Archive for the 'General' Category

Book Recommendation…

Alan Morgan March 26th, 2008

I don’t often pimp books. But this time, I’m going to have to. Rogue, by Rachel Vincent, is on sale now, and if you’ve read the first (Stray) you know what a good writer she is. Rogue is even better.

ROGUE final resize

Here’s the blurb:

Okay, so cats don’t always land on their feet

I know that better than most. Since rejoining the Pride, I’ve made big decisions and even bigger mistakes: the kind paid for with innocent lives. As the first and only female enforcer, I have plenty to prove to my father, the Pride, and myself. And with murdered toms turning up in our territory, I’m working harder than ever , though I always find the energy for a little after-hours recreation with Marc, my partner both on and off duty.

But not all my mistakes are behind me. We’re beginning to suspect that the dead are connected to a rash of missing human women, and that they can all be laid at my feet–two or four, take your pick. And one horrible indiscretion may yet cost me more than I can bear…

This is a 5 out of 5 in my book, pardon the pun. She advances left-over plot threads from Stray, and then goes and pulls out further plot threads from Stray that you didn’t even realize were there. Now that’s the mark of a good writer… to hide something in plain sight and you don’t realize it until the second or third book.

Buy it now. And if you haven’t read Stray… buy them both.

Chapter 17 Snippet

Alan Morgan November 18th, 2007

It’s been some time since I updated this blog, so here’s a snippet for your patience:

They rode in silence, neither really in the mood for small talk. Glenn pulled into the parking lot behind his apartment, and unlocked the security door to the building. As he held it open for Shiobhan, she “accidentally” brushed up against him with her ass. He grinned and ushered her up the carpeted stairs towards his apartment, tossing his keys on the empty counter and lightly kicking the door closed behind them.

Shiobhan smiled, wrapping her arms around him, running the palms of her hands up along the muscles of his back, pushing him towards her. Their lips met, igniting the passion that had sparked in every silent look they had shared on the ride over. He pulled her closer, his hands sliding down to cup her ass as her body molded against his. She fit against him like she belonged with him, like she had always belonged with him, a missing part that completed him when he hadn’t even realized he was incomplete. “Gods,” he said when the kiss finally ended, shaking his head.

“What?” she asked, unzipping her jacket and hanging it on the back of a chair.

“I had no idea what I was missing,” he said with frank honesty. “It’s been a long time since I felt a fraction of the passion…” Shaking his head again, he took off his coat as well. “Where are my manners?” he asked, crossing the kitchen to the fridge. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Sure. What do you have?”

“Killians, water…” Taking a sniff of the milk container and wincing, he set it back in the fridge and kept looking. “That’s about it, actually. Sorry, we usually keep things stocked a bit better, but…”

“Killians is fine,” she said, smiling as he popped the top of the bottle and handed it over to her. He started to reach into a cupboard for a glass, but she raised the beer to her mouth and drank, her lips wrapping around the bottle while her eyes looked straight at him.

Damned if she isn’t a lively one, he thought to himself, taking a long swig of his own bottle.

“So what’s with the decoration?” Shiobhan asked, looking around the empty apartment.

“You like it? I thought I’d go for a new look– noveux Spartan, I like to call it.” Sighing, he said, “Truth is, Melissa cleaned out just about everything that was hers or ours. She left my stuff alone, but if she had any claim to it, it’s gone.” He shrugged and took another drink. “Truth is, in a way I’m kind of glad. A clean break is always quickest to heal, and now I don’t have anything to remind me of her. She’s obviously not who I thought she was, so I think it’s for the best.” His gaze roved over her, suddenly hungry. “But you didn’t come here to hear me talk about her.”

“Indeed,” she said, slipping out of her shoes. “I assume there’s still a bed left?”

“Bought and paid for long before I met her.”

“Good.” She slid her blouse over her head and dropped it on the floor before unzipping her jeans and stepping out of them. Standing before him in a dark red lace bra and panties, she crooked a finger and then turned to walk towards the other room. Glenn swallowed, his eyes drawn to her curves, the smooth white flesh, the sway of her hips as she moved. Tossing him a look over her shoulder, she asked, “Are you coming?”

The Dark Garden

Alan Morgan May 23rd, 2007

As most of my readers know, I don’t generally promote other authors. However, a friend of mine is releasing her first print book in a few days and I know that I’m eagerly waiting to get my hands on a copy of it. So… here’s a little out-of-the-ordinary promotion:


Countdown until release:

Erotica Reader Survey

Alan Morgan March 7th, 2007

Keziah Hill posted over on Romance Divas about a friend of hers who’s running a survey about erotica readers. I thought it was interesting, so I’m posting the link for the rest of you to take a look at. The survey itself is quick, though I think some of the questions were a bit strict… multiple choice and/or a weighted scale (No Interest, Low Interest, Some Interest, High Interest, Definite Interest) would have been better for each subgenre she listed.

Anyways, here’s the link:

http://remittancegirl.com/2007/03/who-am-i-writing-for.html

Update

Alan Morgan January 30th, 2007

It’s been a long time since I updated. I’ve finished chapter 13 and am currently working on chapter 14 now. I had intended to get a story into Forbidden Publications for their Valentine’s Day theme, but didn’t manage to get it done in time. Life’s been pretty hectic, dealing with the stress of financial and health issues. There’s more info on that on my personal LiveJournal, if you’re so inclined.

Since it’s been a while, here’s a snippet from chapter 13:

Taking another drink of coffee, he said, “Vincent called around to some of the other Packs, to see if it was a Pack war he hadn’t been told about. Turns out that some of the other Packs have run into similar situations. We usually leave a few folks behind when we hunt to keep the den safe, but that’s over now. Word is, someone’s hunting us—and that’s pretty bad news. What’s worse is we haven’t found any of the missing, not a trace. Just vanished as if they never existed. Don’t even turn up any bodies afterwards.”

“That’s horrible,” Shiobhan said. “Any ideas what’s going on?”

“Jordan has a theory. He thinks some humans have figured out about us and have declared war. He’s a paranoid bastard, but I’m not sure he’s wrong. Whomever is doing it is good—not a trace left behind, and we have very good tracking senses, let me tell you. Possibly military or one of the government agencies with initials for names.” Sighing, he said, “Problem is, Jordan isn’t for waiting to catch the bastards responsible. He’s about ready to take the Pack on the offensive and start bringing the fight to humans.” Looking up, he met her eyes squarely and said, “And he doesn’t really care about getting innocents involved.”

Speechless, Shiobhan just stared at him while her brain tried to process what he’d just said. “You mean…”

“I mean he’s about to take the Pack and start hunting humans.”

Progress :)

Alan Morgan November 5th, 2006

I just realized that I haven’t updated this in some time. I took the last part of October off as I got sick with a nasty bug, but I did finish up chapter 6 in October and just finished chapter 7 today. Hurray for progress :)

A quick snippet:

She reached into her purse and pulled out a vial, checking the label and nodding in satisfaction. Opening it, she dabbed a few drops on her fingers and moved to the side of his bed. Leaning forward, she placed her fingers on each of his temples and gently began rubbing the oil in. He breathed deep, smelling something crisp and clean, as the coolness of the liquid and the gentleness of her touch seemed to pull the pain back. Realizing that he had instinctively closed his eyes in pleasure, he reopened them to realize he was staring down her shirt at a delightful expanse of soft skin, and closed them again.

He opened his eyes again when she was finished, and looked around in amazement as his vision seemed sharper and clearer. Shaking his head, he felt no remnants of pain or tension, the fog that had been clouding his mind gone. “I have no clue what was in that, but that certainly worked miracles.”

Smiling, she handed him the small bottle. “Here, keep this. Hopefully, you won’t need it, but if you do, you’ll have it handy.”

“Thank you,” he said with sincerity. “I was thinking of heading there tomorrow around nine, I figure it’ll be dark by then and I’ll have a better chance of remembering if it’s as close to the other night as possible.”

“We’ll see you there, then, Mr. Chase– Glenn.”

“Count on it.” He watched the two leave, part of his mind wondering what their deal was, another part concerned that they were right and her sister being kidnapped was the reason he’d been attacked. Neither part objected to watching Shiobhan walk away… only that she disappeared from sight far too quickly.

Hope you all had a happy Samhain / Halloween! And good luck to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo. You’ll need it!

On a roll…

Alan Morgan October 7th, 2006

Managed to finish up Chapter 4 after working on it today at work and yesterday before work, coming in at 1595 words. Have another snippet:

She made her way to East Andrews Hall without further incident and found Room 110. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door before she lost her nerve and chickened out.

The door cracked open and a girl with purple spiked hair answered. “Yeah?”

“Hi, I’m Shiobhan McGowan. I was looking to see if my sister was home?”

“Jennifer,” the girl said, holding out her hand as she opened the door the rest of the way. “You must be the ‘devil worshipping freak’ my roommate’s talked about. Speaking as one freak to another freak, glad to meet you.”

Shiobhan shook hands with Jennifer and stepped into the room, smiling as she felt the cool embrace of the wards around the room welcoming her. “Indeed. Merry meet, and nicely done,” she said, hands indicating the shields.

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her– the opposite, in fact– and I have to live here, too. But, no, Sarah’s not here now.” A frown crossed her face as she stopped to think. “Actually, I didn’t see her come home last night. I was a little out of it, coming home from a campus GBLT meeting, and was too tired to think anything of it. But it’s not like her.”

“Any idea where she might be?” Shiobhan asked, the uneasy feeling settling in her stomach with an increasing weight. “My father asked me to check in on her, and I’m a bit worried.”

“Not really,” Jennifer admitted. “We don’t exactly run in the same social circle, I’m sure you can imagine.”

For any readers interested in following the whole story as I write it, I’ve set up a mailing list via Gmail to send chapters out to folks. This seems to be working fairly well for some fellow writers of mine so I figured I’d hop on the bandwagon. Anyways, just drop me a line with your email address and I’ll catch you up and add you to the list for further chapters.

Also got some rampaging plotbunnies that gave me some more details about the end of the book and the sequel to come. Not everything is what it appears to be… *cackle*

Progress!

Alan Morgan October 3rd, 2006

Finished up chapter 3 of Providence Paranormal for a total count of 1460 words.

Chapter 4 shifts back to Shiobhan’s POV, which– right now– is where the action is at. Glenn’s next chapter should have more, but right now he’s still trying to figure out what happened to put him into the hospital. And, more importantly, why.

Have another snippet :)

Just another mushroom, fed bullshit and kept in the dark, he thought grimly. If something bigger was going on, the way his gut told him it was, then last night was no accident. The cops might not be inclined to follow up on one more random act of violence, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t. He promised himself that he’d look into things as his head started pounding and he gagged with sudden nausea. Bright lights appeared from out of nowhere, swirling and strobing with a painful intensity.

Staggering, he made it back to the bed– barely– and hit the call button before the darkness surrounded him. His vision faded from him, first grey, then black, deepening until a pindrop of red exploded within and he felt no more.

September Progress

Alan Morgan October 2nd, 2006

September wasn’t too bad to me, ignoring financial issues. Managed to get 2623 words for the month– not a lot to some of you, but that’s slightly higher than my yearly average. If I was managing to write every day it would be a lot higher, but my biggest problem with writing is that I don’t do it consistantly enough. Partly due to work and partly due to discipline.

Anyways. I figure I’m about halfway through the 3rd chapter of Providence. Here’s a snippet for you folks:

“Okay, hon. Rest up and I’ll send the doctor in in a moment.” He caught himself staring at her shapely ass as she walked out the door and reminded himself, You’re engaged now… stop checking out every chick you see.

Yeah, right, like that’s going to happen, his more rebellious side argued, and he sighed. He took stock of the room, standard hospital issue, white walls, uncomfortable chairs, TV tuned to some morning talk-show. Politics… not something he really cared to listen to anymore. He picked up the remote and flipped through the channels, finding nothing but more of the same old early morning crap he never bothered watching. Can’t they get a bloody TiVo in here or something? Christ.

Chapter 3 is going a bit slow because there isn’t a lot of action/conflict involved yet. I have some ideas that I’ve been thinking about to spice it up a bit, but they really belong in another chapter or two later. He still has to talk to the cop about his assault, and then in chapter 4, Shiobhan goes looking for her sister and meets her sister’s roommate.

Current status

Alan Morgan September 3rd, 2006

I’ve got several WIPs that I’m working on, so this is a general update.

Providence Paranormal:

This is temporarily being shelved while I try to plot out some more of the conflicts that I want to have in it. I need to do some digging into who the hero is, what the romantic conflict of the story is, what is going on behind the scenes involving the sister, and how the hero is tied to the sister. I’m thinking this is going to be in the 50k+ range, and may aim it at LSB or possibly even NY print.

Savage Lands:

I’m thinking about this story a bit lately. I’m wondering if I want to continue it in the serial idea that I was going to go with before, or if I want to expand it to be more like a Tryst length story for each installment (10-20 per “episode”). If I do that, I need to figure out who the romantic interest is and have her involved from the beginning.

Upon Wings of Hope:

I’ve been really bad about keeping up with this WIP. This is the one I was primarily going to run through the Above & Beyond coursework with, and I’m behind on that. I need to finish up Marten’s bio, which is the last bio I need, and then I need to do the homework for the stakes assignment. I’ll need to do that for Alissandra, Marten, and Litala.

Luzon:

I’m putting this back on indefinite hold. I want to get some of the other projects done first and return to this with some fresh ideas. I think I’m going to change up some of the things I wasn’t planning on before and probably darken the tone a bit. I think I also have a lot of characters for this story and I’ll need to reevaluate who the “main” characters are and how necessary some of the support characters are. I definitely do not want to fall back into the trap of forgetting to involve the familiars like I did the first time around.

Love at First Kiss:

This is a romance idea that I’m aiming at Cobblestone for. I’ve got some details over on the WIP manager at Evolution, and I’ve started working on this. Some 1kish words at the moment, I want to finish this over September/October, revise it and send it off. Looking to actually finish something for once.

Hitting the Books:

Once I finish up with Love at First Kiss, I’m going to work on this novella and push that out to Cobblestone as well.

Shadows in the Light:

This is a dark idea that came to me a while ago, and it’s something I’m going to work on plotting out. I’m thinking along the lines of L. A. Banks / Chris Golden tone… dark, gritty, gory… but yet with a stong romance amidst the hell. This is going to take a bit of research and may end up being a series, so I’m not rushing to work on this right away, but will chip away at it a bit here and a bit there.

Recent acquisitions…

Alan Morgan September 2nd, 2006

So Nonny and I went out to Borders the other day… hoping against hope that we’d get lucky and score ourselves a nice hit of book-crack (new J R Ward and Lilith Saintcrow books out soon). Unfortunately they didn’t have Lover Awakened or Dead Man Rising, but we did make a few purchases anyways.

We got:

See a common pattern? If not, look again. Which one of these books is not like the others.

The one that doesn’t belong to a Romance Diva, of course. :)

Slave to Sensation Contest

Alan Morgan August 21st, 2006

I am participating in a blogging experiment hosted at dearauthor.com. To enter the contest, put up this blurb, image, and trackback and you are entered to win the following prize package.

  • $200 Amazon gift certificate
  • Signed copy of Slave to Sensation
  • New Zealand goodies chosen by Singh
  • ARC of Christine Feehan’s October 31 release: Conspiracy Game

You can read about the experiment here and you can download the code that you need to participate here.

SLAVE TO SENSATION
Nalini Singh
Berkley / September 2006

Slave to Sensation

Welcome to a future where emotion is a crime and powers of the mind clash brutally against those of the heart.

Sascha Duncan is one of the Psy, a psychic race that has cut off its emotions in an effort to prevent murderous insanity. Those who feel are punished by having their brains wiped clean, their personalities and memories destroyed.

Lucas Hunter is a Changeling, a shapeshifter who craves sensation, lives for touch. When their separate worlds collide in the serial murders of Changeling women, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities…or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation.

Excerpt

Update…

Alan Morgan August 15th, 2006

Sorry I haven’t posted updates in a bit, things have been rather hectic with the server problems (which should be resolved now that Evo is moved over to the RackForce server…), the abysmal heat (which has cooled down, thank all the gods), and more health issues (which seem to have somewhat stabilized).

I’d like to thank the good folks over at Cobblestone Press for the wonderful Q&A session they did over at Evolution. It was a lot of fun and I know that I for one learned quite a bit from it.

In more personal news, I’ve shelved the Providence paranormal for the moment. I’m stepping away from novel length projects at the moment and I’m working on some novella ideas that, ideally, I’d like to submit over to Cobblestone. Ironically enough, none of them are paranormal!

Now I just need to figure out which one to work on… Blind Date, Hitting the Books, or Love at First Kiss. Leaning towards Hitting the Books, but we’ll have to see.

August at Evolution

Alan Morgan August 6th, 2006

Server Status:

Apologies for the several outages this last month. We have begun the process of moving to the new server; a test copy of the site is up and running and should be good to go for a switch very soon now. As always, please check the status community over at LiveJournal if you’re having any problems.

Interviews:

We had several interviews this last month: Angela Knight, Allyson James, Tawny Taylor. Our thanks go to these writers for taking the time to share their thoughts with us.

We have two upcoming interviews this month with prominent authors Jim Butcher and Jacqueline Carey. We are soliciting member feedback for these interviews; if you have a question you would like to pose to Jim, Jacqueline, or both, please post it by August 8th.

We also have upcoming interviews with dark fantasy writers Karen Chance and Lilith Saintcrow, so stay tuned for further information.

August Events:

Several key items to note for this month, which is why we are also sending this update out via email:

Petruck is hosting several scheduled chats on Editing and Revising, from August the 7th to August the 9th.

Full Moon Madness is August 9th.

The authors, editors, and publishers of Cobblestone Press will be joining us for a 3 day Q&A session running August 11th through the 13th. Please make them welcome and have some questions ready for them to answer!

Book in a Week runs August 19th through August 25th.

We are also having a Last Minute Dash this month which will run from August 21st through August 25th. There will be regular Word Wars held daily in StormChat at 11am-2pm EST and 6pm-9pm EST to help round out your word count for the month.

Another ebook…

Alan Morgan June 14th, 2006

Picked up another Cobblestone ebook yesterday, which I had been looking forward to for quite some time:

Office Relations
Office Relations
by Lia Sebastian

Read it while I was at work (carefully, because it’s not exactly work-safe, heh) and loved it a lot. The only downside was that it wasn’t longer ;)

Going to have to keep track of other releases by her when they come out… looks like she has another one coming out at the end of July. Added her blog to my feed reader to stay reminded.

Edit: Added a review for this book over at the Evolution book review site…

Ebooks to be read…

Alan Morgan June 6th, 2006

Ok, with the recent Freya’s Bower Bites contest and Cobblestone Press launching, I’ve picked up a few ebooks to read, and figured I’d list them here:

Walking the Shadows
Waking the Shadows by Elisabeth Drake
Sword of Regrets
Sword of Regret by H. A. Fowler
Glass Magic
Glass Magic by Debbie Mumford
Aurora's Passion
Aurora’s Passion by Bebe Thomas
Bound by Love
Bound By Love by Loribelle Hunt
Tourist Attraction
Tourist Attraction by Shelli Stevens

I’ve already read Walking the Shadows, which I recommend. Waiting to see a longer length story with these characters :)

As for the rest… I’ll let you know when I get through them. :)

RWA

Alan Morgan May 17th, 2006

Take a look at this, linked from Alison Kent: To Blazes with RITA.

Then read Alison’s latest post: One Woman’s Porn.

My comment, currently at the bottom:

To be honest, I’m somewhat surprised with all the hubub and furor over the RWA that someone hasn’t started something like “Erotic / Romantic Writers Association” (made up, not intended to confuse people who know ERWA as “Erotica Readers & Writers Association”) which would have a completely different judging system than the RITAs, acknowledge the pro epubbers, and tip the hat to minorites… 3 issues that RWA has not addressed to anyone’s satisfaction. (I’d add in GBLT romance as well, but I don’t know RWA well enough to know their stance on that… I’m just assuming that they don’t support alt-romance at all if they aren’t supporting erotic romance.)

I personally don’t intend on joining RWA. Romance isn’t the only genre I write in, but when I do, it will be on the steamier side of things and at least sometimes involve alt-romances.

RWA needs to step up to the plate and let folks know that they’re not stuck in the past with the category romances that are shutting down one line after the other. If they don’t, then they’re making themselves irrelevant and it’s time for someone new to replace them.

In my opinion? I don’t think they have much time left to do an about face.

Nonny confirmed that RWA is against GBLT romances as well.

How relevant is RWA to modern romance?

In my, perhaps biased, opinion… RWA should score itself as “not a romance”.

Progress!

Alan Morgan May 16th, 2006

Productive morning today… did work on catching up a bit on the Above & Beyond homework and finished up Chapter 2 of the paranormal. It’s coming along nicely.

Snippet from “the call”:

Shiobhan took the phone from Taz and headed through the back room, sitting down in the chair before speaking. “Hi, dad.”

“Joan? Is that you?” he asked.

“It’s Shiobhan, dad, not Joan.”

“We named you Joan. That’s what it says on the birth certificate. It’s a fine Christian name… I still don’t understand why you felt you needed to change it to your nickname.”

“We’ve had that argument too many times before for me to want to have it again right now.” She mentally counted to one hundred, trying to keep calm. For some reason, he always manages to push just the right buttons to piss me off faster than almost anybody else. “Why are you calling? Is Sorcha all right?”

He sighed, and she realized with the sound that he was getting old. It wasn’t a sigh of frustration or anger, but the sigh of a man past his prime, faced with something he didn’t know how to handle. “Yes and no. It’s hard to explain. I’m not even where to start.” Pausing for a moment, he added, “Or if I even should. Look, there have been some things I kept from you when we’ve talked lately… not that we’ve talked much at all, lately.”

“I know.” Silence stretched across the phone, growing more awkward by the moment. “I live my life the way I believe, and you don’t approve. You’ve made that clear on virtually every occasion that you’ve had the opportunity to do so since Mom died. It’s hard to talk to you when your first reaction is to criticize who I am and what I do.” Tears sprung back up in her eyes, tracing down her cheeks again as she reached for a tissue on the receiving table.

1490 words today… been a while since I’ve written that much in basically one sitting.

Top Eleven

Alan Morgan May 14th, 2006

Amme posted this link over on Evolution and I had to share: THE TOP ELEVEN WAYS NOT TO FINISH YOUR BOOK.

This one was too funny not to share:

2. Wonder if readers will think your sex life actually includes the things you write about.

The fact: They will. But they usually won’t ask.

What’s worse, people who don’t read your books will believe your sex life actually includes the things they think you write about–and their imaginations can run pretty wild. Learn to live with it. Or else ask them how many murders their favorite mystery author has committed.

Go read it, now. :)

Providence…

Alan Morgan May 14th, 2006

Started chapter 2 of the paranormal today. Chapter 1 needs some revision, but I decided to set it aside for now and move onward. I need to add more description to the first scene to foreshadow events later on, but really… that’s not important right now. The important part is the conflict that’s brewing in the second chapter. I spent more time in the setup than I thought I would, but I think it’s good. :)

Snippet from chapter 1:

As she and Kelly finished bringing in the last of the plants, Taz looked up from one of his books and said, “Oh, someone called for you, Shiobhan… at least, I think it was for you. Said he was looking for the owner, but he said her name was Joan. Didn’t leave a message.”

Goosebumps ran over her skin, and she nearly dropped the pot she was holding. “Shiobhan is the Gaelic version of Joan. Did he leave a name?”

“James, I think,” Taz said. “Hung up before I could say much other than you weren’t here. Seemed like a bit of an asshole, to be honest. Really snotty.” He shrugged and went back to studying his calculus book.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Shiobhan muttered.

Kelly looked over at Shiobhan with concern, never having seen her so rattled before. “Who is he? Some stalker ex of yours or something?”

“No,” she said. “Worse than that. Much worse than that. He’s my father.”

I’ve written 4 days so far this month. That’s good and bad… hurray for progress, but that’s small considering how far into the month we are. I dropped my David and Goliath goal down to 100 because I don’t see myself hitting 7500 words this month. I am, however, over halfway to 3000 words.

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