Escape

You can run, you can hide, but you can't escape my new short story from Changeling Press!

Okay, apologies to Signor Ig. But look!



Some people just can’t switch off.

Take Samantha, who even on a fantasy vacation can’t help reorganising the hotel’s housekeeping department. But when she delivers room service to the rock band Vampires, she gets a little more than she bargained for. Especially when she meets Sully, the band’s sizzling hot lead guitarist. He’s gorgeous. He’s sexy. And he’s really good with his hands.

But when it comes to Vampires…that’s just a name, right?

Right?

Ooh! And!! Who subscribes to the Just Erotic Romance Reviews newsletter? And if not, why not? Because those wonderful people at JERR had the good taste to not only award my first ever book a Silver Star (their highest award for a novella), but they also requested--requested, look you--to interview me for their latest edition (it's a Yahoo group, but it's only used to send out the newsletter). Want to know what I really think about talking vibrators? Of course you do! Head on over and take a peek...

Who is this guy?

Isn't he gorgeous? He's the closest I've ever seen to Luke from the Sophieverse (yes, it's a 'verse now. Deal with it), even down to the stubble and loosened tie. I've had this guy in my head (sadly, that's the only place I've had him) for about four years now, and I've never one hundred percent truly visualised him. This delicious slice of manhood is about 99% perfect for Luke. Well, he's about 99% perfect anyway, so far as I can see. Except for that damn bottle.

But I don't know who he is! I've Googled 'til I can't Google no more. Doesn't anyone know?

Oh yes, and I forgot

Look what I've got!

Costumes

Okay, anybody who knows me know I love this dressing up stuff. It's probably because I spend most of my life wearing jeans and t-shirts, sitting behind this keyboard. But anyway. All the recent stuff about authors wearing costumes at the RWA Literacy Signing (See Vivi Anna for pictures) made me think. What would I wear?

(Because yes, it is all about me. If you want to know my opinion on the authors in question, then it's this: Marianne Mancusi and Liz Maverick looked really cute and I wish I had legs like that. Sherrilyn Kenyon has sold more books than most of the other authors there combined, so I guess she can wear what the hell she likes. She'd certainly be easy to pick out of a crowd in that hat. So long as the swan wasn't real, I've got no problem with it. As the guy in Garden State said, "Don't make fun of my hobbies, man, I don't make fun of you for being an asshole.")

So, anyway. I actually posited this idea at an RNA gathering a few years ago (inspired, I think, by Kate Allan's book launch for The Lady Soldier, a story set in the Napoleonic Wars. While the author wore ordinary clothes, she had soldiers from a local historical recreation society in full regalia, explaining their costumes and weapons to the guests). Wouldn't it be fun, I thought, if authors came to one of the conference dinners or parties, dressed as one of their own characters? For the contemporary authors, of course, this is a lot easier than for the historicals, or the paranormals. Probably less fun though.

So, I was thinking. The problem with my characters is that they necessarily spend a lot of their time with their kit off. and when they're dressed, it tends to be in mostly ordinary clothes. I could dress up as Masika, but I'd need a ton of fake tan and a black wig. I have the clothes, though, and it might be fun to get someone to draw her tattoo on my back.

I could dress up like Magda in her cute little pink suit and pearls, but then I'd just look like I was...well, wearing a suit and pearls. Lily? Ordinary clothes. Aura? Usually naked, and I don't have the budget for Manolos.

Chica, ordinary clothes. Sofie, suit and heels. Paige. Naked, except from when she's wearing a burqa, and I don't reckon that's the right tone here at all. Chloe? Well, I could wear a Sirens of TI shirt, I suppose.

Maria has a long red sequinned dress, but I'm afraid I'm all out of those. Even Daisy, the heroine of my newest book, wears ordinary clothes when she's not nekkid.

Damn. So, on the Sundown front, I'm not getting very far. Aha! But what about Almost Human? I could dress up like Chance! Sure, because she spends most of the book either naked (see, I told you) or wearing sumptuous velvet gowns. There is one scene where she has the stockings and basque, but you know, I don't think I have the legs for that. At the end she wears leathers and armour. We're back to the Masika look again, although this time with the advantage of me having more accurate colouring.

Of course, there's always Sophie. Who dresses like me most of the time. Lemme see...there's always the red silk ballgown from I, Spy?. Or the Lara Croft outfit from Ugley Business. Or the rock-chick get-up from A is for Apple.

Which brings us back to the leather jeans again...

Just a little trivia

Okay, not trivia. But I don't have a lot else to post. So...


1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current street name);
Lady St John

(I LOVE this! I'm gonna use this...)

2. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, first
three letters of your middle name)
K-Eli

(That makes me sound like...I'm not sure. A hick supermarket?)

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Cat

(No...that's my psychadelia name)

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)

Elizabeth Leeds

(Not a particularly exciting soap opera, then)

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name,
first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden)

Johkamc

(I think that's in Namibia)

6. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, favorite drink)

The Purple Aspalls

(uh. This sounds obscene)

7. NASCAR NAME: (the first name of your grandfathers)

Harry Maurice

(No...I don't know how he ended up with a name like Maurice either)

8. FUTURISTIC NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne and
the name of your favorite kind of shoes)

Rose Boot

(Again... I sound like someone off Coronation Street)

9.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle name )

Um...my parents don't have middle names. They reckon they were too poor. So...I guess I'd be either Barbara Keith (their first names) or McLoughlin Johnson (I like this!)


There! That was fun, wasn't it? What are yours?

Passionate Plume

Great googamooga. I won. Look, it says so here and everything.

I read a list of final placements on an email via my mobile phone on Saturday, on the way to Clovelly, feeling mildly carsick because me + reading + cars are unmixy things, but Cornwall's version of a main road was the only place I could get mobile signal. And no, I wasn't driving.

I didn't really believe it though until I read Vivi Anna's blog. I'm still astonished she didn't win it: seriously, when I saw she'd finalled in the same category, I just went, "Oh hell, I'll never beat her."

Apparently there's a prize, but I can't remember what it is. I think all the other winners--and most of the finalists--were with big New York print houses. Little ol' e-published me is still blown away!

Congratulations to Saskia, Jade, Anna and Mackenzie for their wins in the other categories. And hats off to Vivi, Melany, Lara, and Jory for being very worthy competitors!

Look! New cover!

God, I love these! I'm supposed to be working on galley proofs for I, Spy? and Ugley Business, but instead I thought I'd share with y'all the cover for the third Sophie book, hot off the press from the wonderful Scott Carpenter:

Cosmos, gays and guns—it’s murder on a girl’s love life. Cosmically inept spy Sophie Green is dispatched to the Big Apple on the trail of an invisible man. What she finds is an artist, a conspiracy and some very large men with guns.

Meanwhile, her gorgeous partner, Luke, is getting worryingly intimate. Could it really be time for him to meet her parents?

Sophie, spy extraordinaire, isn’t overwhelmed just yet. Until she’s informed of the new terms of her assignment. No longer Sophie Green: Spy, now she’ll become Sophie Green: Teenager.

Yep, she’s being sent to the scariest place on earth. Back to school.

Warning, this title contains the following: graphic language, violence, strong sarcasm and lots of orange eye shadow.

Wordless Wednesday: Really Nice Alcoholics

I mean Romantic Novelists Association. Of course. As our esteemed chairman pointed out, when a member of the RNA goes to the bar for some wine, she doesn't want a glass, she wants a bottle. I reckon I had that and more on the Friday night...

Hmm, that's not wordless any more, is it? Well, anyway. RNA conference, everybody!

Wordless Wednesday: The amazing eight-legged, two-tailed, two-headed cat!

A hundred and seventy-six days

Hundred and seventy-five, today.


That is, until the Christmas episode of Doctor Who. Because the current series has just ended: waah! Although, it has provided me with a new soundtrack to a book I'm supposed to be writing, the Scissor Sisters' I Can't Decide, which fits pretty well for Bael, the hero of the sequel to Almost Human. "I can't decide whether you should live or die...Oh, you'll probably go to heaven, please don't hang your head and cry." Brilliant!

Although I will forevermore have this image of John Simm dancing round the bridge of his spaceship with his moll and his prisoner. A charming, enthusiastic psychopath, my favourite knd of villain.




Normal service will return soon. Well, probably. Busy week while I try to finish the next Sundown book, work on the galleys for the first two Sophie print books, and pack for the RNA conference at the weekend. I'll try to pop by!

Thursday Thirteen...things about this room

Thirteen...things about this room (yeah, it's a cop-out, gimme a break, I'm having a busy week!) 1. When we first moved in here, this was the spare room, and for at least six months it was just full of stuff. I mean, there was furniture and boxes stacked chest-height all across the room. 2. It's been my office for maybe five years now, and it's usually still stacked chest-high with crap. Tidy, I am not. 3. There are five full-height and one half-height bookshelves in here, and I'm contemplating getting another one. That's fifty feet of shelf space just for my fiction books, and probably another ten or so for the non-fiction (just my history, costume and reference books; the rest are downstairs, along with the classics and some plays). I've never counted them. I don't think I can count that high! 4. But if you allow an inch or so for each book, that's about six hundred fiction. Wowsa! 5. I have two desk chairs: one of those kneely things that I use, and one normal desk chair that did my back no good. But before I got around to finding someone to help me downstairs with it, my cat too it over. It's Spike's Chair now. And it's about an inch deep in white fur. I wouldn't dream of moving it now--or sitting on it, for that matter! 6. I spent most of yesterday tidying up in here; I told you I was messy. There's a futon that's usually buried under stuff that I need to open out for my brother to sleep on when we have family staying this weekend. See, it's still sometimes the spare room. 7. I have three Spike (the vampire, not the cat, although one is named for the other) posters up here, plus a series of framed autographs of the Buffy and Firefly cast. Only half a dozen, but it's a growing collection! 8. Next to my computer is a music stand. I gave up on having a proper desk when my chronic messiness meant that I could rarely find the mouse. Now I have a little computer desk that I can't actually fit extra crap on, and a music stand for whatever books, notebooks, or notes I'm working from. 9. My windowsill holds the following: a Victorian-style doll who really doesn't have anywhere else to go; a black Cleopatra wig; a Lego Technics racing car, with hydraulic suspension (I'm a wicked Lego engineer, or was when I was about twelve anyway), an oversized Guinness hat from St Patrick's Day last year; a dog brush; my old glasses; a Grow-You-Own-Boyfriend kit; a laquered carnival mask; the 2007 Writers and Artists Yearbook; an incense holder; a foot-high wooden artists lay figure with a hair elastic around its neck; a sketch for mural I painted in the downstairs loo; and about three inches of miscellaneous bits of paper I'm too scared to disturb in case they all cascade onto the floor and bury me. 10. There's a little wooden cat dressed as a ballerina hanging on a spring from the light fitting, three small cat statues on top of one bookshelf (including one cast in bronze from the British Museum) and at least seven soft toy cats perching on various books, plus the two little Jellycats on either side of my monitor. There's also a pair of sunflowers with faces, a couple of sheep, a teddy bear proclaiming he's twenty-one (he's a rotten liar; he's four), and a seal. Oh, and a plastic tiara with fake rubies on it. And a spiral cone hat with a painted veil. Of course. 11. I have this as my desktop wallpaper. I call it First Contact. The kitten at the back with the blue eye is Spike and the one investigating is Sugar, about half an hour after we first brought them home last year. The black cat is Tinker, my old man. He died a few months after that photo was taken. 12. There's a small bowl of crystals on the shelf next to my computer: amethyst, hematite, bloodstone etc, all chosen for their various powers of creativity and concentration. Also because they're pretty. 13. At the back of the door I have a Homer Simpson poster. It says this:

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

To celebrate...

...the release of my very first paperback (it's so pretty! I have one by my bed), I'm offering one lucky reader a signed copy. All ya gotta do is this: Pop over to my website, read the excerpts, and answer the question.

Contest has been open for a while, but it's about to close, so get those entries in by the end of the month!

I shall be busy this weekend, got family visiting (then next weekend it's the RNA conference, then the weekend after that I'm off to Cornwall again...busy busy busy!), but don't cry too hard, I'll be back to entertain you soon!

Hyde Park Calling

Yesyes, I went and it was fantastic! Picked up in a limo (yes, I know, but actually not much dearer per person than getting the train or airport bus, and about a milion times more pleasant!). Found a great spot near the front. Ate food. Drank beer. Watched warm-up acts.

Fell totally head-over-heels with The Feeling all over again. Damn, this is a great band--and a really great live band! Even if Dan G-S did forget some of his own words. Poor poppet. I'm pretty sure he skipped on stage with a glass of Pimms, so maybe that's why. To quote my brother, "Is that a session drummer? He's really good." No, I said, squinting at the stage, I'm pretty sure that's their regular drummer. "Wow," Rich said, "he's as good as a session musician!". Of course, The Feeling were a live band before they ever went into a studio, they toured on cruise ships, so no wonder they're so together on stage. Looking forward to their next tour!

Now, as I write it's just started raining, really heavily. Anyone who's gone to see Aerosmith at HPC today is going to be in for a muddy time. Still, not as muddy as Glastonbury, as the HPC organisers and bands kept reminding us. Neil Finn, who likes to impro a little at the end of Weather With You, sang, "We're bringing the sun, we're bringing the sun to Hyde Park...but it's raining in Glastonbury..."

And then it was raining in Hyde Park. Not the light drizzle of earlier: big fat heavy globs of rain that came right through the umbrella. Did anyone laugh at me for wearing my green Wimbledon plastic rain cape? No, they did not! Of ourse, it only covered me to the knee, so I got to discover if my big fat chunky heavy duty trainers were as waterproof as I'd hoped. They were not.

But anyway, who cares. I was watching Crowded House! They were fantastic. Another great live band, they really know how to interact with the crowd. A lot of the stuff they were playing was from their new album so I didn't know it, but it was very Crowded House. It grows on you. You hear it and go, "Yeah, it's okay," and then you hear it again and go, "Actually, it's pretty good," and then after a while you're in love with it. Or maybe that's just me.

Plus of course all the hits. Mean To Me was played through the downpour, during which all I could see was the big TV screen over the sea of umbrellas (which Neil got us waving about in unison, like the Last night of the Proms). Stagehands scampered about covering all the equipment with tarpaulins. Neil asked what their insurance was like in case of electrocution. Nick Seymour's bass went out. The rain was coming full in their faces, they were standing on a large metal structure and holding electrical instruments. They called it a day!

You know, I don't really mind. The bands were fantastic--in the case of The Feeling whose album I love but who I hadn't seen live yet, even better than I'd expected--and I think it's not a proper festival unless someone gets soaked. Of course, afterwards we found ourselves wandering around Mayfair looking like drowned rats. In streets where every other car is a Bentley, I feared we were about to get thrown out for making the place look untidy. but we found a sweet little patisserie restaurant thingy on South Audley Street, dried out, ate food, and went home happy.

I hope the Aerosmith fans going today like mud.