Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

It’s only 18 days until Christmas, which means that most people are in the midst of their holiday shopping, buying gifts for friends and family.

As all of us authors know, there’s no better gift than a book!  So today, I’m asking you to tell us about any sales or special deals you have on any of your books.  Tell us what the deal is, give us a blurb about the book and be sure to leave a link so we can buy it!

 

I’ll begin…

 

I’ve got a couple of deals going right now.  You can get a great start on my Dream Series, with the first book (DREAM STUDENT) available for free, and book #2 (DREAM DOCTOR) on sale for just $0.99.  And you can also get the first book of the Jane Barnaby Adventures (FINDERS KEEPERS) for $0.99!

 

Now it’s your turn…

 

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

since we’re now officially in the midst of the holiday season, let’s talk about that.  Today’s question is to tell us about a holiday tradition that shows up in your books.  Do any of your characters have a special Christmas tradition in their families?  Give us an excerpt!  Or, if there aren’t any examples in your books, tell us about one of your own holiday traditions…

(and be sure to leave a link so we can follow you and learn about your books!)

I’ll begin…

This is a little excerpt from the first Dream Series book, DREAM STUDENT, and it shows Christmas Eve for Sara’s family…

At eight o’clock, Dad calls everyone into the living room.  He’s got the fire going nicely.  The pizza he ordered got here a couple of minutes ago.  And the VCR is warmed up with the annual triple-feature: Charlie Brown, the Grinch and then Year Without a Santa Claus.  This is one thing Bob and I do agree 100% on–it wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

It’s a perfect evening.  We watch Charlie Brown pick out his sad, scrawny little tree and learn the true meaning of Christmas; we watch the Grinch plot and scheme and then have his epiphany; we watch Heat Miser and Snow Miser do their big musical numbers, which is my favorite part from any of the shows.

Afterwards, we all drink hot chocolate and, following longstanding family tradition, we each open one small present.  Dad makes out the best; his gift is from Mom, and it’s a book-on-tape for the car.  It’s one of those Robert Ludlum spy novels he likes so much.   Bob’s is the most oddly appropriate, from me: a Crewe University t-shirt.  Mom’s isn’t too bad, a woolen hat that Bob picked out for her.  And I think mine is the most sentimental: Mom had a great picture of Beth and me at the beach last summer that she put into a cute little frame for me.

We won’t open the rest of the gifts until Christmas morning, but it’s nice to get just the one early.  And now that we’ve done everything according to tradition, it’s time for bed.  It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.

Now it’s your turn!

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

With Thanksgiving (and massive Thanksgiving dinners!) coming up next week, it’s a great time to talk about food.  Today, your challenge is to share a scene from one of your books involving dinners, snacks, meals, dessert, cooking – anything food-related…

And be sure to leave a link to your book so we can read more about it, too!

I’ll begin…

It took a couple of minutes to convince him.  “Oh my God, you must feel so gross,” was what finally clinched the deal.  Once he got in the shower, he took his sweet time, which surprised Jane.  She hadn’t figured him for someone who’d primp and preen forever in the bathroom.  By the time he was done, they’d lost most of one of their extra hours.

They lost the rest of it and half of the other one in a little café half a mile down the road, but there was no helping it.  They were both ravenous, and neither of them displayed exemplary table manners.  Jane was pretty sure that, in the eyes of everyone else in the café, she’d confirmed every single stereotype of the Ugly American, and maybe invented a couple of new ones.  But she’d never see any of those people again, and, besides, she was properly fed for the first time in more than twenty-four hours, which left her feeling too good to care about anyone’s opinion anyway.

That’s from book #1 of the Jane Barnaby Adventures, FINDERS KEEPERS…

Now it’s your turn!

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

Last week, we asked you to share an opening line from one of your books.  So it only makes sense that today’s question jumps to the end – give us the closing line form one of your books…

And be sure to leave a link to your book so we can read more about it, too!

I’ll begin…

I’ll tell you all about the trip when I get home, but if you hear anything about it from anyone else before that (Tishy’s grandfather, Professor Welldon, anybody from Interpol) do not believe a word they tell you.  Please?  Because whatever they tell you, it didn’t happen like that.  At all.

That’s the first line of LOSERS WEEPERS, book #2 of the Jane Barnaby Adventures…

Now it’s your turn!

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

We have a very simple assignment for all you authors today.  We all know how important beginnings are, so today I want you to give us the opening line(s) of one of your books – it can be one sentence, or up to a paragraph, whatever makes sense for you.

And be sure to leave a link to your book so we can read more about it, too!

 

 

I’ll begin…

 

It was another cold, damp, uninviting day in Oxfordshire, but the young woman in the beige raincoat didn’t pay the slightest attention to the miserable weather.

That’s the first line of FINDERS KEEPERS, book #1 of the Jane Barnaby Adventures…

 

Now it’s your turn!

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

Let’s talk about pictures today.  It could be a book cover, or a photo of an actor who might be a good choice to play one of your characters in a movie.  It could be a photo or painting that was an inspiration for something in one of your books.  Or it could be artwork inspired BY your books.

Whatever it is, your challenge today is to share an image that relates to one of your books in the comments.  If you want to embed the image in your comment, here’s how to do it:

Get the link to the image you want to use, and then use the following HTML code in your comment:

<img src=”IMAGE URL” width=”200″>

Or, you can simply post the link to the image, on your website, on IMDB, on Amazon, on a museum website, or wherever it happens to be.

I’ll begin…

 

I’ve had original artwork commissioned on deviantart.com for my books – mostly for fun, or for sharing in tweets and so forth.  Here’s an illustration showing the characters of the Jane Barnaby Adventures:

 

Now it’s your turn!  Be sure to leave a link so we can learn more about you and your books!

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

Let’s talk about changes today.  Not changes you make in the process of rewriting and editing, but changes you’ve made AFTER you’ve initially published a book.  Have you gone back and revised one of your books later?  Changed the cover?  Republished it with a new publisher (or self-published after getting the rights back from a publisher)?  Tell us about one of your books that has changed in some way after it was first published…

 

I’ll begin…

The original covers for my Dream Series books were hand-painted by an artist, Ami Low.  She did a fantastic job, but it turned out that what I’d asked her to produce was wrong for the market and the audience I was trying to reach, and I had to change them – much thanks to Emma Michaels, who designed all the new covers.

So here are three images.  The first is my initial MS Paint “sketch” (a generous description, I think) that I gave to Ami to show her what I wanted.  The second is what Ami produced.  And the third is the redesigned cover by Emma…

Now it’s your turn!  Be sure to leave a link so we can learn more about you and your books!

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

We’ve talked in past editions of Welcome Wednesday about imagining our books as movies or TV shows, and who might play our characters on screen.  What’s something else that every movie and TV show has?

A soundtrack!

So today’s question is, does your book have a soundtrack?  Tell us all about it!

I’ll begin…

 

So I have this story that’s been in my head for YEARS, and I’ve never figured out how to write it.  I have a hundred page 1’s that never made it to page 2.  I have grand ideas about how it could be a TV series, rather than a book, and I have bits of screenplay written.  It’s a huge, epic time travel story, and if I could ever figure out the right way to tell it, it would be really, really cool.

But one thing I DO have for it is a soundtrack, and I came up with this a long time ago when I was envisioning it as a full-length TV series, so this list works best if you can imagine each song as being the main musical theme of an episode.  You can probably tell when I first came up with this story based on when the majority of the songs I chose date from…

 

This Must Be The Place (Talking Heads)

Steppin’ Out (Joe Jackson)

Moments of Pleasure (Kate Bush)

Like a Hurricane (Roxy Music live cover)

Humans From Earth (T-Bone Burnett)

King of the Mountain (Kate Bush)

Don’t Cry (Asia)

Heads We’re Dancing (Kate Bush)

Down to London (Joe Jackson)

Somewhere In Between (Kate bush)

Gunning For the Buddha (Shriekback)

To Turn You On (Roxy Music)

Love and Anger (Kate Bush)

Tomorrow’s World (Joe Jackson)

Me and You Against the World (Joe Jackson)

Trism (B-52s)

Amnesia (Chumbawumba)

Too Dizzy (David Bowie)

Losing My Religion (REM)

Ain’t It A Shame (B-52s)

Stupid Girl (Garbage)

New York’s In Love (David Bowie)

Lined Up (Shriekback)

Saving the Best For Last (Marc Cohn)

December (Collective Soul)

That Voice Again (Peter Gabriel)

 

Now it’s your turn!  Tell us all about your fictional world and be sure to leave a link so we can learn more about you!

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

Today let’s talk about the real world vs. your fictional world.  Exactly how “real” is the world your characters inhabit?  Talk a little about how you build the city or town or village they live in.  Do you use real-world locations and happenings?  If they stop for a coffee on the way to work, do they go to Starbucks, or to a coffee shop of your own invention?  If they have a little celebrity crush on an actor, is it Chris Hemsworth, or is it someone you invented for your own world?

rite and let the characters take you wherever they want to go, and hope it all makes sense in the end?

I’ll begin…

My books are set pretty firmly in the actual world.  My new series, the Jane Barnaby Adventures, is set in the early 1990’s, and when my heroine thinks of an actress, she thinks of Julia Roberts.  When she visits her friend who works at a fancy department store, she goes to Bergdorf Goodman.  And so forth.

Now it’s your turn!  Tell us all about your fictional world and be sure to leave a link so we can learn more about you!

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

Today I’m asking you authors to talk about someone else.  Tell us who your favorite writer (besides yourself!) is, and why?

 

I’ll begin…

It’s a tough question.  I think I have to answer, even though I only really love one of his books, Mark Helprin.  Even with his books that I really couldn’t get into, his writing is just beautiful, and I’d kill to be able to wrote 1/10 as well on any kind of consistent basis.  And the one book I really do love of his, Winter’s Tale, is maybe the best novel of the last century.  And, yes, I’ll stand by that opinion.

Now it’s your turn!  Remember to be sure to leave a link so we can find out more about you and your books!

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