In case you thought I was dead ...

You weren't the only one. I felt like my life was sucked out of me for the past week. Last Sunday, I knew either a cold or cough was coming my way; on Monday, I knew it was a bit more sinister and on Tuesday, a full-blown flu had shot my lights out. I lived on herbal tea and fruit salad as it was the only things I had and I only ate very little as I was too weak to even stand for longer than five minutes. I so hate getting the flu, as experience shows that it's always serious in my case. And, gee, did my muscles ache. Probably the result of my working out on Saturday; far heftier pain than ever experienced during a flu.
By the way: I had typed a long section that somehow got deleted and ctrl z did delete an even bigger chunk. Since I can't be arsed to rewrite the whole thing, I just cut to the chase.
I'm currently writing from my garden-laptop as my work-laptop is in surgery. Fingers crossed. The screen flickered and went dark every time I switched it on, very annoying.
The old laptop I'm using right now has its moods, but better than no laptop, right?
Since I hardly ever use this one other than for writing in the garden, I thought I could have a nosy through my files and found some early drafts of my covers for No Wings Attached, which still went through its many titles back then.
Here are some of the versions which I had made myself in Paint. As you can see, I'm technically challenged when it comes to covers, but I knew exactly what I wanted. They are great to show a cover artist what you have in mind. Although I'd like to learn how to do covers properly.

The book is here, the book is here!

Actually, it arrived on Tuesday and since then I've eyed it, stroked it, longed to read it. But I was beta reading someone else's book and therefore couldn't start with it. Tonight's the night and I can't wait to be honest. It's the first time I re-read a book I've read in my teens and I wonder if I'll feel the same as I felt back then.
It'll also be strange because I read it in German, but will now read the original title. Should be quite interesting. I'll report when I'm done.

On the subject of reading: as I mention above I was beta reading for someone and had to give up, because it became a chore almost halfway through. Although the writer had told me I should stop whenever I feel it's getting too much, etc., and I tell my beta readers the same, I still feel awful. Beta reading is about helping, not about judging, right? You know it's not a finished or polished manuscript. It only had very few errors, that was not the reason. It was the story that didn't appeal to me. Even when you read a draft of a story, you should be able to at least enjoy it, I think. No point slogging through something you can't immerse in. At least I wouldn't want anyone to read my books if they don't enjoy it and, thankfully, I never had anyone return a book. Well, okay, my friend who fell asleep at chapter four of one of the manuscripts I'm still tinkering with, and therefore refused to read more, which is fair enough. Since she has some difficulties getting to sleep at the moment, I 'prescribed' her said manuscript, maybe it'll do the job again. haha.

Funnily enough, after I did a big rewrite (another one) of the beginning, she suddenly loved it. Scary, that is. She read all my books and loved them all; even fell in love with the gory thriller, and she doesn't do gory (who can blame her? Not my thing either, but writing it, let me tell you that, is a lot of fun.). At the moment, she's reading the third book in the Branded series, which I'm currently writing. It's a lot of pressure after two fabulous first books and I already know that I have to rework the beginning, but I'm now back with Tom, Celia, Sam, Jimmy and Adam, back in the kitchen, back to deal with the dark force. It'll have the usual romance, humour, cooking and fights with the Dark Side, as well as twists and turns. The last book in the series will hopefully be as entertaining and enjoyable as the other books. I'll try my very best, I promise.

Ouch! I stepped on stage and I got booed.

I've wrangled with the thought about writing this. Should I, or should I not? Well, I decided if I write about positive reviews, I'm allowed to write about negative reviews, too, right?
Particularly if it smells extraordinarily strong of 'let's see if she can take it'. Please don't get me wrong, it's not a complaint; I knew that with my constant bashing of the self-published books that failed to make me sit up, I was ripe for some payback. And it happened. Finally.
I'm aware there is some sabotaging of self-published books going on, and I've been 'victim' of that beforehand when my books were tagged inappropriately, but I confronted the culprit and he apologised, saying something got on his nerves that day, then removed the tag. Never had any beef with that guy, but he obviously didn't know how else to get rid of his frustration and targeted me.
This time, someone has left a review on one of my books. Something I said would happen. And since I mention No Wings Attached in the recently released rant, it was the one that got picked. Despite it looking like an honest review, it ticks quite a few boxes for me to suspect payback.
1. It's not a verified purchase and I haven't sold any on Smashwords, and very few on Amazon.
2. It uses the same wordings I use in Rage against the Indie
3. The person hasn't reviewed any books, bar one, then quickly wrote a few on the same day as my review came in.
4. The person claims to have turned the pages (presumably until the end), but complaints about no paranormal/supernatural happenings. (The wish consultant is not the supernatural human being I refer to in the pitch.)
5. The review was immediately voted as helpful, despite my not promoting the book a lot. All other reviews have suddenly been marked as unhelpful. Nobody had ever bothered with them beforehand. At least not the newer ones.

Here's the review:

I dicovered this title through the 'customers who viewed this item, also viewed..' sector on a novel I was interested in, and I foolishly chose this one. The only reason I'm giving this novel two stars and not one is because I was drawn in by a comfortable writing style and interesting premise. This, however, was a lie. The storyline went downhill so fast that I was tearing my hair out and begging the characters to stop cooking and talking and just start doing something. *Anything*. But I was sorely disappointed when the main two characters did little more than um and ah about their feelings. Okay, that's fine. I can expect little else from a romance, after all. Too bad about the use of the words 'supernatural powers' in the description. Highly misleading, considering there is nothing super about a guy who grants the odd wish, but there you go.
I can overlook a terrible plot. This novel was crafted in an interesting way, following Celia and Tom as narrators by giving them both a voice every few pages or so. But wait, who am I reading about? Yes, it says the narrator at the start of their narration, but what if a reader leaves partway through a chapter? Are we to go back to the start? You'd think that the characters would be easy to tell apart. That their voices would be different. No chance. They might as well be the same person, which shows a serious lack of perspective from this author.
Moving on. I could write about every flaw of this novel, bit that would most probably take longer than the production of No Wings Attached. Instead, I'll move onto the most infuriating aspect; punctuation. There is a massive overuse of commas, and they were so extreme that I actually threw my kindle down in frustration multiple times, unable to read on. It made me read in a very disconnected way and, coupled with poor sentence structure, I was made to feel as though I was reading in an unfamiliar language. Words had been dumped out of order, commas littered each sentence, and typos would crop up unexpectedly.
Please heed my warning. My rating really is too kind, as I have never before read something as terrible as this. I feel cheated. The premise promised something that was never delivered. The only reason I kept turning pages was to ensure my money wasn't wasted, but I can say now that it was. More importantly, my time was wasted, and a small chunk of sanity was lost along the way.

To be honest it raised merely a grin, but shows that how the Indie scene really is. Readers complain (rightly so) about fake praise, and this is the other end to the debacle: fake slagging off books. It can do massive harm. Even though readers say they can tell a fake negative review, I'm not sure one can always distinguish. In the case of No Wings Attached, you just need to read the other reviews to get your clues and write something up. I also have an idea who this person might be, because the voice sounds familiar.

Just to be clear: I'm not offended. I am bold with my view on self-published books and I've made some enemies along the way. You've got to bleed if you want to win a battle.

A quick plea: DO NOT act on the review. Don't go and attack the person, don't vote unhelpful, don't do anything, please. I'm not complaining, it's not a whiny post, it's just a matter-of-fact-post. I blog about self-publishing and the Indie scene behind the scenes, and this is just an example. I'm sure there will be more coming my way, at least I know my writing's not the reason.

Confessions of a self-published author

I'm talking about publishing my novel Candlelight Sinner with errors. Maybe fifty all together, typos, missing words, missing speech marks, extra speech marks. Okay, fifty errors in an 80k novel may not seem much, but I find it almost unbearably embarrassing. After a lovely friend helped me with my Germish and with that having the awkward phrasing out of the way, I decided to proof the book myself on the Kindle as I normally spot those errors easily. I know, it's said everywhere, but I wanted to show I can do it. Look where it got me. Stupid, really. Although one can overlook those errors if they don't distract from the story, the vast amount alone makes me cringe. Luckily, I have found a wonderful proof reader for the future whom I've tested and who knows what is expected.
Self-publishing has been a trial and error experience; overall, I'd say, a really positive one, apart from my being rather tired of promoting and hence not doing much of it anymore. I'm almost sure that I've lost sales due to the errors in the books, for which I could kick myself, really. Despite receiving great reviews for all three books, I'm sure I could have sold more if it wasn't for the errors.
As you know I'm writing on a Thriller, which will be published under a different pen name some time this year, a clean slate for that book, if you will. I don't do it because of that, but it would be nice to have a book judged on its merit, without anyone knowing about the author; it's an experiment and if it goes well, I may publish some more, completely different books -- thriller, horror, sci-fi, etc. -- under that name. All of which will be properly proofed.
But I'll also bring out another book as Stella Deleuze this year. And my aim is to have it error free. I'll not make the mistake again to proof my own book. From what I've learned, errors occur when you rewrite, swap scenes around, add, delete. That's when a manuscript is the most prone to get messy. Best advice is to let it rest for a few weeks and go through it again. Slowly, then, when you're done, either get a professional to work on it, or someone you trust. I've noticed that I've added errors when correcting what the proof reader sent. So that's a fault on my part. Not sure how I'll deal with that in future, but I'll find a solution. No book of mine shall contain more than a few errors in future. Best would be to have zero, but you can't even guarantee that with a professional proof reader.
Please do me only one favour: do not say that you find errors in traditionally published books; just because there is the odd book which contains errors, doesn't make it right. :-)

PS: I've corrected mine. (Thank you, Sandra.x)

From idiots to the more pleasant

I know, I know, I have neglected my blog and readers for longer than intended. I was busy 'defending' myself, once again and also with writing.
You probably remember the guy who went about accusing me of tagging his book with inappropriate tags? Well, he was on it again, this time, he accused me of slating his book, referring to a post where I said I had sent out the beginning of a book to a friend and it came back with the comment that it has more a chick lit feel to it rather than literary, despite the second person (which referred to the POV). I had a chat with someone else about that particular book, and slagged it off (mock style) as to how future reviewers will see it.
What that guy didn't 'get' was that I was talking about my own book, an unpublished novel, which I sent to a friend to get a 'feel' for it.
So I found that particular comment and posted it to prove to my 'stalker' that he got it wrong. Do you think he'd apologise? Nope, instead he carried on to insult me and others who dared to not side with him. It's the third time he derailed a thread of mine, a discussion I started, which, of course, was about to get heated due to the subject matter (I questioned the quality of self-published books), but he had to come and call me a liar and disgusting; he 'offered' me to turn me into wurst, etc. He then admitted, by accident, I think, to have self-reviewed his book (though he claims it was his friend/wife/partner -- the one who called me stupid, by the way), and not him. When people picked him up on that, he whined that people accuse him of something he didn't do. Sound familiar? Yes. He got to taste a bit of his own medicine, just that he openly admitted what he did, for all to see, and I didn't do anything of what he claimed I had done. I only shook my head as he continued to make an idiot of himself. I reported this issue to Amazon, who deleted some of his posts, but the insults are still there. Not very helpful of them.

Anyway, I've also been writing on my thriller and am sending every finished chapter to my friend Piddi, who now threatened to become a fan of that novel.Who would have thought? Not her genre normally. But I also secured a lovely beta reader who indeed reads mainly thrillers and horror and therefore is a perfect fit to read mine, including the gory scenes. Now I  just have to finish it, which means about 30k by end of July. No pressure, then.

Other good news on the writing front: Someone who read No Wings Attached, recently said she had no clue that I was self-published. She only read two self-published books and one was mine. So she thought my novel was traditionally published and I guess you know that I grew at least two inches after that statement. Shows that hard work pays off. On the downside: another reader found about 35 errors, which have been corrected since then, but had me embarrassed once again.

And I've been in the garden, picking lots of lettuce, which provided me with lovely salads. It is coming along really nice. The poppies are flowering beautifully, the courgettes have little flowers and the tomato plants grow stronger from week to week. It's a pleasure to go up and potter around. Gave the mint, lemon balm and sage a massive haircut, cut everything back so the new leaves can grow back healthily.

Tonight, I went to watch Prometheus in 3D with friends and can say that even someone like me, who can't stand horror and all the gory bits, watched it without even having to blink. It's good, but nothing to get overly excited about and some things made me shake my head, re believability and some funny glitches we discussed later. It felt a bit like a remake of Alien in parts. Still, I enjoyed it.

That's it, I'm done! It's time to say

Goodbye

to the Branded Series, that is. I've said it in the past, after No Wings Attached sunk into the bottomless belly of Amazon, that I contemplated to stop writing the sequel and put the series to a rest. Only after readers repeatedly asked where the sequel is, I finished the book. Now, Candlelight Sinner has been released last month and performs equally: a block of concrete couldn't sink faster than the book. So I thought back and forth and decided to not write the third book.

To say or pretend I'm not disappointed would be a lie. Of course I am. Three years of my life went into the books, they have made me laugh, cry and angry. I'm proud of them and I know many of those who read them loved them and it was a rather interesting journey; No Wings Attached taught me all about the craft and I had plenty of fun writing the two novels.

I feel that part of the 'not selling' is because of the first published version of No Wings Attached was error-riddled. No reader in their right mind would buy another book by an author who can't take care of their books. Well, if only I had known. Never mind, that's something I can't reverse.

Personally, I don't know why else the books won't sell, it might be the lack of vampires, the lack of erotica, the weird mix of genres being paranormal romantic comedy, or the reviewers who keep referring to Tom as being an angel, which he isn't - at least not in the common sense - who knows? Fact is that self-publishing is a good way to find out if your book tickles the fancy of the crowd.

My Branded series doesn't, so it's time to move on to other projects, which is what I'm currently doing. So for those of you who are waiting for the third book: I'm sorry. Really really sorry. But I won't continue this series.
This is not a whiny post, in fact, I think I'm rather relieved to not have to write a third book. As much fun as it was, I've somehow outgrown the books and the style and I'd like to take other challenges. So, maybe it's a good thing because now I can just step away with a clean conscience. I see that as a positive thing. And I'll continue to love the books 

I threaten you, however, to unleash a new book at some point this year.

Up to then, there's always my short story collection Excuse me, where is the exit?

The return of the muse. Oh, how I've missed you.

It was a busy day for me, exhausting, to be honest; the release of Candlelight Sinner was a bit more complicated. I had to update the other two books for Kindle and Smashwords and I get easily confused. Yes, give me three sheets of paper and I'm in tears. Well, not that bad, but I have to concentrate very hard to get everything right.
Never mind, after hours of fighting with the different formats, I had the books updated and my latest baby released into the world. It's free on Smashwords for today until midnight and after that will be $3.49/£2.31. Still not bad, I would say. The downloads are flying in, but from experience I know only 10% will probably read the book. Many just hoard it. But I'm happy for the 10% to be able to flee from reality for a while.

To celebrate, I will write a 500-word flash fiction piece for my newly launched writers' group. I've given the prompt 'On a winter's night' and to be honest, I can't wait to write something; it's itching heavily. My muse has probably been ringing the buzzer of my former flat, trying to get in and help me writing. What a surprise when my buzzer went and the lost muse showed up. Back to writing!
I'm also looking forward to what people of the group come up with. I have only met two of them 'informally' and they are lovely.

Since I want to write two books this year, I better get cracking soon, right? My horror thriller, which exists of two scenes so far, one of them you can find here, has been calling, the story slowly forming in my mind. I will, though, write the scenes first and then weave them into a story. It's probably multi layered. Typical. Nothing easy for me please.

If you need to get your arse from the sofa and the fingers to your keyboard, feel free to use the same prompt. :-)

Happy writing, everyone.

The cover for Candlelight Sinner revealed!

When I said I'm going to think about a cover for my upcoming novel Candlelight Sinner, people groaned, asking if it's going to change as many times as the cover for No Wings Attached. You can all rest assured, it's not going to change. The amazing Sessha Batto has done it again, she took my ideas on board and came up with a stunning work. And I'm in love. I mean I'm seriously in love, but see for yourself:

It mirrors the plot, has a great deal of warmth and...well, it's just perfect. For those of you who remember my sad attempts to find a good cover for No Wings Attached: you can laugh now: it looks like I'm going to change it again. Simply because the covers in a series should be themed. So I'll head off to find something pretty to match and I already have an idea. And covers are important, after all. I wasn't sure how the second book would turn out, as you know, I'm not the best plotter in the world, but I'll learn, I promise.

And more great news: one of my Beta-readers got back to me with five pages of comments, giving me the feedback I needed to see if the book works as a stand-alone novel. The talented (I'm just saying that because she loved the book. -- Just kidding.) short story writer Winn Smith has volunteered to read the first draft since she hasn't read the first book and boy, are her comments helpful.
I've started to edit/rewrite with great enthusiasm and am falling in love with the book again. It makes me smile, it makes me laugh it makes me feel all fuzzy and guess what? Next month, you'll be able to read it, too, because I plan to have it out in January. So you better warm up your Kindles, Nooks, iPads, Sonys or even your PC's, because I'm planning a special surprise.

Here's the blurb:
Being madly in love with Tom, a rather good looking, immortal wish-consultant and working in her dream job, life seems to be perfect for 32-year-old Celia. If it wasn't for the dark side still being after her or Sam, a charismatic man asking for her help, causing dilemma. When Tom gets another demanding case, and Celia takes her friend on a trip to Lanzarote, everything's about to change. The question is: for the better or for the worse?

The end is near-ish

If you are anxiously awaiting the sequel to No Wings Attached, you might be delighted to hear that the sequel is coming along rather well. After a few hiccups, I'm presently at word-count 63k -- Chapter Sixteen -- with an aim at 82k words in the end.
Interestingly, quite contrary to my expectations, it took much longer to get to the point I'm now; I planned a meager 2.5 months to write the whole thing and it started off rather well, but -- somehow -- I got thrown off the rails with the rather unpleasant surprise of my first book's state (I've posted about it here). I take my job as an author seriously and thinking about how many readers I've lost because of that, my good reputation I've worked hard for and still try to build up, ruined, had me almost throw the towel. But I gathered that I can't live without writing anyway, so I put on my fight-back-hat and continued with the sequel. Readers asking me when it will come out, of course, was a big motivator and my longing for perfection -- for independence -- did the rest.
Recently, I've blogged about my improvement, meaning, it's less obvious I'm not native, which was really great news. I've got to admit, I almost cried when I got the excerpt I sent back. I'm working hard on learning grammar and seeing how much it paid off was mind-blowing. The more I'm in control, the better. And it'll benefit my editing-business, too. since I only offer editing on plot- and character-development, with the occasional grammar I'm familiar with. (If you are interested in a quote, please get in touch, using the address to the right.)

Back to the sequel: I can promise you I'll have surprises in store. The second book leans more into the paranormal world, but it's still urban. Guaranteed no vampires or werewolves, only demons, humans from the dark side, as we have humans from the good side. Celia's risking everything, so is Tom. It will still have the 'chatty and funny' tone, which means it's not a dark read. There is love, friendship and hate. An emotional roller coaster, like the first book.

Here's another short excerpt I've recently written:
Celia's training in the cave.

I nod, close my eyes and concentrate. When I open them again, I reach out my right hand, palms up and think of the rope. It moves a tiny bit and falls off his hand.

“Shite!” I say.

He picks it up and motions me to try again.

I repeat what I've done before, but this time with my palm towards him, imagining to open the door that's stuck. The feather moves away from me, twirling in the air. I hold my breath.

“Is that me who's doing it?”

“Yes, keep concentrating.” But it's too late, the feather softly floats to the ground.

With a tut I go and pick it up, then place it on my hand and look at Sam.“You do it!”

He chuckles and before I know it, the feather disappears, just to appear – a fraction of a second later – in his hand.

I stomp my foot on the floor. “That's unfair! You make it look so easy.”

“Give yourself some credit, lass. You've only started with training, and let me tell you something, you're doing better than most of my trainees.”

“Really?” I ask, hopefull, but feel stupid immediately. Of course he's only saying it! My cheeks become hot and I rearrange my top.

“Trust me. You have a lot of fire behind your moves, but release them best when you're angry or hurt. What you need to do is fine-tuning. That's what we're trying. Only controlled powers are real powers.”

It makes sense to me. “In that case, let me try again.”

We repeat the 'pulling' a few more times and apart from a couple of feather-droppings, it gets better with every single try. From the way he smiles I can see he's delighted and so am I.

“Okay, let's see if you manage the balloon.”

I get into position and push; the balloon moves slowly, then stops. Confused I look at Sam who smirks at me.

“So what are you going to do now?” he asks.

With gritted teeth, I push a little harder, the familiar tingling I had when fighting against Boldie almost distracts me, but I keep up with Sam. When the balloon bursts, I shriek. The noise is almost unbearable in the tiny cave.

“Very good. You've reacted without applying too much pressure. Your progress is remarkable.”

I can't help but to smile proudly. “What's next?”

“A girl who loves a challenge, eh?” He grabs the pen. “Let's see if you can move this one here.”

Both of my hands are hurting, the right from the strain of moving objects and the other one from digging my nails into the flesh, a result of making a tight fist. When Sam sees me shaking them out, he lowers his arm.

“Maybe we should take a small break.” He puts the pen down and walks over the corner where he's, again, neatly folded his jacket, then produces a bottle of water from a tattered looking rucksack. I squint to make out the faded print on it. Iron Maiden?With some effort, I hold it together. Somehow I find it hard to imagine him, head-banging along the rock dinosaurs' music.

“Oi, lass. If you have enough energy to laugh at me, you'll not exhausted enough. Time to carry on.”

We get back to our places across each other and he holds out the pen.

I'm excited!

Many have already asked me for the sequel to No Wings Attached. And rightly so, because I've promised there's going to be one. After I've unfortunately missed my initital deadline due to the mishap with the first book, I was rather thrown and demotivated continuing the sequel, but since I get requests left, right and centre, I'm happy to say it's coming along well. Yesterday, I've reached 50,200 words, which means, I'll probably finish this month. Then it goes to my Beta-readers and into editing/proofing. I expect the novel to be published in December -- hopefully before Christmas.
For those of you who are waiting: you will meet Celia, Tom and Emily again, but in addition you'll be introduced to a rather hot Sam and, of course, Adam will play a bigger part, too. There will still be romance and heaps of fun, but also more paranormal in the form of fight scenes. I think I've managed to make this book work as a stand-alone novel, but it remains to be seen until new Beta-readers, those who don't know book one, get back to me saying, they are curious about the first book, but didn't miss it.

That's where you guys come into the game: if you haven't read book one and would love to read book two, please leave a comment underneath this post with your e-mail address. A book for free, being involved in the early stages and your feedback taken seriously -- what's not to like?

Here's the blurb:

Being madly in love with Tom, a rather good looking wish-consultant and working in her dream job, life seems to be perfect for 32-year-old Celia. If it wasn't for the dark side still being after her or Sam, a charismatic man asking for her help, causing dilemma. When Tom gets another demanding case, and Celia takes her friend on a trip to Lanzarote, everything's about to change. The question is: for the better or for the worse?

The first five entries will receive the book once I'm done with the first draft.

Another sneak peek at the sequel to No Wings Attached:

While No Wings Attached is put on hold, being currently corrected, I'm using the time to crack on with the sequel. Here's a small excerpt of Chapter Eleven, first unedited draft.  I'd love your opinions, so fire away. ;-)

I struggle and hiss, stomping and kicking in order to step on a foot of the guy whose arms are still locked around me. He curses and tightens his grip.

“Let go of me!” With as much force I can muster I knock back my head, hoping to smash his nose. Pain jolts through me.

He winces and pushes me forward. “You bitch!”

I open my eyes and see... nothing. It's dark, pitch black and it smells rank, like rotten moss, I hear water dripping, echoing from seemingly close walls. Knowing he's probably behind me, I carefully feel the ground under my feet, trying to get some more distance between us. Something wet touches my face and I bite my lip to suppress a scream, if I'm basically blind he won't be able to see either. What do I do, what do I do? What does he want? Am I allowed to use my powers to protect me? My heart thuds so heavily in my chest, I want to throw up. With my arms stretched out I inch forward.

Another curse from him. “That fucking bitch got my lip. It's bleeding.”

“Where is she now?” a second voice asks.

“Don't know, we'll find out in a second.”

I stop and try to breathe as calmly as I can. Suddenly, a blue light flashes past me, crushing into the rocks before me; instinctively, I duck and wrap my arms around my head. The dark force!

“There! Darian, now!”

I throw myself flat onto the floor and in hope they will aim to the left, I roll to the right, squeezing my eyes shut. From what I can hear, another blue light ball hisses over me and the sound of pieces of the rock wall falling on the ground echoes through the cave. I blink and hastily crawl further to the right.

“One more time,” whisper under my breath. I'm furious and willing to fight back, “go on, only one more time.”

Again, I'm blinded and quickly looking to the side, I stretch our my hands, palms up. Oh, please let it work, I don't want to die!

The blue ball dances in the air, illuminating the place. As I suspected, it's small and water runs along the walls. I turn to my kidnappers and gasp. The bold guy! A much smaller figure stands next to him, legs apart, hands stemmed in the side, glaring at me. I could swear I've seen him before, but I can't remember where. At the club, when Sam was there?

“You?” I address the bold guy. “What do you want from me?”

He watches the blue ball's dancing. “Just playing a bit. Thought you might like that.”

I continue to stare at him. The tingling in my hands and the pressure on them stops and the ball explodes, leaving a mini firework behind. For moment I freeze and lock eyes again with the bold guy. With one quick move of his hand another blue ball appears in the palm of his hand and before I can react, he throws it in my direction. The pressure is much stronger and I can't hold against it.

“Please, stop! What have I done to you?” My voice breaks off at the end of the question and I have both, fear and fury raging in me. I'm going to die!

“Stop!” a third voice barks, followed by a stream of orange-red light directed at the two other guys. They try to fight back, but the figure now stepping in front of me is far too strong for them. I recognise the long leather coat and heavy boots. Sam?

Do you like it hot?

Recently I received a review for No Wings Attached, in which the reviewer pointed out the following:  
"There were moments where I thought Deleuze was going to show off some passionate scenes between the two but it ended up being that Celia would leave or she would just fall asleep or Tom would just peck her on the cheek and say goodnight."
I don't know for sure, but I guess she meant some steamy sex scenes, which I admittedly not have in the whole book, nor will there be one in book two. In my opinion, such scenes have no place in a romantic comedy and I'm also not a huge fan of them - for several reasons:
1. They are incredibly difficult to write.
2. They usually are so cringe worthy, it's beyond belief.
3. I want to be able to be in the character's head, meaning, I love feeling the emotions when she feels excited, sad, happy, lost, etc., but sex is something private and everyone likes to do it differently and as soon as I enter the bedroom (or place of happening) with a couple, I'm thrown into the position of the observer, instead of being in the MC's head. I personally find that unpleasant.
4. To me, a good romance lives without the erotica, I'd rather be left with my own imagination when he leads her into the bedroom (or wherever).

By all means, I'm not criticising the reviewer, she didn't like the book as much as others. I failed to fulfil her expectations; it just got me thinking what readers really want from a romantic comedy, though the stress in my book is on romance. I've read and watched a lot of romantic comedies and never found steamy sex in it and I wouldn't like it, I must say. I also have to confess, that I will pass on any book that has a couple in a certain posture on the cover. I find those covers cheesy and horrible. Might work for the genre erotica, but not for romance or romantic comedy. But there seem to be buyers, sex sells and there are plenty of publishers who use them.

It's not that I'm against erotica, though I don't read it, I have read a few books where the sex scenes were well done, and I'm going to write a book which will be littered with sex scenes as it's a big part of the character, but it's neither erotica, nor romance, it's contemporary fiction.

How is your take on sex scenes? Do you expect them in romantic comedy or romance or do you dislike them?

Here's the opening sex scene of the book I've referred to above:

The moonlight stroked the two bodies with its soft light. Their tight embrace made it difficult to tell them apart. Her fingers were tangled in his ash-blonde hair, legs around his waist.

'I want you.' Her breath came ragged. He grabbed her firmly at her hips and pulled them against him. 'More,' she groaned, leaning back.

Her body in his hands, he gazed at her face. Eyes closed, she licked her parted lips. It made him even harder. Another thrust and she moaned. He caressed her well-formed back, letting his hand wander up to her elegant neck, grabbed her long wavy hair, pulling her towards him. 'You're perfect,' he said, his voice staccato.

She opened her eyes, they were full of fire. 'Fuck me, babe,' she whispered demanding.

He didn't need to be asked twice. She was the one in bed that answered all his prayers. No fear, no taboos and a passion that every man could wish for. God, how he loved this woman. Her hot body pressed to his, he closed his eyes, feeling her moves. They kissed and became one, getting into a conjoined rhythm, faster and faster. He held back until he felt it she was ready, then she moaned once more. When she lost herself she couldn't keep her voice down. Every emotion audible. That's what made her special to him. With a sigh she let her head drop onto his shoulder, relaxing. He breathed heavily. 'I love you, Rachel.'

She didn't answer. When her breathing had slowed down, she lifted her head, kissed him gently, then got up and disappeared into the bathroom.

And no, it's not about angels

Just kidding!

If you're an indie author, exposure is everything. There are pretty brilliant and dedicated bloggers out there, who don't get tired promoting others. One of them is the wonderful, also published author, Catherine Chisnall, who has thrown some interview questions into my direction. About me, about my writing, about No Wings Attached, the charity and she even tickled some surprising facts out of me.
Please stop by her blog, take a look around and if you have time, you might want to read the interview with me :-)
I'm quite over the moon, No Wings Attached is doing all right. It's certainly a far cry from the success of Excuse me, where is the exit?, but it's getting there. I was a bit worried to throw the first book of the series out when the second isn't even finished yet, but I plan to publish the next one by October this year, readers have asked when it will come out, which makes me feeling all fussy again. My baby's loved :-)

Good news demand to be shared

I've received a few wonderful reviews and feedback for No Wings Attached. And that's not all; people have messaged me on twitter, contacted me on facebook or via e-mail, telling me how much they enjoyed the book. What surprises me the most is that a lot of men seem to really like it. They probably fancy the idea of wooing a women by making her wishes come true ;-)

Here's the newest review from amazon.com:

I read Stella's book last weekend and I enjoyed it. "No Wings Attached" is light-hearted and hopeful, but is not sappy. Although it doesn't get overly dramatic, it has enough tension to keep you moving through the reading at a nice clip.

Tom is sent to Celia as the result of a mistake he made as a wish consultant. He needs to make good the mistake and the sweet results of his making good is the plot of the book.

Celia and Tom read as real people and very believable. The author definitely has a handle on proper characterization of her H and h. You'll not want the book to end, I promise you.

I call "No Wings Attached" a good buy. You'll not regret the purchase. 

Here's one from Goodreads (by a man):

NO WINGS ATTACHED was fast paced and fun. Near the end, it had it's suspenseful moments, and a dramatic twist. I enjoyed getting both main characters first person points-of-view. 


No Wings Attached is available at the kindle store and smashwords. Please click on the picture to the right to read the first three chapters or find the links to all outlets.

I'm a proud iguana mum and my other babies do well, too.

First off, my finger is healing well, and I can type without being in pain, which is a great relief. So it's back to writing. I've started the second book of rants, topic-related, of course.

Tuesday, I took Zorro to the vet who was rather in awe about how much weight he put on and, more importantly, how much he's grown. The iguana, that is. He was full of praise for my big boy, said I've done a really good job looking after him and that I should continue this way. According to the vet, he's in tip top condition, well, apart from his nose. I think a bit of bragging is in order: everyone, including vets and nurses, who looks at my dragon, is in absolutely smitten, saying he's really beautiful. And he certainly is.

Sleeping beauty

I was glad I could take the iguana home again  - without surgery. I have to give him painkillers daily and injections of antibiotics every three days. Tomorrow's the first and I'm not looking forward to it. Though I'm used to giving him injections, he's much bigger and stronger now, I'm injured, too and if he struggles too much, there's a danger of breaking the needle and that's certainly not what I want. And the skin at the root of his tail (where I usually inject as it's the most painless for him), is rather hard to penetrate. So wish me luck.

Further on, I've gotten some wonderful reviews for No Wings Attached as well as for Excuse me, where is the exit? which, by the way, has been in the top 100 humour bestseller charts since its release and it's showcased on Daily Cheap Reads today. Here a few comments from twitter, the amazon forum and even from Jason Matthews's wife, who jumped into the camera while we spoke about formatting and brainstorming ideas, yelling the following: "Stella! I love your book, I really do, it's amazing."

Sue B. says: (No Wings Attached)
Stella, I read your book and I enjoyed it. Write some more.
Now. Immediately...lol!
We readers are getting demanding, aren't we?

Colin Macaula:(Excuse me, where is the exit?) 
Awright, I was going to wait till I finished it but I have to tell you I am PISSING myself at EMWTE. Best 69p spendable.

Just the funniest thing I have read in ages. Had to change knickers. More power to you. X

Men love stuff like that, they just won't ever admit it. If I ever meet you, I'll deny it.

Nancy Eady:(No Wings Attached) 
I am about 1/3 through it and am enjoying it immensely. I don't have the time to read it through at one sitting like I want!  and today on twitter:

Finished No Wings Attached tonight and really enjoyed it.Are you writing a sequel?Will it explain some things from the end?

Those are the comments that keep an author writing, at least me. I find it still rather unreal that people part with their money to read my books, me, an unknown author, but it also warms my cockles, and that massively.

Thank you to all the readers out there who buy, enjoy and recommend my books. I want you to know that I'm really grateful.

How to make an author cry

As authors we are like delicate flowers, if you nurture us, we flourish, if we feel neglected we... well, we probably write. We write to entertain, us and mostly the readers. There is almost nothing better for us than for our books to be read and get positive feedback. Our biggest fear is to receive feedback saying "I hated this book, what a waste of time!" Especially when the person belonged to the target audience, that really hurts.

 Up to now I was extremely lucky to have gotten only positive feedback on both of my books, which makes me all warm and fuzzy as well as aware that somewhere out there will be the slap in face, lurking, just waiting to jump at me. 

But for tonight, I shed a tear -- of joy. Although I knew she liked the book, I didn't know how much. Before I began with my last edit, I searched for Beta-readers. I knew I had to fix some things and I sort of had lost my passion for No Wings Attached; she searched for chick lit, I offered her mine. She accepted and read it, then came back with a few minor suggestions and that gave me a real kick into the backside, because she is my target audience. Slightly younger even and I think if she liked it, there might be a good chance others might as well.

I can't hold it back for longer, here is the beautiful review:


No Wings Attached
I was given the chance to read this prior to its release after responding to a post in the kindle forum. At the time I had flu and I'd said to the author that it'd be a while before I had chance to let her know what I'd thought because I wasn't up to reading. Well, as it happens I loved this book so much that I zipped through it, with all thoughts of ill health banished to the background which says it all really. I just couldn't stop reading it! The chapters were short and snappy, making you want to read 'just one more' chapter each time and the characters really drew you in. As it is essentially a chick lit novel with only slight paranormal overtones, it reminded me a lot of Cecelia Ahern's books, so I recommend it to all of her fans. A great summer read! 


Thank you, Alice. Comparing it with Cecilia Ahern is a great great honour as I adore her stories.

And Gayle, who helped me proofing the book, has done an equally great job of making me cry!

The importance of a book cover

My novel No Wings Attached will be out soon. Originally I had planned end of May, but some unforeseen things happened and it's delayed. My sincere apologies if you are waiting, it's not going to be long anymore, promise.

Part of the delay is me being picky with the cover. Though some say, the cover is not important, it's what's inside that counts, I tend to disagree. Being a visual person myself, covers are the first that catch my eye, giving me a clue of the genre; then the title and after that the pitch (text on the back of the book). If all three fit my mood, I'll buy. If I'm not sure, I'll sample.

So the cover is important, why else do publishing houses have a marketing team that also decides on the cover? I usually have a very clear idea of what I want. Unfortunately, I'm not designer and that shows when speaking to people who are supposed to translate my ideas into covers that swoon me. Difficult, as I'm a difficult client.

I drew the first few covers of the book in Paint. A hard job and took ages, but I was pleased as I was able to see my ideas form into something visible. Of course I wouldn't be able to use it when actually selling the book. Thinking back, I went through all kind of covers, some I liked a lot, some I didn't.

My almost final cover is this:

We will tweak it a bit more, but the girl's perfect. Celia is 32, funny and warm-hearted. The book's a light-hearted romantic comedy with a paranormal twist. A bit like Bridget Jones meet Charmed.

I hope you'll like the final cover as much as I do and find yourself lost in the story, forgetting for your daily troubles for a while.

You can read the opening here:

No Wings Attached will be avaible on kindle and smashwords and later via POD.

Amazon payment on its way!

I've got notice from amazon that my first payment is on its way. That's for the sales in March (116, 100 in the UK and 16 in the US). They pay me for the UK sales only since you need to have a mininum of $10 to rectify a cheque to be sent out. I'll get paid for the US sales next month.
However the first payment will be £35 and will immediately go to charity. It's not the world, but it doubles next month and so on since sales for Excuse me, where is the exit?  have increased steadily.

 

Just to clarify again: I'm not posting this to brag, rather than informing people who follow the development, who helped me get the word out there and, at the end of the day, it's you readers who make it happen. Without you guys, I wouldn't be able to donate. Besides, there not much to brag about approaching a mere 1000 sales. I know of some authors who sold 7k in seven weeks or 10k in four months or people who just sell many more books than me. But I'm still a little proud. ;-)

Further good news:

My next book, No Wings Attached, will be out soon. It's still in proofing phase, but I hope I manage to release it on the 31st as planned. I think I'll have a little party with some friends, especially Fifi, who kindly offered to help me smoothing out my Germish. Thank you, Fi! I love you.

And more:

I'll be at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival. As a visitor, but I plan to be actively involved with a workshop next time round. I'll be meeting some fab people I've met on authonomy and am majorly excited to hug them all. Yes, I've threatened them to do that.

It's going to be a blast!

On starting with back story

I can't believe I've done it myself! Since ages I told everyone whose opening I read and contained too much back story, not to do it, to web it in, to introduce it slowly and bit by bit, but ignored my own advice.

The reason being is that I've never written a sequel. I'm sure I wouldn't have done it with a new book, but the sequel is a different animal entirely. I created a scene with four people talking to each other, and two people, who are absent, introduced in the first 400 words. Now that's what I call tight writing, tight, but wrong.
I had a feeling it might be too much information and back story crammed into the opening and got the confirmation from a friend I sent it to. Nothing I couldn't fix easily, but something that shows once again, as writers we need feedback, best in the early stages to avoid big rewrites.

Sequels need to be able to stand alone, so while back story is important, it shouldn't have the function of a teaser for the other books in a series. It's a challenge to connect the books without going too deep into what happened in the first one. But you need to introduce the characters to readers who start with the second book.
Since I'm experiencing this now for the first time, I take my hat off to every single author who's managed that effortlessly.

I'll also have the task to go deeper into some of the characters that played minor roles in the first book, plus I'll add some more characters, especially for the dark side. Keeping the balance between romantic comedy and paranormal will be a lot harder for the sequel, I want to keep the light tone of the first book, the wonderful intimate moments between Celia and Tom, but without repeating them.

Well, something positive came out of it: he liked the writing and the scene itself. Go, me! ;-)

Writing is easy, then comes editing...

I have to admit I had no idea how writing, editing, the industry itself works when I began with my first novel. I asked a friend who said,' You just send an overview and the first few chapters to a publisher and that's it.' Easy, I thought.

My aim was 120k. Why? Because I didn't know better. So every day I typed and typed, edited as I went along and in 2.5 months, my brand new baby was complete. My friend did the cold reading, commenting along, but it seemed I've done a good job plotting and creating scenes and characters, looking back with the knowledge I've got now, she didn't suggest anything major.

Then I went on the hunt for publishers, thinking, well the book is SO great, they'll rip it out of my hands and the editor will fix my Germisch. That's what all my non-writer friends believed, too.
What an awakening when I learned about authonomy and that publishers want a near-perfect manuscript. What? They won't invest their money into me, the raw diamond and future best selling author? Their loss! Rejections proved others were right, I was wrong.

Thrown off the high horse of dreams, I got down to business and learned as much as I could about writing and editing. And there's a lot to know about. With every new thing I learned, I went through my manuscript, cutting out long-winded passages that cost me hours to write, changed dialogue attributes back and forth, comparing published books with my humble scribblings. Went through it again and again and again and.... ended up hating my book.

I tend to read books only once, twice perhaps if I really like it. Imagine to have to read a book up to fourteen times and even being the one who wrote it! It's painful. I procrastinated, I pushed off, I neglected and at some time I plainly didn't want to go near it anymore. I put it aside after the 13th edit and wrote two other books instead.

After a few months, I decided I need to get it over with, because I still believed in this book, it's my baby in the end and I want to get it out there, pretty and entertaining and maybe even successful, it didn't deserve to be hidden away. And somewhere along the process of reading and making small alterations, I fell in love again. Tonight, I've finished the last chapter of a 82.382 k novel and by end of May, it will be available to download on kindle, hopefully also on smashwords and nook. I can't wait!