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Nov 17 2012

Paty Jager

Focus Isn’t Just For Photography

By Pat Jager

 

Janice, thank you for having me here today.

My current release Secrets of a Mayan Moon was finished, or so I thought, months before I put the finishing touches on it to publish. It had gone through my three critique partners, a doctor of psychology who traded reads with me, and two writer friends. I kept sending it to people to read because in my gut I knew there was something wrong and I couldn’t step back from it enough to see what it was and kept hoping one of the readers I sent it to could shine a light on my gut ache.

In April, I attended the Rose City RWA Spring Intensive. I went with the sole purpose of attending Larry Brooks’ workshop and hoping a light bulb would come on about my story. I sat through the first day, taking notes, listening, and having a few small affirmations about my writing and capturing a few tidbits, that taught differently, made more sense to me.

But it wasn’t until the next day, when he challenged us to take either something we’d written or were working on and used his boiling down method of “what if” that I had the breakthrough I’d been hoping for.

At first I felt stupid. He asked for people to give examples of their “what if”.

I volunteered. “What if your family isn’t what you think it is?”

Larry said, “That’s okay, but what is visceral about it? Tell me more about the story.”

As I threw out things like “She wanted to belong” “She wanted family.”

He asked, “Why is she in Guatemala?”

“Because she’s there to decipher a tablet.”

Larry: “Why would someone want to read about that?”

“There’s villains, drug traffickers, artifact thieves.”

I kept on about her wanting to belong and prove herself.

Someone in the crowd asked, “What about the bad guys?”

“They try to use her for a human sacrifice.” I’d no sooner finished the sentence than everyone gasped and Larry shouted, “That’s your story.”

My problem all along was I couldn’t get past the original concept that she was a misfit and was trying to find a place to belong. That, is her journey through the book series not this one book.

This first book is: “What happens when a brilliant anthropologist is lured to the jungle to be used as a human sacrifice?”

With this newfound knowledge I went home, reworked the beginning, tossed out four scenes and a whole chapter all the while upping the suspense and writing in new “triggers” for the visceral hooks and aiming the whole story toward the black moment and the sacrifice.

Once I did that I no longer had a gut ache. I sent the story to my proof reader and published it. The first review came in and I’m very happy I played Larry Brooks’ “What if” game and put myself and my story out there for scrutiny so I could make it a better story.

Blurb Secrets of a Mayan Moon:

Child prodigy and now Doctor of Anthropology, Isabella Mumphrey, is about to lose her job at the university. In the world of publish or perish, her mentor’s request for her assistance on a dig is just the opportunity she’s been seeking. If she can decipher an ancient stone table—and she can—she’ll keep her department. She heads to Guatemala, but drug trafficking bad guys, artifact thieves, and her infatuation for her handsome guide wreak havoc on her scholarly intentions.

DEA agent Tino Kosta, is out to avenge the deaths of his family. He’s deep undercover as a jaguar tracker and sometimes jungle guide, but the appearance of a beautiful, brainy anthropologist heats his Latin blood taking him on a dangerous detour that could leave them both casualties of the jungle.

 

Secrets of a Mayan Moon is available at Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.

Giveaway!

This post is part of a two week blog tour. I’m giving away a $5 egift card to a commenter at each blog stop and will give a bag full of goodies to the person who follows me to the most blogs and a gift to the host who gets the most commenters. You can find the blog tour hosts at my blog: http://www.patyjager.blogspot.com or my website: http://www.patyjager.net

 

Bio:

Wife, mother, grandmother, and the one who cleans pens and delivers the hay; award winning author Paty Jager and her husband currently ranch 350 acres when not dashing around visiting their children and grandchildren. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

Her contemporary Western, Perfectly Good Nanny won the 2008 Eppie for Best Contemporary Romance, Spirit of the Mountain, a historical paranormal set among the Nez Perce, garnered 1st place in the paranormal category of the Lories Best Published Book Contest,and Spirit of the Lake, the second book of the spirit trilogy, was a finalist in the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence.

You can learn more about Paty at her blog; www.patyjager.blogspot.com  her website; http://www.patyjager.net or on Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/#!/paty.jager and twitter;  @patyjag.

 

Nov 8 2012

Autumn’s Harvest Blog Hop

If  you’re looking for the Autumn’s Harvest Blog Hop, then you have found it.

***Contest alert! After reading my article check the bottom of my post for the contest***

I rent a house on a farm, in the middle of an almond orchard, in a farm town in the middle of the farming belt along HWY 99 in the Central Valley of California.

I’m very familiar with the harvest season, since each year I get an up close and personal view of the process.

*All photos were taken by me*
1. All these lovely almond blooms
2. That opened in the early spring time…Fell off.
 3. Leaving the baby nut behind, and during the long hot summer the nut matures.
 4. And once the almonds have dried, the outer shell popped open
 5. Dried Almond
6. Almond cracked open and ready to eat.
The Harvest began on Thursday Aug. 30, 2012, which meant for me that I got woken up bright and early by the machines shaken the bejessus out of the trees, and the hiss of almonds hitting the ground.
A week later, the nut has dried, and the sweepers come in (making more noise), and move the almonds into neat rows so they be swept up and loaded into trucks (making more dust and noise).
There you have it! That’s the story of the almond.
Oh, and if you wanted to know if you pronounce the ‘d’ on the end of the word almond, here’s the story:
When the nut falls off the tree the ‘d’ is knocked off, and you have a almon.

***Contest alert***

Leave a comment about your own harvest experience and your email addy, for a chance to win a five dollar Amazon gift certificate.

And just for stopping by, you also receive two free downloads, which is the start of my science fiction romance series, The Alien Heart series.

Look for the first book, Alien Heart, some time next year.

The Arcons Are Coming!

Exodus Arcon Trailer The first of a new Science Fiction series

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Janice’s website: http://janiceseagraves.org/

Janice’s main blog: http://ladyjanice.blogspot.com/

 

Nov 7 2012

My Big Announcement

I’ve just signed a contract with Keith Publications. They will publish my alien series called Alien Heart Series and the first book is titled Alien Heart. That’s my series that’s starts in my free reads, Exodus Arcon.

This is very thrilling for me, since I have been working very hard on my series for a while now. Alien Heart took two and half years total, but it was this last year that I was aiming for a market.

A big shout out goes to Mary Keith at Keith Publications, who has been wonderfully supportive and waited for me to put the final polish on my manuscript.

Oct 26 2012

Halloween Blog Hop

http://thebloghopspot.com/event-page/

If your looking for the Halloween blog hop post, then you have found it!

Hi, my name is Janice Seagraves. I write romance of various genres. Here’s my bio: Janice Seagraves grew up in a small California town. Her home is a hundred year old haunted house (I’m not kidding), where she lives with her husband and daughter, an overly affectionate cat and a Jack Russel that’s in love with her daughter (still not kidding).

A lot of people read my bio and ask me, “Is your house really haunted?”

Yes it is. Since my husband and I first moved into our house twenty years ago, I’ve heard a little girl crying when I washed my hands in the bathroom. Which in itself isn’t anything unusual, however we live two miles out of town in the middle of what had been a grape vineyard but is now an almond orchard, and we have no close neighbors. I’ve lived here for twenty years and heard the same child sobbing. Reason would dictate that if this was a child, it would be grown by now.

Once when my daughter was still a newborn baby, I was enjoying a few blessed moments of shared TV viewing with my husband (you never know how fleeting those moments are until your a new parent), and then my baby started to cry. I sighed and started to get up, when I heard a woman’s voice saying very clearly, “Hush, baby,” I ran into the bedroom, and my husband ran outside. When I turned on the light, the baby was asleep and no one was there. My husband came back inside and told me no one was outside.

While my daughter was a baby, she would sleep with us, and during this time I would feel the bed dip like someone was sitting down. Usually this meant that my hubby was putting on his boots for work. But other times, I’d open my eyes to see that I was alone. Over the years I, my husband and my daughter have seen a little girl ghost at different times and places in the house.

One time while my daughter was sleeping with me, she screamed in the middle of the night. I jerked awake and turned over, that’s when I saw the little girl ghost sitting on my bed on the far side of my daughter, staring at me. Then she faded away.

When my daughter was little about three or four, she had an invisible friend named Jenifer or Jenny, which I later realized was our ghost girl.

Once or twice I’ve heard a scary voice saying my name, and a chill would wash down my back.

Thank goodness I haven’t had that in a while. *shiver*

I’ve been woken up by the sound of my bedroom door being opened and when I looked to see who it was, the door was closed. That just happened the other night. I got up again to look and the door was closed.

Nope, no more sleep for me. We’ve seen orbs. Mostly green and blue ones. I saw one in the bathroom and followed it in my daughter’s room, where it landed on the foot of her bed and disappeared. I have taken a few orb photos with our black kitty we used to have, and I have an earlier photo with a white something that went through my husband’s mouth.

These photos were taken with two different cameras; the above photo is digital and the below one is a 35 mm. Ghost photoWhen my husband worked nights, sometimes I would see something under the fitted sheet moving back and forth. I thought maybe a mouse got into the mattress. My husband and I flipped the mattress over and I couldn’t find any mouse holes, so I have no idea what that was.

One morning, I was woken up by a child singing the song called the Lilac Tree. Both my husband and daughter were in the living room watching Saturday morning cartoons. And nothing they watched had a child singing. I’ve been woken up by the smell of Brownies and thought my daughter was baking. I got up to go into the kitchen and no one was cooking. Boy was I disappointed.

One time when I overslept, I heard someone walking around my bed and a voice saying, “Come on, honey, it’s time to get up.” When I got up, no one was there.

When one of my daughter’s friends spend she reported hearing the bathroom door creak open, and the sound of whispering. The friend asked my daughter if her parents were awake. My daughter said no, and then they both went and checked the bathroom. They found it empty.

My husband and I both have heard whispering voices before, right when we got home. We’d quickly unlock the front door to the house, flinging it open, but the noises stopped and no one was there.

A few months ago when I just laid down to go to sleep, I felt someone tuck in the tag on my pajama top. My bedroom door was closed and hubby was working the graveyard shift and my daughter was spending the night at a friend’s house.

I was alone.

Or was I?

***Contest alert***

Leave a comment about your own ghostly experience and your email addy, for a chance to win a five dollar Amazon gift certificate.

And just for stopping by, you also receive two free downloads, which is the start of my science fiction romance series The Arcon Saga.

The Arcons Are Coming!

Exodus Arcon Trailer The first of a new Science Fiction series

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Janice’s website: http://janiceseagraves.org/

Janice’s main blog: http://ladyjanice.blogspot.com/

Oct 23 2012

Wicked After Dark Blog Hop


If your looking for the Wicked After Dark Blog Hop  tour then you found it.

For my wicked post, I’m offering up an excerpt from my free SF read, Exodus Arcon: 

Aziza palmed the bathroom door release and walked out, dressed only in a large towel. She froze when she saw her mate talking to his identical twin. It was confusing to see her mate’s handsome face on such a hard-bitten warrior.

Blade looked her up and down, crossed his arms with a raised eyebrow ridge. “Who were you expecting?”

“I was waiting for you, Blade.” She crossed the room to stop in front of him.

Keefe gaped at the towel. “Why are you undressed, my heart?”

Aziza frowned at Keefe. He’s acting possessive, even though he knows I must do this. “When Paz bit me, the blood ran down, ruining my clothes. I didn’t want to take a chance on my last nice outfit. Everything else is on board the ship.”

Blade, breathing hard, turned away from her. “I better go.”

“No, don’t go.” Aziza grabbed his arm. I must do this.

“You don’t want me.” Blade looked everywhere but at her.

“I made a promise,” Aziza blurted before she could stop herself.

“To who?” Blade yanked his arm away.

I can’t tell him, I promised Ynyr. “To . . . Keefe.” She glanced quickly at her mate, he nodded with a frown.

“You must come,” Paz told him. “We three are the only ones of our family-unit who are healthy enough to make the journey.”

“Why is that, youngling?” Blade glared at the youngest family member.

“Ynyr is dying,” Keefe shouted the harsh news at him. “And Lug our podling is fading.”

“My two podling aren’t allowed to come either,” Paz’s voice rose to a squeak as tears streaming down his face. “You got to come, Blade, you just got to.”

Keefe gave his twin a long look. “We three and Aziza, need to go on.”

Aziza grabbed Blade by his wrist. “Come on, bite me. I know you want to.”

All three males sniffed the air, as Aziza’s pheromones filled the room, smelling like pod blossoms in the spring time.

“My heart, what are you doing?” Keefe frowned down at her.

“I’m keeping my promise,” she snapped at him.

Blade closed his eyes and moaned. “That’s a dirty trick.” He turned away from her.

Paz jumped up to pull Blade’s other arm, turning him toward Aziza. “Do it. I want you to come with us, and this is the only way.”

“And you, my podling?” Blade looked straight at Keefe. “Do you really want to share your mate with me?”

Keefe’s face flushed lavender, but he said through gritted teeth, “Bite her, but don’t swallow.”

“With her undressed and smelling of pheromones, all I want to do is bury her underneath my body while I bite that lovely white skin.” He leered at Aziza, showing his sharp canines. “Is that what you want, my lovely?”

Aziza pulled harder on his wrist, staring into his crimson eyes. “You’re not fooling me, Blade. I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be,” he growled. “I’m a bad tempered military male, whom you do not want as a mate.”

“You will bite me, but only that, understand?” She raised her chin. “We are going to pretend to mate. Nothing more.”

“Yes, mistress. You order and I shall obey.” Blade lifted both arms then dropped them so hard, both female and youngling couldn’t hold on. He stepped up to Aziza with such speed, that she was left blinking at his muscular chest a surprised moment.

She smelled Blade’s spicy-sweet pheromones, and then craned her head up at him.

Placing his hard hands on her head, he gently tilted it to the side. He sniffed up her neck and shoulder, making her shiver.

“Do you accept me, all of me,” he breathed against her skin.

“Yes.” She barely said that single word of consent, when his sharp canines pierced her flesh. This wasn’t the little nip she got from Paz. No. This was a deep bite from a male wanting to mark his mate.

Blade stepped back, stared straight at Keefe and swallowed the mouthful of blood. “By blood I bind myself to you forever, Aziza, my sweet.”

All three watched him for a stunned moment, until he hit the ground and convulsed.

***Contest alert***

Leave a comment and your email addy, for a chance to win a five dollar gift certificate from Amazon.

And just for stopping by, you also receive two free downloads, which is the start of my science fiction romance series The Arcon Saga.

The Arcons Are Coming!

Exodus Arcon Trailer

The first of a new Science Fiction series

Exodus Arcon

Exodus Arcon two

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Janice’s website: http://janiceseagraves.org/

Janice’s main blog: http://ladyjanice.blogspot.com/

Oct 11 2012

Back-story: Too much info? by Special Guest Lia Davis

Back-story: Too much info?

by Special Guest Lia Davis

 

One critique partner says to delete two paragraphs saying it’s data dump and slows the story. Another says it’s great back-story information, but asks if it can be spread out. A third loves the world building. What do you do? How do you know if the back-story info is too much?

First, critiques are opinions and suggestions. You take what works for your writing voice and toss the rest.

The crits I mentioned above are three examples of those suggestions. Why are they different? Because people are individuals and we don’t always read the words the same. What is too much info for one person may be just enough for another.

As the author, we have to find that balance. Will you please everyone? Not a chance. I find the balance that makes me happy with outcome, and of course my editor. When I’m doing my self editing/revision stage, I look for information that I would skip over as a reader. I ask myself if the information move the story along. If not, I decide of what needs to be there and what can be introduced later on or through dialogue. The biggest thing is if you, as a reader, will skip over it then others might as well.


 

FORGOTTEN VISIONS 

By 

Lia Davis 

 

Book Blurb:

Kalissa Bradenton isn’t your average coffee shop owner. Born to an elite witch bloodline with a rare genetic mutation, she’s a Divinity on a mission. The death of her parents sends her away from her Maxville, Florida, home and into an ancient war between witches and demons. When childhood friend Ayden Daniels comes to her aid after an almost fatal accident, visions of a past she doesn’t remember sparks an old flame and new desires. With the past slowly becoming clearer, she eagerly sets her sights on mending Ayden’s heart and gaining his trust–until a ghost from her past returns to claim her as his demonic mate.

Ayden, the new Sheriff of Maxville and grandson of the oldest living Divinity, is investigating a series of Divinity killings. When he comes face-to-face with the one woman he hopes to have little to no contact with, old pain rises, quickly followed by anger and resentment. Through his rare power of adaptability, he learns actions from the past may not be what they seem. Hope fills his broken heart and determination pushes him to do whatever it takes to win Kalissa’s heart once more before he loses her forever.

Together they must find the strength to mend their tormented souls, while fighting an evil out to destroy the world.

Now Available at Soul Mate Publishing | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | ARe

 

Excerpt:

Ayden Daniel had only been in Charlotte an hour before his cousin, Zach, called with a favor. No. Not quite a favor. A request that sounded more like a plea.

“You’re shittin’ me?”

“I’m afraid not. Charlotte PD said it was a hit and run.”

Right. “Please tell me she’s …”

“She’s alive. A bump on the head, but she’ll be okay.” Zach hesitated before continuing. “I know how you feel about her, but you’ll have to go get her.”

A muttered curse slipped from his lips at the same time his heart lodged in his throat. “Fine.” The word came out in an irritated huff. Ayden hung up and wished he had never answered the damn phone. No, that wasn’t completely true. He would never forgive himself if something happened to Kalissa that he could have prevented.

She was the one person he’d hoped to avoid as much as possible when he’d taken his place as Sheriff of Maxville. It wasn’t that he disliked her, that was the problem. Despite his better judgment and a glutton for punishment, he still cared too damn much for the woman.

The mere mention of her name made his pulse race with excitement. His body hardened at the thought of seeing her again after fifteen years. But his mind screamed to walk away. To let her be. Kalissa was trouble, and a hazard to his heart. She’d broken it once—torn it right out of his chest—at the age of seventeen.

A human friend had laughed at the mention of their young age and Ayden’s claim that she was the only one for him. A mistake on his part to confide in a human and expect him to understand magickin way of life. Magickin children developed at a faster rate. At the age of seventeen, he was as mature as most twenty-five-year-old humans and fully aware that he had met his eternal companion.

They were life partners—magical mates—destined to spend their extended lives together. To find one at such a young age was a gift.

A gift she stole from him.

 

 

Author Bio:

Lia Davis is a mother to two young adults and two very special, equally different kitty cats. She’s a wife to her soul mate, who drives her crazy during editing/revisions. She and her family live in Northeast Florida battling hurricanes and very humid summers. But it’s her home and she loves it!

An accounting major, Lia has always been a dreamer with a very activity imagination. The wheels in her head never stop. She only recently got serious about publishing her work and loves it more than she imagined. Writing a stress reliever that allows her to go off in her corner of the house and enter into another world that she created, leaving the day job where it belongs.

Her favorite things are spending time with family, traveling, reading, writing, chocolate, coffee, nature and hanging out with her kitties.

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