Happy Monday All (the time stamp might read Sunday, but this is actually for Monday), First of all, I got to say, thank you to everyone who commented on the Four Foxes One Hound Blog post and the Soul Mate Publishing Blog Post.  I read some of the kindest, sweetest, comments from you all and I'm truly touched, humbled, flattered, and feeling honored and privileged to have such things said about me. I really am grateful and appreciate it. So, thank you, thank you, thank you! Good news! The Blog Tour is NOT over. On July 10th (also release day!) I will visit Eat Read Rate , as guest blogger for Melissa Ohnoutka. Join me as I go into depth about my writing journey. What books did I read growing up? Why didn't I pursue a writing career when I was younger (beyond not feeling qualified)? What happened when I pitched All's Fair In Love & Lion to my editor from Soul Mate Publishing? What's the deeper story behind how AFIL&L came to be? (more in-depth than the int...

Happy Thursday Everybody, Hope you're having a great week! Mine has been all right. Been working on blog posts for my guest blog appearances.  I've been asked to appear on 4 different blogs! I'm very flattered and excited. I've never been on a blog tour before (then again, I've never been a published novelist, either...well, that part is coming in July, but still).  My current scheduled appearances are as followed (and can be found in the margin of this blog, as well): June 28th --- I'll be the guest of Tonette Inspired on Four Foxes One Hound . This one is a personal interview--a chance to learn more about me, and more about All's Fair In Love & Lion . July 10th-- Melissa Ohnoutka has graciously invited me to appear on Eat Read Rate , talking about my journey of becoming a writer (we're going way back on this one!) July 12th--My illustrious and fabulous Critique Partner, Tess St. John, will have me on her Tess St. John blog--and guess w...

Happy Tuesday All, Before I get into today's post...don't forget...today is Kerrelyn Sparks' release of Wanted: Undead Or Alive and her launch party (which I talked about in yesterday's post ). They're the stars of novels. They're the ones who you wonder "What will happen to them next?" Oftentimes they're the "good guys", although sometimes there's shades of gray. We're talking heroes and heroines! Everything from contemporary genre to paranormal, there are heroes and heroines in pretty much every novel. Some of my favorite heroes were super-heroes, like Spider-Man and Super-Man...yes, Batman is cool, too. Some of the ones from the contemporary genres were unlikely heroes, like Simon in Debbie Macomber's The Perfect Christmas . Prefer a little mystery in your life? Check out Theodosia in Laura Childs' Tea Shop Mysteries . As in real life, sometimes a contemporary genre hero is a lawman, like in Christie Cra...

Happy Wednesday Everyone,  I had to flip this picture for it to be vertical. Unfortunately it's turned the wrong way. the mantel is actually on the other side of the tree.  Yay! I finally did it--I got the pictures taken of the lion ornament I got for Christmas. It's the one that represents my hero, Monroe. For those of you who missed the post about the ornament, you can read it here . Also, if you'd like a chance to meet Monroe, up close and personal, please check out the guest post I did on author Tess St. John's blog .  Isn't he awesome? Very majestic. I just love it!  Monroe is the hero of my novel. He's a man who can turn into a lion (hence the ornament). Anyway, I hope you enjoy this glimpse at Monroe. I've been delighted to have the ornament. From where I would sit on the couch I can see it hanging on the tree (we have yet to take our tree down, but I'm sure that's going to happen this week or this weekend). So what...

Happy Tuesday Everyone, Bet you never thought you'd see that on my blog, huh? "Bethany runs with lions? What in the world? Is she a safari fanatic and just didn't tell us?" No, I'm not a safari fanatic. In fact, I've never even been on a safari. It's just a reference to my novel, Surreal , which brings me to today's questions: Who do you run with? Who's company do you keep? What type of characters do you have running around in your head? Whether you're a reader, a writer, or both, you have all kinds of characters running in your head. Those characters are the people/creatures you run with. They are your company and companions through a story. They are your safari tour guides and help you navigate the world of the book you're either reading or writing. Sometimes those tour guides are all contemporary human beings. Sometimes they're extraordinary humans, like for example, knights in shining armor, wooing a damsel--the onl...

Happy Memorial Day, **Edits 11:29 a.m. (I remembered it was Memorial Day, but I should've posted this earlier):  Here's to all the USA's service men and women, both past and present , fallen or alive . Thank you for your service to the U S A and God bless you and your families. (Note:  If I tried to do actual white, it wouldn't show up). Everybody have a good weekend? My weekend was fairly nice. Mostly quiet, which was just fine with me. For all you C.C. Hunter fans, tomorrow she's starting a very special contest. I'll reveal more details tomorrow, so be sure to come back tomorrow to see what those details are. Hope everyone enjoyed Tess St. John's author interview on Friday . I had fun having her on my blog. She's an incredibly talented author. Be sure to watch for her Romantic Suspense novels. I'll also probably let you know about those releases here.  Did you all follow the link to Tess St. John's blog on Friday and meet th...

Happy Thursday Everybody, Today I'm thinking of cookies...no, not the computer website ones, but the ones you eat. Specifically Oreos and Chocolate Chip Cookies. In my head the Oreo jingle plays merrily while warring with the parody Weird Al Yankovich wrote . I don't remember if I put any kind of cookie in my stories (I could be wrong, but I don't have any memory of doing that) but how many of us would identify with a character who sits down with a glass of milk  and a cookie (be it an Oreo, Chocolate Chip or any other) dunking the cookie into the milk just like a kid? (especially if said character is an adult). I know I would. Or take a Chocolate Chip Cookie and dunk it in coffee (if you haven't tried that and you like both Chocolate Chip Cookies and coffee I recommend it!) Yes, I'm a dunker of cookies. I like when they're soggy and heavy with coffee or milk (well, in my case creamer--because I don't drink regular milk too often, but that explanati...

Happy Tuesday All, Well it's "Shrove Tuesday" or, some prefer to call it "Mardis Gras" which means "Fat Tuesday" (the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent). I really don't do anything to mark the day per se. I mean, I have a book with meditations and it has somethings to think about for this day, but I don't do anything big to mark the day. Do you? Annette McCleave on SILK & SHADOWS blog, has interesting post about characters and what they look like , which has  gotten me thinking about how I imagine characters when I read a book. Often times I don't have the same "vision" as the author of the book I'm reading, but generally, when I go back to the character description I realize I probably left out a detail when I pictured the character in my head. It's funny thing, imagination. Sometimes it leads you down a great path and things "click" other times you wonder what went wrong. Authors ...

Happy Wednesday All, Another prize donation came in today. This contest just keeps getting bigger--which is fine...I'm excited and I hope you are, too! Later this week I will be posting more detailed information about how the contest next week will work. Yes, the contest will be held NEXT WEEK ! Starting Monday, January 31, 2011 . Also, each day I will have information on how the contest is being done for that particular day (this thing is so big each day has it's own theme). I've also decided that if I get more than 5 prize donations, I'll extend it out one or two days extra (no more than that because I have a special something planned on one of the days of the 2nd week in February). Also, I have 2 book reviews coming up for new releases. So there's a lot happening on here and I want every one of my readers to have a chance to be a part of it. We've talked heroines and heroines...let's talk side kicks (or "window characters"): What ...

Happy Monday All, The manuscripts I'm working on have something to do with another story I wrote. I hadn't meant for this to happen. I thought the other story would be a "stand alone". It didn't morph into a series (so far), however it's got "companion novels" going now. Two characters from the manuscript already have their own stories in the works--and another is lurking in the background. In other words, my characters are taking over. I'm being sucked into the world I created without too much of a fight, but it's all rather ironic. I thought, "Okay, get this one done, and work on the other one I really was hoping to fix up." Instead, I'm back in the world and other characters have bubbled up to say they have a story for me to tell. Several people have told me this happens and my Critique Partner even requested I write another character's story (so far that isn't going to happen--however, you never know what t...

Happy Wednesday All, How often when we're writing and editing do we get to a point where we need a break because we've stopped caring about our characters? We get to a point sometimes where we'd just as soon see them all fall into a pit and stay there. Not good! If we don't care about characters and stories then how can we expect readers to care? What happened to me was, I worked on a manuscript and got annoyed, and started thinking my hero and heroine could fall off a cliff. Yikes and painful! I ended up taking a bit of a break from said manuscript and when I came back to the editing and working on it, I found out that I was falling back in love with the characters and the story. Ahh, how lovely! It's like what Nathan Bransford wrote in his blog post called The Nine Circles of Writing Hell   we think our story is nifty and wonderful until something happens, then we get distracted by another story idea or whatever comes up. Sometimes we need a l...

Happy Tuesday Everyone, Accomplished:  Sent back the first round judges' comments to the last of the contestants for my category of the Lone Star Contest. Working On: I'm making progress on edits for my finished manuscript. Last night did some writing on my witch manuscript and then started one that has a mermaid in it. At first I was having trouble with the witch manuscript, but then it started flowing. So at least the writing/editing is progressing. Looking Forward To: Still time to sign up for the NWHRWA's Lone Star Conference. It really does look good :-) What's up with all of you? Have A Tantalizing Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday All, Recently I was watching something and there was a name of a character that made me think the people who chose the name for that particular character didn't realize the implications of said name. Sometimes we choose names for our characters that don't have any hidden meaning. Sometimes they convey a sense of time and place, and sometimes they give reference to a type of being or a particular character. For example:  If someone was to choose the name Pandora what would be the first thing that came to your mind? If you've read the Greek Myth about the girl who has this box given to her from the gods and lets out all kinds of creepy things, you'd probably think of that right off the bat. If this is a heroine who is supposed to make people like her, you might want to change the name. Unless you were going for a sense of grim irony. Names are important. They give a sense of identity, an idea of personality (especially for char...

Happy Wednesday Folks, Today's post is going to tie into yesterday's interview I did with Laura Childs . I asked Laura if she could meet any of her characters, which ones and why. So, that's my question I'm posing today: Which character(s) out of any of your stories would you want to meet and why? I think I'd probably want to meet Bast. It would be fun. Maybe I'd meet Sir Beauregard (he's a cat in a story I never did finish and I don't know where that one ended up). I love cats. So, what about you? Which of your character(s) would you wanna meet and why?

Happy Tuesday Everyone, Well, yesterday I finished Elizabeth Pina's Learning To Let Go. Genre: Inspirational (Christian Romance) Number of Pages: About 216. Publisher: White Rose Publishing Elizabeth has a very nice balance with Christianity and the character's every day life. The characters are those I could see myself coming across (even see a bit of myself in the female main character, Emma). There is a kind of conversion story in there, but it's a gentle sliding into deeper faith. The story is not any specific Christian Denomination and doesn't get into too much doctrine, so, there's a sense that any denomination could read it and see something of their own faith in there. I ended up really liking the main characters, Keith and Emma and believing in their personalities and story. The romance was sweet and made this hopeless romantic go "Oh, that's sweet!" (well, at least in my head). There was also a couple of funny lines in the dialogue (which, f...

Morning All, A subject I haven't touched much on: killing off your characters. Shakespeare did a lot of that ( Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth , King Lear, et cetera ). In fact, for him it worked, especially when it was characters we come to care about. However, I read somewhere that it's generally discouraged it kill off your main characters. (I can't remember where I read it, but I did read it somewhere). Readers often come to really care about those main characters and don't like you messing with them. How do I know? Well, besides being a reader myself, I was once writing an Inspirational type fiction and I was thinking of what to do with one of my characters and I said to a friend of mine, "I think I'll kill him off...have him die in the story." She said " Noooo !" I said, "Why not? You didn't like him originally." She said, "Well, I like him now." As your story changes, the opinion your readers form of the cha...

Morning Folks, I'm still fighting this cold/allergy goofy thing, but at least it's getting better (I didn't wake up coughing last night). Now onto today's topic: I know, it's a weird title but being that I took a huge interest in psychology in high school (plus I have a sister who has her Ph .D. in psychology). But the thing is, I got to thinking about a story I once was thinking about writing a long while ago (I only remember the title and a vague idea about the plot). But the title was The Madman and I basically remember that the guy was going to go crazy after his wife dies. Don't remember much more than that, but there you go. Then there's a book I recently read by MaryJanice Davidson called The Royal Treatment (by the way, if you're a lover of romance novels and you haven't read this author, get thee to her shelf immediately! I've read one of her mermaid books-- and loved it and I'm getting into the Royal Series ). I've read some ...

Morning All, Apparently my left eye and left nostril don't like dust/dirt because even though I did all that yesterday they are both still giving me trouble. For anyone who was wondering, no, allergies are NOT fun. I hate allergies. I also hate sneezing, but I digress. Todd Stone calls the friend, or supporting characters, "window characters" because they give us a glimpse into the inside of the main character(s) personality--perhaps not something that the character reveals on his or her own. These "window" characters are sometimes sidekicks, friends, colleagues, you name it. Think about it. You have these types of characters in your own life. Maybe it's your spouse...the one who says "You know, you ALWAYS say that." or "You are such a computer addict." And you think "No I don't." then when reviewing yourself, you find out, that yes, in fact, you do. Now whether or not your supporting characters bring up some incredible ...

Morning Folks, Almost done with my coffee, which means I'm almost awake LOL. Okay, the sunshine returned yesterday (or was it the day before?) But I've been getting over some kind of a bug, so I haven't been out much. (I'm feeling much better, by the way). I promise today isn't about hula dancing. Nope, I'm talking characters not just sitting around. Just sitting around means they aren't passionate, action filled, expressive beings. It means they're stagnant and nothing is happening. You have to move the story along, so you don't want them just sitting there. You want them flying into a rage because their best friend betrayed them (or stole their significant other) or pleading for their lives or their heart beating wildly as they experience their first kiss with the person they're to end up having a relationship with. In short, you want them to be animated, breathing, living and lively. They can't be couch potatoes (yes, TV has some great ...

Morning All, Once again a clear beautiful day! I can hardly believe all week long it's been like this, but hey, that's pretty awesome (although there's talk in the weather news that rain might be coming). I think I'll chant: COOLER TEMPERATURES! COOLER TEMPERATURES! Hee hee . Not that 70's are so bad, that's actually pretty good, just that I love cold weather (not enough to live where snow is deep but enough that I like to bundle up and at night cuddle up under layers of warm blankets). But really, the weather's been nice. Georgette Heyer (died in 1971) wrote both mystery and romance. I haven't read her mysteries, but as far as I'm concerned, her romance writing was great. If you haven't read These Old Shades , even one of my brothers-in-law liked that one. (Pretty much both me and most of my sisters have read and loved this one). One of my sisters who's incredibly observant and noticed that in one part of this story where it's meant t...