Sunday, July 31, 2011

Help Ryan Loveless save her kitty!!

Ryan Loveless Save The Kitty!!! <----- Click Here


Do you love animals? Do you love kittens? Here's a chance to help save a kitty's life! Her cat is in need of surgery or they could die. Please help by donating, offering something for 'auction' or purchasing one of the many items up for auction!

Help save Puppy!

*hugs to Ryan*

New Website... Celebratory Give Away

Excited! I spent six hours today working on building out a new website. It's not completely finished, but I'm getting there! I haven't done anything like that in years! It came out really nice too!

As soon as it is up and completed, I'm going to have a Celebratory Give Away of a free ebook copy of Swift's Temptation. I'll announce it in advance of course!

If you are interested in seeing the new page, the link is CLICK HERE...

Let me know your thoughts and feedback on the site! Any suggestions? Please remember, it's not entirely completed but I had to take a break, lol.

As my newest way to sign off at the end of a blog post, enjoy the yummy men!

Friday, July 29, 2011

Advertising and promoting yourself...

I've been trying to come up with a way to effectively promote my books, my name and just plain ol' advertising, but I have tried the usual routes. i.e. Facebook, Twitter, my blog, and had bookmarks printed that I passed out at several places including via mail to a few of the bookstores still available (a dying breed it seems).

At the moment, I am working on building out my own website. Right now, it is in its early stages so there's nothing there, but I think I can really do something with it. Plus, I heard that Blogger is shutting down their service, so I need to get all of my posts from here moved over before they do that.I fully intend on separating my blog from my short story posts and other details such as my books and where they're available.

Does anyone have any experience in this area and would you be able to just give me a few pointers/tips? I'm pretty good at figuring things out if I sit there long enough. LOL. Which there's the issue. Having the time or the energy to do it. But I am determined so I'm going to spend a chunk of time this weekend trying to get it worked out.

Well, I am off to work shortly so I will post again later! :D Have a great and beautiful Friday my wonderful peoples! And another yummy photo to leave you with!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Original Ideas & How Hard It Is To Get One

Today I received an email that totally depressed me. My third novel, accepted by Dreamspinner Press, was found to be too similar to someone else's and I am now going to have to do some revamping. It is extremely hard to find anything left in this world that hasn't already been done.

I've read so many books over the course of my life and found quite a few with similarities. Or ideas used over and over. Kind of like the Matrix and the many many times they've used the slow/frozen in motion or the scene where he beckons the agent to 'bring it'.

Even a story you think might be unique turns out to have a clone somewhere apparently. I have another story that I've been working on a friend of mine related to a tv series which I have never in my life seen, yet apparently my story is pretty close to the plotline of the series. -__-

I guess that's why there are so many remakes of movies or books or ideas being used again and again. I had a dream the other night that I am beginning to wonder if I should write it down because it was pretty freaky and I can't say that I have seen anything like it. Someone told me I should write it as a story, and after the email from DSP, I'm beginning to think I should! It seemed so clear and vivid and scary as hell! O.O I woke up with my heart beating like a freight train.

I have a few ideas on how to change the plotline and hopefully it will be enough without making it an entire rewrite! Because that would entirely suck.

Now I leave you with a picture of beautiful men while I scamper off to try and do something productive.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Working on my blog short

I am going to try and have another post for From Fiction to Reality up sometime in the next couple of days. I'm sorry I haven't really been posting it. But I'm going to try and post every week at least. My job wears me out, but that's no excuse for me to keep my readers hanging. I will work on it tomorrow and hopefully have the next 1k words up for you shortly.

Personal Goal...

After submitting my short story last night to Silver Publishing, getting the edits back on Fragments of a Unicorn's Soul short story, and hearing that one of my best friends had another book accepted by Dreamspinner Press, it motivated me to want to write. So I am setting a personal goal for myself. As of tonight, once I have settled in from work and am at my computer, I will write 1000 words to my ongoing story even if it kills me. I cannot let myself get distracted. Writing is what I want to do more than anything and I cannot let my job take that from me. They already take so much.

My biggest problem when I'm writing is I tend to read over what I have written and analyze it instead of just writing and then going back to start at the beginning. So I am going to try to not do that while I'm writing these 1k words a night. A thousand words is nothing! I should be able to do! *pumps fist in the air* I think. >.>

I do want to say Congratulations on your newest book acceptance, Hayley James! You deserve it no matter what anyone else may say and just remember that you have friends who love and support you! *HUGS*

And I leave you all with a very cute and sexy picture!! XD

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

What to write...

When I had my first book accepted, everyone told me start a blog, start a twitter, start a Facebook profile, but they don't tell you what to write. I may be a writer of fiction, but blogging is about reality. You're supposed to write about your recent stories or whatever exciting thing may have happened in your life. But what if you don't have anything exciting that happens? What if it's the same boring day, day in and day out?

I go to work, come home, walk the dog, take a shower, do whatever I need to do, play Warcraft every couple of days, and try to force myself to get into the mood to write. My job has sucked out the urge, which is the exact opposite of what I figure it would do. After all, I don't enjoy being there anymore, so you'd think it would motivate me to get my butt in gear. Only... it hasn't. It just exhausts me to where I don't want to think.

They load me down with so much work that there is no humanly possible way to finish it all in the time they want. And it stresses me out because I'm anal retentive when it comes to doing a good job. My boss micro manages me to the point where I want to scream sometimes. I'm not an idiot and you don't have to direct me what to do every minute of every day. I understand when something important comes up, but let me do what I need to do on a regular basis. If you leave me alone, I get more done. He doesn't seem to get that concept. I feel resentful all the time now. And when he calls my name, the hairs on the back of my neck go up, like a cat who's pissed and hissing. Sometimes, I have to bite my tongue not to say something very bad and walk out.

I love writing. Writing is like breathing for me. I've had a passion for it since I was in school. I won a couple of awards in middle school, but never pursued it in High school. High school was a depressing time for me. I wasn't one of the in-crowd so I spent most of my time alone after I was moved to another school. I didn't talk to people easily, very introverted, shy and low self-esteem. I've gotten a lot better with that. Now I'm more of an anti-social than shy. I speak my mind, which some people hate me for but hey, if you hate me for it, then you don't matter, right?

I love dialogue, I love reading about lives other than my own. There are so many ways a person's life can move in a book. Things can happen in a book that don't happen in real life even. Shifters, vampires, dragons and you can immerse yourself in a story and pretend, just for a little while, that you are that person, the one who rescues people or who can shift into a wonderous creature. You can be the person who's loved by someone unconditionally, no matter who they are. You can forget about your own life and your own troubles and move on.

When I write, I write from that perspective. We all love angst and seeing our characters put through pain, but when it comes to the end of the story, (even the most hard-hearted person), loves to see the characters given their happy ending. Being told I love you. Triumphing over the evil in the story, be it tangible in the form of a character or intangible in the form of an emotion.

I'm sorry to those who have started reading my blog story posts. I know I haven't updated them in a long time. I apologize. It's like I said previously, I can't think most days. I'm hoping the exercise I intend to start tonight, an hour a night, will help me clear my head and motivate me. It may tire me out at first, but perhaps after that it will make me feel good or better. Isn't that what they say? That when you exercise it makes you feel better?

Anyway, it is time for me to finish getting ready to go to work. Perhaps I will have an update for my short story on this blog soon.

~J.R.~