Paranormal Romantics: Guest Author Nina Mason & THE QUEEN OF SWORDS

Paranormal Romantics: Guest Author Nina Mason & THE QUEEN OF SWORDS: VS sez: Today it's my pleasure to introduce our guest Nina Mason, here to talk about her new book  THE QUEEN OF SWORDS. Q. Please ...

Romance Weekly

 

My, oh my, but the weeks do fly by. Here it is Tuesday again and that means it's time for Romance Weekly. This week's questions come from my dear friend Kate Robbins. I've just finished reading her soon-to-be-released book, PROMISED TO THE HIGHLANDER, and loved every word of it. I'll be featuring Kate and her new book on my blog on June 11, so be sure to come back for that.

Here are my answers to this week's jackpot questions:

How much of yourself do you write into your characters? Or do you write characters completely opposite to you?

This is a tough one. Obviously, there are components of myself in my characters. Otherwise, I couldn't give them depth, and some of them have experiences drawn from my life in their back stories, but mainly I wouldn't say they're reflections of me. I go through a pretty involved process to create my characters, including assigning them an astrological sign that fits the personality I'm considering to fit the storyline. I also use the Enneagram to get at motivation and try to give them a back story that reinforces these things. Right now, for example, I'm creating the characters and story for The Knight of Pentacles, book three in my Knights of Avalon series. Each of the books is named after one of the knights of the tarot and emulates the qualities the card represents. Unlike the other three knight cards, the Knight of Pentacles is stationary. His horse is standing still, in other words. So, my hero is stuck. Pentacles are associated with the element of earth, so he needs to be an earth sign. I decided he's Taurus, which fits the story and sets up his conflicts. The heroine, I'm thinking, might be Virgo. At the start of the book, she's been dumped by her fiance the night before their wedding after a very long engagement. Because it's too late to get a refund on the honeymoon cottage she's rented, she decides to take the time alone to heal her broken heart. While there, she meets the knight who guards the adjacent glen where the portal into Avalon can be found.  I was once dumped by someone I was engaged to. The circumstances and reasons were different, but the feelings of heartache and loss were the same, so I will draw on those feelings to make her sympathetic and believable.

Has your writing helped you see events in your own life clearer?

Not yet, but there's still time! It has helped rekindle my interest in paganism and the tarot cards, so that's something.

Have you written a character with more of your personal characteristics than any other? What are they?

Now, there's a loaded question if ever I saw one! I'd have to say all of my heroines suffer from feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt and many of my characters share my view of the world. But not one more than another.

Thanks for stopping by. Next stop, the lovely and talented Jo Richardson's blog: http://jrrichardsonfics.wordpress.com/

Romance Weekly

It's Tuesday again and that means it's time for Romance Weekly. Here are my answers to this week's questions:

If someone could observe you writing without you knowing they were there, what strange practices might they catch you doing?

Strange practices? Sorry to disappoint, but if somebody observed me writing, they'd be bored to death. I sit at my laptop and type away. Sometimes, I stop to research something on the internet or in a book, but that's about as thrilling as it gets, I'm afraid. All the fun is inside my head and pouring through my fingertips into the computer.

Other than a creative outlet, how does writing benefit you?

I wish I could say it benefits me monetarily, but after six years of working my arse off on my first book (writing, rewriting, pitching, submitting, editing, and now pimping like a madwoman), I've made a whopping $52. I still qualify for food stamps and, as my husband loves to remind me, I've spent more promoting the book than I've made. That said, I do feel writing gives me a sense of purpose and accomplishment. It also gives me the freedom I crave. Just hope it starts to pay off by and by.

How do you feed your muse?

Usually, it's with research. My ideas tend to grow from there. History and myth, mostly. My muse prefers to share things in snippets rather than great batches, so my stories are built tree by tree until there's a forest. Then, the forest gets pruned and raked until I'm satisfied I've done my best.

***

Thanks for dropping by this week! Time to head on over to hear what oddness Jeana E. Mann gets up to while writing. Rumor has it, she does a handstand over her computer and types with her tongue, but you can't believe everything you hear. Find out for yourself: http://jeanaemann.net

Blog Tour: Sandra Love's To Love Again

 

Today, we're hosting the blog tour for Sandra Love's TO LOVE AGAIN. 

Here's the blurb:

Elle has everything any one person could ask for; a home, a handsome husband, and a bouncing baby on the way. But that all changes one dark, tragic night. She doesn't know if she will be able to survive, but she has support coming from several directions. Can she survive this new life? Will she be able to love again?

Here are the buy links:

US:http://www.amazon.com/To-Love-Again-Repaired-Hearts-ebook/dp/B00JZ7HDH2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1399298356&sr=8-3&keywords=To+love+again

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/To-Love-Again-Repaired-Hearts-ebook/dp/B00JZ7HDH2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399298470&sr=8-1&keywords=to+love+again+sandra+love

Here's the author's bio:

Sandra Love is a new to the author world, publishing her first book in 2013. She currently lives in Michigan, with her son and partner. Sandra is very lucky to have a sister Amanda, who has been there with her through everything, including helping her with the editing of her books. Sandra has three cats, Stubby, Odin and Thor. She loves to spend hours reading her favourite authors and writing. Her favourite genres are paranormal, supernatural and romance. Sandra's first series of books (Broken Wings) is a supernatural romance.

Here are Sandra's stalker links: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorsandralove
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Sandra-Loves-Blog-Spot/825497764144167
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Indie-Author-Books/189929124520668

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7339622.Sandra_Love

Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/sandeelove1980/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lovesandee951

Blog: http://authorsandralove.blogspot.com/

Romance Weekly

 

And, just like that, it's Tuesday again. Wow. How time flies when you're writing and pimping. Here are this week's questions and my answers:

Do you prefer to write futuristic, contemporary, or historical romances and why?

I write a quirky blend of contemporary and historical. My romance books are set in the present day, but have lots of flashbacks and references to history. In The Queen of Swords, the hero and heroine have gotten involved in two of her former lives, which I show the reader through flashbacks to Regency and Edwardian times. In my forthcoming PNR series, The Knights of Avalon, each of the heroes fell in a different Scottish battle before being taken and enslaved by the queen of a colony of female faery vampires. The colony operates like a beehive and the knights are the queen's breeding drones. I weave together past and present, history and myth, and fantasy and paranormal to tell my stories. My books don't follow genre rules, in other words.

What is your favorite time in history and why does it inspire you?

I don't have a favorite time in history. All periods are full of fascinating details I delight in excavating during the research process. My discoveries often color the plot or change its direction completely. I also use descriptive writing to help my writers feel like they're there--or at least that's what many of my reviewers have said.

How has your life experience contributed to your writing?

In more ways than I'm probably aware or would care to admit if I knew. A good therapist would probably have a field day with my books! My characters tend to be loners like myself, my heroines struggle with feelings of inadequacy, my heroes are all sensitive men rather than controlling Alphas,  and my villains all have leanings toward sexual abuse. I'll let you deduce from that what you will and, as usual, I'm probably reading way more into the damned question than was intended. 

Time to head on over to Jo Richardson's blog to see what she had to say in response to these same questions.