Tuesday, February 28, 2012

There's no crying in baseball...or writing.

First, I owe you all an apology. I've been MIA for too long. In my defense, I have had a TON of stuff going on. So many really great things have been happening. Let me fill you in on what's been eating up my time.

I finalized the manuscript of FROZEN HEART and readied myself for the rather intimidating process of querying said manuscript. Querying is no small feat. I know what you're thinking, "Just throw it in an email and send it out!" Ya, not even close. Every house has different requirements. It's paramount that you follow each publisher's requirement perfectly or your submission goes right into the trash folder. The query process takes many hours over many days. And that's just to get it out to the publishers that allow you to have simultaneous submissions at different houses.

I made the typical rookie errors. Misspellings in editor's names. Attaching wrong documents (like the first three chapters instead of a full, or vice versa). And various other ridiculous mistakes. But you know what they say – there's no crying in writing. Or was it baseball? Whatever. You know what I mean.

Instead of letting myself get all mopey (Okay, I was totally mopey, but only for like 5 minutes), I did what any self-preservationist does and kept sending that damn thing! I knew I couldn't give up. Not if I wanted to achieve my goal of being a PUBLISHED author.

And GUESS WHAT? Go on. Guess. I'm waiting.



No, not that. Okay. YOU'RE RIGHT! I TOTALLY GOT A PUBLISHING CONTRACT! I am proud to announce that Frozen Heart will be published by Inkspell Publishing this summer! I am beyond thrilled to be working with a company like Inkspell. They are new to the scene but they are high class straight out of the gate. I look forward to a long and successful relationship with them.  I'll keep you all updated as we get closer to the release date.



And that's not all. There's another big announcement coming mid-March. More fun, more romance, and more writing! I know, I'm telling you, it's been CRAZY around here! I can't wait to take you all on this ride with me. What an adventure this will be!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Author Spotlight: Brien Michaels

Hello my friends! I know I've been MIA. There are TONS of exciting things on the horizon, all of which I will tell you about so very soon. For now, I shall enthrall you with the fantastic writing of the wickedly talented Brien Michaels! His special brand of spine tingling horror mixed with flaming hot erotica will keep you on the edge of your seat. I was lucky enough to grab him for an interview in celebration of his newest release Last Friday Night. Please welcome, Brien Micheals!

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You have carved out a very particular niche for yourself in the erotic romance world. Scorching hot romance woven into the tapestry of unique and spine-tingling scary settings. How did you find your way into this genre? 
Well, I’ve been writing horror since about grade five. So just about everything I churned out between then and about age nineteen had something horrifying happening. But I started dabbling in writing more…er…erotic stories when I was maybe sixteen. Wrote a bunch of fan-fiction that I still sometimes get reviews on. It didn’t dawn on me until the end of 2010 to combine the two genres, and it was totally by accident. I wrote Sparks Fly while I was on this God-awful cruise to the Virgin Islands and never really thought about it as a horror story until people started telling me how much it scared them. I’ve been going ever since.
You’ve jumped into the world of published authors at a relatively young age. Do you feel that this has been an advantage or a hurdle to overcome in your writing career?  
An advantage, most definitely. I’ve wanted to do this since I was a kid. Granted, that was only about a decade ago, but still. I’ve met other authors who’ve told me they wish they knew they wanted this when they were my age. I mean, really think about it. How many twenty-one year olds do you know who can honestly say that they’re living their dream?
Though I will say, I apparently look younger than I am. When I was at Ellora’s Cave’s Romanticon last year, I was asked a great many times if I was old enough to be there/participate in the workshops. And I was asked a great many more times than that whose son I was. Imagine my surprise finding out I was the only male author there.
What is the biggest impetus in your writing? Do you draw more from life experience or the creepy things that haunt the recesses of your mind? 
It’s a little of both, actually. Emotionally, what my characters go through is from real-life experience because writing is my coping mechanism; it’s how I work through all the screwed up crap people my age go through. The horror, on the other hand, comes from the places I’m usually too afraid to think of. Believe me, I’m the biggest chicken you’ll ever meet, so a lot of the scenes in my scarier stories freak me out. Like literally I’ll sit in a dark room so I can be scared enough to write it, but then spend the entire time writing looking around me to make sure nothing is trying to sneak out of the shadows to get me. It’s a mess.
Is there any advice or experience you’d like to share with the other young writers out there who are looking at you and thinking, “Damn, how’d he do it?”  
Just don’t give up. It’s the most cliché thing in the world, I know, but it’s also the truest. As a writer, you’re going to get rejected. It’s almost an inevitability unless you’re like super author, or something. But just keep submitting and keep writing. It only takes one editor to love your book to get you a contract. But that applies to any dream you’re trying to achieve. Keep working at it cuz if it’s that much of a driving force in your mind, then it’s your duty to make it a reality.
Quick Three:
Favorite book: Str8te Boys by Evangeline Anderson
Favorite drink: Not sure I have a favorite drink, but I am partial to a good vodka cranberry.
Favorite article of clothing: Definitely the T-shirt I got from Romanticon last year. It just says, “Got Sex?” Yup. It’s awesome.


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Thank you again to Brien Michaels for sharing his twisted sexy stories with us. For more on Brien, you can visit his website
,  Goodreads , and find him on Twitter . Last Friday Night, as well as the rest of his titles, are available at Amazon , B&N , and All Romance Ebooks .