Pre-convention sightseeing-Beverly Hills

Filed in: blog | travel    Tags: beverly hills | rt convention 2011

First, be forewarned that I used to live in Southern California and even more specifically, the Los Feliz and then Burbank area. This makes me a very bad photographer of things that might be interesting to a non-Californian. Amanda Berry is likely to have much more interesting photos of our sightseeing.

After a day of Amanda gripping the “oh sh#@” handles while I drove through L.A. traffic, we decided it would be best to take a Hollywood tour and let someone else drive. We jumped on one of those tour buses (really more of a truck) on Hollywood Blvd and the day commenced.

Growing up here, I was really amused to take a star tour for the first time. They took us up into the Hollywood hills to see the measly single-digit million dollar homes before we hit Beverly Hills to check out the really schwanky places.

Um…the house of a famous person who will most likely never invite me over

I can’t really remember whose house was whose, but Amanda got in a lot of good research for her Hollywood stories. I mean, just think of setting as character. A home can say a lot about a Hollywood hottie. Is it covered with hedges with only a gate showing? Is it aloof and set upon a hill?

The tour guide was quite pleased that we were romance authors. Apparently Fabio is common sighting during such tours, rumored to drive an orange Lamborghini. I kept my eyes peeled. No luck.

After the Hollywood tour let us out, we took our own tour of the Beverly Hills Hotel – aka the Pink Palace. After a lot of circling and feeling conspicuous in my mid-size rental among all the sports cars and foreign imports, we finally got brave enough to park and wander in.

The good thing about nice hotels is they can’t kick you out even if you’re roaming around like gawking tourists. Service, you know? Though we played it quite cool, keeping our picture taking to the privacy of the gilded bathroom.

Then following the rule that no one is ever out of place with a drink in hand, we went to the 1912 bar to watch the sunset.

In my weakness for the fugitive value of specialty drinks, I ordered something called a “Smoky Ginger” which was really quite good: ginger infused gin, house-made honey syrup, a bunch of other ingredients I didn’t recognize…I liked it.

And Amanda celebrated the occasion with her first sip of alcohol in six years. Let me tell you that Amanda Berry is a very, very cheap date.

Well, unless you’re drinking at the Beverly Hills Hotel where no date is cheap, I suppose.

We attempted dinner at Ketchup, a site Amanda had researched for one of her Hollywood stories. Unfortunately it was closed and they appeared to be filming upstairs. Perhaps for the movie version of “L.A. Cinderella”? (one day…one day)

We settled for dinner at Mel’s Diner across the street where we spent our quarters on the mini-jukeboxes and I had my favorite hanging out dinner, which is breakfast.

The conference unofficially starts today with the RT Book Camp. Time to put on my game face.

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A Non-Objective Reader: A book experience

Filed in: blog | slice of life | travel    Tags: brenda joyce | deadly vows | seoul | south korea

You know in High Fidelity when John Cusack says he’s arranging his music collection autobiographically?

Like music, the books I’ve read provide a sort of context and an accompanying soundtrack to my life. I started thinking about this as I was reading DEADLY VOWS, the latest (and hopefully not the last) in Brenda Joyce’s Francesca Cahill series. Now, I’ll comment a little bit more about the book at the end. Be forewarned this is not a review. It’s an autobiographical slice of my life, scored by a particular series. There’s a reason why I’m not a great reviewer of books. I chat about them. This post will explain a bit why.

To this day – The DEADLY series is the only open-ended series where I’ve read every single book. For the last several years, I periodically checked Brenda Joyce’s website like one of Skinner’s pigeons hoping that there would be a new book in the series after such a long hiatus. This year, I was rewarded when I saw that HQN was re-releasing the last two in January and February and then the next book, DEADLY VOWS, in March.

Let’s go back to the very beginning. Not of the series, but of my relationship to it.

In 2002 I was in Seoul, South Korea for a three month contracting job. This was total immersion into another country and culture and I thought I was doing pretty well: working, learning the language, brave enough to go shopping and even haggling on my own. I had a little tiny shoebox of the apartment that my co-worker Moses Kwon (yeah, there’s a story there) told me was spacious compared to his apartment. I loved the adventure of it, but I did get a little homesick sometimes. There were two channels on TV that had English programming. One was the AFN (Armed Forces Network) and one would show Moonlighting and several other shows in English, but with Korean subtitles.

One of my crowning accomplishments was programming my TV and VCR to record Survivor which played at midnight. I had the Korean instruction manual in front of me, my little dictionary, and a lot of sheer will for that.

Well, during this long stretch, the English channels were showing NASCAR races, which I wasn’t desperate enough to turn to yet. I’d read all the books I’d brought along, so I ventured into the city to search out the few English language bookstores listed in my Lonely Planet: South Korea book. (I didn’t take enough pictures of Seoul, but luckily found a blog post on Buying English Books in South Korea on the FarmBoy and CityGirl blog and they allowed me to borrow their picture. Much thanks!)

Kyobo Bookstore

At one mall, there was a huge sale with long tables and books laid out across it. Two whole tables of English language novels. I was in HEAVEN. I can see those books now…if you can imagine it. I mean, I’d never been anywhere for a prolonged amount of time where every piece of paper, every menu, every billboard, every show, EVERYTHING was in another language I couldn’t read. In Korea, I really came to understand a small fraction of what it must have been like for my family coming to America. My dear grandmother wandered around southern California just like this, determined to make sense of a culture she didn’t grow up in.

So I spent hours browsing those rows and rows of titles. I really can see those spines right here in my head, the memory is that strong.

I picked up what must have been the third book in the DEADLY series-DEADLY AFFAIRS. Calder Hart has already made his arrival, but Francesca was still smitten with Rick Bragg. I devoured that book. I went back and found as many of the DEADLY books as I could.

I loved the historical New York setting in the early 1900s and Francesca’s impetuousness. Sure the mystery element was a bit light and the final showdowns became formulaic, but I was sucked in by Francesca’s innocent do-good ways and her obviously destructive infatuation with married police commissioner Rick Bragg and her subtle attraction to Calder Hart. Oh my gosh, in those early books it was so well-done and balanced. I want to read them again and again.

I had a small week-long hiatus to go back to the States for my sister’s graduation. Very convenient too, since you have to renew your visa every month. I went to bookstores in California and searched out as many of the books as I could to bring back with me to Korea. I collected and read until I’d filled out the whole series and was caught up. When I pre-ordered Deadly Kisses on Amazon, I was distraught to find it in a bookstore before the pre-order shipped because that would mean I’d have to wait…but I could see RIGHT there!

These books were my companions in a very pivotal time in my life. A period when I was learning so much about the world and about myself in it. I had a lot of time to myself in Seoul, yet it was more crowded than I’d ever experienced in Los Angeles. I’m not even going to draw flimsy parallels between Francesca braving the streets of New York and me braving the streets of Seoul, though they can be made if I really wanted to go there. I just loved the books and all the many little elements that came together in each of them.

So back to DEADLY VOWS:

Obviously I’m a non-objective reader here. Non-objective — Is that a word? A subjective reader? But I’m really a non-objective reader overall. Sure, I try to be objective when I’m critiquing unpublished manuscripts from writing partners, but I’ve never had a problem backing up and reading like a reader and just relaxing into it. I’ve always known this about myself. When I go to movies and when I read books, I let down my guard and I want to be taken away. Many of my cohorts say it’s hard to “just read” books anymore, but I don’t think you need to give that up when you become a writer. The brain is an intricate multi-threaded, parallel-processing machine.

So objectively *tee hee*,  I felt there was some catch-up of plotlines and characters in the book that made it a book for fans of the series. But after such a long break, it was necessary. There was a little too much repetition of characters’ feelings from one scene to the next and there was a scene in there that mirrored a scene in a previous book too closely that bothered me because it was such a powerful scene previously. Calder and Fran did acknowledge the similarities, but it bothered me to see it again played out again.

Calder Hart still sweeps me away. The way he masks his darkness and pain with arrogance and confidence is so appealing. And Brenda Joyce revealed him to me a little at a time in each book until I was so thoroughly reeled in. He moved me to tears when he was jilted at the altar. And the scenes with Calder and Fran still sizzle like crazy. I still yell at Francesca–”No, don’t do that!! You’re going to get yourself in trouble…again!” But that’s the point, right? And I’m glad to catch up with the other characters, though there are so many sub-plots and secondary romances now that maybe they deserve separate books? Or more page count in each book? I’d love to see the tortured relationship between Bragg and Leigh Anne develop into more of a romance. I don’t know though — I’d still be hungering for Francesca and Calder since it’s the way this series has been plotted so I don’t think there’s any way to satisfy here — barring five or so more books in the series.

So there’s my “not a review” of DEADLY VOWS and why this series is so irrevocably intertwined in my memories. Objectively — I think it’s a good book with compelling characters and a few writing quirks that can be distracting. Subjectively — Hook it directly to my vein!

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Up in the Air, Baby Time & Page 99

Filed in: blog | friends and family | slice of life | travel    Tags: baby pics | page 99 test | travel

After so many flights in less than a week, I find that my brain has jumped into air-space–that limbo where your body knows no time zone, you’re sleeping in different locations all the time, and eating out a lot. To add to the blurring of time zones, I’m visiting Sis and her bawling bundle of joy.

He’s cute, no? Looks exactly like Brother-in-law. I held Baby Perry (Short for Peregrine) through Top Chef last night so Sis could get a little sleep. He’s five weeks old which means the house pretty much runs on baby time.

Traveling does have some other little perks too. For instance, lots of editing done during some forced non-internet time while I was in the air. You know some airlines will sell you wireless up there for an arm and a leg, but I kind of like the no-internet zone.

I also found a cool site in the Southwest airlines in-flight magazine: The Page 99 test. A bunch of authors, published and unpublished, post their 99th page while readers click on whether they’d turn the page. The idea being that you should be able to open up any page of your book and get a feel for the energy and voice of the piece. I dunno–wish I had a fight scene on page 99. Really fun site to waste some time on though!

Page 99 test: Butterfly Swords

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Birthday Presents and the Friendly Skies

Filed in: blog | events | friends and family | slice of life | travel    Tags: alison goodman | EON | kindle | MCRW | signing | workshop

Guest spot: Trish Milburn interviewed me for Romance Bandits. The post is up today. Come by and reminisce about what games you used to play

***

I got my birthday present early from hubby!

Isn’t she all pretty and shiny? I love my Kindle already. I didn’t need to hook up a single cable to sync it with my Kindle apps on my computer. Yes, apps plural, because I have an app on each laptop so I can read from anywhere. I’ve also downloaded a couple of sample chapters and bought a couple of titles on it. Hubby is happy that I like it, and I think he’s also happy I didn’t ask for the iPad instead which was about three times the price.

One book that I couldn’t find on Kindle was EON by Alison Goodman. No worries because that very same day, a package arrived in the mail from Little Sis. Apparently, we still share the same brain, because she’d sent me a hardcopy of EON for my birthday.

She said she hasn’t read it yet, but had an idea I might like it. How did she know? Just because there’s a woman wielding two swords and a dragon on the cover doesn’t necessarily mean that…Okay, so it was an easy call.

Little Sis said she sent EON to me so I’d have reading material on the plane, but she needn’t have worried. I gushed to her about the Kindle and how tiny it was. No more big bulky books on planes. No more grabbing something from the newsstand in the airport when I don’t have anything to read.

Through a last minute arrangement with the day job, I’m going to be flying on my birthday (Nov. 16) to NYC. Perhaps I can meet up with a couple friends for drinks. I feel so cosmopolitan.

After that, I get a quick stop at home before I head to Nashville for a workshop and signing. I’ll get a chance to visit with my fellow Ruby Sister Kim Law.

That’s a lot of flying for one week, so I’m glad I have my nifty new Kindle. With all the traveling I’ve done in the past, surprisingly I’ve never flown on my birthday before. Hubby said the airline gave him a bottle of wine when he had to fly on his birthday. I don’t know if service is that good nowadays. Maybe an extra bag of pretzels?

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NJRWA and Cool Meet-Ups

Filed in: blog | book reviews | conferences | events | travel    Tags: amanda berry | autumn jordan | book clubs | book signings | katie babs | NJRW | reviews | workshops

Blog tour: Tuesday I’m being interviewed at Long and Short Reviews (LASR). I’ll be back there tomorrow on their loop for an Author Chat. You need to join the LASR e-mail loop to attend the author chat.  The Pink Heart Society Book Club is also discussing Butterfly Swords today–come by to see their review and give your thoughts and questions about Butterfly Swords.

Also, my friend and fellow Authors of Asian Novels member, Victoria Dixon, is featuring Butterfly Swords all week with a review, giveaway, and interview. Come on over to the Ron Empress blog.

Reviews and mentions: All About Romance gave Butterfly Swords and A- Review and marked it as a Desert Island Keeper. That one had people so excited that they were e-mailing me to see if I’d seen it. On the same day, Barbara Vey of PW’s Beyond Her Book blog blurbed Butterfly Swords. They don’t review, they blurb, and it was a nice one. I remember Barbara explaining the blurbing process to  me.

Sarah from Smart Bitches gave Butterfly Swords a nice mention on her inaugural blog for Kirkus’ new romance blog. Victoria Dixon also posted a review at Historical Novel Review.

***

Sorry it took so long to get to the meat of the post. The mentions last week and this one are a nice hurrah to end my debut release month.

I was at the New Jersey Put Your Heart in a Book conference last weekend. It was so nice to go to so many workshops. I really miss that about Nationals since things are so busy. Saturday was an all day string of classes, all about writing. I’m a student at heart and I gobbled it up. Now I have ideas about how to ramp up the worldbuilding in my paranormal after attending Jessica Andersen’s workshop and Sherry Thomas’ workshop on chemistry has me refocusing and rethinking how I handle romantic progression.

Here’s me and my CP Amanda Berry, being suitably nerdy

One of the best parts was the signing, where I had several unexpected meetings. The most memorable was when a woman came up to me with a big grin. “I won the swords!” she announced.

Professional Romance Reader, Stephanie Hyacinth

It was Stephanie, self-proclaimed professional romance reader, whose name was drawn as the Grand Prize winner of the butterfly swords. Of course, she didn’t have them with her since I’d just shipped them. She didn’t realize I’d be there at the signing, but I’m glad she sought me out.

The wonderful ladies from VFRW were there as well. Several bought the book in preparation for next year as Butterfly Swords was their book club selection. Many other members who already had the book came by say hi and congratulate me. “We’re claiming we discovered you,” they told me excitedly. Claim away.

And author and reviewer Katie Babs also stopped by so I got to thank her for reviewing Butterfly Swords. She had a little stuffed sheep that was adorable. That was completely non-sequiter, I know. My Little Sis loves sheep.

Jeannie with author and book blogger, Katie Babs/KT Grant

A couple of readers at the signing did say that they were buying my book because of review sites. Specifically cited: Dear Author and Mrs. Giggles.

Of course, the lovely Romance Divas as well as the Ruby-Slippered Sisters had a presence at the conference. Autumn Jordon won the Golden Leaf award for Best First Book for Evil’s Witness. We were all so proud. This is the first published award a Ruby has won, I believe.

Autumn Jordan with her Golden Leaf award for Best First Book

The NJRW conference committee even had little gift bags for the signing authors. I got me a book horse.

I think I would have sold the last 3 copies for sure had the horse been with me from the beginning

Wonderful conference! I’d highly recommend it to anyone who wants an alternative to RWA Nationals. Because of the proximity to New York, the editor and agent panels rivaled what you’d see at Nationals and the speakers were first rate. They even had several tracks for published authors which focused on promotion and the business side of publishing. A well-organized conference, good for writers for any level.

Lesson learned: Experienced authors lure readers with candy at signings.

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RWA 2010 Conference Highlights

Filed in: blog | events | friends and family | rwa | travel    Tags: conference | harlequin party | harry potter world | Orlando | rita award ceremony | rwa 2010 | workshops | writing meet ups

Pre-conference Trip to Hogwarts

I spent $80 dollars to spend three hours in line and went on only one ride — AND IT WAS SO WORTH IT! I must do a separate post on this, but I just wanted to show you my favorite moment.

It was sweaty, sticky hot and we were in a ginormous line that wound around the park just to get into Harry Potter world. But the moment we passed the arch into Hogsmead/Diagon Alley and you saw the snow-covered rooftops, for a moment I actually thought I felt a burst of cold and I believed.

The best part of the experience was walking down the street and being immersed in the world. I took a gazillion pictures there, so I’ll organize them into a post later this week.

Met a Favorite Author (and didn’t burst into tears like last time)

I’m always torn about going to RWA and actually meeting authors I love. I was always afraid it might ruin that fourth wall and the fantasy. I want the stories and books to live in their own space and not be linked in my head to the person who wrote them.

The literacy signing was crazy this year! The room was huge and there were people everywhere. Bria Quinlan and I started from “A” and went alphabetically down the aisle, but after Tessa Dare sold out before Bria could get a book, we rushed straight over to Sherry Thomas. I managed to procure the second to last copy of His at Night. I was so giddy that Not Quite a Husband won the RITA for Best Historical Romance and I loved her acceptance speech.

Sherry told me she cried a bucket of tears while writing that book. I must have cried another bucket reading it. I haven’t felt so taken in by a story in a long time and I still have scenes from that book haunting me. We also got to chat a little bit about wuxia and Jin Yong. I was pleased.

Good Eats

I haven’t perfected Cindy Pon’s talent for photographing yummy food, but there was definitely plenty of it at the conference. Luckily, my personal trainer isn’t around. *looks left, looks right*

First up, I had afternoon tea at the Floridian with the Harlequin Historical authors and the editors from the UK. One look at the lobby told me that we were in the low-end Disney resort for the conference. The Dolphin is beautiful, but just take a look at the Floridian.

Anyone who knows me, knows that one of my favorite past times is afternoon tea. For this alone, I think I landed in the perfect publishing spot with Harlequin Historical!

I wish I took more pictures of the finger sandwiches and the little scones with cream, but I was sitting with my fellow authors and the HMB editors, so I tried to behave. Plus I was spending a lot of time eating.

Meet Ups

It’s hard to capture the spirit of all the random meet ups that are so special about conference. The main meeting place was the fountain in the lobby. I like this picture even though it’s fuzzy because it shows a couple of us all converging there, unplanned, unposed, all with probably different places to go. It also has some of my closest and long-time writing buddies Gwen Hayes and Bria Quinlan as well as romance divas December Gephart and Victoria Janssen.

For A Shy Gal, I Really Like an Audience

I was able to use my teaching background and share my lessons learned about querying and submission in “Selling the Hard Sell”. This was my first time presenting this particular talk, so I feel it went well based on the audience response. I was going up in the same time slot with Donald Maass and Brenda Novak, so I was grateful to have a decent showing. Big thanks to my CP Kristi for snapping this photo from the back.

The Dress for Historical Success costume workshop was pure fun. I learned so much about costuming throughout the many popular periods in historical romance and I got to strut my stuff in Tang Dynasty costume, a fantasy of mine since childhood. I’ve decided to offer the twin swords used in the workshop as a prize as part of my Sept/Oct release celebration.

I’m still gathering the photos and editing the video from the workshop, so this one is also going to have it’s own post. Just a preview of me in the lobby with swords in hand (sheathed) after the workshop:

Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood Rules!

One of the huge highlights of conference was catching up with the Ruby Sisters. In my excitement, I baked ruby slipper cookies the weekend before heading to Orlando:

Dinner was at Kouzzina on the Boardwalk. I showed up a bit late coming from the literacy signing, so I missed the group photo in the lobby. Doesn’t everyone look fabulous?

And the gratuitous food shot. Kouzzina is Iron Chef Cat Cora’s restaurant. One entree would have been enough, but I had to go for the sampler: Greek lasagna, lamb burger and a spiced chicken with orzo. Every bite was fabulous! My drink was a special martini made with ouzo, also delicious.

So many great moments: Liz Talley and Addison Fox were signing for the first time. Jamie Michele was absolutely sweet, reminding us during rehearsal to give the envelope to the winner after announcing. She was the one who grabbed my envelope and gave it to me last year. Darynda Jones and Sara Ramsey and I sat at the same table for the GH/RITA awards and sipped champagne together while we cheered for this year’s finalists. And two more sisters, CJ Eernisse Chase and Elisa Beatty took home Golden Heart awards this year!

The Harlequin Party

I got in, got a ridiculously girly-looking martini glass, sat down, and looked around the beautiful room. Then I turned to Victoria Janssen and gushed, “It’s pretty awesome being a Harlequin author!” (See previous note about Jeannie not being able to play it cool.) Victoria replied in the fashion of, “Ah, young grasshopper…”

Fellow Ruby Sister Liz Talley (below), who writes for Superromance looked fabulous.

And I quite like this rather artistic photo of me with chaptermate Megan Kelly behind the roses. It’s actually the beginning of the night, so that’s not me passing out from exhaustion. I just always blink in photos.

My roomie and plus one, MG Braden, posed with Diva Dude Mike Myers for a photo.

I made a vow to try every dessert at the Harlequin party. I fulfilled that vow. I showed two of the most photogenic here, the Yule log style cake and the sorbet bar.

We danced for hours and I nearly lost my voice from singing and shouting. (The source of my sultry microphone voice at the RITAs, if anyone was wondering.) Amanda Berry didn’t let recent hip surgery or a cane stop her from hitting the dance floor. And I must say, I think her electric slide was still better than mine. (That dance was the electric slide, right?)  I’d be in indebted to anyone who has a picture of Amanda dancing with her cane, by the way. Can’t keep a party girl down.

At the end of the night, I was a very happy, very sore grasshopper. My hip still hurts from dancing — maybe I’m doing it wrong?

RITA/Golden Heart Awards Ceremony

All dressed up….and I forgot my camera!! I presented the Golden Heart for Best Historical Romance this year and once again Kristi came through with a shot of me on the jumbotron.

The highlight of the ceremony had to be when bottles of Clicquot (get that? multiple bottles of champagne…the good stuff) appeared magically on the table, compliments of the general manager. The reason, of course, was that Roxanne St. Claire and Kresley Cole were sitting with us. Roxanne and Kresley are charming, gorgeous, talented and they must practice voodoo and possess magical powers.

Kresley won the RITA for best paranormal romance for her book, Kiss of a Demon King. I asked to touch her RITA statue for good luck because I’m a dork like that. The photo here doesn’t do it justice. Sara was able to get a better one. The RITA really is so shiny and pretty. Maybe one day, if I work really, really hard…

After the ceremony, the Tuesday critique group was able to get together for a photo. Dawn had gone back to her room since she had a drive early the next morning, but here’s Shawntelle, me, Kristi, and Amanda.

So that is it. Until New York, my friends!

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Global Traveler – South Korea

Filed in: blog | friends and family | travel    Tags: rob rogers | seoul | south korea | travel writing

I always thought being a travel writer would be the best job in the world. My Little Sis happened to marry a journalist and travel writer, lucky gal! He hasn’t traveled much lately and now does most of his research through phone interviews and such, but one of their first dates was in Tahiti. And on my sister’s birthday too!

You can’t say that didn’t have something to do with her being swept off her feet.

Recently, the BIL asked me for some reflections on my stint in Seoul as a technical consultant. I was giddy to be quoted! In my less than public persona, of course.

The article made me want to visit Seoul again and see how it’s changed in eight years:

Dynamic by Design by Rob Rogers

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Glamourous Life

Filed in: travel   

I have Fergie’s song Glamorous in my head. I’m sitting in the Hard Rock Hotel for a company meeting and the room is pretty darn schmancy. The honor bar has a Wish Candle and a Love Kit right there next to the salted cashews.

Of course, I’m surrounded by Kleenex and sucking on cough drops. Sick again which is SO not glamorous. The nice hotel lady asked me what music I wanted playing in my room when I arrived and I laughed and said, “I have no idea. No preference.” So they ended up piping some Kurt Cobain. I really should have asked for something more upbeat.

I’m not hip enough for this place. LOL. Now if these were my young and wild days…but nowadays, I just want to be home with hubby to tuck me in.  Am I getting old and jaded?

P.S. I sent the manuscript to Gail! Twiddling thumbs now. Maybe I should live it up and celebrate a little since I’m in this hip venue.

Really, I just want to light that wish candle and hope that a new story idea comes to me.

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Christmas Crunch

Filed in: blog | slice of life | travel    Tags: austin | christmas activities | travels

Christmas gifts – 0. Cards – 0. Word count – 66430.

(more…)

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Where’s Jeannie?

Filed in: blog | travel   

First, a shout out to the Golden Heart hopefuls. The loops were all abuzz this weekend and I even got a call from my mentee on Friday asking about how to put the darn thing together. All of the adrenalin has my heart beating faster and I must say, I do miss it. So good luck to all and may your wildest dreams come true. (more…)

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