New Release

Now the craziness starts...I have the new cover of my Vespian Way series. I also have a pen name - Bethany Drake. I have enough trouble writing on this blog so I'm not sure if I'll create a new one, but I'll keep you posted as I get caught up on everything...I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...

New Release info!

I'm excited to say that I have a lot of news to tell you.

First, as I told you guys a while ago I pulled all my books from Phaze.

Satin Romance, and imprint of Melange Books has accepted three of my titles.

A Portrait in Time is available for prerelease now with the full release on September 25th. I'll post links as soon as I have them.
Here's the cover!

Love on the Run, the sequel to A Portrait in Time, will be available between mid-October  and beginning of November. I have the cover now.

A Quest for Love will be released as well and I'll post the cover as soon as I get it.

In other exciting news I have found a home for my Desire series. Blushing Books has accepted the first two books and I'm getting ready to send in the next two.

They have also accepted a new manuscript called the Tears of the Queen.

Barb:)

Updates

I know I've still been quiet but I have been plugging away. I'm excited to say I have found a home for my desire series plus I have a new book coming out through Blushing Books. The new book is called Tears of the Queen and is a urban fantasy.

A Portrait in Time will be re-released soon. I have the new cover and still waiting for the release date. I'm so happy to know I could find another home for it. When I read through the book after all these years I was pleasantly surprised. I did a good job considering it was my first.

I know I mentioned about me caring for my mom but I didn't mention that she has dementia. One of the reasons why I'll continue to be sporadic in posting. Over all Mom is good, she is cognizant and can do a lot by herself. But I've been busy making sure I have everything ready for when she can't make decisions on her own. 

I hope to get back to hosting authors and advising new writers but right now I'm living day by day trying to get everything back in order so I can fet things back to normal.

Barb:)

What Happened to Barbara Donlon Bradley part 2

So when I stopped writing I worried I wouldn't go back to it. I had finished with the first draft of my tenth book in the Vespian Way series. Normally I do take a break between books, but it's only a few days before I'm right back at it. With this break it was months.  Like I said part of it was morning for the loss of my mother-in-law. It got really hard on us toward the end, and I used writing to escape. Suddenly I didn't have the stress that pushed me to write.

I also haven't been feeling the warm fuzzies from my publisher recently. The sales just haven't been there and it's not from lack of advertising. I've decided to pull my titles. Now my questions are what do I do with them. Should I go the route of self publishing? Should I try to find another publisher? This are big questions and the reason I think I stopped writing. I don't know what to do.

I have no idea on how to self publish, how to find covers, getting ISBN numbers. It's all a bit daunting. So is finding a new publisher. Having to submit this books through another editing process isn't easy. What if the editor doesn't like my writing style?

I'd love to hear from you guys to see what you suggest.  

What happened to Barbara Donlon Bradley?

Actually, nothing.

But I did fall off the radar.  I haven't been posting for what? Six months? And the six months before that I had to push myself to get my interviews up on time.

I needed a break so I took one.

First, let me catch you up to speed.  First lets start with life in general. I was care-giver for my mother-in-law for six years. While we lived with her I started writing my Vespian Way series and wrote nine, almost ten books during that time. I think I wrote to escape because she and I banged heads a lot.

Sometime in June/July of last year I just stopped writing. I think it was my way of morning her passing back in February of 2016. I also picked up a part-time job that has me up at 4:30 in the morning two days a week. Now that might not sound like much, but it actually messes up four days for me because I have to go to bed so darn early the day before and am normally too tired to think the days I work those early hours.

I also have been thinking about leaving my publisher, which is for another blog. So writing wasn't something I wanted to do. I still edited for the publisher I work for, but everything went by the wayside.

I'm glad I did that. I needed to take a step away.

Now I'm ready to get back to it.

Barb:)

Keeping it all in Prospective @barbbradley

Hi All!

Happy New year! Belated Merry Christmas/what you celebrate! I've had one heck of a year. I'm sure those of you that follow me have noticed I have all but disappeared. Oh sure I posted my interviews but nothing else.

I found my time gone and I blamed it on everything but the real cause. It took the holidays to make me look at what I've not been doing.

I haven't been writing.

When I was elected the president of the Chesapeake Romance Writers, a local chapter of RWA, I realized then I wasn't writing. At that time I had a writing partner who had stopped writing. How could I tell the authors in the group to write every day when I wasn't? So I started on a Portrait in Time and the rest is history.

I think this blog is the same thing. Here I am giving advise and sharing handouts from my and my mother-in-law's collection and I'm not writing. How can I do that and feel good about myself?

I realized I was in mourning over the loss of my mother-in-law back in February. I just had a weird way of showing it. The series I've been working on, the Vespian Way, was all written while I cared for June and I think I used the excuse of what to do with my series as an excuse to step back and think about it. Then this past Sunday I had to put my beloved cat, Dina, down. That's Madame Fluffy Bottom above. That brought it all full circle.

I have started writing again. I'm editing a book I wrote years ago and am revamping sections of it to make it sooo much stronger.  When I'm ready I'll go back to the Vespian Way. Those character's aren't leaving me alone so I know they'll keep pushing until I get back to book 10 and start book 11. That I'm happy about, but since I haven't lined up any interviews for the next few weeks I think I'm going to take a step back. Line up some great speakers starting in February and face 2017 head on.

100,000 hits! @barbbradley

I'm doing the happy dance! I hit a mile marker and I couldn't do it without you guys! I hit 100,000 hits on my blog!  I wanted to do something special for this and have racked my brain.

I've had this idea in my head and have thought about writing it out so here is a free read as my thank you...Note I've been working on this for a few weeks and realize that I'll never load it if I try to write the whole thing at once so I'm going to load it in snippets and create a page for the completed story.




I opened my eyes and found myself in a white room. What the hell happened? Was I in a car accident? Pushing myself into a seated position I looked around. Never saw a doctor's office or hospital like this before.

Just as I sat up a man walked in. Damn he was cute. Chiseled features, beautiful brown hair and I could see he was well built under the white outfit he wore. He had romance hero written all over him. I wasn't sure of his age but I'd guess early thirties. He smiled and I had to smile back. He had one of those smiles I wrote about. The one that would melt any heroine's heart.

"How are you doing?" He came over to the bed and pressed his fingers against a glass wall behind me.

"Um, fine, but can you tell me where I am?" I watched as data popped up on the glass. It was a computer. Hmm. Something I should work into my futuristic books.

"Sure, you're in my medlab." He stepped back, but kept an eye on whatever was streaming on the screen behind me.

Medlab? I use that word in my futuristics. Especially the series I've been working on. Am I dreaming a very lucid dream? It felt too feel to be a dream. I could see people moving out in a corridor beyond the glass wall sealing us in. There were other patients in the room with me. Dreams normally don't go into that much detail. Did they? Mine didn't. At least I didn't think so. But what else could it be?

I looked at my doctor and noticed his eyes for the first time. How I missed them before this I didn't know. I saw gold eyes with a violet ring. It couldn't be... "Dr..."

"Just call me Kuarto."




Hopefully more next week...

Hermine and Labor day

Hi All,

Normally I would have an interview up and running about now but because it's the Labor Day weekend and family normally invade I decided to take a break. It's hard to get the blog up when I have to entertain at the same time.

But we got company we didn't really want. Hurricane Hermine. What a pain! Lots of wind and water. I live in tidewater VA and as bad as the news might make it sound it's not bad here. We do have low lying areas so flooding isn't unusual for us, but where I am there has been no flooding and maybe a branch or two on the ground.

I hope the rest of the coast fairs as well as we have.

Keep dry everyone and enjoy Labor Day if you live in the states.

Barb:)

A quck update

I'm going to be quick but I wanted to apologize to you guys as well as my missed guest this past Saturday. I had family come into town and the blog just slipped my mind. Then my mom had a car accident and everything went on the back burner. I'm happy to day she is fine, but it did effect this week.

But I'm back and will have a new guest tomorrow...

I'm working out the new date for this past Saturday's missed blog.

Writing Down the Bones: Ten Things You Should Know about Editors Part 2 @barbbradley

Here's the second installment of Ten Things You Need to Know about Editors (Whether You're Published or Not) Written by Paula Ekyelhof. I know, I know, I should have posed this a while ago. Sorry it took so long.
 As usual I'm going to try to put them in my own words.

6.) Editors care about their authors and there books. Now this is written for the brick and mortar houses where the editor can push your book for you. In the electronic world your book is edited by your editor from their home. There is no fighting for shelf space so each book is treated equally.

7.) This is your book not the editors and we want to keep it that way. It's not our job to rewrite your book the way we would do it but the way we think you should do it.

8.) We want your book to sell as much as you do. Understand that your editor, cover artist, anyone involved in your book gets royalties just like you do. If it doesn't sell we don't get paid.

9.) We can each you a lot. A good editor can help you sharpen your writing. We catch those things that you can't see notice patterns you might not.No matter how seasoned you are always eep an open mind and be willing to learn.

10.) As an editor I'm always hoping your book is the next great book. The one that takes readers by storm. The one that you can't put down. The one that makes me forget to edit because I'm so caught up in the story I forget to do it.

Publishing is hard of the author as well as the editor. It can be harsh, and a bit cruel but we're all an optimistic bunch.

To Series or Not to Series - that is a question! @barbbradley

I'm Back!

Sorry about Saturday, there was a small snafu - but don't worry the guest I had scheduled will be here in a few weeks. And I know, I promised the second half of the hand out I've been working on - 10 Things You Should Know About Editors (published or not) but I read something a couple weeks ago that has me thinking. Right, that's dangerous at times.

But...

I belong to lots of on line groups and will read a blog that catches my attention. I read several telling us (writers) to write our books in a series. That's what readers want. I've known lots of authors who have done well with series. They've built up a great following because of those books.

Then I read a blog a couple of weeks ago that said the word 'series' turns off readers. What? I did a little research and did notice several books that are part of a series had a little reminder that this was a book in blank, but they aren't tagged as part of a series. Does that make sense? Like with my series I'd say a book in the Vespian Way.

So which is it? I'll be honest the second one does sound a little more professional and I think it makes the book look like a stand alone even though it is part of a series, but I'm one of those readers who gets excited when I see a book in a series I've been reading.

I don't ave a problem with the word series, maybe because I know that it doesn't mean serials and I know some series are like serials where you have to read the books in order to understand what is going on.

I'd love to know what you think...

Barb:)

It's Vacation Time!!!!! @barbbradley

Hi All!

I know I've been a little slack on my handout posts and I do apologize. I want you to know I have the second half of the 10 things to know about the editor almost done but I need to add the last one to finish it and haven't gotten it done yet. I also have another post I want to upload but again I haven't gotten it done.

There seems to be a pattern, huh?

Anyway I want to warn everyone that I am going on vacation so I won't have a guest this week and I realized that I've never offered any of my readers/followers to be a guest on my blog. So guess what? Are you a published author? Would you like to be a guest? All you need to do is e-mail me at ttromwriter at yahoo dot com and I'll send you the questions.

New release or a book from your back list doesn't matter to me. Genre or heat level doesn't matter either all I ask is that your excerpt is PG-13 because I don't have this blog locked behind a firewall.

The rest of the years is wide open so  hope to hear from a ot of you.



Barb:)

Writing Down the Bones: Ten things You need to Know About Editors (Whether You're Published or Not) part 1

Now we're going to work on the 10 Things You Should Know About Editors (Whether You're Published or Not) written by Paula Eykelhof (editor)

I'm one of those rarely spotted editors so this is going to be fun...I think. Also remember that this is from the 80's so this was before e-pubs became the norm. It was written for the brick and mortar and works for both.

1.) Please be professional. This goes without saying. That first impression via e-mail or in person is very important. This includes being reliable and courteous. When you submit make sure your manuscript is as clean as possible, use standard font like times new roman. Understand that your editor is there to help you. Don't take criticism personally. That's their job.

2.) Editors want to be treated professionally. Paula says that their not your career councilor, psychologist or parent.

3.)  Editors are extremely busy, normally doing lots of books simultaneously. Please respect their time. Understand that they will respond as quickly as they can.

4.) The next one shows its age to me. I conduct all my business as an editor and an author via e-mail. Anyway, everyone likes to be appreciated. If you get a personal letter of encouragement or one with constructive criticism and you want to thank them please do so. You can send a thank you note either through the mail or e-mail. I'd sent it via same way you had corresponded when you submitted.

5.) Editors should be treated with respect. You shouldn't gossip or say any negative things about any editor. Especially if you've never worked with them.

I hope to post the second half next week.

Writing Down the Bones: Why I haven't posted @barbbradley

I am sorry, really, but it's been a little crazy here. My biggest excuse isn't my best. No the dog didn't eat it and I didn't spill coffee on it. Great googly moogly I'd probably have to shoot myself if I spilled coffee on my laptop since that's what I use to write these things on. Nope, my reason is because I've been cleaning...

I know, 'but you're a writer' you're supposed to ignore the cleaning until the writing is done. Normally that is my mantra, but since my mother-in-law passed in February it's been paying her bills and dealing with the probate office. Getting all the paperwork together so I can have her and my father-in-law's ashes buried at sea by the Navy. I'm not going to talk about the IRS or social security...grrr. It gets my panties in a wad just thinking about it.

Now my in-laws wanted me and my hubby to inherit their house when they passed. I think they knew we'd have a lot to deal with when they got older. So when my Father-in-law passed we moved in with June, but I had to put a lot of our stuff into storage.

The last few weeks I've been going through boxes and bins, trying to figure out where it's all going to go now. It's a lot of work but I can't seem to stop at this point. Most of it is out and all over the house, depending on which room of the house it's going to go in.

We're also taking over the master bedroom, which right now is a big storage room. So each day, when I can, I'm moving things. There are some items I'm moving a lot because I have no idea what I want to do with them. Those are probably the things I'll get rid of, but just not ready yet.

I will get back to the hand outs, promise. I just need a little more time.

Barb:)

Writing Down the Bones: Ten Things You Need to Know about Writers #writingtips

Ten things you need to know about writers (whether published or not) continued.

This is the next installment of the handout by Debbie Macomber. Once again I have put it into my own words. Enjoy!

6.) Writers are readers. We are our own audience.

7.) Writer's would rather have their books already written than to have to write them. They joy felt when the book is done is something that can't be explained.

8.) Our publishers (editors and cover artists as well) want our books to sell.

9.) Writers are always learning. Everything fascinates us. Research happens everyday and everywhere.

10.) When we're not being neurotic we're depressed. But don't worry we're always looking for optimism in every corner.

Shameless Promoting: I've been Nominated!!!

Can I squeal a little? I’ve been nominated for the Romance Reviews Readers’ Choice Awards. Hidden Desire and Timeless Desire are both up for the award. Please go vote – here’s the link to Timeless Desire -http://erotic.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=21063 

and the link to Hidden Desire - http://erotic.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=17286

We're about halfway done and I'm about halfway there. You're vote would really be appreciated.

I need at least 50 votes to make it to the next round.

Thanks,

 

BarbJ

Writing Down the Bones - 10 Things you should know about Writers @barbbradley

I found another great handout in my cleaning. There is no name on it (wait I found it as I went through this - Debbie Macomber wrote this gem) and it says that it would be published in a future issue of Writer's Digest. Since the handout is from one of my binders I'm assuming this has already been published.

We're dealing with the 10 things you need to know about writers (Whether published or not).

I'm going to do 5 this week and 5 next week then in two weeks I'll do the other half of the hand out - 10 things you need to know about editors and since I'm both this should be fun.

As usual I'm going to try to put this into my own words. I love each of these by the way.

1.) We writers are neurotic and don't think it's unreasonable to look for hourly updates on the status of our babies (manuscripts).  I'm just as bad as my authors - when I'm on the author side I figure out how long it should take them to edit and start haunting my e-mail to see if it's there yet...

2.) We need a source of comfort while waiting to hear on those babies. Whether it is our mom holding our hand or our favorite bottle of alcohol doesn't really matter. Both will do in a pinch.

3.) We are experts at looking busy. When my husband asks I tell him I'm writing...he doesn't need to know it could be on twitter or FB. Hmm, I got a minute to check out Pinterest.

4.) We love it when you show the love - fan mail, happy b-day wishes on FB, a free meal...

5.) Here Debbie talks about gossip and how our creative minds can fill in the blanks - and I want to add this little bit - ANYTHING you tell a writer whether it is gossip or not can and probably will end up in a book. Especially if it's funny. 

I've been thinking,,,

I just realized that Tuesday has come and gone and I haven't posted in a while. I know, I was the caregiver of my mother-in-law and she has moved on so I deserve to grieve. Take the time I need to work my way through this.

I also know it's so easy to get out of a habit of doing something. They say it takes 21 days for something to become habit, yet I've worked hard to do something good for me like exercise everyday just to drop it months later. I must push myself. It's to easy to backslide if you don't so I started writing this post.

I read the letter that Samhain sent to their authors, letting them know they were closing their doors. This saddens me. I've heard of a couple of publishers closing recently. There are so many reasons for this but when they mentioned that the cost of having books at some of the third party sellers was something that effected their bottom line that struck a cord with me.

I wrote my books, yet a good chunk goes to to these sellers before we (me and my publisher) see any of it. It's one of the reasons I always put my publisher as my buy link when I'm visiting other blogs. I make more if my books are bought directly from the publisher, but I sell more when I put the large sellers.

I wish there was a way to educate our readers. Let them know that to support the author they love they should buy from our publishers when they can. 

In Memory of my Mother-in-Law, Multi-Published Author June Edith (Mack) Bradley

This week I'm skipping my normal posts to honor the life of my mother-in-law. She was born in Pawtucket, RI. She was 88 when she left us on Feb 7th, 2016.

When I met her son, John who is now my husband of 30 years, June and her husband were moving to California. While she was there she decided to take classes on writing. She joined RWA and worked hard on the craft. When my niece was born in 1991 my in-laws came into town to meet her. My father-in-law fell in love and knew they had to come back to Virginia.

June came back with a plan. She wanted to continue her membership with RWA and join a local chapter here. Luckily one had just started. June had no idea that I had been writing scenes with a high school friend and we had been mailing them back and forth for years. At this point I had no aspirations to write professionally. We had been doing the our scenes and that was our way of keeping in touch and escaping for a little while.

My sister-in-law and I think June decided she needed drivers because she paid for our RWA membership as well as the and our local chapter membership for that first year. I had never thought about writing professionally so decided to go to the meetings with her just to see what was what.

One program the chapter decided to have members send in five pages of the WIP to be critiqued. I went hmmm. This would be the perfect chance. I was going out of town to visit my writing partner so I knew I wasn't going to be there. If they hated it I could slink off into the sunset and never be seen again. If they liked then I would pursue writing.

She was so excited for me. When I called home to speak to my hubby she grabbed the phone and gushed over how everyone loved my writing. It was raw but good. She was so excited for me and that got me to pursue a writing.

My mother-in-law was a big influence in my writing. Here I am - sixteen published books later and I have her to thank for that. I'm going to miss her.

June's books:

Shannon's Creek

Elegant Swan

Wyngate Manor

Writing Updates: My Mind is Never Idle #amwriting

This has been a hectic week. The people renting our house moved out and we're getting to ready for sale. I have been spackling holes and dings, wiping down doors and baseboards. Peeling off stickers they had left on the walls. I ache everywhere. This sedentary body isn't used to all this manual labor.

The one good thing about this busy work it allows my mind to have the freedom to do what it wants. I've written ten books in the Vespian Way with each book pushing at me to write it before I was finished with the one before it. There were times when I was working on three different books in different stages of writing or editing at the same time. This last book though started out of necessity. I knew I needed to write to keep me sane. As I've been working on it I thought maybe I was done with the series for a while and I would have time to work on something else.

Nope.

While I've been working on getting my old house ready for sale I was slapped with an idea.

Now understand I'm one of those authors that doesn't care for a series where the hero and heroine are constantly pulled apart. I don't want to do that with Heather and Storm, but I need to keep it interesting which is why there is always something for them to fight.

We, as authors are told to do the worst thing to our characters. The worst thing I can think of is killing one of them off, but I don't want to do that so what can I do? That's when it hit me. What if I create an environment where it looks like I've killed them off - I know I did that in Stolen Desire but this is different - what if I use one of the computers Heather is searching for to cause her and Storm to fall into a coma? What if I have Heather's mind jump into another person's body? What if Storm wakes up from his coma but Heather doesn't because her mind is in another body and he has to deal with the fact that his mate is not there for him or this war they're fighting?

One little thought will grow into a book. I just need a little more time.