks ago).  I wanted a book deal.  I really did.  But this one smelled an awful lot like the rejection letters after the litter box got a hold of em, so I politely declined, determined that I had not yet found my Prince Charming of publishing. And had another wine and cheese party for one.

But… that’s not the end of the story… tune in next week, when I tell the story of “Why I Self-Published.”

She’d decided on the Celtic scroll several years back.  Her family was originally Scot’s Irish, a stark contrast to Jason’s wealthy British heritage.  She looked at the sunlight pouring in though the patio doors in the home she’d made for herself.  Buying the place was like getting back to her roots, the roots she’d had before Jason had grabbed her by the hair and uprooted her.  It had taken a long time to get here, but she loved living simply, with a great new group of friends, a new career, everything he’d convinced her wasn’t worth her time.  Now, if she could just get back to her old friends.

That’s all for today. Since I’m stuck in sunny Miami – go ahead and check out all the other talented folks on Six Sentence Sunday for me!  My personal favorites… Carmen DeSousa, Wendy K. Russo, and Monica Enderle Pierce.

http://www.indiopress.co.uk/1/post/2012/04/dont-neglect-the-back-cover-blurb.html

Come visit me there!

KH: Where and when did you first get the idea for this book?

CD: Honestly, I just started typing. I’ve seen a lot in my life, and my husband was a police detective, so I’ve heard hundreds of stories over the years. One line in a country song can put an entire story in my head. One day a comment a line popped into my head of what a guy might say to his girl and I wrote an entire book off the one line, and the funny thing is, I haven’t even used the line yet, but it’s coming. I am the epitome of a pantser.

KH: Your book mixes romance with whodunit. Which do you enjoy writing more?

CD: I will not read a strictly romance novel, but then again, I don’t have much interest in just a mystery novel either. If I had to choose, I’d lean toward the whodunit, but I like a fifty/fifty mix. I would classify my novels as romantic-suspense. Although my third book will lean more to women’s fiction, and my fourth novel has a slight paranormal aspect—no vampires though.

KH: She Belongs To Me is the story of Jordan and Jaynee Monroe. Are there people in your life who you drew on for inspiration for Jordan and Jaynee’s characters?

CD: Yes. And that’s all I have to say about that.

KH: She Belongs To Me is your debut novel. From inception to publication, how long did it take?

CD: Twenty months

KH: Why did you decide to go with 5 Prince Publishing for She Belongs To Me?

CD: This is a long story, so I’ll cut right to the chase. I had several options on the table with agents, publishers, and of course self-pub. But in the end, going with a smaller publisher, allowed a more intimate situation and enabled me to maintain more control of the final published work. All the books end up on Amazon anyway, so this was the best choice for me to get my first book to readers quickly, as I have many more stories to tell.

KH: Aliens, love at first sight, writer’s block. Which of these is real?

CD: Without a doubt, love at first sight. I don’t get writer’s block; I just move to a different story.

KH: What’s your next big project?

CD: Land of the Noonday Sun will be available spring of 2012.

When Carmen DeSousa was in college, she wrote her first novella. Her professor wanted something that entailed drinking and fishing—he was a huge Hemingway fan. Well, he sure received a surprise when he read her short story. It did have drinking and fishing, but there was nothing funny about it. It was sad; it was real life. Luckily, he enjoyed it, even admitted she was the first student who ever made him cry and that she had potential.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t in her future at the time. After all, she needed a roof over her head and food on her plate. At seventeen, she was on her own and a career as an author just wasn’t feasible at that juncture in her life. At that time, if you didn’t live in the mecca—aka New York—you didn’t stand a chance, or at least that is what her peers insisted. So, she set out to conquer the business world, and she did. She spent the last decade and a half in sales, rising to the top of a Fortune 500 company.

Now fifteen years later, she’s back. And guess what, it’s a new world where dreams really do come true. Her first novel, She Belongs to Me, has reached bestselling status and is currently in the top .5% of eBooks on Amazon. But more importantly, she has many stories waiting to share with her wonderful readers. She’s waited twenty years to share her love of the written word, and hopes that you will be just as excited as she is.

She loves connecting with avid readers, so please feel free to connect with me via the links below:

Twitter

Website

Facebook

Goodreads

Thanks to Carmen for joining me today, and thanks to all of you for reading and checking her out!