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:)



Monday, February 24, 2014

Blog Updates: Coming soon Author interivews

Hi All!

I've been posting away here for a few years and happily watched my viewers grow to where I would like to start hosting authors. So starting soon - within the next week or so I shall be hosting an author interview once a week. As I have been guests on blogs I sometimes find it difficult to come up with a subject. But questions were always fun.

I hope you'll enjoy the wacky questions I came up with. If you are an author and wish to be featured just send me a post here - I do monitor the comments before they go live so your e-mail will not be posted for all the world to see. I hope to fill out a page for authors to submit on as time goes on. Just have to figure out how to do that. :)

I'm also excited to tell you that Phaze has bought the next book in the Vespian Way series. I'll let you know as soon as I have a tentative release date for Stolen Desire - book 7. I'm excited. Book 8's rough draft is done as well and I'm working on the edits now and am writing the next book in the series while trying to work on a short story for Melange.

I'm always busy.



Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Random Thoughts: Where do those ideas come from?

People are funny when they learn you're a writer. The most asked question I get is how I come up with the ideas. Especially when they learn I write SF/Futuristic and Fantasy erotic romance. I can't help but grin.

Mine come from so many places. Some come from dreams. That's where the Vespian Way Series came from. I've had scenes just pop into my head at the weirdest times. My book A Quest for Love came into being because of a scene that attacked me while I was in the shower.

Some authors get their inspiration from the people around them. As a writer we don't mean to eavesdrop in on conversations but it happens and sometimes you hear the darndest things that can spark an idea.

We writers play the what if game. We drive by a house that looks spooky and ask what if my heroine moves into this house where crazy things happen and she thinks it's haunted but find out it's the neighbor's dog that is causing all the trouble. We overhear conversations at the mall and wonder what if two husbands waiting for their wives to finish shopping plot a murder while sitting in the mall?

We can't help ourselves. That is just the way our minds work.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Random Thoughts: Spreading Yourself Too Thin

I think every writer does this at one time or another. I have a tendency to do it from time to time. In fact I'm doing it right now - it's not something I can't handle but I need to organize myself better or it will get the best of me.

Say it ain't so Barbara...

Yeah, I sometimes have a bit much on my plate. Right now the new group I belong to called the #RHACafe - you might have heard me talking about this in an earlier post - is working hard on getting our names out there. We have a great time and about once a month each of us host a day on our FB page. Mine is tomorrow.

I help edit the MFRW Newsletter - for those of you who don't know about this group and you're a writer you need to google them - or bing them - whatever works for you. They are a wonderful group of writer banning together to help each other learn about marketing and promoting your book(s), brand. There is no promoting on the loop and you can learn a lot.

I also sort of got volunteered to write an article once a month on marketing - for which I feel so clueless about but I'll give it a go and see how I do. Right now I'm trying to come up with a post- not sure what I'll write about and it's driving me a little nuts.

I'm trying to finish the edits on Stolen Desire. It is taking far too long and I want to pull my hair out. But I'll get there, I know it.

My latest WIP in the series is pushing hard for me to write it when I had hoped to write a nice little funny short for Melange Books, but the pushy WIP has forced me to put it on the back burner. I also have another story I want to dust off and work on but pushy WIP won't let me.

Now normally I can handle this. As you can see most of them is once a month - no big deal but when they all land on the same time frame I get a little um...crazy. Like now.

But the posts for RHACafe are ready for tomorrow and the newsletter is done so I can breathe for a second.

I even got a little writing done tonight!

Barb:)