Okay so it looks like I fell off the planet. Promise - I'm still here. The last four years have been ... hard. There's no other word for it. Everything is fine. I'm fine, but I've been the caregiver of my mom who has Dementia. Between her needs, work, etc I seem to have lost control of my time. I am still writing and am trying hard to get back to my blog.

In case you weren't aware Phaze and HSWF which where under the Mundania Umbrella have closed. I was smart enough to get my titles back before all this happened. I'm happy to say the three books I sold to HSWF have been picked up by Melange Books and are available through their Satin Books imprint. I have even sold a new title to them called Magical Quest due out in 2022

I have also been lucky enough to find a publisher for my Vespian Way series. I'm now with Blushing Books under the name of Bethany Drake. I have five titles out with them right now and am close to submitting two more. There's Desire's Destiny, Desire's Duty and Desire's Promise. Then there is two in my werewolf series, Tears of the Queen and Legend of the Tears. I have just finished the rough draft of the third book in the series and have plans for a fourth one the moment I submit it.

I'll probably still be sporadic here on the blog. Unless I win the lottery and can hire someone to help me I can't avoid it, but know I'm still here still working hard in the background and am hoping to do better at keeping my blog alive.

Barb:)



Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Shameless Promoting: New Release and a Few other Things...

Having two books come out within two months of each other has had me doing one promotion after another. The Blog visits are the best but my goodness I have been busy.

But my big exciting news is Forgotten Desire - Book 6 in the Vespian Way has now been released! Look at the cover! It's Beautiful and sexy!



Here's the Blurb:

Available at Phaze:
Coming to Amazon:
Blurb:
Heather and Storm’s Story continues...
Storm is lost in time and without his memories and Heather has to go after him. As much as she wants to she can’t just bring him home she has to make him remember before they can return to their own timeline. So she has to find a way to jar his memory free. While she is back in time she finds out Ialog is there and has been slipping something to Storm to keep his memories form coming back.

This was one of my favorites to write!

I'm also doing a release party at TRS on Thursday! I hope this is the right link - http://trsparties.com/ Please come by and say Hi - I'll be raffling off an electronic copy of Dominated By Desire as a celebration for this latest release.

At the beginning of October I'm blogging at ARe. I'm blogging at after Dark again tomorrow 9/25/13. On Oct 3rd I'll be at Alisha Robinson's Blog again - I'll be talking about Humor. I'm also doing a program for the MFRW Pitch Camp through their forums at LRC.

There's probably more but my brain isn't working for me.

Barb:)

Monday, September 16, 2013

Writing Down the Bones: Character Goals

When you start your story you need to think of your plot. Is it strong enough? Is it believable? Do you have more than one plot in the story? Believe it or not every character in your book should have one. Your hero, heroine, the sidekick, the bad guy. The girl on the street. If they don't then why are they in the book?

Your main characters need goals. It gives them something to move toward in your story. An achievement they reach at the end of the book. And those goals can conflict. You have a bad guy who's goal is to kill and a good guy whose goal is to stop him. You have the beginnings of a strong plot. Your reader will continue to turn the page, wanting to know who will win. Especially if the goals are plausible.

 Then you need to ask if it's believable. If not what do you need to do to make it believable.

So lets try an example:

You have a hero who wants to open a book store - okay that's the first goal. A nice simple one. Now why does he want to open the book store? Because it would be fun? Not strong enough. Because he had tried to start a business before and failed miserably and needs to prove he's not a failure? Okay that makes the plot a little stronger.

Now why would writing a book about opening a book store be something to write about. It's a pretty boring topic. It needs something else. So what sort of spin are you going to put on this? Is it a murder mystery?

That could be good - he gets the building and finds a body in there and he is accused of the murder.

How about a romance? That's the way I'd go.

Every romance has a heroine. Someone for the hero to love. She could be a good twist to the plot. But how? Hmm, let's make her one of those people who sticks up for the little man, hates the big businesses who have the money to force small companies to close their doors.

So our heroine is an activist. She's heard of the corporation that wants to buy the same land our hero is interested in. It is a beautiful old building that has a great history. One of the oldest one in the town. She remembers what this same corporation did in her hometown and swore to stop them from doing it again. The building needs to be saved!

She going to fight for our hero, even though he might not want any help. Hmm, he doesn't want any help. His goal is to prove his family wrong, not fight for some old building. If this site doesn't work out he could try another one. He needs to prove to his brother, the big corporate man, that he doesn't need to be bailed out over and over again. He can do this on his own. An activist would just get in his way.

See how this is developing? What other twist can I had? How about the CEO of the corporation is his brother and he's not this big evil person the heroine has in her mind. The CEO  has wanted to help breathe life into the small towns he feels he can save. What he doesn't know is that the man in charge of these particular jobs is not doing what he's supposed to. He hasn't been saving the towns, just lining his pockets and covering his tracks.

So we have a man who wants to open a book store to prove he isn't a failure. A heroine who wants to save the building because she had failed at saving one in her own town and refuses to allow that to happen again. A brother who is blind to the wrongdoing that is undermining his goals.

I got it.  The hero wants to prove his worth to his brother and thinks opening the bookstore would be a good way to do that. The heroine hated that she couldn't save her local library from being knocked down to make way for a strip mall that failed. She champions the save the bookstore, pushing her theories unto our hero about the evil corporation. First he's angry that his brother is going for the same property and confronts him and finds that his brother believes he's been doing all this good. He knows his brother would never lie to him and researches the other towns. He learns the heroine is also telling the truth. Now he has to help his brother by ferreting out the man who is lining his pockets. He ends up proving to himself that he is worthy, which his brother knew all the time. The brother learns he doesn't have to coddle his sibling. The man can take care of himself. And our heroine learns that she didn't fail her town. It was destined to fail because of the weasel.

Now you have something to start with. As a pantser this gives me everything I need to write the story. The romance will be blended in as I go. I never put it into the blurb I use to base my book off of. And story might change a little as I go but I have my beginning and my end the rest will come.

Hope this helps.

Barb:)

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Shameless Promoting: Are you tired of me yet?

I have learned something with all this promotion I've been doing - write it down. With two books coming out within two months of each other I feel a little crazy trying to keep up with it all. In the past I've listed my blog visits all in one Blog but this time I wasn't as organized. sigh.

But I am excited to announce that I'm at After Dark Writers today! Stop by and say hi! I'm revealing my new book cover for Forgotten Desire! And there's an excerpt for you to read as well.

Here's the address: http://after-dark-writers.webs.com/apps/blog/show/32983623-after-dark-welcomes-barbara-bradley

Barb:)

Friday, September 6, 2013

Shameless Promoting: I'm at the Eclectic Writer Blog

I'm excited to announce that I'm at Janet Lane Walters Blog today answering questions about how I come up with my characters and stories today and tomorrow!

Here's the link for the questions she asked me - http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/2013/09/fridays-how-she-does-it-featuring.html

Tomorrow she'll post an excerpt and the cover of my latest book Hesitant Desire.

http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/

Please stop on by and say hi!

Barb:)