New Release: Blue Maneuver-Urban SciFi/Fantasy

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Linda Andrews

Now available on:

Amazon

Smashwords

 

The extraterrestrials have landed and they’re human.
Rae Hemplewhite didn’t believe in aliens until a close encounter with out-of-this-world technology drags her into the extraterrestrial security program. Helping alien refugees adjust to life on Earth is difficult enough, but her first clients have a price on their heads. Plus, her new partner seems torn between the urge to kiss her or kill her.
And that’s the good news.
The bad news: Alliances are forming in deep space. If Rae doesn’t keep her witnesses alive long enough to transfer their top secret information to the right faction of humanity, Earth will become a battlefield.

Edited by TL Hockett, E Brownchweig

Book is approximately 92,000 words
Bonus: First chapter of The Z Word by Bella Street (not included in word count)

Coming soon to Barnes and Noble

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Redaction Sequel–the update

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Linda Andrews

I am a fan of disaster movies and books. Anything that wipes out a good portion of humanity has my attention,, but it took me more than ten years to write a story about it. I first concieved of the attack featured in Redaction in 1999.

Anyone remember the Y2K hype?

Yeah, I didn’t buy into it, but as I sat in a fast-food restuarant watching their kids play with their toys in their plastic wrap, I had a wicked thought. But what to do with it? Fast forward several years and days after radioactive steam was released from our local nuclear power plant and the public was notified. Days. A friend who lives in the land of Denial said that couldn’t happen, we would be notified and the city evacuated.

Right.

And people accuse me of making things up. If you’re a fan of the genre, you know leaving a city is almost impossible in the wake of a disaster. So how could I and my family make it out of Phoenix? I mulled the thoughts over and over, until finally something clicked then it  was a matter of finding the best characters to tell the story. Enter the five characters in Redaction. Oddly, the character I like best, Manny, came last, but if you look closely–each one mirrors facets of the other. Yes, Trent does mirror Mavis.

But you probably don’t want to hear about Redaction, you want to hear about the sequel tentatively titled the dying time or trail of corpses. Yeah, sounds like  a light and fun read. I will say this, Redaction didn’t end where I had originally planned. There were things that were supposed to happen that didn’t. Why? THe book was continuing on but I was at the end of the 6 months I allotted to write it.  So I ended it on an upbeat note but knew that I left  many things left unfinished, some of which would leave a few readers unsatisfied.

I had always planned for there to be 2 books in the series. Except now, there will be three (maybe even four depending on how things end with book two and if I want to write about the establishment of the new world down below) The originally planned sequel was to take place 100 years after Redaction. And yes, I will still write it.

So what do I have planned for the new sequel to Redaction? Someone mentioned that it wasn’t clear if the biological attack happened in Europe as well. In my head, yes, but that will be clarified in book two. There will be nuclear meltdowns across the globe. You’ll see first hand the deaths from anthrax and other factors which will clearly delineate who belongs to which category of people–sheep, wolves, dogs and lobos.

And mostly there will be  the showdown between the wolf, Trent, and the lobo, Mavis, as each try to remake society to their own specifications. Some characters we’ve met will die, others will live. But each character’s actions will make ripples that will turn into a tsunami 100 years down the road.

For now, I’m still working on a book under contract, but then because so many have asked, I’ll be finishing up the sequel to Redaction, maybe titled walk to live (Don’t judge me–Redaction was originally title Urban Rot until the week before it was published).

Which Iknow hope to have out by September, maybe mid-August-depending on my editors. But, I will post the first couple of (unedited) chapters beginning in May to whet the appetite.

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Back in the Story Again

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Linda Andrews

TypingI don’t know how it is with other writers but it takes me until Chapter 3 to really get into the story I’m writing. It isn’t because I don’t know what I’m doing. Okay, sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s because it takes me that long to surrender to the inevitable.

Unlike most writers, I’m not a god in the universe of my mind. Silly me for thinking I’d actually have control over something in my life.

My characters don’t do what I want them to.

My characters possess me and I write what they tell me to or they don’t talk to me. I see through their mind, hear their thoughts and feel what they feel. All of which brings the story alive, gives it depth and draws in the readers.

But it also sucks for me, the writer.

I find my speech effect by the character currently simmering in the back of my head. My vocabulary changes and so does my attitude. When I was writing Redaction, Trent made me quick to take offense and resentful. David filled my head with swear words.

Now, I’ve moved on to a comedic Valentine’s romance, I hear myself saying gods (plural) and using for the love of Charles Dickens (it’s a sequel to The Christmas Village).The Christmas Village

I’m not complaining. I’m very grateful that the story fairy sends me such strong figments of my imagination. It just means my serial killer persona (quiet, keeps to herself, loner) gets a boost. Good thing I’m an introvert:-)

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New Year Blog Hop

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Linda Andrews


Happy New Year everyone! I’m happy to once more be participating in a blog hop. This time there’s a Kindle Fire and a gift card up for grabs and every time you make a comment on any of the connected blogs  you’re entered!

Isn’t that easy?

The hard part was for me to write about my most memorable New Year’s Day memory. Why because I’m a morning person. Morning people do not stay up until midnight. I can count on all my thumbs the number of times I actually stayed up to midnight. Morning people think that when the sun goes down that mean you can sleep now. I like sleep. Sleep is my friend.

But this isn’t about sleep, it’s about my favorite New Year’s memory.

My favorite memory happens most New Years. I go to be at a reasonable 9PM, snuggle under the blankets and sleep without interruption until my husband climbs into bed. He gives me a kiss and wishes me a Happy New Year. I wake up about 4 hours later and stare at him in the glow of the alarm clock, then I snuggle up to him, debate about whether or not to let him sleep then nip him on the shoulder. Er, I mean, kiss him on the shoulder. Yeah, that’s it. I wish him a Happy New Year and kiss him. He murmurs and goes back to sleep.

I get up feed the animals, walk the dog, answer all my emails, check my sales numbers then take a shower before crawling back into bed and wait until he rolls over and hugs on me before falling back to sleep.

Of course, being that practice makes perfect, I repeat the procedure every chance I get (although we do swap the Happy New Year for good morning, with the occasional Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary thrown in for good measure).

So now since that is out of the way, I suppose you’re wondering what exactly I’m giving away on my blog to one lucky commentator. Well, since you’ve asked, it is an free download from smashwords for my latest release, an urban fantasy/scifi entitled Blue Maneuver (released January 11th, 2012).

Here’s the blurb:

The extraterrestrials have landed and they’re human.

Rae Hemplewhite didn’t believe in aliens until a close encounter with out-of-this-world technology drags her into the extraterrestrial security program. Helping alien refugees adjust to life on Earth is difficult enough, but her first clients have a price on their heads. Plus, her new partner seems torn between the urge to kiss her or kill her.

And that’s the good news.

The bad news: Alliances are forming in deep space. If Rae doesn’t keep her witnesses alive long enough to transfer their top secret information to the right faction of humanity, Earth will become a battlefield.

And all you have to do is answer one simple question: Do you believe that extraterrestrials have visited the Earth? And are any of them your coworkers or family? Wait that’s two questions.

Oh, and if you want to follow my blog (Most Saturday’s I host an author who is coerced, er, asked to give away a free book)

I’m also on twitter and facebook.

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2013 New Year’s To-Do List

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Linda Andrews

Happy New YearA new year to think of things I want to accomplish. This year apparently I plan to drive myself to a nervous breakdown by listing way too much stuff. Of course, in keeping with my usual lists I don’t always get everything done and that’s alright. I can live with it.

So here is my list of things to do in 2013.

1–Make 12 pair of pajama bottoms. Yep, just the bottoms. Apparently I have a crop of bean poles, so their bottoms end up being very short and need replacing before the tops.

2–Make the tailored retro dresses my oldest picked out to replace the boxy ones from last year.

3–write 5 books. Wow, this is ambitious. 1 Redaction novel, 1 Syn-En  book, 1 Blue book and the New Years book that’s under contract. Keeping my options open in case the Redaction novel requires another book to complete the series.

4–Read 52 fun books. I miss reading.

5–read 12 craft/writing/business books. This tends to mess up the writing but there’s some books out there that seem promising and they’re waiting for me on my kindle.

6–Walk 45 minutes on the treadmill 5 times a week. Really, this is how I plan to work in those novels. The dog is not happy but he still gets his 30 minute walk in the morning with me.

7–finish #1 oldest daughter and #1 Son’s quilts. (Like a bad penny this just keeps returning)

8–scrapbook 2 years of photos. This one may be an excuse to get more scrapbook stuff from Michael’s and Joann’s.

9–Make a Halloween Costume for our 25th wedding anniversary cruise to Hawaii. Ooh, that is going to be fun.

10–Finished cross-stitching my Christmas stocking. Talk about a bad penny, I started this in 1989. Since everyone else in my family has a cross-stitched stocking, I think I should have one before the family starts expanding again.

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I Resolve Not to Make Resolutions!

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Linda Andrews

Happy New YearHappy New Year everyone!

I like to start the new year with a clean slate so this year, I’m not making any resolutions that I would most likely have already broken:-).

So instead, I’ve decided make a to do list for the coming year.

1.) Publish the first book in my urban scifi/fantasy Blue Manuever

2.) Finish the Valentine’s Day sequel to Some Enchanted Autumn and the Christmas Village by the Ides of March and submit it Zumaya Publications for publication in 2013

3.) Finish writing the sequel to Redaction and try not to actually kill real, live human beings while plunging to the horrible depths I now that story is going to take me. Oh, and, keep the book under 200K works while finishing it before September.

4.) Complete the publishing process for my scifi novels with romantic elements–the Syn-En Solution and the Syn-En: Culture Clash before April.

5.) Finish scrapbooking the year 2010 (don’t judge me)

6.) Finish those quilts I started in 2010 (I said don’t judge me)

7.) Write the second book in the Urban fantasy/scifi Blue series.

8.) Schedule a blog tour to support my new Urban scifi/fantasy series

9) Make the retro dresses my daughters want me to sew for them.

10) Help the with end of the world-not! anthology my publisher wants to put out next year as well as write a short story for it.

11) Begin work on the New Years themed sequel to the Christmas, Halloween and Valentine’s Day book (potentially writing a short story tie in)

12.) Start my new organic garden

Those are my major to do points for the coming year. Somewhere in there I should remember to go to my day job, my writing groups, breathe, cook meals, chauffeur children, clean, spend time with my husband and all the other things that life entails.

For me, it’s a pretty ambitious list. Perhaps I should include a check back on it for the first Monday of every quarter!

However you plan on tackling the new year, I hope you find health and happiness. Oh and on December 21st, I’ll be attending an end of the world party! It should be great fun.

 

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Why is New Year’s Day January First?

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Linda Andrews

There’s something I’ve always wondered. Okay, I wonder about a lot of things. Blame my parents they raised me to question everything. But I digress. Why is New Year’s Day on such an odd day? I mean, it’s not on an equinox. It’s not on the longest or shortest day of the year?

I would think that given that we started as gatherers (with a minuscule amount of hunting) then evolved into farming, that our year would start when life returned to the region we lived in. So spring–which would mean the New Year’s would start six months apart depending on what side of the equator you lived on.

Actually, Nowruz in the Iranian calendar and and medieval England using the  Feast of the Annunciation were/are spring time celebrations that marked the New Year. Wikipedia

But at what point did we stop looking around us and look up at the heavens to decide that stuff up there effects us more than we could  ever effect the planet? (Ignore the irony of that statement until another post).

The Chinese, Koreans, and the Islamic calendars all follow lunar calendars. Hindus mark the new year by when the sun enters Aries. And the good ol’ Georgian calendar is a corrected version of the Julian calendar based on the vernal equinoxes. The Romans gave us the Julian calendar. Depending on the source, it could be to honor the murdered Julius Caesar  and his nationalized calendar or it could be to honor the two-faced god, Janus–who could look forward and back. (Being that the time between equinoxes was off by 11 minutes, their new year is now on the 14th of January).

I kind of like the Janus reference. I do believe that we should reflect on the past while moving forward into the sparkling new day. After all, we’re supposed to be a sentient species. We should learn from our mistakes (as well as others) and apply the lessons learned to our new opportunities. Okay, now I’m moving into sap territory.

So Happy New Year! Whenever you celebrate it:-)

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The Christmas Gift Card

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Linda Andrews

There was a time, not too long ago, when giving gift cards reflected the amonut of thought (ie you were an afterthought or I didn’t really think much of you) gift.  I suppose in some ways that may still be true, but I personally ask for them.

Why?

Once upon a time, I asked my husband for cooking stuff for Christmas. I love to cook but I don’t really see the need for expensive (and sometimes time saving) gadgets. Especially when there are growing kids in the house that always need something. What I asked for was a very expensive Caphlon sauce pan. At that price I could buy four cheaper ones, but I new they were better because I’d cooked with my Dad’s and experienced the difference. Still, I couldn’t justify the cost so I waited patiently for Santa and didn’t get it.

For three years, I asked for the pan.

My husband finally confessed that he wouldn’t get it because how could he tell his coworkers that he’d bought his wife a pan for Christmas? Um, she asked for the pan, the very expensive pan, that’s how.  Nope. I finally bought the pan myself.

Then there was the rollerskates. This time I got smart and asked my mom and dad. Yes I was 37 but that was beside the point. It took two years for them to arrive but they finally bought me a pair. Oddly, my parents used too give me cooking stuff:-). I still have my skates and if you see me, I’m the one using broomsticks like ski poles since I have crappy balance and falling hurts when you’re over 40.

So back to the gift cards. The year, I’m participating in the Book Lovers Buffet

And I wanted to stock my ipad (nook and kindle apps) with lots of lovely discounted books to read when I’m not writing. Having heard of the issuess associated with buying large quanitities of ebooks, I decided amazon and barnes and noble gift cards were the way to go.

 

I managed to blow through my amazon gift card with no problem, but when I got to Barnes and Noble, the fatheads stopped me. Apparently, even though I had a gift card, their computers still accessed my credit card and stopped the sale (too many zero charges perhaps). Anyway. I’m rather annoyed that I still have a gift card balance 3 days after Christmas because BN has a glitch in their software.  Of course, I plan to mention this problem when I get the survey they threatened to send after every purchase.

And before you judge me too harshly for being a free spender, I still have a Michael’s gift card that I haven’t touched yet.

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Guest blog by author Jolyn Palliata

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Linda Andrews

Did you ever get a song stuck in your head? Or part of one? How did you get it out? Did you avoid the song at all costs in the blind hope it would stop hammering you into submission? Or did you listen to the song over, and over, and over, until you were so obsessed that all you could think about was that delicious, devilish little laugh….er, what was I saying? (Right. Song stuck in my head. Ahh…I mean, your head.) Now, I know this has happened to every person reading this post, so I’m hoping you’ll relate to my little story here.

Let me give you some background. In October, I released Connected (Twists of Fate #1), and here’s a brief description of the story: A rock group’s rhythm guitarist, Rhys Alexander, dies and finds himself bound inside the body of a woman he’s never met. Can she help him move on to the other side, or will he end up finding the love of his life…after his has already ended?

For a time, I had this for free on Wattpad (where I posted as I wrote it). And several readers asked me how in the world I came up with the concept. The short answer was ‘By taking the longest route possible.’ The more involved answer is this…

It all started with a song—Imagine that, huh?—which began with a synthesized-sounding guitar and a sinful, maniacal laugh that made my gut quiver. (Yes, I do realize this may be an issue I need to fully address later.) It was Disturbed’s “Inside The Fire”. Add a little Framing Hanley (with that oh-so-sexy voice), and Tavion, lead singer of the band Persevere, was born. And what kind of woman would knock a strapping rock star to his knees? Why, a best-selling author, of course.

So here I had two people who worked in the entertainment industry, but were worlds apart. What could possibly bring them together? The answer seemed so simple, really: Fate. Then my next though was “What if Fate was a living, sometimes-breathing, entity? What an interesting point-of-view that would be!” And it spiraled from there. I dug deep into the protag, Devan (the name of the girl in Disturbed’s song), and put pieces of me and my personality into the mix. Naturally, then I had to mock myself and my works along the way. (i.e., Suddenly Impending Reprisals became Devan’s masterpiece, and guess what…it made it all the way to the NYT Bestsellers list! Way to go, Devan!!)

Now, the question was ‘What inspired me to write Connected’, and so far, I’m telling you how I started writing Twisted (Book 2). Yeah, well, I’m getting there. (Remember how I said it was the longest route possible?)

So there I was, writing Twisted and having a hell of a time. And then the unthinkable happened (insert suspenseful music here)…I got writer’s block. I’m talking a stint of writer’s block that could only have originated from the deepest, most vile and sulfuric, bowels of Hell. And, man, was it stubborn! Over a year went by before I picked it up again, and even then it wasn’t because I came up with a grand master plan, or that my head was swimming with ideas. No. It was simply because I missed my characters. So I started to reread/revise/edit the 30K words I had written, hoping it would shake something loose. Enter: two new inspirations.

The first was the Demonica series by Larissa Ione. In the series, paired up mates can sense each other’s emotions and I got to wondering “What would that be like?”

The next piece of inspiration came from Avenged Sevenfold (A7X). I was studying up on rock bands for Twisted (and can A7X ever ROCK!!), and checking out the band members (*drool*) and it inspired a new character—Rhys.

From Ione and A7X blossomed Connected (finally!) where Rhys’ spirit was stuck inside Addison (my protag), and they could sense each other’s emotions.

But I had one problem. I absolutely REFUSED to walk away from Twisted again. Soooo…how could I use this? Well, first of all, Rhys couldn’t be a lead singer since that’s what Tavion is. And secondly, I wanted this to be a fast-hitting novella used to compliment Twisted’s story. What I needed was a supporting member of the band… Hello, Rhys, my luscious rhythm guitarist!

But then I had another problem. (Because I needed more, right?) I couldn’t picture Rhys in Tavion’s band, Persevere, which is a more mature, established group. No, he belonged with some just-making-it-big band that wasn’t afraid to play with the formula, to take chances, and was just enjoying the ride and what life had to offer. He belonged with the guys of Black Codex.

Then problem #3: How did Black Codex and Persevere tie in to each other? I mean, if Connected leads into Twisted, they have to know each other somehow, right? Well, as luck would have it, they’re all friends. (Who knew?!) Eh, okay, so actually two members from Black Codex are brothers and they grew up with a guy from Persevere, so, by association, they became friends. (It’s all in the details, right?) 😉

All right. Now what? I didn’t want to introduce Fate (my sassy, capricious entity) in Connected even though he’s definitely hard at work behind the scenes. It would’ve been too distracting from the plot, and I had plenty to maneuver already! (Hello…dead rock star stuck in some chicks head!!) So what I did was plot Connected so it all occurs during the same timeframe as the first half of Twisted. Perfect! Then when people read Twisted, they’ll get all the behind-the-scenes-extras that were going on in Connected that either 1) I didn’t have time for, or 2) I couldn’t smoothly transition in.

At the end of my long-ass journey, not only did I have Connected, but I shook myself loose on Twisted…and came up with storylines for the other eight band members. (I’ll spare you the details on those. LOL) Thusly, the Twists of Fate series was born.

So, let me ask you again: Did you ever get a song stuck in your head…?

For more information on the Twists of Fate series: http://jolynpalliata.wordpress.com/romance/twists-of-fate-series/

Twists of Fate series Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Twists-of-Fate-Series/190217514383637

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Tea Karma

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Linda Andrews

When I was younger we had chores–if you’re a parent this is the thing that your kids say is slavery or abuse and is reportable to Child Protective Services. But I digress. One of the chores I had was doing the dishes. Now I come from a large family (I’m the youngest of 6) so occassionally there were more dishes then would fit in the dishwasher.

But I didn’t mind that so much, it was the lingerers that really got in the way of finishing the dishes so I could do other things.

You know if you’re one. You linger over coffee. You may think you’re savoring it, but it’s lingering when the kids start squirming or the check sits on the table for more than 5 minutes.

After the lingering was over, the table was finally empty and I set to work–dumping, rinsing and stuffing in the dishwasher. Invariably, someone, usually my dad, would come back and look for the drink they left.  It was always gone. Apparently, all half full glasses were being saved for later.

I never learned to leave the glasses alone. My dad found it aggravating. I thought it was funny.

Now my husband does it to me and I did it to my dad trying to be helpful during the Thanksgiving cleanup. I still find it funny

Karma has no time limit.

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