Guest post with Kate Belle - Something About Teacher & Giveaway!

SOMETHING ABOUT TEACHER

Hi Jo-Anne and readers!

Did you have a crush on a teacher in high school? Or a scandal when a student became romantically involved with a teacher?

I’m of the vintage when relationships between young teachers and older high school students (I’m talking 17 – 18 years old), while not respectable, weren’t uncommon. My high school saw at least one teacher and student moving in together after the student graduated. And all the girls in my year level had enormous crushes on our very handsome Business Studies teacher (although as far as I know he never succumbed to our flirtatious come-ons).

Attitudes towards student teacher relationships have shifted in the last 30 years. Today these relationships are not tolerated, they are viewed as paedophilic, pure manipulation and abuse of power on the part of the adult participant. In many cases this is true, particularly where the student in question is under the age of consent.

Yet what an arbitrary line the age of consent is.

Sixteen is as tender as fifteen and not a whole lot less mature than seventeen. At sixteen many teenagers are discovering the incredible power of their burgeoning sexuality, not only in regards to their peers, but also in relation to the effect it can have on adults.

I feel for modern teenage girls. From primary school age they’re subjected to an undercurrent of sexual conditioning via first world culture - music videos, TV soaps, magazines, advertising, modelling from the young women in their lives. It doesn’t take long for them to get the idea that sexual allure is a highly valued quality. I’ve tried to protect my 9 year old daughter from explicit music videos and mature commercial content, yet she occasionally (and disturbingly) mimics the sexy poses and behaviour she observes in the world around her. Sexiness is so embedded in our culture we hardly notice it.

The unguarded nature of today’s communication means young people are exposed to complex sexual ideas long before they have the maturity to understand them. Sex education is delivered and helps to avert silly, misinformed mistakes, but no sex education program is going to prepare them for the lived experience and consequences of entering a sexual relationship, particularly with a mature adult.

As a young girl’s body blossoms and hormones rocket through her blood, it’s not surprising she decides to ruffle her sexual feathers and test out her allure. For some girls the most accessible man available to her is a teacher. There are many teachers in my life and all of them have a story about a teenager who targets the youngest, handsomest member of staff with her substantial charms.

The ramifications of this can be dire. No matter how responsibly he behaves, these days he is the one who is going to be held to account. If she manipulates him into an uncompromising position she will be the victim and he will be explaining himself, even though he may have done nothing to encourage her affections.  One story I was told involved a fifteen year old girl who used tutoring as a ruse and showed up on her teacher’s doorstep dressed provocatively holding a bottle of wine.

Teenagers are susceptible to developing intense romantic attachments – real or imagined. First love is a teenage rite of passage and it’s only natural a percentage of teenagers choose a favoured teacher as their first love object. And if that teacher is vulnerable to the flattery of a young person’s attraction and attention, the situation can become psychological dynamite.

It was the romantic element of these relationships that interested me when writing The Yearning. We are not comfortable with the idea that there could be a real attraction between a teacher and student, so this aspect of the relationship is glossed over. It’s seen as an aberration, a delusion, but that’s not how a teenager experiences it.

Our first experience of love and sex stays with us, marks us out and shapes our expectations of future relationships. I believe we should be talking to teenagers, particularly teenage girls, about how to assert and experience their sexuality in a way that empowers them, not buys into the confusing double standards society lays out for them – be sexually alluring but don’t be a slut. They need to understand the consequences of entering a sexual relationship with a mature adult may affect the rest of their lives.

The Yearning speaks to this issue. It asks who seduces who and why? How do we realign our expectations in relationships, our trust, our love, after our first sexual experience? It asks what do we want from love versus what we can have?

The Yearning by Kate Belle

Synopsis:

It’s 1978 in a country town and a dreamy fifteen year old girl’s world is turned upside down by the arrival of the substitute English teacher. Solomon Andrews is beautiful, inspiring and she wants him like nothing else she’s wanted in her short life.

Charismatic and unconventional, Solomon easily wins the hearts and minds of his third form English class. He notices the attention of one girl, his new neighbour, who has taken to watching him from her upstairs window. He assumes it a harmless teenage crush, until the erotic love notes begin to arrive.

Solomon knows he must resist, but her sensual words stir him. He has longings of his own, although they have nothing to do with love, or so he believes. One afternoon, as he stands reading her latest offering in his driveway, she turns up unannounced. And what happens next will torment them forever – in ways neither can imagine.

Read an extract here

Buy The Yearning:

Ebook: Amazon

 iTunes 

Kobo 

Reading group questions here 

Author Bio

Kate is a multi-published author who writes dark, sensual contemporary women’s fiction. She lives, writes and loves in Melbourne, juggling her strange, secret affairs with her male characters with her much loved partner and daughter and a menagerie of neurotic pets.

Kate holds a tertiary qualification in chemistry, half a diploma in naturopathy and a diploma in psychological astrology. Kate believes in living a passionate life and has ridden a camel through the Australian desert, fraternised with hippies in Nimbin, had a near birth experience and lived on nothing but porridge and a carrot for 3 days.

Blog/website: http://www.ecstasyfiles.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/katebelle.x

Twitter: @ecstasyfiles https://twitter.com/ecstasyfiles

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6572571.Kate_Belle

The Reading Room: http://www.thereadingroom.com/kate-belle/ap/2394119

Every reader who comments on any Kate Belle blog post before December 23 2013 will go into the draw to win a digital copy of The Yearning (Open to Australia/New Zealand residents only. Selected winner must be contactable by email to claim their prize.)

I'll throw in an ebook of The Yearning to anyone who comments on this post. Just leave a comment telling me if you ever had a crush on a teacher, with your email address. Winner will be drawn December 23rd. 

Guest Post - Emma Shortt: Waking Up Dead & Giveaway!

Title: Waking Up Dead (End of Days Love #1)

Author: Emma Short

Release Date: 22nd October 2013

Publisher: Entangled

Welcome to the #entangledzombieinvasion release week competition, and a big thanks to Jo-Anne for hosting me!

Just in time for Halloween we’re celebrating the release of my debut novel, Waking up Dead, and it’s all about the zombies… Of course where the undead roam a zombie slaying kit is so needed, and do I have a fab one for you!

Axe: check

Flashlight: check

Super hunky guy to fight the zombies with: not quite…

You can, however, find that super hunky guy in-between the pages of Waking up Dead, and if you’d like the get-your-slay-on kit too, or a signed copy of Waking up Dead, or even a $25 Amazon gift card enter the competition below. You get extra points for tweeting and extra again for heading over to Facebook and liking my author page.

Here’s a sneak peek of Waking up Dead…

You know your life has hit rock bottom when you’re living off cooked rats and showering once every few months—if you’re lucky. But for Jackson Hart things are about to get a whole lot worse. When her best friend, Tye, disappears hunting for food, kick-ass Jackson’s ‘head south to safety’ plan looks like it’s dead before it’s even begun. But then she meets ex-mechanic Luke Granger, who takes her to his bunker, feeds her with non-rat based food, and offers her protection against the zombie hordes—not that she needs it. She knows how to use a machete and isn’t afraid to.
Jackson was tempted to stay in the city with her rescuer. Food, shampoo and the possibility of finally getting laid, what more could she ask for? But the flesh eaters are getting smarter and the bunker is compromised, so Jackson and Luke have no choice but to make the journey south.
Luke and Jackson team up to find other humans in a road-trip romance for the ages. They travel for thousands of miles with zombies shadowing their every move. They must utilize every resource at their disposal…and then some. On the way, they discover that even if flesh eating zombies are knocking down their door, there’s always time for sex and even love.

Excerpt:

Chicago

Without a doubt the house with the pretty green shutters had food inside of it. Pasta, canned vegetables, tinned meats, hell, it could have a five course, good-to-go, gourmet meal in there for all Jackson Hart knew. Crouched down behind an overturned SUV she could practically hear it all screaming from inside the pantry, and she narrowed her eyes as she assessed the best way to get at it.

Not through the front door. It was probably barred tight with planks of wood, or barricaded with piled-up furniture. Maybe through the back? But the skinny, shadowed alleyway that ran between the house and its fence screamed, horror movie showdown, and for all Jackson knew she’d be risking it only to find a blocked-up back door too. The shutters then. How thick were they? Was the glass behind them intact? Jackson hefted Mandy-the-machete and considered the possibilities.

“You’re looking thoughtful there. For the record it doesn’t suit you.”

Those words came from Tyrone, her friend, her only friend, if you wanted to get right down to it. He joined her behind the SUV, swinging his ax as he did so, and making absolutely no attempt to stay hidden.

“I was being stealthy,” Jackson said with a sigh. “You totally just ruined it.”

“Stealthy for who?” he asked. “The rats? There’s only them and us. We checked the street. It’s all quiet.”

Jackson frowned as she looked away from the house and down said street. A backpack, probably a child’s by the size of it, caught her attention, and she frowned as she noticed what looked like a rusty toy truck sticking out of the zipper. The things people had thought to take when they tried to run…it still baffled her.

“Quiet or not, they’re here somewhere,” she said softly. “It’s been almost a day since we saw any of them.”

“Let’s hope for another day and then maybe another.” He paused. “Better yet, let’s hope for a week.”

Jackson almost laughed. “Might as well wish for a working car.”

“I do, sweetheart. Daily. We’re surrounded by wheels and not one of them worth a damn.”

“Two years and then some pretty much kills everything.”

“Everything but us,” Tye said.

Jackson nodded slowly at the truth of those words, tore her gaze away from the truck, and pointed her machete at the shuttered house. “Enough with the reminiscing. Take a look at that.”

Tye’s gaze followed the line of the blade. A frown spread across his face as he assessed the building from top to bottom. “It looks…”

“Like it probably did two years ago?”

“Yeah.”

“Weird isn’t it?” Jackson said. “I don’t know about your end, but down there,” she tilted her head to the south of the street, “the rest of these million-dollar houses are rocking the post apocalyptic- makeover vibe. Broken glass, doors hanging off their frames, trash all over the place.”

 “And this one stands alone,” Tye said, his frown deepening. “Could be Obama’s. I heard he has a house around here.”

“Had, had a house,” Jackson said. “And I’m pretty sure the dead do not make dining distinctions based on fame, or,” she added when Tye opened his mouth to speak, “government office.”

“Unless he went rogue in the beginning. He could still be hanging around.” Tye paused and shook his head. “That’s a weird thought.”

“Weird but not outside the realms of possibility,” Jackson said. “Hence the stealth you just ruined. Something is off, and we can’t ignore it. If there’s food anywhere, it’s hidden in that house. The rest have been picked clean, and this one looks like it’s been protected.”

Tye shot her an incredulous look. “You’re seriously not suggesting there are actual people inside?”

She snorted. “Yep, I’m betting there’s a whole family just waiting to open their arms to us. They’ll have a meal all laid out, hot baths running—”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Jack.”

Jackson shook her head. “You goad me into it. Seriously though, I’m thinking there were people still living in there. Not for a while and not now,” she added, holding up her free hand to halt whatever words Tye had been about to say, “but maybe they lasted out longer than the rest of the street. It’d explain why things look different. Better yet, it might mean food.”

Tye stomach gave a grumble. It was far louder than it should have been and Jackson caught his eye. “Keep it down. That was loud enough for a pack to hear.”

“Can’t help it,” he said. “You keep talking about food. When was the last time we ate, for fuck’s sake? I still can’t believe the university campus was picked clean.”

“It’s crazy,” Jackson agreed, thinking of all those dorm rooms they’d crept through. Each had been viler than the last, full of blood and pus and a million other unidentifiable fluids. Worse, they’d stunk of teen sweat, though how that could be two and more years after those rooms had last been occupied, Jackson didn’t know. “Took a brave person indeed to wander those rooms and clean them out,” she added. “End of the day though, it doesn’t leave us much choice but to hit up Creepyville here. We need some calories

in our system as soon as possible, and I’d rather not chow down on rat again.”

“There’s nothing wrong with rat.”

“There’s so much wrong with it I can’t even begin.” She swung

Mandy in the direction of the biggest window, forcing Tye to lean back to avoid the super-sharp blade. “I’m thinking we go through the shutters there. We’ll chop through them and then the glass too if there’s any left.”

“That’ll make a bit of noise.”

 “Less noise than trying to go through the front door. You know it’ll probably be barricaded up, and besides, didn’t you just say we were okay?”

“I said we are okay for the moment. Let’s not push our luck any more than we have to.”

“So we’ll be quick.”

He hefted his ax, giving it a swing of what Jackson assumed was agreement. “I’m always quick, sweetheart.”

 “I bet.”

“You’re not funny.”

I'm thirty something years old, live in combats and black tees, survive on a desperately minimal amount of sleep, and have a tendency to shoot from the hip.

 I loathe shopping, unless it's for books, and spend most of my free time trying to get my teenage children, Vix and Bear, to hang out with me. Mostly they don't, as you know, they have stuff to do. What this stuff is I've yet to find out... so I write instead and before long free time is no more.

 I write in all sorts of genres, though the vast majority of my work has a romance bubbling within it (inspired by my real life hero, my husband, fondly referred to as 'The Greek'). Mostly I just write whatever takes my fancy and hope that someone, somewhere, will want to buy it when it's finished!

 You can find me all over the net. It is fair to say I am a bit of a cyber-whore. Facebook (www.facebook.com/AuthorEmmaShortt), Twitter (www.twitter.com/emmashortt), Amazon (www.amazon.com/author/emma-shortt) Goodreads...come, say hi. I want you to!

All my books are available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble, All Romance ebooks, Bookstrand, Apple, Smashwords, Sony and Chapters/Indigo. You can download to your Kindle, Kobo, Nook or iPad. You can also find some of my books on Amazon.com in paperback format.

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Guest post by Rosalie Lario

Why I Love Paranormal Romance

In honor of my recent release, Blood of the Demon, a paranormal romance featuring four sexy, half-demon brothers, I thought I’d talk today about some of the reasons why I love paranormal romance.

I've been fascinated with the paranormal ever since my childhood days of watching reruns of The Munsters on television. Tales of vampires, werewolves, and witches thrilled me almost as much as they terrified me. Even better were the less traditional horror baddies like mummies, trolls, or goblin kings. There was something so fun about being able to pretend that these beings actually existed.

That childhood fascination never died off for me. In the 80s it was movies like The Lost Boys and Labyrinth. In the 90s Ghost and The Mummy (still one of my all-time favorites). I also loved the paranormal in books, going from Bunnicula to Ann Rice (and yes, I know what a big jump that is).

Then I discovered romance, and a whole new love was born. Paranormal creatures as heroes instead of villains? Swoon! I’ve been addicted ever since. There’s something about taking a tortured supernatural hero and giving him a HEA that I cannot resist. Maybe it’s the idea that every being needs love—or the thought of everlasting love—that makes this concept so irresistible to me. Whatever it is, my love for paranormal romance (like so many of the genre’s heroes and heroines) will not die.

I discover new and wonderful paranormal romance authors all the time, but some of my current favorite are Jeaniene Frost (especially her Night Huntress series, which features the most swoon-worthy hero I’ve ever read about), Karen Marie Moning (her earlier Highlander series, has some super-hunky Alpha heroes), and Larissa Ione (hot demons running a demon hospital).

It was my love of demons as heroes that led me to create my DEMONS OF INFERNUM series. The demons in my world aren’t evil creatures from Hell, but a race of beings from another dimension. And let me tell you, they are super hot!

In Blood of the Demon, Keegan lives to exact revenge on the evil demon who sired and abused him. When his father devises a plan to bring on the apocalypse, he and his three half-brothers, interdimensional bounty hunters for the Elden Council, are charged with capturing and delivering their father for punishment.

Art gallery owner Brynn Meyers has no idea that her ability to read memories embedded in objects and drain people of their life force means she has demon ancestry. Unfortunately for Brynn, she’s also the key to raising an ancient zombie army, which puts her on every demon’s Most Wanted List.

And no one wants her more than Keegan’s father.

Keegan must protect Brynn from his father by any means necessary, but he’ll have to learn to harness the other half of his genetics—the far deadlier, uncontrollable half—when he starts to fall for the one woman standing between him and the vengeance he so desperately seeks. The one woman he’ll never be able to resist.

Find out more at http://www.entangledpublishing.com/blood-of-the-demon or at my website www.rosalielario.com.

Are you a fan of paranormal romance? If so, what makes it so great for you?

Rosalie Lario practiced law for five years before finally admitting to herself that negotiating contracts wasn’t nearly as fun as dreaming up stories. The first book in her Demons of Infernum series, Blood of the Demon, will be released August 2011.

Day 11 - Guest post by Adrian Phoenix

My First Hurts-So-Bad-It-Must-Be-Love Crush

I didn’t know love hurt. That it was a constant, yearning ache, one that would tie my heart into knots, one that would saturate every thought with him, and make me think of him with every breath I drew. He’s breathing too, right this very second. Does he think of me? Has he even noticed me? We both gotta breathe, sure, but I can pretend we’re breathing together.

Oh. My. God. Thirteen sucks. Thirteen is when you discover the meaning of bitter-sweet and gawky and heartsick. (And the rest of your family discovers the meaning of self-absorbed, brooding, and melodramatic and you can agree on one thing: thirteen sucks.)

I would babble about this boy at meals, every word spilling from my lips was all about him, My mother dismissed me as boy-crazy, and while crazy was accurate since that was how I felt, I was only crazy for one boy.

I was in eighth grade in junior high school and his name was John. He had dark hair and dark eyes and seemed so mysterious. He was quiet and usually traveled around the school with an entourage of two male friends. He wasn’t one of the popular boys or a jock or even an outcast. He was a regular boy and I thought he was the cutest boy in the universe. I would’ve delivered up my heart on a platter (still quivering) if he would’ve even looked my way.

We often took the same short cut home across the field after school, and I would trail behind him and his friends. I would study every toss of his head, feel weak at the sound of his laughter. I think all I really wanted from him was to just look at him, to be near, to be able to laugh with him and maybe, just maybe, hold hands. I don’t think I even thought about a kiss, just his company and holding hands.

One day, he dropped a glove as he walked home and, heart pounding, delirious, I picked it up. I took it home, thinking I would give it to him in class the next day. I could only hope I wouldn’t faint while doing so.

I never found the courage to give him the glove. I think a part of me never intended to. I kept it under my pillow. A keepsake. A promise. A way to be close to him. I often wished I could walk up to him, smile, and say, “Hey, John” and make him look at me with the same yearning I felt twisting like ivy around my heart whenever I walked past him without a word or a glance, my cheeks blazing as if he could read my thoughts. (Hopefully not about the glove hidden beneath my pillow!)

I pined over John for a long time. Wrote maudlin poetry and moped. A lot. I think I’m fortunate no one in my family smothered me in my sleep (with the glove). LOL. During the year of my crush, John said hello to me once and smiled. I blushed so hard that I’m surprised I didn’t burst into flame. I stammered something, probably, “Uh.” But the unrequited love affair of the century began to wane when John was asked to read aloud in class. As he struggled with each word in the book, I realized he didn’t read much. Well, okay, we could around that. But when he pronounced Chicago as chick-a-go, I knew we were doomed.

I never had a crush as intense and painful and (one-sidedly) romantic as that one. I don’t think I would’ve survived another. My family would’ve made sure. LOL.

And speaking of firsts:

You can read a chapter from the first book in The Maker’s Song series. Here’s a link to a sample chapter of A Rush of Wings.

And the first book in my Hoodoo series. Here’s a link for the first chapter of Black Dust Mambo.

Thanks so much for having me! It’s been a blast. You can also find me at:

Website My blog Facebook Facebook Fan Page Twitter MySpace Goodreads

Dante's Club Hell Forum

Dante's Club Hell Yahoo Group

Pocket After Dark

Day 10 - Guest post by Tracey O'Hara

Since this is Strange Candy’s first anniversary I was asked to talk about one of my big firsts. Now I could think of many first things. My “first” time, which was totally forgettable. My first love who I married, who also fathered of my first child (and my second). Or I could talk about my first book, or my first cover, of my first release.

Instead I decided to talk about another “first” I embarked on this year with my husband, we bought our first house.

Now I never knew how time consuming and stressful it is, but it’s also a bit like getting a book published in a way. First there is the idea, then the research, the plotting, the planning, the making it happen and finally the payoff when you have finished and move into the new house.

For years my family has been living in a rented house unsuitable for our needs and our size. I commandeered one of the bedrooms for my office so my adult sons had to share a room which also acted as their games room. I didn’t realise how cramped we had been living until we move into a place where everyone gets a room and there is room left over to set up my office and the boys games room.

So my big first this year is my first house.

Leave a comment and your email to be entered!

Day 9 - Guest post by Erica Hayes

My first manuscript

No, not the first one I got published. The first I ever wrote. Back in the dim, dark nineties when no one had ever heard of paranormal romance or urban fantasy.

I read a lot of big fat fantasy, so that's what I tried to write. It was this rambling tale of a nun, who was also a doctor, who discovers that the gods she's worshipped all her life are actually a gang of demons intent on taking over the world. I was pretty clueless about worldbuilding at the time. I liked the idea of a four-month-long, dark winter, so I put it in the deep latitudes of the south. And I thought it'd be cool if, instead of swords and bows, they had flintlock pistols. So I shunted it out of the Middle Ages into a kind of quasi-Civil-War era. And the romantic hero was a rabid villain who did horrible things to innocent people for fun, until the heroine showed him the error of his ways by driving him insane (literally).

Yeah, it was terrible :) But I had a lot of fun. I revised it about a hundred times. Even submitted it a few places, to editors who sighed at how awful it was and patiently sent me form rejections.

But hey, you've got to start somewhere! And when I look at that manuscript now, the themes that pop out are surprising. Stuff that at the time, I didn't even really know I was writing about.

'Good' and 'evil' as fluid concepts that warp in the eye of the beholder. People who are one thing on the outside and quite another on the inside. Dual personalities, demonic possession, voices in your head, the war against the darkness within you.

Then again, maybe those themes aren't so surprising. I look at my published books, and I see the same things. I write charming demons, evil angels, 'good' as the lesser of two evils. And every single one of my books has characters with twin personalities or voices in their heads. For instance, Joey in POISON KISSED is a shape-shifter with a dark and hungry creature inside him, and Mina is possessed by her magical voice. And Ember, the heroine of my upcoming book BLOOD CURSED, is haunted by the apparition of the stronger, tougher, no-nonsense self she wishes she could be.

Seems I have some deep-seated need to write about insane people! But the idea that writers have a 'core story' – one they tell over and over again, in different forms – is well-known. Mine is 'the darkness within', and I embrace it. It pops up everywhere, whether I mean it to or not. And it started before I knew anything about writing or publishing, way back in that very first manuscript.

Remember: comment and email or you don't get entered. $50 gift card from Book Depository!

Day 7 - Guest Post by Marianne de Pierres

My First Story Proofs

If I had to pick one of the highlights from my life, one would be the day I got my first set of proofs. These were for a children’s chapter book I published years ago, called Dylan’s Magic Cards. And funnily enough it wasn’t seeing my story typeset that was the exciting thing, it was the internal illustrations and cover rough that made it so memorable. For me, nothing beats seeing how a story you’ve written is interpreted by an artist (whether it be an animator, videographer, film maker, painter or whoever). The sight of those pictures in Dylan’s Magic Cards was worth a million dollars to me – and more. Someone had breathed another kind of life into my words.

Leave a comment and your email for another entry to win the $50 gift card from Book Depository!

Day 6 - Guest post by Jaye Wells

This Is the First Line of the Rest of Your Life
By Jaye Wells

Inspiration can strike at strange times. Talk to a dozen writers and they'll give you a dozen odd locations where they've had an idea--in the shower, on the toilet, eating a bagel, at a funeral, etc. But for me, the most important piece of inspiration I've had so far hit me while I was driving down the road. 

I remember very clearly cruising down Beltline Road in Addison, Texas. I was approaching a stoplight and thinking about a story I needed to write for a friend's flash fiction contest. At the time, I was just another aspiring writer. The contest in question was a for-fun event my friend hosted on his blog a couple of times a year. He'd post an image that would serve as the jumping off point for all the stories entered. 

For this contest, he'd posted a picture of a full moon peeking from between clouds. Since I already wrote paranormal fiction, this image was perfect. But the pressure was on. I didn't want to write just another paranormal story. Which is why, on that sunny afternoon, I was thinking about what I wanted to write as I ran errands. 

I was about 100 yards from the light when a voice spoke in my head. "Digging graves is hell on a manicure," the female voice whispered. 

The car might have swerved--or maybe I'm just imagining it did. But that one little line, that one perfect little line, grabbed me by the throat. I pulled to a stop at the light and tore my car apart looking for a piece of paper, a pen, anything. I didn't want to forget it. But of course, I wouldn't forget it. How could I? A character that would say something like that was someone I wanted to get to know. 

"Digging graves is hell on a manicure," ended up being the first line for that flash fiction piece titled, "I Can Dig It." The 250-word story was about a vampire who was burying a body when she is discovered by another vampire who threatens her and ends up dead, too. The story got a lot of great feedback in the contest. So great, in fact, that I decided to write an entire novel about this intriguing female vampire with the ironic view on life and a violent streak. 

That book, of course, turned into RED-HEADED STEPCHILD. RHSC was the first urban fantasy I ever wrote--before that I'd written romances that will never see the light of day. And that first urban fantasy novel became my first published novel.  

Today, I'm working on book five of the Sabina Kane series. It's the last book in the series, which is the first last book in a series I've ever written. My how life has changed since RED-HEADED STEPCHILD debuted. But looking back, I see how one small first--that one line--lead to a string of other firsts and how, at the end of the day, you never know when a simple car ride can change your whole life.

Remember to leave a comment and your email address for the chance to win a $50 Book Depository giftcard.

Day 4 - Guest Post by Kevin Hearne

Completing my first novel changed my life.

It is an utter piece of trash that will never, ever be published, but its importance as milestone for me cannot be overstated.

For the longest time—most of a decade—I couldn’t finish one, and I beat myself up about it. How can I want to be an author, I asked myself, if I don’t feel strongly enough about my work to complete it?

I think part of my problem was taking those writing advice books to heart. I read too many of them and it damaged my brain. All their guidance about how to write, market, and sell your novel—sometimes with competing ideas—banged around my head and had me writing things I didn’t care about for an audience I truly didn’t know. I must have abandoned ten different manuscripts trying to follow their advice on how to write a bestseller.

What changed things for me was when I decided to write for myself. It still took me six years, but I wrote some crazy shit about an eco-terrorist who used those Coleman propane lanterns to firebomb fast food restaurants. The media dubbed him the Green Lantern, and I thought the comic book joke was funny. I threw in a history professor who was trying to find some Aztec gold buried in Arizona five centuries ago. Oh, and he was running from the Russian mafia too.

It made no sense. It’s truly awful. But it had a beginning, middle, and end, and I was highly amused while writing it. Most importantly, I learned that I could finish a book, and that gave me the confidence to start another one. I wrote my next book in half the time. My third book was the one that got me an agent and a publishing deal—and again, I wrote it to please myself. My fourth and fifth books were written in five and six months, respectively, and now I have the confidence to say I can keep up that pace. I owe that confidence entirely to just getting through my first book—my first, unpublished horror of a book. I will always look back on it fondly.

Kevin Hearne is the author of The Iron Druid Chronicles, to be published in Australia by Voyager. You can visit him at http://www.kevinhearne.com and follow him on Twitter @kevinhearne.

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Day 3 - Guest post by Eleni Konstantine

The First  Cover Design

Thanks Strange Candy Reviews for having me on your blog. Congratulations on a great first year.

I love a good blogoversary.  It's a time to look back and reflect.

I’m a big fan of cover art. I love how colour, text, and images combine to entice you to open the covers  to reveal the magic of the story within.

One day, I decided to enter the 2010 Little Gems cover contest run by the Romance Writers of Australia. I had been playing around with stock images and creating banners for my website, so I had wanted to take this one step further.

I had been going through a hard time (family health issues), which left me with the inability to concentrate on the written word. But working on this cover competition was exactly what I needed. So I decided to not worry about writing and instead concentrate on designing.

It must take incredible artistic skill to do a cover, right?

Well, yes and no.

You don’t have to be an artist to do a good cover. You see, I think you need the technical ability, and an eye for design. What I see myself in regards to book covers is that I’m a designer, not an artist. Yes, there are people who create artwork from scratch, but I wasn’t one of them in this case (one day, I hope).

I had burrowed through stock image websites, looking for images for the theme ‘Topaz’. I am an omnivore when it comes to art, enjoying a different range of styles and looks. The resulting ideas that flowed reflected this. From the more classic to the more abstract. From bright colours to dark colours, and even pastels. My mind spun with ‘what about this’.

I explored Photoshop Elements, making different mock-ups with an image(s) and font size. I adjusted lighting, contrast, colouring. I added layers with different features. I chopped, changed, and combined a number of elements together. I found out a little about printing, and I finally placed in my entries.

And won.

(Well technically, my alter ego won *grin*)

I can’t tell you what a huge thrill this was for me. Even more so, that one of my favourite designs was chosen. Being the first time I had ever done this, I didn’t think I would be successful. Oh, I hoped, but I was realistic. I was not an artist. But, like I said before, I was a designer.

This was the winning entry.

It represents a more ‘classic’ look.

I continued to learn more about design as I worked with the printer to get the best possible result. What a thrill to see it in print form at the launch at the Romance Writers of Australia conference last year, and to be awarded with my certificate.

It was the boost I needed at the time, to keep going with my creative pursuits. I haven’t spent as much time doing the designs I would like to do, but I do feel it helped me with my writing. They seem to balance each other out.

So, I can now say, I’m a cover designer and writer.

You can learn more about Eleni and her works by visiting her website.

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