Throwback Thursday: In the Midnight Hour

I had a request to do a Throwback Thursday on In the Darkest Night (Book 4 in my Light Warriors series) and I felt like I needed to do the entire series because in my mind they're a set. Each story can be read by itself and make sense--that's something I strive for when I write--but there are references in later books that go back to earlier stories. They don't impact the current story directly, but they're there. Readers who are curious can go back and read the earlier books, but those who don't care, don't need to do this.

In the Midnight Hour is the first book in my Light Warriors series. The one-sentence blurb for the story is: When a troubleshooter for a society of magic users rescues a private investigator from a dark spell, she finds more than an ally as she faces down her former mentor. The troubleshooter is the heroine, Ryne Frasier. The PI she rescues is her hero, Deke Summers. She's intense and he's a smart ass...which he uses to hide his own intensity.

I wrote the proposal chapters for this story in 2004. This was before I wrote Through a Crimson Veil or Eternal Nights. My agent shopped it around, but before it sold, I was contracted for both TACV and EN. When the offer came for Midnight Hour, my turn time was 18 months. The editor had to pass because it was outside the interval she was buying for.

But she had another buying round when I was finished with TACV and working on EN and I could turn it in on the right schedule. Midnight Hour was sold! It's release date was in 2007 which was (OMG!) thirteen years ago. It doesn't seem that long.

As an aside, I find it interesting that I wrote my proposals in this order: Midnight Hour, Eternal Nights, Crimson Veil and they were contracted/due in the reverse order.

Ryne was a PITA about her name. She told me that it starts with an R and then left me scrolling through baby name sites online and paging through every baby name book I owned. Nothing was right and she refused any attempts I made to just pick one. I finally stumbled across Ryne in one book. It was the only book I had that put that name in the girl's section because Ryne is generally a boy name. No wonder I couldn't find it for so long!

Deke was largely an enigma to me at first. Until I found a picture of "him." I find pictures for all my heroes and heroines for sure and a lot of times the secondary characters as well. This is also frequently a PITA because the characters are very specific about finding the right image. Deke's doppelganger had this expression on his face that totally screamed "smart-ass" and yes, that's exactly what he was. He pushed Ryne's buttons just for fun. Despite his sometimes annoying qualities, he ended up being among my most favorite heroes. I have a thing for smart asses.

I finished writing Midnight Hour in 2006 and I haven't reread the book in years. Everything I'm talking about here is what's stuck with me from this book and these characters.

Ryne was my most solitary heroine ever. Also my most intense and my most kick-ass. Which all relates back to her childhood and her apprenticeship with another troubleshooter, one that should never have been allowed to teach a young troubleshooter. While Ryne maintains she was never sexually abused, there was abuse there. Since I don't use omniscient Point of View (POV), I was unable to directly address this because in her POV, that wasn't what happened.

This series had a mythology of the Gineal people at its core. Most of the society had forgotten about it, but one person didn't and he understood the time of prophecy was at hand. That person was Creed Blackwood, the hero of the second book in the series, In Twilight's Shadow.

In the Doghouse

First, I found out today that In the Midnight Hour won the Barclay Gold Award for Best Paranormal! You can see a list of all the winners at the LCRW website.

Things are really busy right now--both at the Evil Day Job and at home with the writing. Right now, I'm working on edits for Edge of Dawn which will be out July 2009 and trying to write the Work In Progress (WIP). That is on the schedule for March 2010. Lots to do and not much time to do it in. So I hope y'all don't mind another entertaining video.

This is from JC Penney and it's about men who give the wrong gift. I think one of the reasons why I find it so amusing is that I worked with a woman whose husband was hopeless at gifts. When they were dating in high school, he bought her a WaterPik one year. After they were married, gifts have included moon boots, a men's sweater, and a slip about twice her size. He thought it was a night gown. We used to look forward to events like anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas so we'd have another story to laugh about. Unfortunately, their daughter grew up enough to help her father pick out presents and we lost our guess-what-he-got-her-now stories.

Anyway, the video is nearly 5 minutes long and some of it is funnier than other parts of it, but it's an interesting advertising concept.

Booksellers Best Award

I found out on Saturday that In the Midnight Hour is a Booksellers Best Award finalist for Best Paranormal! The winners will be announced in San Francisco on July 31st during the RWA conference, but I won't be there. I still remember when I won this award in Atlanta for Through a Crimson Veil. My category was the first one awarded and I was stunned when my book was called. I think I sat there in a daze for a moment before I was able to stand up and get my pin and certificate. That was plenty cool. :-)

It rained pretty much all day on Saturday, but on Sunday I took a walk down to my garden and checked it out. My daffodils have buds on them and do my tulips that are supposed to look like peonies. This surprised me since all these plants are still pretty short.

Most of my flowers actually seem to be doing pretty well with the exception of the snowdrops. Those are supposed to come up while there's still snow on the ground and only two of the whole group have even broke the surface. Forget about flowers, and while it has been cold here this spring, there is not any snow left. I wish I had some pictures to post, but I didn't bring my camera down and the shots I took last week won't show any buds.

And for Carolyn. Okay, I dusted off my Twitter account and have been using it. Um, when does the fun part start?

More Good News

I found out yesterday that In the Midnight Hour is a finalist for Best Paranormal in the Write Touch Readers Choice Awards!!! Yea!

Extra, Extra, Read All About It

Sorry, the blog title is as clever as I can manage on the amount of sleep I had last night. :-)

This is going to be kind of a newsy post today since I've had a pretty exciting couple of days.

First on the list is that In the Midnight Hour is a finalist for Best Paranormal in the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence!

Every author has a book that's a little more special to them than the others and Midnight Hour is one of those stories for me. And I'll totally deny I ever said this if any of the characters from other books ask! I guess I'm lucky to have more than one title that I would call the book of my heart.

Second, I received my first review for In Twilight's Shadow this morning and it's a great one! This is from Detra Fitch at Huntress Reviews:

"The story is so well written that Maia's anguish and despair seemed to dance on my nerves, making this a compulsive page-turner."

This is my first review for Twilight and it's always a nervous moment to see what people think of the latest baby. I was thrilled to read this and now I can relax--a little bit. :-)

And so concludes the exciting news portion of this blog. :-)

Last night I was nearly done with the chapter I was working on--within spitting distance--and I vowed that I would not go to bed until I finished it. I was getting tired, but I persevered, and I did finish it. At 10:39 at night. That's really late since the alarm goes off at 4am for the Evil Day Job (EDJ).

Of course, I didn't fall asleep right away. I was too busy running scenarios through my head for the next chapter and wondering if it would be too much talking in back to back chapters if I went with Idea A.

Maybe that's why I had the weird dreams all night that continually woke me up. The only one I remember had writing people in it--not characters, I mean people in the business. I might not have known any of them, but I knew what they did. Dreams are funny that way.

So other than the fab review, it's been a rough morning for me. I couldn't get out of bed, was running late for work, and barely punched in on time. At least I haven't had to resort to the second cup of coffee. Yet.

Midnight Hour on Television

I've seen my ad for In the Midnight Hour twice now--once on Lifetime and once on Sci-Fi Channel! That was totally, completely cool. I wish I could have afforded broader television coverage, but I did manage to catch a number of cities. I still can't get over the fact that my book is on TV. :-)

I actually have real copies of Midnight Hour in my hands now, and that means I need to sit down and read it. :-) I always read my books when they first come out. The problem is going to be finding time. I have to clean today and do laundry. I have a memory foam topper for my bed that I need to put on. Another writer said she's had trouble with her fingers going numb and that this ended the problem for her. I've been dealing with this since last fall or winter while I was working on In Twilight's Shadow and I want mine to go away, too. Some other writers have recommended these shapeable pillows, so I'll be trying one of those as well. It's hard to feel creative when you can't sleep very long, even on the weekends.

I also need to do some research, particularly on dragons, and write my speech for next Saturday's Midwest Fiction Writers' meeting. I'm doing Journey of a Novel and talking about Midnight Hour. Oh, and I need to write a blog entry...on something. And what am I doing? Sitting and watching more bridge collapse coverage. I really have to stop doing this.

One of the big tasks for the day, though, and among the most important, is figuring out how to use my DVD recorder so I can save my TV commercial for posterity. :-)

It's MY Super Tuesday!

It's release day!

Finally, after all this waiting, In the Midnight Hour is available in bookstores everywhere!

I think I have to do a quick happy dog dance. :-) I keep saying this, but it's true--Midnight Hour is a very special book for me. I love all my books and all my heroes and heroines, but there's just something about this one... I can't put it into words.

The story has magic, suspense, action, adventure, and the sexual tension between Ryne and Deke is pretty darn explosive. There's even humor since Deke has such a smart mouth. They strike sparks off each other and yet Ryne and Deke complement each other beautifully.

For those of you new to the blog, here's a little blurb about the book:

When a troubleshooter for a society of magic users rescues a private investigator from a dark spell, she finds more than an ally as she faces down her former mentor IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR.

I've also had some great responses to the book:

"Patti O'Shea is a voice and talent to be reckoned with. IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is gripping and wonderful, everything a paranormal should be." ~Sherrilyn Kenyon - NY Times Bestselling Author

"O'Shea ratchets up the paranormal thrills with this inventive and clever new tale." ~Romantic Times Book Reviews

"Dramatic, funny, and exciting, IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is a story not to be missed." ~Romance Reviews Today

"[T]his book just blew me away." ~The Best Reviews

I even have a super cool fabulous video for Midnight Hour! COS Productions did an absolutely incredible job. You can check it out at In the Midnight Hour Video.

Find Out More About MIDNIGHT HOUR

I hope y'all will give this book a try.

That ends my commercial for this Tuesday. :-)

Wicked Game and Other Tunes

I like to use theme songs for my books. I've mentioned this before, including that it started by accident. I'd been finishing up Ravyn's Flight while listening to a DEVO CD and Girl U Want just fit the story so perfectly, I adopted it as the theme. Ever since then, I've always picked a song for each book.

You'd think that since In the Midnight Hour was titled because of the lyrics in a Billy Idol song that Rebel Yell would be its theme, but it's not. As much was I wanted to use that, it didn't fit nearly as well as Here I Go Again by Whitesnake. "Like a drifter I was born to walk alone." Those lyrics fit Ryne (the heroine) as she was in the beginning of the story.

Then there's In Twilight's Shadow, my 2008 book. I was positive that book's theme was Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas. It fit Creed (the hero) to a tee. Only as I was writing the book and the story became less about Creed and more about Maia, the song changed in my mind too. When I list the theme song on the trivia page of this book, I think it's going to be On the Dark Side by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. It came on the radio one day while I was still writing this story and I was like, yeah!

I really, really want to use Wicked Game by Chris Isaak as a theme song, but it doesn't work for the story I want to use it on and I can't force it. I don't have a song for this one yet. Actually, I don't have a story for this one yet, just two characters who are kind of talking to me and getting me interested in sharing their story. Or maybe stories since the hero has this brother.... :-)

Maybe I'll get a chance to use Wicked Game yet. ;-)

National, Names and Nerves

It still feels weird not to be at the RWA conference. I'm seeing pictures, hearing stories and it just seems surreal. I miss not being able to see my friends, my agent, and my editors, but man, I don't miss the traveling, and I used to love flying, too.

The other thing I won't miss is how the conference left me drained--physically, emotionally and creatively. Some people come back from National feeling all fired up to write, but I never did. It usually took me a week or longer to feel like writing again. I've been to a couple of smaller conferences--one in Minneapolis and two in Eugene, OR--and after those I was excited to write. Must be the size of RWA and the constant go, go, go that makes the difference.

The other thing I'm going to miss is the award show tonight. Sometimes they go on too long (Reno anyone?), but sometimes they're great fun and I always have friends or at least acquaintances up for the Rita. It's huge fun to cheer them on. The RWA website is supposed to post the winners tonight as they happen and I'm going to check in and see who won. I can't wait!

I think Logan and I have settled on a last name. Finally. I'm vowing to never again complain about characters who come in and tell me who they are. I used to envy authors who were able to choose their hero and heroine's names, but after going through The Great Surname Hunt with Logan, I've changed my mind. It's much easier when they come in and say: My name is Ryne Frasier. :-)

Okay, it isn't quite that simple. With the exceptions of Cai and Mika who did tell me their names, I usually get something along the lines of, "My name starts with an R." And of course, Ryne is not a common name to begin with and only one of my baby books had it under girls' names since it's mostly used for boys.

Speaking of Ryne, In the Midnight Hour comes out in just over two weeks and I'm getting nervous every time I think about it. I totally want this story to do well for a lot of reasons. I also get anxious when I think of all the things I have to do around the time the book comes out. I'm guest blogging at several places, which means writing different posts for each blog. I'm speaking about the book to my local writing chapter and to a local readers group, which means working out some kind of outline of what I want to talk about for each place. The stuff I'd say to my writers group wouldn't interest readers and vice versa--probably. I have a newsletter to send out, which means I have to write that. And my To Do List is on my desk at the EDJ (Evil Day Job) and I can't remember what else is on it. Too much. :-(

I'm stressing myself out thinking of all the things I have to do, including regular household stuff like cleaning, laundry and weeding the flowers, so I think I'm going to stop here before I really put myself on edge. :-) My writing chapter meeting is today, so I need to get going anyway.

Friday the 13th Rocks!

I absolutely love Friday the 13th because I always have a great day. The skeptics will say that this date is no different from any other, that people just remember bad things that happen and say, 'it's Friday the 13th' and ignore anything that contradicts their beliefs. For me, they'd say the opposite. I think these skeptics are wrong.

I've honestly never had a Friday the 13th that was bad. Not all of them have been stellar, of course, but nothing I perceived as negative has ever happened. This morning started out tremendously and I just expect on it staying this good all day.

So far I've had two great reviews show up for In the Midnight Hour! The first is from Romance Junkies. They gave the book 5 Ribbons and said:

IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is certainly a book you will not be able to put down until you have read the final word.

Romance Reader at Heart gave Midnight Hour a Top Pick and said:

Patti O'Shea delivers a gripping, tale full of suspense, danger, and attraction. IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is a true enjoyment to read.

A pair of great reviews for a fabulous Friday the 13th. :-)

Last night, QVC had a scrapbooking show on. I missed the beginning of it, but saw the last 45 minutes. They had some interesting stuff including some glitter chip board letters and colored paper with adhesive already on the back. Just to make it a little tougher, the One Time Only was a collection of paper. I have a huge weakness for paper.

I am proud to announce that I didn't order anything! Yes, it's true. I was strong. Yea!

Teaser!

My super cool teaser for In the Midnight Hour is up on You Tube now! I'm hugely excited about this and I didn't want to say anything until I had it up on my website and MySpace page, but I just can't wait. Patience was never my strong suit, but the video did turn out great, if I say so myself. Midnight Hour Teaser.

I took yesterday afternoon and evening off from writing. I feel hugely guilty saying that because I have revisions due on Monday. I did work during my lunch hour at the EDJ and finished everything except the one section that's going to require a lot of effort and time to take care of. All the more reason to feel guilty, but I was so exhausted that I'd hose it up if I tried to tackle it. Whenever I try to work on anything when I'm tired, I hate everything and I start gutting it. Inevitably, when I've had more rest and look at what I've done, I have to restore the original version and start over. I figured I'd skip that step this time and just wait until I had some sleep.

So what did I do on my decadent time off? My dad and I cleaned off my chaise lounge and little plastic table and hauled it up onto the deck. I helped my dad hang my wind spinner (it's only been sitting on my counter since the beginning of May!). Okay, so my idea of helping with the wind spinner was saying, "it looks good there," but hey, it had to be done! I also watered my plants and did a couple loads of laundry, watched baseball and played Mah Jong.

Yeah, I know. There was some excitement, though. When I came inside for the evening and bent to put my wood in the patio door track, I discovered a wasp! I must have rolled the door right over him and killed it. The wasp being dead is a good thing. The wasp inside my house was not a good thing.

My dad transplanted more tiger lilies from his house to mine. He's filled the entire back half of the tree ring with them, so I guess I won't be buying any more flowers next year to fill that space as I'd thought I would.

A ton of work to do today on the book. I plan to finish that and then do one more read-through tomorrow before emailing it to my editor. I think I might have to post the dancing Hobbes gif again when I finish. I'm going to need to happy dance again. :-)

My Fabulous RT Review!

I received a great review from Romantic Times BOOK Reviews for In the Midnight Hour!

O'Shea ratchets up the paranormal thrills with this inventive and clever new tale. In book after book, she's has been proving why she's destined to be a significant player in the paranormal genre. Rich with action, drama and passion, this is pure paranormal pleasure!

How cool is this???

My favorite parts are where Midnight Hour was called "inventive and clever" and the line where it says that I'm "destined to be a significant player in the paranormal genre."

The only downside is that something was revealed in the review that I wish wasn't. I knew it would happen and that it will probably occur in most of the reviews the book gets because the event happens in the first three chapters. Reviewers generally consider anything in that area as fair game to be mentioned.

When I was writing this book, I didn't give my writing buddy any warning about what I had planned, and her reaction when she read the scene that revealed the information was priceless. I was hoping all the readers would be able to have that kind of delighted surprise, but I knew the odds were against it. Ah, well.

In other news, revisions went well yesterday and I made really good progress. Of course, I still have a couple of the bigger changes left to handle, but I'm cruising through the littler ones. Yea!

I talked to a woman at work about my poor flowers being sheared off and she thought it might be a cut worm. She recommended some powder stuff that won't hurt the plants or any animals, yet keeps the bugs away. I now have a bag of it and my dad volunteered to put it on for me this morning. Hopefully, the protection will save the rest of my flowers.

Stubborn Darn Characters

I'm still reading my book on Polynesian mythology. I'm finding some of the information very interesting, but my heroine (and her hero) still aren't talking to me. It's very frustrating because I can sense them there and I want to know what their story is, but I get nothing. I'm wondering if this is payback because I made her go away while I was writing In the Midnight Hour?

It's very frustrating because until one of my characters tells me or shows me what's going on, I'm clueless. Right now, I'm wishing I was one of those writers who was able to come up with the story, but it's never worked that way for me.

I might have mentioned this before, but take Midnight Hour as an example. I had the premise behind Deke's curse years ago, but I had nothing beyond that. It was a cool idea and one I wanted to write, but not only couldn't I hear Deke, I had no clue who his heroine was. Fast forward to Ryne's appearance. When she came in, she told me about her people. Lots and lots of information about her people. I didn't know for a long time that she was Deke's heroine. As soon as I realized that was who she was, the story started coming together.

So here I sit, reading the mythology book and waiting for this heroine to give me more than the fact that she's half Tahitian. I guess it doesn't much matter, though, since I have revisions coming and that would shunt her aside again anyway. It's just that my curiosity is driving me crazy!

First Review for Midnight Hour

I have my first review in now for In the Midnight Hour. It received 4.5 stars and this great quote:

IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR was a wonderful book! Full of action, intrigue, magic, and romance, it has everything I could possibly want in a romance novel.

~Kelley Hartsell - CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

This book is a little edgy in some ways and it's also a story that meant a lot to me, one I really wanted to tell, so it's hugely exciting to get the first review in and have it be a good one. And to make it even better, Kelley wanted to know if I was going to do Maia's story since she wanted more. Since the book I just turned in was Maia's, this was way cool. :-)

Other than this, yesterday was not a ten on the excitement scale. I had my taxes done. I was so deep in deadline hell when April 15th neared, that I had to file an extension--my first ever--and now it was time to take care of it. That's done now for another ten months.

When I got home, I took care of some emails that had been backing up (why aren't there enough hours in the day?), and worked on getting myself organized. I didn't do real well with the organization thing. I did another check on my plants--all looks well except for the pathetic plant which is about what I expected.

Like I said, yesterday was not the most exciting day I've had in my life, but it was nice to be off from the EDJ.

I'm ba-ack!

I've spent the last 9 days writing 10-12 hours all day, every day, so I don't want to talk about writing at all. :-/ Instead, I'm going to hit some of the non-writing stuff that happened this week.

First of all, having a hiatus was weird. I've been blogging every day (with the exception of conferences when I don't take my laptop) for like 2 years or something. I can't even tell you how many times I thought about something being a good blog topic.

Let's see, I've been waiting and waiting for these rug runners to go on sale. One to match the area rugs and runner I already have, and an indoor/outdoor one for the laundry room. Right now, I have a carpet remnant where I want the one runner and cardboard and multiple carpet remnants where I want the indoor/outdoor one.

Last Monday, I received an email from Home Depot saying they had free shipping, and I almost caved in and ordered them even though they weren't on sale. I've just been waiting and waiting! Patience isn't my strongest personality trait. But on Friday, not only was the free shipping thing still going on, but my two rug runners were 20% off! I immediately ordered, so I made another stride forward in home decor.

I received an email to tell me that the three types of lilies I ordered are shipping. I've been waiting and waiting for these flowers, but of course, I don't have time to plant them or do anything with them. Sigh.

Wasp wars have resumed. The weather finally warmed up, and both the grass-carrying wasps who like to build nests in my windows and the regular wasps have returned. I'm shooting wasp spray through my screens again. Largely missing since the 20 feet distance is less than you'd think.

My dad installed my screen door on my sliding patio door. Um, it's not great since I really can't open and close it. He's going to ask someone to help him get it so I can actually go in and out, but it was nice to sit here this weekend with all the windows open and the patio door open as well and let summer inside.

I have a $100 gift card from Circuit City I need to use soon. I'm debating buying an iPod. I have an MP3 player that I like, but now the battery is starting to not hold the charge, and plus none of the accessories work since they're all for the iPod and not for mine. I like the idea of popping it into a cradle and having music in the house. The other thing that would be cool is that the Apple iPod can carry TV shows and movies, all downloadable for a fee from iTunes. I don't know, though. I read the reviews and some people love their iPods and some people don't. Then I wonder will a new, cooler iPod be coming soon? After all, the current version has been out for a while now. Does anyone have thoughts on the iPod thing? Maybe I'd be better off buying a new ergonomic keyboard with my gift card.

I had bookmarks designed for In the Midnight Hour and ordered them from the printer. I got a proof on Friday and it turned out really nicely. I hope the finished product looks as good. I have no clue when I'm going to receive them, but luckily my mom will work on bundling them up for me while she watches her soaps.

I think that's it. At least it's all I can remember. Today, it's back to the EDJ (Evil Day Job), and since I've used pretty much every day of vacation I had, I won't be getting any time off for a while. Real time off, like to relax and do fun stuff. 10-12 hour days are not fun. :-/

Midnight Hour Excerpt Is Up

The pages for In the Midnight Hour are up on my website now. The main Midnight page has the back cover copy and links to an excerpt and book trivia--including where the idea came from, how to pronounce Ryne's name, why Deke got his nickname, etc. If you want to see a bigger image of the cover, click on the small cover on that page and it'll take you to the larger one.

I don't know how many more times y'all can stand hearing me say how excited I am about this book, but I really am. This story and the characters just wouldn't leave me alone until I had it written. I guess it didn't really help anything that the opening scene of the book takes place in the cemetery that I can see from the bathroom window at the EDJ (Evil Day Job). Ah, well, the story is written and all my work on it is finished and in just a few months, it's going to be a book. ;-)

So yesterday morning I was in nirvana, the writing was flowing fast and furious and I could hardly wait to get back to it. I finished the chapter I was working on and...SPLAT! Did you know there's a wall in nirvana? I didn't either until I hit it.

I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with the next chapter. I needed an action scene since it had been too long since the last one, but beyond that? Shrug. The idea I came up with seemed rather convoluted and I wasn't sure it was the answer. After talking with a friend who basically said: write it and if it doesn't work cut it. Which gave me heart palpitations since the deadline is looming and I'm going to have my back against the wall to make it. But she also pointed out that sitting there, not writing, wasn't producing any more pages than if I wrote them and then cut them.

So that's the plan today, to get this scene down. I've done some mulling and managed to streamline my idea, but I guess we'll see how successful that was when I actually start to write.

It finally stopped raining here long enough for the deck to mostly dry out. It won't last, there's more rain coming, but for now, it's nice. Plus, I can see all the buds on the trees around here and it's fab to know they'll be getting leafs soon.

Another Step Forward

In the Midnight Hour is up for preorder now at Barnes & Noble.com! It's really starting to feel real now. Four months now and counting. Wow.

I've mentioned it before, but this is the book that I wanted to write forever before it sold. Ryne just came in and demanded I listen to her while she talked and talked about her people.

For those of you who haven't listened to me talk about this story half a million times already, this is a paranormal romance and the blurb I use is:

When a troubleshooter for a society of magic users rescues a private investigator from a dark spell, she finds more than an ally as she faces down her former mentor.

The official Midnight Hour pages will go up on my website April 1st, including an excerpt. I'll post a link here on that day.

I've been hard at work on the spin off book this week. It hasn't been going as fast as I'd hoped, but it is going. I finished another chapter yesterday, which is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because I'm glad to have it done. Curse because then I have to figure out what to do next.

Let's see. I've started talking to the microwave. :-) It really irritates the hell out of me, though. It keeps beeping. So there I am hollering things like, "I heard you the first time." And "Hang on, I'll be there in a minute." Damn, I wish there was some way to turn off those reminder beeps. I don't want to hear them.

My neck and shoulders are so stiff that my right thumb goes numb, so I've been hollering at my body too. :-) I've developed a stabbing pain just under the elbow of my left arm and my left thumb is aching, probably from the rain. (I injured it in a car accident about 8 years ago.) So there you have a it, a litany of my woes.

Light Warriors

Since I first came up with the idea for In the Midnight Hour, I'd tried and tried to think of a name for the series. Okay, it's only two books right now, but hey, that's a series! And it has the potential to go on indefinitely depending on how it's received.

I'd thought about calling it The Gineal Series after the name of Ryne's people, but that was pretty boring and certainly not catchy. Besides, it says nothing really about the books. Then I thought The Troubleshooters because Ryne is a magical one of those. Except I think Suzanne Brockmann calls her series Troubleshooters, doesn't she? If not her, then there's someone. It was so frustrating. Today, though, it came to me.

The Light Warriors.

I did a search online, both on a search engine and at Amazon and the only thing I turned up was a role-playing game and a book from a vanity publisher. Hurray! The Light Warriors can be used!

I can't believe I didn't think of it before. Ryne's official title is laoch solas which means warrior of light in either Gaelic or the Gineal language--whichever works. :-) I'm all excited about this now. I actually have a cool series name!

And in other news, I have all the windows open in my house--the first time since the cold weather set in last fall--and it's heavenly. I love getting some fresh air in here.

Imagine a Catchy and Exciting Title Here

I needed a high res image of my cover for In the Midnight Hour and I finally received it yesterday. There were two images attached to the email, one smaller and one big one. The big one opened without any problems, but the cover only had the image and my name and title. I was hoping for a version with my quote and with the paranormal romance graphic my publisher uses. I decided it must be on the smaller image and worked on trying to get it open. This was a jpg file, but I kept getting an unsupported file type message.

I think this might be one of those situations where being pretty good with computers isn't a good thing. Most people would have tried a couple of things and given up, but not me. I knew I could get that damn thing open--somehow--but even my graphics program wouldn't show the thing. After much mucking around, I did get it open, but it was just a smaller version of the same picture in the big file. So all that for nothing. Sigh. Anyway, I sent the big image off for the postcard and resized it for the website.

That's been the other project I've been trying to do this week--get the Midnight Hour pages ready to go up on the website. It isn't horribly time consuming as far as creating the design/layout goes. That's already done for other book pages and it's just a matter of replicating it. The place where I am running into an issue is with the excerpt. First, I had to choose a scene. With the help of a friend, I did. Then I had to find my contract and refresh my memory on how many words I'm allowed to post. 1500. Seemed like a lot when I read it, but it boils down to about 6 pages and the scene is something like 8-9 pages. I started trimming. I'm close to 1500 words now, but I'm wondering if I cut too much out. :-(

This started me thinking: Why 1500 words? Why not 2500 words? I could have gotten the entire scene up with 2500 words. Why the limit at all? Were there writers posting too much of their books?

Anyway, I'm finding this very restrictive and it's taking up too much time. I wanted these pages up by April 1, too. :-( And I don't think I have a 6 page scene early enough in the book to have it make any sense to someone reading it. Actually, I'm not sure I have a 6 page scene in the book. ;-) I write a little long. In fact, in Crimson Veil, I had scenes that were 26 pages long!

Action!

I love the vernal equinox. From here on out, the days keep getting longer and I love that. When I was younger, one of my friends told me that at the moment of equinox--7:07 last night to be exact--you can make an egg stand up and stay up. I tried it and it worked. Of course, I did it on berber (sp?) carpeting so maybe the ridges helped it stand, but it was still really cool. I didn't do this last night, but I thought about it.

This morning I woke up thinking about starting a book with action. I've read a lot of contest entries over the years that have begun that way and I can't think of one that worked. Quite frankly, I didn't care what happened to the characters because I didn't know them. This morning, though, I thought about how In the Midnight Hour starts with action. I don't know if this was something that was working it's way through my subconscious or what the deal was because it wasn't anything I was actively worrying over, but I had an answer when I woke up: I don't start immediately with action.

Yeah, the first chapter has a fight scene, but I think I begin it early enough that the reader gets to know a little bit about my heroine and there's some interaction with another character before Ryne confronts her assignment. The first chapter contains a lot of world building and a lot of characterization, but it's done through action and not an info dump, so that's why I think it works.

Sometimes it amazes me what's going on in my head--especially the stuff I don't know about. ;-)

Is anyone else really tired still? I don't know if I'm still adjusting to the time change or what, but I'm still exhausted. I couldn't get out of bed this morning and now I'm typing this entry as fast as I can because I have to get ready for work in a minute. I just couldn't move. I hit the snooze as many times as I could and still laid there, not wanting to move. It's been this way all week and I'm getting tired of being tired. :-)