Cover Reveal, TAINTED, by AE Rought

Because she's one of my best friends ever, I have to jump in and party with her latest book, TAINTED, the follow-up to her book BROKEN that came out in January from Strange Chemistry. 

Now, for the beautiful cover!

Alex Franks believes the madness is behind them. With Ascension Labs under his direction and the forces threatening Emma’s life overcome, they have a chance at a normal life, and keeping his secrets safely buried.

But a shadow rises from Alex’s past, and she wants him back. Criminally brilliant, Hailey Westmore will stop at nothing to claim the boy she was meant to be with.

Without warning, Emma Gentry finds she cannot trust anything. Not her mind, her memory, not even herself. Tragic events and unexpected deaths stalk Alex and Emma, testing them in ways they would never imagine, and may not survive.

Alex carries a new secret, and a horrifying guilt that Hailey uses to her advantage. Emma’s life and sanity in the balance, and Alex may have created a monster…

Releasing October, 2013. For more information, check out the Strange Chemistry website. 

I'll be guest blogging

I'll be guest blogging over at Everybody Needs A Little Romance tomorrow, talking about what romance is for me.

Stop by, leave a comment, and you can be entered to win a a gift certificate from Amazon!

I think I have a disease

It is called "Submission-itus."

I hit the "submit" button CONSTANTLY.

It feels like I'm constantly sending out pitches and submissions, and waiting on those dreaded rejection letters ALL THE TIME.

Right now, I have, currently, four out that I'm waiting to hear back from. And I've been sending them out in little doses like this since January. Although I'm at this strange place--where it's almost like I think, well, what's it going to hurt to try there too?

I feel like I've submitted to everyone right now. New and old, established agencies. Even the dreaded "we only respond if we're interested" agencies--which I completely hate, by the way.

How frigging hard is it to make up a form letter, copy and paste, and hit "send?" But that's just me. I mean, do I like form letters? Not even a little bit. But at least I know they got it, and rejected it.

Sure, I'd much rather have a well-worded explanation of why they were rejecting me, but at least with a form letter, I won't wonder if my book went into the spam folder--which a lot of my submissions as of late have been going.

Anyway, that's my little rant for the moment.

Pantsing Vs Plotting

Myself? I was a "pantser" for a lot of years. I just wrote "by the seat of my pants" and let the story unfold as I went. It made me the first reader, the first person to know the story.

This method also made me take FOREVER to write a book. Every plot thread, I would agonize over. I wondered exactly what would happen if I did A, B, C, each time I thought of a way to write or tweak a scene.

Don't get me wrong, I love making everything up as I go, each little twist that I come up with taking me by surprise, calling my fellow writer friends and going "Wow, guess what I just wrote!"

But as I did it, it took me longer.

And one of my goals in my writing is to be producing a good deal more books a year. Instead of writing one to three, I want to do at least four a year, possibly more if I can swing it.

It's not a horribly unreasonable request, but it is something that's going to take time, and I'm going to have to have an idea of where I'm going with each story, before I sit down and start writing.

Which has made me turn over to the dark side.