Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Crossover Stories

Jean Scheijen
FreeImages.com
Do you like crossovers? Television does it quite often, and now movies do it (think Marvel). Taking characters from one favorite show and throwing them into the world, live, and problems of another favorite show is something I truly enjoy.

I like to see these independent characters, who always deal with their own stuff, interacting with characters from another location who are now asked to deal with the first characters' stuff, too. So what about books? I've seen it happen a few times between a single author's multiple book series, as well as two or more authors bring their characters into a joint venture. I like it, especially when I've read the previous books that are mentioned. It's like an ah-ha moment when you recognize a character you already know in a place you didn't expect to see them.

With all that being said, I'm considering a crossover with characters from my Liz Baker series in my new Penny Montague series. As I'm writing this first book I feel a natural progression toward making mentions of the vampires and werewolves currently residing in the north Georgia mountains (i.e. Liz and Monty).  Penny resides in the Atlanta area, but you'll find her on a mission that leads her farther north. Soooo.... maybe?

What do you think about crossovers in books?



Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Tattoos

As I was writing yesterday's post I realized I never shared my tattoos with the blog readers. I'm sure most of you saw them on Facebook, but I'll post them here too for anyone who isn't on Facebook.

Last year my husband and I got these.....

Our anniversary tats.




















Then after Mom passed away I got this one......

My "Mom" tattoo.




















The hubby has a few more than I do (I think he's addicted, LOL), but other than our anniversary tats this one is my favorite....
















It's my actual signature that the tattoo artist thickened. My husband is now branded. LOL! All his idea, too.

I have plans for another tattoo, but haven't worked out all the details just yet. Maybe by the end of the year.


Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Love, Loss, and Letters

Happy September, everyone! I'm so glad we've finally reached this day. Today's the day my younger kids went back to school. Woohoo! We had a great summer, but I'm definitely ready for them to get out of my hair and on schedule again.

I want to touch base on a few topics today to sort of jump start my new writing season.

First, as many of you know, my mother was battling lung cancer this time last year. For 9 months, I drove my mother to doctor appointments, chemo treatments, blood transfusions, radiation treatments, and test after test, after test. Unfortunately after all of this, on May 24th this year, Mom lost her battle with cancer.

Even though all of her treatments took me away from you, my readers, I will never regret spending that time with her in those last months. There were struggles, frustrations, and her demands weighed heavy on me, but some of those days we laughed, had long conversations, and smiled our way along the path we'd been put on. Even now, writing this, it brings tears to my eyes, but I'll never regret a moment of those 9 months.

After Mom's passing and her memorial, I took the summer to just be: Be with my kids, be with my husband, and be by myself. I needed that time to recuperate my sense of ME. The hubby and I took several weekend trips away and then we took the younger girls to St. Augustine, Florida for a week. We all had a great time and it was much needed. My middle daughter got her driver's license & a job. Tim & I both ended up with some new tattoos. Oh, and I found out my youngest will be in braces soon. Eek! Two in braces at once. Boo!

I'm going to round this off with the "Letters" portion of the title. WRITING! I'm jumping back into my writing immediately. I'm going to jump off with the book I was working on before all this began. It's the first book in a new series that I've been looking forward to finishing. After that I have several book ideas waiting in the wings. Of course there will be another Liz Baker book, but I also have two other unrelated books in the planning stages. Depending on how long the next two books take me to complete, we may have several releases to look forward to in the next year. Yay!

As part of the writing side of my life, I'm getting my newsletter revamped and ready to get back into rotation. As an incentive for my beloved subscribers, there will now be a giveaway at the bottom of every newsletter that goes out. Every time one goes out, someone will win an Amazon gift card. The only rule to winning is you have to be a subscriber. Winners will be picked at random & I'll keep track of who wins so everyone gets a chance. The dollar amount of the gift cards will vary from $5 to $25.

If you aren't already signed up, head on over and get busy:  Newsletter Sign Up

More later, but right now hop on over and hit up that newsletter link. A new one will be going out soon.  :)