I WANT MY HAPPILY EVER AFTER - By Kathy Ivan

Let me preface this blog by stating: I am a hopeless romantic. A card carrying, flag waving, cry at sappy commercials romantic. A good love story makes me happy. Watching the characters meet, connect, argue, fall in love, these are all things I thoroughly enjoy reading. There's nothing like a wonderfully romantic story to make me feel good inside.

Now here's my RANT. I want my happy ending. Like any modern day fairy tale, give me that Happily Ever After. I know the trend with chick lit and women's fiction can often be happy for now, and that okay, but when I'm reading a book regardless of the specific genre, that has been touted and categorically stated to be a romance, you darn well better give my that satisfactory conclusion, the hero and heroine professing their love and wanting to be together forever.

Fireworks Anyone?

Happy Birthday America!  It's almost the fourth and this month I wanted to do something a little different.  I want to hear from you what you love about living in America.  We say we're the greatest country in the world, but I want to know what makes you appreciate living here.

Wolves and Werewolves by Karilyn Bentley

wolf image creator Gary Kramer, National Digital Library

What are the similarities and differences between wolves and werewolves and how does this play into my werewolf novellas? If you’re dying to know the answer, you’ve come to the correct place today! 

Let’s start with the differences. First and foremost, real wolves don’t change into humans. There. I’ve said it. You can stop looking for your favorite sexy werewolf in a wolf pack. If you go to Yellowstone, Idaho, Montana or Wyoming and run into a wolf, it will not change into a human. Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way, what about similarities?

The Ever Changing Indie World

Welcome back to Indie Talk!

The indie world is in a constant state of flux. Rules and programs at Amazon and Barnes and Noble seem to change with the wind. Should you or should you not jump onto the KDP Select bandwagon? What about Nook First? Should you take out an ad on the Kindle Boards in hopes of your book rocking to the tops of the charts or do a blog tour instead? Or both? Which promo is the best promo? Which ereader is best, the Kindle or Nook? Is Amazon the good guy or the bad guy? Will Barnes and Noble survive or follow Borders to book store heaven?

These are the questions indie writers ask on a daily basis. The best advice I can give you is to do a lot of research before making any big decisions. Read up on and study all the programs and advertising offered at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Join indie writer groups where indies talk shop.

Get to Know: Christy Hayes & The Accidental Encore

Welcome to the PP, Christy!

Let's dive right in and get to the fun answers.

  How did you get from your day job to writing romance?  I read a romance novel and thought, “I can do better than that.” Of course, it took years before I was able to write better than the book I’d read!

What are your three favorite books of all time? Wow, I’d say: After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell, Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos, and Montana Sky by Nora Roberts.

Morning, afternoon, or evening person? Morning! I can hardly stay up as late as my kids!

Blog with Vicki: The Unimaginable!

Dress Buster

The unimaginable happened recently--I forgot the little black dress.

Yikes. Handsome had asked me to attend an event with him which required the all-purpose little black dress. I'd been traveling with him for five days and returned home overnight to repack and take off again the next morning.

We arrived at the hotel and I went to hang up my dress when a big fat UH OH hit me. No dress. I scrambled through the bag again. Nothing. Handsome observed me going through the black bag for the third time and asked what was wrong.

Nothing else to do, but confess the truth, "My little black dress is missing."

"Didn't you pack it?"

"I thought I had."

"What are you going to do?" He said this with hands on hips and a horrid thundercloud crossing his face.

"Guess I won't go to the dinner."

"That's unacceptable." He tossed me the car keys. "Go find a dress."

Indie Talk: A Writer's Dream ~ Creative Freedom Galore

This is Week 2 of Indie Talk and I'm thrilled to be here! Today we're going to talk about living the dream! What is the dream, you ask? Admit it, writers are different. We are all on our own path and many of us have second jobs or have had other jobs in the past. Jobs we hate. Some of you have jobs you love but let's be honest here, you're among friends, how much do we REALLY love our jobs, you know, the jobs where you have to be at work at 8 am on the dot, wear business clothes with pantyhose, heels, make-up and curl your hair? Some of us still make the office coffee every morning or did in the past. I know I did. Some of us had to fetch the boss his or her lunch. Grrr. Some of us had only 30 mins. for lunch or we worked through lunch so we could take our kid to the dentist. You see where I'm going with this..the slave driver type of job many women are forced into after occupying a job for a while, she starts doing all kinds of domestic duties even for her boss, dealing with office politics, going to boring board meetings, being a "team member". **Hold on...I almost choked on my morning coffee.** Okay (cough, cough)..I'm back. I just brought back some crappy memories of jobs I've held in the past. This might not be a crappy memory to all of you out there but if you like squeezing into pantyhose, keeping an expensive professional wardrobe, working on a time clock and dealing with nutty office politics, good luck with your career!