The
deal with all those books I’ve read this week
Sunday 31 January 2016
Saturday 30 January 2016
#MySexySaturday
#MSS126 theme
is A Sexy Vampire
Sigh. The only
vampire story I have isn’t coming out until October this year (no matter what)
but I thought…well it’s vampires and I really like this story, can’t wait for
you guys to read it. I thoughts, why not share a little …
Now it’s get
into the pimping of this fine weekly blog hop
Friday 29 January 2016
A BonyDee Challenge, part 3
Choose a Cover, Win a Prize
RULES: check out the cover below, then go to April’s Post here and
check that out, then comment, telling us which cover you liked best by simply
putting Bronwyn or April into the comment
Cover art will be chosen by which cover gets the most votes over the
two blogs on Friday 5th of Feb
Winner will be chosen randomly, 1 winner across the 2 blogs, on Friday
the 5th of Feb
Thursday 28 January 2016
52 Weeks of Acknowledging Me
This ones
coming a lot quicker then I planned, mostly because I just found myself talking
to family about this plan and finding myself pondering it so I thought, well
why not talk about things now.
I’d also like
to say I’m going to just talk about the big things that changed my life for the
better. it might not seem that way a lot of the times, but everything that I’ve
putting up here is about what I considered a turning point but more so
something I’m proud of or, well, changed me.
The
10 Year Plan
The other day
I found myself talking to my in-laws about what my 10 year plan was and I found
myself justifying it.
No that’s not
right, it was more trying to resay what I was saying. Justifying how I’d said
it. and I’m not in any way saying it was to them I’ve had thing problem, but
the last of the many times I’ve spoken of my plan and ending up not really
saying what it was. Or not saying it in a way that will stop people scrunching
up there nose at me.
The reason
I’ve got a ten year plan where most people wouldn’t think of such a thing,
wouldn’t have such a goal is because of children and depression.
I’ve mention this
before though I think I’ll say it again because it’s important to the whole
suture of what I’m saying, but I was 19 when I feel pregnant, hell, if I think
on it, and probably do some maths, I hadn’t even hit my 19th birthday when I
did the test and found out that I was.
I’ll preface
this by saying I was of the oldest out of my friends, and therefore spend the
first 6 months of my 18th not doing legal things (as in Australia we are
legally allowed to drink by said age). I had 5 months between when my best
friend at the time turned 18 and I became pregnant.
More so
children were never the plan. I never wanted to be a mother. Didn’t care for
children any more then I cared for animals. They were just what other people
wanted, never me. And I ended up young and pregnant and well the start of me
being a mum.
Now don’t get
me wrong, I’m happy now and I’m liking this life just as much as I’d like the
other life I wanted to live, but the way I see it, the way I talk to people
about it is like being a mum is a struggle I can’t wait to get out from under.
Which I
can’t. I can’t wait until my kids are old enough that they don’t need me for
most of their daily life. I can’t wait until they don’t need me for more than a
weekly phone call when I can get away from the life of children and having
people who care where the hell I am ever second of the day when they are in a
place they should be able to see me.
I love my
kids, I’m glad I had them, but my thoughts on children are still the same.
Other than my own and my brothers (and sisters when I get them) children are
just …
So in order
to be able to do everything I want to do, like go to America in my 40th year,
pick up April and head around the USA for a while then I have to have a plan
set in. and being as the year I turn 40 my son would have turned 20 and my
daughter 18, it can happen if I have the money. So I have my plan, which
entails me making my company something.
So my plan is
quite simple.
Wednesday 27 January 2016
Guest LM Brown with Destiny & Dragons
Lord Marcus and his Quest
Hi
everyone. Thank you, Bronwyn, for having me here today to talk about my latest
novella, Destiny & Dragons.
Lord
Marcus was introduced to readers of the Fairy Tales for All series back in Let
Down Your Hair, the first book in the series. As the best friend of Prince
Aiden, he played an important role as the voice of common sense. Now he takes
centre stage in his own search for his happy ending.
Like
Prince Aiden, sometimes Marcus has a little difficulty in seeing what is right
under his nose, though at least in the case of Marcus, he has a magical excuse.
Readers
will no doubt be wondering why there was no hint in the previous book that
Marcus is partial to the company of other men. The reason for that is quite
simple, for Marcus has never allowed himself to explore his feelings for men
and has been quite happy with women, at least until he meets a certain dragon. If
you want to insist on labels, then Marcus is very firmly in the bisexual camp.
For
Lord Marcus, going a quest to rescue a princess was something he had to do or
else lose his inheritance. When his
mission changes and he promises to deliver a dragon to his family his quest
takes an unusual turn, but the reward will be far greater.
Destiny
& Dragons by LM Brown
(Fairy
Tales for All #3)
Publishing
22nd of January 2016
Paranormal
Fantasy Romance
Tuesday 26 January 2016
Australia Day
Today is
Australia Day! So today we celebrate what makes our country so great. Happy Australia Day, I know what I'm celebrating, what about you?
Today also marks
the release day of Outside Sanity, or at least later in the day it does. Check
out this post over on BonyDee Press to get the links and such
The snippet
comes from a blog thing I did over on ManLove Fantasies, the giveaway is
over for my day but it’s still up and it’s going to be part of either a novel or a series
I’m going to write. I’m thinking this will be book 2 or the end of the Novel.
Anyway, click
here and check it out and tell me what you think? wanna read it?
Onto work.
I’ve done
none.
Okay, so it’s
the last week of school holidays (or two weeks whatever) and I have actually
done a lot through these ones where normally I take the whole 6 weeks off. It
didn’t help that I took time off before, that wouldn’t have mattered. I take
ALL school hols off, because I need to be able to do stuff with my kids and not
have to worry about work. It’s another reason for wanting to be a year in
advance.
However, this
month I have done a lot. Considering my “don’t do anything” attitude.
Due to the
fact that I’ve edited 3 things and gotten the either published or as far as I can
get to publishing the last (you’ll learn more at the end of the week) as I can
get.
I wrote the
things I was talking about above.
And I went
into a full blown re-read of One Piece. Which is a manga series I love. I also
loved the mass re-read. The earlier days went a little slower as it’s been a
lot longer since I’d have a full read like this one, but the second half was a
rush of awesomeness.
Anyway loved
the series, and glad I took the time out to read them.
Next month I’m
going to be switching to McGee, I plan to re-write, from scratch in a way, one
of the stories I wrote before I wrote Moonlit. I love the story and think I could
make it better. I also plan on plotting out 3 series. 2 from this side and 1
from the other side.
I’ll still
let you know how it all goes so don’t worry.
Sunday 24 January 2016
Read This Week
The
deal with all those books I’ve read this week
Okay,
so clearly (at least to me) I’m been doing some major re-reads.
The
numbers right now are: 10 New Reads, 54 re-reads & 2 BETA reads
Saturday 23 January 2016
#MySexySaturday
#MSS125 theme
is My Sexy Shifter
Yep,
that was definitely him! Tim nearly split his checks open with the smile he
couldn’t stop. It had been a week of these walks to the mailbox around this
time a day…the same time of day he’d seen the guy the first time, and seemed
intently to fall in love with him.
But he wasn’t a pussy, and guys just didn’t do that. So,
he fell into a deep infatuation with the man that made him take these walks and
hope like hell he’d see him. And when he didn’t, he’d have to talk himself up
out of the heart-crushing disappointment that went through him.
Tim slowed down his steps so that he would make it to the
letterbox around the time the guy would be passing it. He tried his best to
squint into the distance so that he could watch him get closer…watch as his
body slowly became bigger, becoming clearer.
He was wearing dark shorts that hung off his hips and
clung to his thighs with every stride. The guy had defined calves, but that was
a memory of last time. Not this one, though Tim knew nothing had changed, with
a covering of blond tipped hair.
Today, he was wearing a white wife beater that had seen
better days. It was stretched, hanging off him. Hips showing no matter what he
did. But it was hot. Tim couldn’t imagine running at all.
The closer he got to Tim, the more Tim’s mouth watered.
On a swing, his chest came into view. A light shattering of hair covered his
chest, his nipple still clear. Still there, waiting for Tim’s tongue to flick
over it.
Tim was at the letterbox now, only the wrong side, but he
was still in motion when he realised this and was unable to change course.
Now it’s get
into the pimping of this fine weekly blog hop
Friday 22 January 2016
A BonyDee Challenge, part 2
The Cast
Basically,
BonyDee Press had created a challenge that April and I are a part of and here’s
my take on coming up with the idea.
I
remember, it was either just after I finished writing my own or I finished
reading April’s book that I turned to her and said “these characters are really
awful people”.
That’s
how I see them. They aren’t nice, both the MC and the sister are quite
self-centred people.
I
don’t say this to discourage you in reading our stories, just giving you an
idea of how I viewed the two main cast members and how I used them and worked
them into at least one them a loveable enough character that you’d want to read
about him.
Jonah
is… he’s got so much love in his head. He’s a little arrogant and clearly only
thinks about himself, and what is hurting him. And how it’s not his fault. And
if you think about it, isn’t the true for us all. Isn’t that how we all are,
until something happens and we are forced to take a breath to realise things
beyond what we are feeling in our hearts and focus on what the real issue is.
And it’s only then that we are able to loosen the pain and maybe make things
work.
My
story is about that part, about Jonah hitting rock bottom and having to deal
with what’s really the matter, what’s really being said and not said.
Scott
is the love of his life, only Scott has issues of his own, which makes things a
little more complicated, only he’s blaming himself too. He’s allowing Jonah to
push everything on him, and he’s accepting that.
His
sister is one line in my story, and I am pleased with how she turned out, I
think out of all our characters April and I got her pretty much on line.
Vince
is much more a part of my story then April’s he’s a key element as a best mate
and a reason for Jonah to start seeing things as they are and not as it is
inside his head. He’s the shame.
The
facts are, April and I…well we never saw this as a challenge when we started
out, it just became that way, mostly because I refused to read her story before
I wrote mine. We did however chat about all the characters, trying our best to
line them up. But the thing is each person seeing another person in a different
light and it’s hard to tell what one’s going to point at and what the other is.
And that’s what this book is showing us. That even hours of chats and
discussions about the characters what April saw and what I saw where 4 very
different people.
Now
if you’ve not read April’s yet go over and check out what her thoughts on the
characters is.
Thursday 21 January 2016
52 Weeks of Acknowledging Me
My Writing Style
It has come to my attention
that maybe I didn’t really articulate my writing style problems in the post
earlier this week and so I thought I’d take a day to actually talk about it,
the facts and why I am struggling with it.
First off, the English
language is horrible, we can all agree to that. What’s worse is it’s very set
in its way, even if it breaks rules that it tells us we aren’t allowed to break
and yadda yadda. I don’t need to go on, we all understand.
Which looks like this
1st POV: his eyes never leaving mine, running against all that perfect skin, all
that was going to be mine.
3rd POV: His eyes never left Ben, they ran against
all that perfect skin, all that was going to be his.
Then there’s me: His eyes never leaving Ben, running against
all that perfect skin, all that was going to be his.
If it isn’t clear, I write in
a peculiar manner, one that anyone in the publishing industry will change
completely. They will take what I’ve written and will make it into what English
has told us it’s meant to be. And that’s where my problems lie.
I am finding, over the last
couple of years, that my style isn’t fitting in with the editors. That they can
try to keep as much of me in as possible. Even to the extent that everything in
my books is what I’ve written. But at the end of the day changing the sentence
structure, which 90% of the time is paragraph arrangement will strip my stories
of me.
Now this isn’t me saying
anything bad about my editors, they are all awesome people. I love them, and I
need them, badly. I know this, but it’s also showing, just recently that they
change quite a bit of my work.
Again, my editors are rock
stars and I’d be back where I was in 2014 if weren’t for them. Really, they are
great, and they have done everything I’ve wanted. Along with me agreeing with
what they have changed afterward. If I didn’t like it, I would tell them so
with an understanding and acknowledgment of changing it in a way that makes us
both happy.
What this means is I have to
decide what I want to do as a writer.
Do I change my style; do
everything I can to try to make my work look like what English has told me it
has to look like. It’s something I’ve been encouraged to try a couple of times.
That maybe if I write it that way. If I’m the one to create the sentence the
way they are meant to be that I wouldn’t see it as losing something, because at
the end of the day I haven’t lost anything.
Yet I feel that I have. I
think I’ve been feeling that I have for the last 2 years as I become a better
more competent story teller. It’s a hard feeling to have, to be aware of and
unable to do anything about it. Unable to just do what I’ve been doing for the
last couple of years, which has been having my editors fix everything they see
(again I have agreed to everything my editors have done, before and after
editing starts, I stand behind them and my work).
The alternative is to stay the
way I am. To talk to my editors about my style and see if they are okay with
still editing me, for content rather than sentence structure. Or maybe not as
strongly on the sentence structure side.
This down side to this is
having people think that my books haven’t been edited. But then I honestly
having gotten a lot of grief with that, not in the sense of anything that HAS
been properly edited so it’s not something I fear the most.
I could just start writing in
1st POV, but really, it’s not a type I like and tend to find myself switching
to 3rd halfway through sentence. Or my 1st becomes like 3rd should be. Really,
my heads a little bit of a mess when it comes to the literature stuff.
I know that in a lot of ways
there are people out there that have
written like I do. I’m not the only one, but the facts remain that that’s 1 in
1000 or more and doesn’t make great selling. On the other hand, does it? I honestly
have no idea. There isn’t enough data and it’s that point that I must think on.
Do I change and see or stay the same and, well, see.
This is what I’m in thought
about. This is what I meant when I said I had some thinking to do before I
continue writing my already established series as they are already set in 3rd
POV and have to stay that way, but do I?
At the end of the day, I have
grown enough as a writer to be proud of everything I write, to be able to say,
“Yes, this is a good book” and stand behind it without any regret and yet
because I’m here I can now see things for what they are and what’s happening
around me.
And around me is that I need
to also be able to be happy and stand behind my writing and talk to my editors
about what I want and how I want to represent myself because I know they will
all help me get that way.
I have great editors. I am in
a great spot. And I am at a point where I can say I am here and here’s a reason
without letting anything negative really drive my books. It’s more an “ok, I
see your point, but I still stand behind my book. I am still proud of it”.
I just need to either stand
behind my style as proudly as I do the words, or change it and hope that it
works that I can see myself in it. I fear I won’t and in that case, it’s all
about adjusting the thoughts and what I say I want from my editors because as
it is it’s all about the words, and now it needs to be about the style.
In conclusion, because this
post isn’t long enough, this is all about me and my growth as a writer to not
be focused on one aspect but all aspects and style isn’t something you deal
with until you’re confident enough in telling a story.
Also like to again add that
this has nothing to do with any of the editors I’ve had to date. They have done
everything I’ve asked. They have made my stories better and for that I’m grateful
beyond words. This is about me. My growth. My ability to see past my words and
see the story.
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