What's in a Name?

Despite the fact that publishers want to change your title more than half of the time (so you can't get too attached to it,) apparently making a bad choice of title can effect your chances when submitting.

Over at Book Ends they are discussing titles they never want to see again. These include:

SECOND CHANCES

Anything with “DESTINY”

Anything with “CODE” (Amanda are you reading this! lol)

MIDNIGHT CROSSINGS

DEEP/STILL WATERS

THE LONG WAY/ROAD HOME

HOME AGAIN

FOOL’S GOLD

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

Lucky for me none of my titles are on the list, but it does make me shake my head. My first ever novel was called Between the Gutter and the Sky, which fits the story, but it will never sell. If I ever dig that puppy out of the dust bunnies, I'll have to re-name it. I remember Allison Rushby talking about her first novel-- "Possums in the Sun" or something, which is quite some way from "All Men Are Bastards.Com", huh?

How about you? Any embarassing titles you want to share, or cringeworthy recognition on the No No list?

Book Place

No, not a children's TV program, but a new way to promote. In my typical Luddite fashion, it has taken me ALL day to set myself up there, though I must admit that includes the little sideshow ... er, slide show I'll share with you here.

And tomorrow I WILL get back to writing. My new MS is screaming at me to come back. :-)

Look What My Clever Little CP Has Done Now!

Not content with 2 recent Rita finals, she's now set for TV!

My CP, Gemma Halliday's double RITA nominated novel, Spying in High Heels, is in development for a television series on the USA Network!!! It’s currently one of five new shows being developed for their fall 2007/2008 season.

Spying in High Heels follows shoe designer Maddie Springer, who in an effort to track down her missing boyfriend, realizes that her knack for fashion also serves another purpose: it makes her a great detective. Maddie's uniquely female perspective helps her pick up clues, using her designer's eye to discern tell tale shapes, colors and patterns, among other things. Along with her best friend Dana, an out-of-work actress, Maddie decides to open a detective agency operating out of her stepfather's hair salon.

Not all shows in development make it to the air, but this one should! If you want to see Maddie and Ramirez on the small screen, write to the USA Network and tell them you heard about SPYING IN HIGH HEELS and can’t wait to watch it. Or, if you’ve read the book and liked it, tell them that, too! Contact the programming department at the USA Network:feedback@usanetwork.com

In the meantime, read up on Gemma's books, including Undercover in High Heels & Killer in High Heels.

The girl is a sweetie and her work is awesome. I'm glad she's getting the recognition she deserves. Go, Gemma!

Life After Cheese

Babe King, cheese blimp after scoffing a WHOLE Brie.... burp, would like to announce that she is never eating cheese again. I WOULD like to announce that, but it just wouldn't be true. Pity.

So instead I'll announce that my mate, Jax, is now in print, with a 3 novella anthology. Yay!

ONE WICKED WINTER is now available!

Published By: Amber Quill Press
Release Date: April 2007
Written as: Cassidy Kent

A sexy first date, an unexpected encounter, and a torrid reunion. Three smoldering stories of reckless passion stoke the fires of one very wicked winter…

Dear John

In her last year of high school, Dane Harley, a foster kid with no direction, met John Stratton, a Pittsburgh rich kid with a penchant for trouble. She visits him a decade after disappearing from his life, only to discover he’s moved on. Their subsequent affair speaks of the torrent of passion and love that still binds them.

Santa’s Helper

CEO Noel grants a boy’s Christmas wish by escorting sexy single mother Maura around Manhattan on Christmas Eve. The spark between them is immediate, but the distance between Park Avenue and the Jersey suburbs is immense. Are their worlds too dissimilar to merge or can they bridge the distance with love?

What Lies in Winter

Workaholic Hayley vacations in the mountains and meets author, Nicholas. He might be a solitary beast but Hayley is hell-bent on disrupting his peaceful balance. A blizzard makes them share quarters and their fiery personalities melt the ice caps off the mountains.

I wonder... if I put out a 3 novella anthology, would it be The 3 Little Pigs?

The Marian Kind

Here I was working...working...working on my second first person rom com sus MS and boom! Happy news that curled my newly-dyed, chocolate-brown hair.
The Marian Kind has been picked up by the first person I offered it to, and will come out in Freya's Bower's Summer Lovin' collection. How exciting! Talk about almost instant gratification. This novella took less than 2 months from concept to contract! I'm still stunned by how easy it came out. From the moment I switched to first person, I never looked back. Marian was a total hoot to write.

Freya's Bower are already asking me about covers and such and have made me feel really welcome. I think this will be a lot of fun to work with them. Definitely a cheese party at my place tonight! :-)

Michelle's New Book

Love's Blessings by M.G. Braden
- Now available from By Grace Publishing

Janelle Trent has been desperately trying to have a baby. Can she surrender to God when the treatments don't work?

Kevin Trent loves his wife, baby or not. Can he show his wife that they already are a family? Or, will he walk away, taking with him all their hopes and dreams?

Can two people in love move past heartache to find each other, and possibly a miracle, again? Sometimes we search so hard but are unable to see that we already have Love's Blessings.

Given 4.5 Hearts from The Romance Studio - you can buy Love's Blessings today from By Grace Publishing

Divas Deliver Again

Oasis of My Heart

by Tara S Nichols

Release Date May 25th 2007

Sadie Davies is running away for the second time in her life. The first time she wanted stardom. This time she is running from it. Intending to keep a low profile she sets up for a solitary life, but with sexy, know-it-all, neighbour Dustin Reed she finds it rather difficult. Moving in next door to playboy Dustin Reed wasn’t Sadie Davies idea of keeping a low profile. With ex-manager Horace Bigelow hunting her down the last thing Sadie wants is a distraction.
Now she has to decide whether to let this lady-killer into her life for fear of attracting a real killer.

Available May 25th from Cobblestone Press!

The Spirit Within

by Shonna Brannon

ISBN: 978-1-60088-130-5

Alyssa Carrington's spirit must search out the man who tried to kill her before her body’s taken off life support and she moves on to the other side.

Sam Carson’s a detective whose sister was murdered the night Alyssa was attacked. When he hears a voice claiming to be the spirit of Alyssa, he thinks he’s going crazy. Can he go against the rules and track down his sister’s killer and get Alyssa back in her body or will his feelings for her spirit get in the way and send her to the other side, making him lose his chance with her forever.

To buy visit Cobblestone Press!

Second Sight

by Debbie Mumford

ISBN: 1-934069-51-5

A mysterious grimoire of Celtic origins has been linked to two murders. To break the case, psychic investigator Zach Douglass seeks the assistance of a gifted translator, beautiful Jenny Murdoch. But Jenny has a dark secret. She's spent years repressing a potent psychic talent: her 'tiger', which she believes killed her parents. Jenny will crack the grimoire and learn to trust her tiger, but she'll fall under suspicion for the murders. And one of the victim's was Zach's fiancée.

Available May 1st from Freya's Bower!

Read Excerpt

And They're Back

Full of exciting stories and news. Full of amazing feats and costumes and parties. Not to mention freebies. How wonderful it must be to have all that on your doorstep.

Leave of Absence

The romance world goes crazy at this time of year as everyone gets ready for the Romantic Times conference, so until the madness is over, I will only be blogging about earth shattering events. I hope you'll all be back here after the conference, full of ideas and enthusiam, and we'll continue skewing the world off center. 'Til then, happy writing, y'all, and have fun.

Something Blue

Today I did the line edits for Something Blue, my inspirational novella coming out in By Grace's Brides and Bouquets 2007 in June. Closer to release date, I'll post the blurb and give you all a sneaky peak.

But for today I thought I'd let this beautifully rendered promise box do the talking. Maybe you have the whole living with balance thing whipped, but sometimes I need to remember the story of Mary & Martha. Yes, I'm a Martha -- throw my hands in the air and scream, "But there's so much to do!" Finding gifts like this promise box reminds me to sit back, shut up, and remember that God is still in control of the heavens.



Colorful Inspirational Bible Verses

Save Babe.com

Yes, there is such a thing. It's an Australian animal protection society. You can find them here -- http://www.savebabe.com/truth.html

And given my current spending habits, this dot com is likely the only Babe saving there'll be until I get that magic six figure deal. :-)

Hunh!

Isn't it amazing what you find when you google yourself? Yeah, I'm avoiding talking about the hot blog topic of the mo -- to rape or not to rape. Why? Coz I think rape is morally wrong, but if we don't explore ideas in books, how do we share what other people think about things? And if we start censoring scenarios, where do we stop? So I'm just looking at all the cute pigs. Take that, Radiant Wilbur, I'm Gallant.

Or not. :-)

Bite Me!

Big excitement of the day, my young boy lost a tooth. Yep, that constitutes excitement in this neck of the woods. :-) He thinks he'll become rich over night. The older son offered to help by knocking out more teeth. Um, yeah.

For those of you with kids who wanna play some tooth games, you might like to visit here.

http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/abyss/games/gamesel1.htm

And for those who've been there, you can get the shirt.



Personally, I think that's going a bit far, but to each his own.

I Woke in Mordor!

Yes, I thought it was time I put up a self portrait. Does my hair look a little gray to you?

Small wonder. I woke in Mordor this morning, complete with seige towers, the Grond (hammer of the underworld), catapault and Ballista, or should that be blisters? The boys are on holidays and decided it might be fun to surround Mummy like Lilliputlians (oops! wrong story), just waiting for me to open my eyes so they could launch the battle. Thankfully, knex weaponry is mostly destructible with one stomp of my cave troll foot. He he he.

I guess I should be glad they didn't act like Orcs and eat each other. Then again....

Four more days of holidays to go. I don't think I can make it! Somebody send in the Nazguls!

Robin' the Rich

To give to the paw. See, Robin Hood was really a pet lover. :-)

I'm currently writing a short story that grew into a novella (from little things...) about Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Now when you think of that romantic duo, you probably think of something like this...



What's not to love about Uma? The woman is gorgeous.

However, my Maid Marian looks nothing like that. She's a frizz-haired makeup artist for a funeral home in modern day Florida. Rob is somewhat of a cyberthief and rock guitarist. And the perfect body they get close to ... well, let's just say that it's not their lover's. Or alive.

I'm having fun writing this. Funeral homes need not be grave. Hey, it worked for Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One." And I would like to say no pets were harmed in the making of this story, though the junkie dog did come close.

Fairies in the Park

The park was full of easter eggs, fairies, pink flamingoes



and butterflies. :-)




There was also live music and a fighting display by the Anachronistic group. The fairy harpist let my musical son play a celtic tune on his harp. He was so impressed he gave my son his biz card and asked him to come by for a jam session. I won't go into the chaos my boy caused later in the day that saw us in the ER, but there is no doubting his musical talent.

E - stir

Just wanted to wish you all a blessed Easter. I hope whatever you are doing for the holiday that you will be safe and happy.



Luv ya,

Babe

Down the Literary Road

Some critics have said that my work sounds too literary for pop lit and in particular for contemporary romance. That may be a fair comment given how much literary work I've studied and how much I still love it. While I know those are my roots, I try to bring the elements of literature that I adore to the elements of pop lit that I love and marry them for a pleasing hybrid. As to whether I do that well or bastardise both in the process, well... that remains to be seen. I'm sure my readers will let me know.

I've just finished reading John Connolly's "The White Road." Wow! Gruesome, gritty, like a montage of waking nightmares. Just ...wow! There must be a place in popular romance for the power and stirring of such works as these.

Do yourself a favor. But read it with the light on!

Comment of the Day

Courtesy my youngest son : "Someone who eats vegetables is a vegetarian, so someone who eats humans must be a humanitarian."

The 'Crap Happens' Barometer

My life is total crap right now. How often have you heard someone say this? I know lately what with being ill and having boy problems and the roof blowing off my barn I've thought it, but you know, such globalizing of misery doesn't help. And it isn't true. The fact is, life is not TOTAL crap. Only 99%. :-)

All right, even less than that.

I think I cause a lot of my grief by internalizing every little thing like I'm somehow to blame, then inferring from that that I'm less of a person for letting bad things happen. Why didn't I take better care of my health? Continue homeschooling my boys? Deal better with their teachers? Nail down the barn roof or better yet, buy a better house? Must be because I'm a loser, stupid, pathetic, a soft touch or in some other way deficient etc etc. Gee, who needs a mean kid to beat me up? I do such a great job on myself.

I've been reading a book about performance anxiety. Why? Because I get myself so tied in knots I can't move forward. Like now-- with some money coming in from Cup of Comfort,I decided to get a professional website done. Not that I don't like Kristen's - I think she did a great job, but because those in the know can tell the difference and I wanted to give myself the best chance of putting a professional foot forward.

Sooooo, I asked Jodici who everyone raves about, and tentatively priced one. Started a quote at $75US and quickly blew out to around $160 US. Yikes. I CAN do it since my Cup of Comfort story won (though I did want to put some aside in case my CP needs it to get to Nationals.)

So-- what image to portray on my site? I'm over cherries coz I see them everywhere these days. And I'm such a mixed bag to represent, but I really want my website to look professional as well as looking like me (Hah! There in lies the problem! Anyway, I found a cute image which says Babe/humor/quirk, but teaming it with suspense and professionalism and romance- oi! or should that be Oink?

Now I'm worried sick that I'll make bad choices, it will look just as confusing as my first site (because I STILL don't know how to project myself), and I'll spend a HUGE chunk of dough and be no further ahead. Is that a nice wallop of negative self-talk or what? It's got me so flustered I can't make a decision between the two mock ups Jodici sent me. I'm terrified to make a mistake. Why? Will I die if I get it wrong? No! Chances are most people waste more on shoes. Why do I feel so bad making a choice? And why do I expect things to always go right if I can just put in the effort/pay my dues/hold my mouth right? Fact is -- its a risk, pure and simple, one I hope will pay off.

While I was freaking out over the website last night, I read this. "If you think you are anxious, miserable or angry because your life's circumstances are not as you want them to be, and you think that you have too many hassles and difficulties, ask yourself how many problems and discomforts you are supposed to have." Drs. R & E Farnbach

Hmmm....

Maybe it is okay to be the klutz I am, to get it wrong, to upset people without trying, because I do a lot of good stuff too. And I am out there giving it a shot. (or is that trying not to get shot?) Anyone who thinks I'm somehow less for being the goofball/eccentric/extroverted hermit that I am is likely floating on their own arrogant cloud of BS anyway.

As the Tibetan proverb goes: "Man who does not suffer fools gladly deserves yak dung pie in face."

So I'm off to make my decisions, and try not to beat myself up, or to moan too loudly about the crap filtering into my life like a deluge at the moment. Truth is, so far, the crap probably isn't past my ankles. And besides, everyone knows it's good for your complexion.