 Friday, August 31, 2007 Good morning everyone. My fellow sexy writers and I are launching our Friday promo. And it's my turn. Check out http://www.sixdegreesofsexy.com/ and go to our blog spot where we dish the dirt, expose all those great books out there and much more. You could win your very own copy of Love Me Tender, my second erotic novella published by Ellora's Cave. Labels: by Renee Field 
Wednesday, August 29, 2007 try to write or read to make the twenty minutes useful. Right now I'm reading a lot of Mary Balogh on those bus rides. Balogh, if you're not familiar with the name, writes Regency-set historicals, and I'm enjoying them thoroughly. Before two or three months ago, I'd never picked up any of her books, but a friend of mine is a big fan of hers (so Roberta, I blame all this on you!), and I found I enjoyed them (though the overuse of the word "haughty" set my teeth on edge with one book -- Josh and Lady Freyja's story, if anyone familiar with Balogh's work is wondering). These books, set against the Regency and the wars on the continent as a backdrop, are a perfect counterpoint to the sf shared-continuity I'm writing and rewriting for Cerridwen. Reading one cleanses my mental palate for writing the other. But these stories about Regency England and a farflung fantasy future Which is why, of course, romance fiction is big. Love is a timeless Eilis Flynn
Don't Close Your Eyes - Releases Tomorrow...  Don't Close Your Eyes -- my contemporary romantic suspense launches tomorrow at Cerridwen Press. In honor of the launch, I'm hosting two separate contests. On my website, I will be giving away an ARC copy of the book. You can find the details here: http://www.maryeason.bravehost.com/contest.html And I will be hosting a scavenger hunt on my blog, so stop by tomorrow and check out the details: http://maryeason.blogspot.com Here's a sneak peek of the book... Tonight, nothing moved on the desert’s surface. Up above were thousands of stars as far as the eye could see, and a full moon fitting the Texas night blazed across the surface of the sky. It was the same dream as always. It had haunted her for six years. It always got to her. But then, coming so close to death was bound to lead to a few unpleasant dreams. If only it were that simple. Megan knew better. Just thinking about him made her want to check on Emmie again. She needed reassurance.Megan quietly opened the bedroom door and tiptoed to the bed, looking down at her sleeping child. Emmie—Emily Marie Beaumont, named after both Megan’s mother and grandmother, slept peacefully in her mother’s bed. She was so like Megan and yet so like her father that at times Megan could almost feel his touch again. All the best... Mary Eason
Thursday, August 23, 2007 My fantasy romance novel DESTINY'S SEDUCTION is finally available! I've been waiting for the release of this book for months and months so it's very exciting to have the day finally arrive. So exciting that I'm actually up writing this at 12:15am and the book hasn't even been moved from the Coming Soon page to the Now Available page. But I figure all you reasonable people who will read this at a decent hour on Thursday will have no trouble finding the book :)
This is the sequel to THIEF'S DESIRE and takes up the tale about 20 years after the events in TD. And speaking of which--THIEF'S DESIRE is officially out in paperback this month too! How exciting is August for me?  So if you haven't already launched into this fantasy world of action, adventure, romance and intrigue, you can now pick up both books and read them together. Enjoy! Happy Release Day! Isabo http://www.isabokelly.com/
Wednesday, August 15, 2007 folks at the <i>Weekly World News,</i> home of the adventures of Bat Boy and headlines like "Famed Psychic's Head Explodes!" (That headline had been cut out from an issue and tacked above The Hub's office desk, where it served to inspire him to greater heights of creativity.) That august periodical, which has amused, amazed, and inspired us to reach for the improbable (at least those of us who write out-of-the-normal-world stories), has shut its doors. The issue now on the newsstands is its last. We've always been fond of the periodical, and in more recent days it But like all wonderful, wildly creative things, it had to come to an Eilis Flynn
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 I wrote mysteries for a while, and was getting into the detective's head so much that I could not resist giving him a love interest. One day I was informed that despite the success of Ngaio Marsh's character, Inspector Alleyn, detective heroes, as a general rule, are not allowed to fall in love and live happily ever after. Nor is it permitted them to have mothers, fathers or even siblings. They're supposed to be stand alone characters born fully grown and wise beyond measure. Well, that didn't agree with me at all, and so I left my character in limbo, unmated and unloved. He's still waiting in a file at the back of my filing cabinet. It was during one of my deep thinks (read that as wandering around stunned and without a clue on where to go next), that I passed the romance aisles of my favorite bookstore. I began to see words like mystery romance, thriller romance, suspense romance, and my thinking came to an abrupt halt. I knew then that I could have it all. Weave a romance between a sort-of-damsel-in-distress and a very savvy man. So maybe my hero isn't a detective but a rugged Coast Guard officer (Heart on Hold), or a smooth-talking libertine police chief (Spanish Sonata), but they do solve problems for their damsels in distress. And for themselves as well. Well, that's all for this time. Call again! caralyle.net Labels: cerridwen press
Does speed matter?  What I didn't get a chance to talk about (because the blog post would have gone one for WAY too long) is a related prejudice we discussed at one of the panels I was on at a conference.There's a sense that if you're writing quickly, you can't be writing well. Authors who do write quickly have been forced to take multiple pseudonyms, so that no one name appears to write so speedily, or have had their books held up by the publisher, so that they still come out at yearly intervals. Similarly, there's a sense that if it took you a very long time to write a book, it must be good, simply by virtue of the time you invested in it. When it's laid out like that, most people can recognize the falseness of the second prejudice. Because you can spend a very long time flailing around, writing bad fiction, and spending more time on it won't necessarily make it better. It may just end up being bad in a different way. But clearly, if a large amount of time in the writing is not sufficient to make a book good, a small amount of time in the writing will not prevent a book from being good. Many authors have said that they can't tell the difference between the sections of their writing where the words poured effortlessly, and the sections for which they labored. More importantly, we don't write for ourselves -- not if we're interested in publishing our work. We write for our readers. So the important thing is not how long it took us to write the book, but how long it stays with the reader after they finish it.
Sunday, August 12, 2007 
She said one thing that just floored me. She was talking about promo and how to do it. Get a web site, do business cards, create a brand, and blog. Still shaking my head ...
Friday, August 03, 2007  A third release. Am I jaded yet? Not hardly! Starting Over was a long time in the making. I wrote it shortly after I'd 'come down' from the high of finishing Finding Sarah. I felt a little guilty about bugging my sister-in-law in Oregon for information, so I decided to move the setting to a place where I could do my research firsthand. Who's my hero? A cop. A deputy sheriff, actually, since that's who's in charge of the part of town where I live. However, since I had absolutely no writing credentials at that point, I hated bothering our local Sheriff's Office for information. They're supposed to be out catching bad guys, right? I did what general research I could, spending a lot of time with the crimescenewriters group at Yahoo, but I left everything generic. Once Finding Sarah became a reality, it was time to be brave and try to pinpoint the details that would lend authenticity to the story. I'm a stickler for accuracy, and I'll go to great lengths to make sure I do my homework. Of course, sometimes you don't know what the homework is, and you make mistakes. I fixed the book to fit the parameters of our local Sheriff's Office with the help of a wonderful SWAT commander who took time to give me a tour of the building -- hey, knowing what color the walls are, and who gets a desk, and how a patrol officer would get computer access might not be vital for the plot, but I didn't want anyone local thinking I didn't have a clue and tossing my book against the wall. I love reading books where setting is a character. But (what else is new?) I digress! In anticipation of Starting Over's release on August 16th, I've begun posting treats on my website. I'll spare you a click and let you meet Colleen McDonald here. People have asked me what it's like to star in a romance novel. Well, first you pay your dues. I was a minor character in Terry's first novel, Finding Sarah , and had a few lines, a few scenes, but nothing major. However, I didn't complain, hit my marks, was always willing to do revisions even if it meant my shining moments were in the deleted files folder on her computer. In return, she gave me my own book, Starting Over. Let me tell you, it's a lot easier being a secondary character. When you're the star, sure you get to hang with a hunk (although the LAST thing I wanted when I moved away from Pine Hills, Oregon to Orlando, Florida was a man, especially one in uniform), and there are some steamy sex scenes. I had to agree to be pretty naïve in the bedroom department, but that turned out great, because Graham really knew what he was doing and Terry made sure he "taught" me well. We had plenty of practice for that one. Now THOSE rewrites are fun. But she also threw all this back story angst at me – she actually SHOT me between books. I mean, that's going a bit far, don't you think? And she saddled me with this dotty landlady plus a complicated mystery encompassing three counties. And because she 'retired' me from my cop status before the book started, I had to play second fiddle to Graham, who was on his very first case as a detective. Actually, he was just in training, and I did what I could to make sure he looked good. Professionally, that is. Physically, he looks VERY good.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007 How do we write? Are we talking psychological, are we talking physical? Are we talking fountain pen, no. 2 pencil, Microsoft Word on a laptop? I was an anthropology major, so I'm thinking ... physical. Years ago, I wrote my stories with a fountain pen. I'm a fountain pen fan. I Then there was the Royal manual typewriter ... it succeeded the fountain pen, Even though the electric, and then the electronic, typewriter came soon after These days, like most people, I use a computer. It's more efficient, it's But I miss the fountain pen days. Eilis Flynn |
