Change Is A-Coming...

Hey Cozies! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend! This week at The Roses of Prose, we're outlining our new blog template. Check in each day this week to see our new design and 2011 topics - and learn how to become our new Friday Rose!

A Bit of News...

Hi Cozies! Just wanted to address the fact that my website has been having some technical difficulties. This will soon be remedied. Until then, you can find all the up-to-date information for my booklist here at The Cozy Page and by signing up for my reader newsletter by clicking on the pink button in the sidebar at right!

Happy Thanksgiving!

NaNo Bake

Writing gives me a big case of the munchies. With the holidays coming up fast on the NaNo radar, I'm taking this time to share all my favorite NaNo-friendly foods :)

My favorite way to start my NaNo day is with an enthusiastic breakfast. This is usually Cheerios with blueberries. Some days when I need a little something extra, I eat a homemade muffin. Mm, poppy seed lemon muffins go well with NaNo! On really special days, to help kick-start the muse I drink a pumpkin spice latte. Nom!

Since this year's special NaNo challenge includes both writing and exercise, I don't feel too bad about eating some heavy snacks in between ten-minute writing marathons throughout the morning and afternoon. My mother's banana nut bread recipe is one of my fav NaNo snacks as well as pumpkin bread and cranberry bread. The great thing about these three bread-related snacks is that they tend to tide me over longer than Doritos or any of my more regular snackums. And they make the holidays and the end of NaNo feel a little more closer....

A NaNo lunch is usually pretty small due to my snacking habits. Usually a salad with leftovers from the night before works best. The least productive part of my day is 2:00 in the afternoon. This is usually the point where those magic ten-minute writing spurts peter out and I start procrastinating. The real writing comes later in the night. Thankfully, the hub usually provides us both with a good dinner before I hit the keyboard again for that last long haul. Because I enjoy these intense home-stretch word count completions between 10pm and 1am, I treat myself to a glass of wine and finish my writing day on a high note!

Here's a recipe like my mother's for banana nut bread....

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
3 large very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup nuts, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions: Blend together sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, which have been sifted together. Add mashed bananas, chopped nuts, and vanilla extract. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 375°F degrees for 1 hour. Brush top with melted butter or glaze with confectioners icing, if desired, while loaf is still warm.

Happy baking!

NaNo Save

NaNo Week Two is under way. The sagging middle doldrums hit Thursday. If those of you are participating in NaNo read this week's pep talks, you'll know that Week Two is capitalized for a reason. It's the week where I start questioning everything. Thursday I wrote 2100 words to make up for the writing I didn't do Wednesday. Nearly half of it got cut yesterday when I realized I left out a major plot point. That's what I get for improvising in the midst of Week Two doldrums.

Whether you love what you've written or not, today is the day to save it. On October 30, Lindsey Grant sent out a "Charting a course through NaNoLand" email that gives all NaNoWriMos a basic itinerary. This is what she had to say for today, November 13: Stop what you’re doing and back up your novel on a flash drive, email it to yourself, burn it onto a CD, or do all three!

Even for those of you who aren't doing NaNo, if you haven't backed up your hard drive, now might be a good time to do it. Also - when saving your writing files, please oh please make sure you're coherent. A good night's rest is recommended. I say this because in the spring when my now deceased laptop fried, I learned from our tech guy that instead of transferring my documents I had been hitting the "Copy Shortcut" instead of the "Copy" button without realizing it. (This may sound incredibly stupid but the "Copy Shortcut" button is right underneath the "Copy" button on the right-click menu, something I too failed to notice.) Thank goodness I had two backup hard drives at the time that saved the bulk of my work, otherwise I would've lost countless manuscripts and hundreds of pages worth of writing notes. Yikes! Over the summer while I was working on audio book edits with my AudioLark editor, I was staying up to all hours to meet deadlines and I did it again. Thankfully, only one document was effected and I lost over thirty pages from my Regency romance to the ether.

The moral of this story is to back up your WIP and all other important files often but be sure to do it smartly. I recommend following Lindsey's advice and using several back-up techniques, mentioned above. After what happened in the spring, I now have three back-up hard drives (two from passed computers) that I update every 10 to 15 days.

Looking forward to Week Three and the end of this week's writing blues....

NaNo Fit

I promised an explanation of my NaNo workout challenge. It occured to me the week prior to November 1st that I've sadly fallen out of shape. Many people look at smaller, more petite women like myself and think we're perfectly in shape. This unfortunately is not the case. Four years ago, I weighed the same but I was much stronger and way more physically fit. You'd be surprised what band marching and dancing can do to keep the body toned. There's also a link between power of the mind and power of the body. Since my muse thinks best on adrenaline, I also work better when I'm doing something physical everyday - whether it's running, pilates, aerobics or, my personal favorite, dancing!

I do have an excuse for falling off the treadmill. Some people may know this, but for two years I worked in a large, local bookstore. Whether I was working as a barista, a clerk, in customer service or stocking shelves, I was always on my feet and on the go - lifting, bending, zipping from one end of the store to the other... In February, I decided it was time to focus all my energy on writing. I don't regret this decision in any way because two months after I walked away from the bookstore I signed with a literary agent. The part I do regret was being lazy. I felt as if I'd been on my feet for two years and relished being able to sit at my desk everyday. At first, it was great but this summer it became apparent that I was suddenly in the worst shape of my life.

It took several months to find the right time and the right muse for my journey back to getting fit. As I've mentioned, I love a challenge, especially when it's linked to writing in some way. NaNo seemed like to perfect time to apply an everyday regimen for several reasons. Not only am I in my writing chair more; I'm required to be more in tune with my muse. What better way to connect with her than to exercise every morning? The month of NaNo also represents a change of pace in my creative life. In simple terms it means, "Get off your ass! Or...get on it. Whatever. Just write!" For this year's NaNo, I'm taking the change of pace/"Get off your ass!" part quite literally by starting reps as soon as I get out of bed. My muse for doing so? Morning talk show host Kelly Ripa!

The thing about Kelly, other than the fact that she makes me shriek with laughter, is that she's just like me. Small. Petite. A few years ago, she too decided to take back her life with an exercise brigade and she's been devoted not only to her family and work but staying fit everyday since. Ever heard people talk of the Kelly Ripa Arms Project? All it took for me to want to jump on board was seeing her beat Jason Colthrop in an impromptu, arm-wrestling match then Jeremy Piven in an on-air push-up contest. My first question was, "How do I get those triceps?" The answer? Four days a week, I'm doing the Kelly Ripa arms routine with simple, do-them-at-home moves like these. It burns, but if I've learned anything so far this month it's "No pain, no gain!"

Early every morning I start with some gyrotonics, which is a full-body workout which aids in strength training and mobility. It also focuses on a part of the body I have trouble with - the spine. In my early teens, I developed scoliosis soon after fracturing a lower lumbar in a car accident. Now I make my living slouching in a chair every day, so these kinds of exercises are especially good for writers. A lot of gyrotonics are done on a machine or a weight bench, but I found several easier, at-home moves that work better for my simple morning routine.

Now for the fun part! This is straight from Kelly Ripa's workout, too. It's called the ABC Workout! It starts with a med ball and works your arms as well as your body's core. It also gets the heart pumping pretty good and I always turn on the music because next comes the cardio! No workout is complete without cardio. And now that the summer heat is fading fast finally here on the Gulf Coast, cardio's much more tolerable. I have a trampoline in the backyard, which I use for this portion of my workout. I implemented moves from an old wind-down routine designed for a trampoline from my gymnastics days for this segment of the routine because it works more parts of the body than one would imagine as well as getting my heartrate up. It also keeps my muscles warm as I wind down for the last part of my routine: the arm workout, mentioned above. This includes free weights, sit-ups, and push-ups. This is also the part of the day where the hub/coach really kicks into high gear! (Sparring gloves are definitely on my Christmas list.)

My overall inspiration for this workout comes from the following video, which shows Kelly Ripa in action with her personal trainer. I thought I'd post it for you Cozies, and I'll let you know as the end of NaNo approaches my results!

Random Updates...

Hi Cozies! I'd like to say thank you to Jacqueline and Rie for being here this week! I had fun reading more about your books. Paranormal romance and romantic suspense are two of my favorite sub-genres. And thank you to those who welcomed them to The Page :)

Today I'm doing my second post for Sweethearts of the West! I promised more contemporary western goodness so I brought my playlists for the Wayback Ridge Trilogy and discuss how music can influence western romance. I had a lot of fun writing it so stop by!

Something else I should mention is voting. Election Day's over, but polls are still open for the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act. This is important because e-piracy affects so many hard-working authors. If you are a fan or a book lover, I ask that you please click on the link and vote. It only takes a few seconds and I think I speak for a ton of authors when I say we would all appreciate it so very much!

As for an update on NaNo, I have been meeting my word count every day, if not exceeding it so my fourth paranormal is coming along nicely. My NaNo word count is currently over 8000 words, but I usually finish each day above average. Hoping that continues. The book itself is now 15000+ words underway because I wrote the prologue and first chapter in September. If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've already met a surprise secondary character. He's a bit misguided - but I like him! I'm planning some fun NaNo-related topics over the next week so check back in for that.

I got a surprise this week on Goodreads - romance author Karen Michelle Nutt wrote a couple of reviews for the Wayback Ridge Trilogy audio books....

5/5 stars for Bluest Heart: Casey Ridge is a cowboy who knows what he wants and he wants Josie Brusky. However, a shattering past may keep them apart. I loved this story of passion, forgiveness and the need to let the past go to have a future. Ms. Williams ropes you in from the start with her hunky cowboys of Wayback and her spitfire heroines. What are you waiting for? Fall in love with Ridge family. You won’t regret it.

4/5 stars for Bet It On My Heart: Keefe Ridge is a bronc-busting cowboy, who is on his way out. His plans for the future: a dream business. This wild cowboy’s plans doesn’t include settling down, but when he meets a city woman, Agent Calli Morlani, his pledge starts to falter. Agent Calli Morlani came to Wayback to bring Stella Ridge back to Hollywood. Simple task. Who in their right mind would chose a small town in nowhere-land over the bigger-than-life Hollywood? Calli is about to learn the answer, but it’s not what she expected. Ms. Williams has done it again creating a tantalizing tale of romance by welcoming you home to meet the Ridge family.

Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews, Karen! I'm so glad you enjoyed the audio books! Readers, if you love a book please let the author know - whether on Goodreads, Shelfari, or the publisher's website. AudioLark where the Wayback Ridge Trilogy is available in audio has review forms for readers to fill out and so does The Wild Rose Press! Or contact the author personally via email. You can reach me at amber@amberleighwilliams.com. Also please sign up for my new reader newsletter with the pink button in the sidebar. My first newsletter goes out soon!

Until next week, happy reading!

Virtual Book Tour: Rie McGaha

Again today The Cozy Page and Goddess Fish Promotions brings you a fun glimpse into a virtual book tour: Rie McGaha's romantic suspense, Closure. Be sure to read the entire post to see how you could win a Rie McGaha Writing Tablet. Take it away, Rie:

Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away and I've begun preparing my shopping list, menu, and decorations. I love the holiday season, which for me begins at Halloween and ends on January 1st. For many years Halloween hasn't been included because my kids had all grown up and the haunted house we did every year when they were young no longer held their interest. But now I live in a multi-generational home, so I have grandkids I can decorate for.

I have been big on decorations for each season, and each holiday, including Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, etc. but of course, the big holidays are Thanksgiving and Christmas. For Thanksgiving I love to decorate with small pumpkins, gourds, fall leaves, scarecrows and color coordinated tablecloths, table runners, placemats and dishes. My daughter, Lisa is awesome when it comes to decorating and I am happy to turn that part over to her because the cooking is on me. This is the area where I excel.

Since Thanksgiving is all about the food, I begin a day or two before, depending on how many of the kids are coming home for turkey day. I try to make everyone their favorite food, which generally includes many pumpkin pies, lemon icebox pies, pecan pies, banana cream pies, coconut cream pies, fudge, Toll House cookies, pumpkin rolls, maple bars, and cinnamon rolls. The dessert bar is always a big hit. And then there's the Thanksgiving meal.

While I try to make most of the dessert beforehand, I begin making the Thanksgiving meal very early. There is the usual fare: green beans with almonds, corn pudding, fresh baked bread and dinner rolls, macaroni salad, potato salad, cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams with pecans and marshmallows, and the coup de gras, Tuxedo Turkey. Yep, our turkey wears a tux when he's presented at the dinner table.

Giving the turkey a tux was something I began when my children were small. Back then there was little money but I like to do things for my kids to surprise them and give them memories they would have later on. I made the tux our of pie crust dough, cut our buttons, pockets, and a bow tie, which I colored with food coloring. Mr. Turkey usually has a white tux (plain dough), a red bow tie, and black button and pockets. I pull the turkey out of the oven about ten minutes before he's finished cooking and arrange the tux on him. Then he's popped back in the oven to bake the tux. My kids and grandkids love Tuxedo Turkey. One year I decided since everyone was grown there was no reason to make the tux, and I never heard so much complaining, so the turkey gets his tux!

My memories of when my children were young are very special to me, and now that I have grandchildren, the memories are even more special. There is nothing like watching my children with their children. The memories we are making now are ones I hope will be my grandchildren's memories of me that they will share with their children when I am no longer here. The holidays are a sentimental time for me but also a tiring time. As much as I love them, I am always relieved when they are over so I can rest up for next year!

High in the hills above Albuquerque, New Mexico Detective Zachariah Ellison arrives at the scene of a murder, and not just any murder, but one that definitely falls into the “gruesome” category even for a seasoned cop like Zach. When another body is found murdered in much the same fashion, Zach knows he’s got a serial killer on his hands, and to top it off he’s got an assistant district attorney hounding him about the case. As Zach tries to investigate the crimes while sidestepping nosey Amy Logan, a third body is found and Zach hasn’t a clue as to whom the perpetrator might be.

Amy Logan has worked hard to put herself through school and pay for law school on her own and now that she’s secured a position as assistant district attorney in Albuquerque, she’s determined to do everything she can to be the best prosecutor this office has ever seen. And as if luck was following her, she’s been assigned to the biggest homicide case the city has ever seen. The only problem she’s having is the homicide detective who’s leading the investigation—Zach Ellison.

Click here to purchase your copy of Closure today or visit Rie at her website to learn more. By commenting to this post, you will be entered to win a Rie McGaha Writing Tablet. By commenting at every stop on Rie's virtual book tour, your chances of winning increase so be sure to stop by Goddess Fish Promotions for a complete tour schedule. In the meantime, enjoy this excerpt from Closure....

She tilted her head back, looked up at him, felt her heart thud in her chest, and then his mouth was on hers and she was climbing all over him. All those years alone, all those nights of wishing she had someone to hold her, all those weeks working with Zach. The wanting of him, the needing of him, the denying of what she had been feeling—it all came pouring out of her at that moment of contact.

Her arms wound around his neck, her fingers worked furiously through his hair, over his shoulders, kneading his neck. She could feel his hands on her face, his fingers burning into her skin, his lips sizzling against hers as his tongue probed deep inside her mouth, encouraging her to take more of him, to give more to him.

She couldn't think for the blood pounding in her head, couldn't breathe because her breath had caught in her chest.

She could only feel. She could feel his hands moving from her face, trailing down her neck, felt them move over her shoulders and down her back. She could feel her body pressed against his, and then was suddenly very aware of the size of her breasts, aware that they were crushed against him. She had never been so aware of her own body in her life, had never been so aware of another person.

Then he was pulling away from her, took a step back from her, and dropped his hands to his sides. He was panting, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

They stood there looking at each other for a long moment, neither speaking. Zach raked his hands through his hair, took a deep breath and blew it out. He stepped toward her, took her hands in his and brought them both to his mouth, and kissed them gently.

“I—” He paused and took another breath. “I haven't been with a woman since my wife died. I haven't wanted a woman since my wife died. Not until I met you. Still, I didn't expect to feel what I just felt when we kissed. So I'm going to give you the chance right now, Amy. If you don't plan on staying, tell me now and I'll take you home. But if you come back inside with me, don't ask me to stop and don't ask me to take you home, because I won't.” He dropped her hands and looked into her eyes and waited.

She took a deep breath, fixed her gaze on a distant spot in the semi-darkness, chewed on her bottom lip as both fear and desire warred within her. Then she took his hand in hers and led him back to the house.

Virtual Book Tour: Jacqueline Paige

Today Goddess Fish Promotions and The Cozy Page team up to give readers a taste of Salvation, author Jacqueline Paige's paranormal romance from Eternal Press. Be sure to read through to the end to find out how you could win a tote bag stuffed with trinkets and treasure. Take it away, Jacqueline:

How many times can you go back to the dream of doing what you’ve always wanted to?

My answer: as many times as it takes.

When I think back as far as I can remember (we’ll say roughly 9 years old) I was always reading. I was in grade four and flying through everything on the class library shelf, with the encouragement of my teacher I moved on to grade five level reading – and then six. My family moved a lot with my father’s job, so books became my best friends. With a book I could step into a different world and either race through it or take my time and expand on scenes. For years this gave me the label of a dreamer, as my head was always off in some world that I had found on pages.

By the time I was eleven I was writing my own worlds – and believe me when I say I wished I could get back that young mind and work with that mindset now. This was when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I didn’t fit the bookworm stereo-type either, which confused people even more. I was a hard working farm girl, on every sports team I was allowed be on (why can’t girls be on the football team?) and on track day I would always bring home a handful of first place ribbons – what did I do on the bus ride home? Read.

My constant writing and reading drove my family insane. Many times I had to be hunted down, only to be found curled up somewhere out of sight reading. My writing by my late teens mostly ran in the poetry flavour – which to read now was horrifically depressing, even though at the time I thought it was brilliant. (I now understand the mind set as I have teen daughters, life is so dramatic!)

Life got busy in the grown-up world for me and my dream faded into the realities of raising young children and everything that goes with it. I didn’t think about writing again until several years after that, when I sat down and wrote a full length novel, and then another. More changes in my reality had me putting them in a box and having to place the world of writing on hold again.

Many more years passed and I found myself wanting to have the last laugh with a friend. She was going away for a month and leaving me to find things to do all by myself. Who was I going to go book scavenging with? When I asked her what I was going to do without her, she replied “Write a book.” She was joking, and I knew it but I decided to toss something together and give her that book when she returned.

Three weeks later, exhausted and exhilarated I stared at two hundred pages of a story that had come out of my mind. (I literally left fingernail marks in my laptops keyboard) I was shocked that I had actually done this. By the end of the month, when my friend returned, I was a hundred pages into book number two.

I emailed her the book she had told me to write. She thought it was going to be something silly – she knew too well ... she was shocked and exhilarated.

The dream found me again, and this time I think I’ll hang onto it!

Lost in a place between living and dying, confined to roam endlessly over the same grounds for all eternity and cursed to never be seen again, Jareth wanders through time alone and longing for the sea once more. When he realizes there is one thing he yearns for more than he ever did the sea, he is tossed into a world he is unfamiliar with.

Stuck with a life that never goes her way, Miranda is determined to get at least one thing she wants. When that one thing turns out to be a sexy pirate that lived over two hundred years ago, she finds herself faced with more than one challenge to have him.

Can they break the curse and be together?

Get your copy of Salvation today at Eternal Press and learn more at Jacqueline website. By commenting here today, you will be entered to win a grand prize tote bag full of trinkets and treasure from Jacqueline. The more you comment along her virtual blog tour, the more chances you have of winning. Visit Goddess Fish Promotions for a tour schedule. Enjoy this excerpt from Salvation....

Grasping the steering wheel, she slowly lowered her forehead to rest on it. A strange, yet familiar feeling prickled across the back of her neck. She didn’t raise her head, just smiled into the steering wheel. “You could do something to help.”

She lifted her head slowly, afraid to move too fast, and turned to look beside her. She watched the image of the man she’d been seeing for years become clearer. If she focused hard enough, he would almost appear to be real. Many times over the years she thought she was seeing things, possibly ghosts, but it was only ever him.

He gaped at her, his shock more than obvious. “How...you can see me? Truly?”

Randy sat there wanting to reach out and hug him. Hallucinations didn’t talk—did they? His voice was rough and deep, and she’d never been happier to hear someone speak. “I more or less sense you most of the time, but if I focus hard enough I can see you.” She looked at the scar across his left cheek. “You’re very clear today.”

He frowned. “And you can hear me?”

Randy tried not to grin. “I’m answering you, aren’t I?”

“That’s impossible...”

“And yet, here we are talking and being all visible-like.” She looked at him, from his long ebony black hair down to his black worn boots.