A huge hug and many thanks to Dyanne Davis, a wonderful and generous soul! Check out her books at http://www.dyannedavis.com.

My personal favorite is The Color of Trouble.

Waves madly at Sonali Dev! Dyanne is right about A Bollywood Affair! The cover is stunning and the story is sweet and fun!

On to the questions.

What am I working on?

My story, The Last Case, won first place in the Washington Romance Writers DC Marlene contest.

Police Lieutenant AJ Lawsen reaches out to women caught in prostitution. After being shot in an ambush, AJ suffers a concussion and memory loss. This causes problems for her from a decorated police captain, hunky ER doctor, and a drug kingpin. AJ has to drag through the blurred lines and remember who to trust with her life and heart.

I also have a YA romantic suspense and a trilogy about three sisters finding love in the big city.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I try to the find the humor in all situations. I feel the basis of a good relationship is the ability to laugh. A sense of humor is essential to sustain the long term.

All Hours Trading centers on an established couple, a centuries old vampire madly in love with a voluptuous woman. She has been his financial adviser and lover for years. A vampire has to consider his portfolio along with his next meal. Living paycheck to paycheck for all eternity isn’t what the undead planned on. Mutual funds, stock options, and burial plot decisions are not for the faint of heart, especially if it stops beating.

Mother Nature’s Man deals with Siobhan Bolyn, aka Mother Nature, who is busy dealing with climate fluctuations and the bureaucratic melee of water, wind, fire, and earth management. A baby is in her future, it’s the guy who’s the question. A dilemma faced by every other woman ever.

Why do I write what I do?

I attended the Spring Fling writers’ conference in April and heard Mary Balogh http://www.marybalogh.com speak about her process. She lets the characters set the tone. “Once upon a time” and she lets her imagination soar. I’m no Mary Balogh, but I could relate to her idea. My hero and heroine appear first. They interact on the page and allow me to build a story around them. All Hours Trading began as a contemporary romance. It grew into a paranormal romance because of my heroine’s age. No man would take financial advice from a woman under the age of thirty, unless he was ancient. My hero morphed into a vampire. In his experience, time is irrelevant and wisdom defies age. I write what pops into my head and the possibilities are limitless. I stop, listen, and hope someone has something to say.

How does your writing process work?

I’d love to say flawlessly, but I tinker. I have a few stories going at the same time. When I screech to a halt with one, I close it down and go on to another. I keep notebooks around my house and  in my car. A line of dialogue will surface and I need to write it down. I have learned ideas do not come back for a second look.

Thanks for your time and happy reading!

I have published two books, All Hours Trading and Mother Nature’s Man, both with The Wild Rose Press.

 All Hours Trading blurb

In life, one thing is certain:  taxes. Death has many layers and all of them interest the IRS. I’m Ann Milton, a financial planner for the undead and supernaturally challenged. The love of my life is the vampire, Lance Cheron. I think he sat at the Round Table with King Arthur and they didn’t play bridge.  He’s shy with details, but not with his passion. Our lives are complicated.  First, by his age old enemy: a dried up hag after his money.  If she’s Guinevere, I’ll croak.  Second, by the activities of my roommate:  she’s a hybrid predator and great cook.  Underneath the hair, razor teeth, and talons, Colette is a real sweetie. Last, the roller coaster stock market:  how to make money last until the next fiscal year and eternity. These challenges are nothing compared to my dream:  a baby.  Undead procreation is impossible. Or is it? Paging Dr. Merlin?

Mother Nature’s Man blurb

I, Siobhan Bolyn, Goddess of the Flame and Keeper of the Land and Water, must give birth to the next goddess before my three hundredth birthday. My mate must be the preordained champion, so not just any man will do. But where to find a champion in this modern world?

When Niall Calhoun walks into my life, he’s everything I’ve hoped for. Tall, dark, sweet, and gorgeous: the true four food groups. A mere touch of his hand and my libido roars to life. But is he champion material?

Meanwhile, dark forces are plotting against me and calling my abilities into question. I’ve got to battle forest fires, soothe the oceans, appease my mother, turn Niall into Mr. Exactly Right, and have a baby in the next year. Can a goddess and her champion handle all that and still find time to fall in love?

Mary Jo Burke writes paranormal, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She lives with her family in the Midwest. For more information on Mary Jo books, please visit her website http://www.maryjoburke.com.  She’s on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MaryJoBurke and Twitter at http://twitter.com/MaryJoBurke.

Hello everyone,

To all the mothers who may be reading this, I hope you had a terrific Mother's Day. I can imagine the surprise on your faces that not only am I blogging, but I'm actually participating in a blog hop. LOL.

 If you know anything about me at all, you'll know I've had trepidation about this from the moment after I agreed to do it. There has to be a name for it, you know the I'm going to go…I'm going to do and then the moment arise and it's why did I agree. J And then of course I  wondered what the heck I was going to talk about. Then of course I wouldn't be me if I didn't wait until almost the last second to write this. Seriously, don't you think it's a bit ironic that a writer has such fears about writing just a couple of paragraphs? Okay, that was a blatant lie. With me, it's never going to be just a couple of paragraph. First off, I ramble on about things, then I get into it and want to share a bit more with you. So, actually it's not so much the writing as it is the thing in me that doesn't like to bother people with what will be some kind of pitch.  That's right, you knew it was coming. At some point in this blog, I'll tell you about my new book, how wonderful it is (it really is)and then I'll shamelessly tell you where you can buy it and plead with you to do so.  For now you're safe. I have a lot more rambling before I ever get to that point.

To start thing off the right way I'd like to thank my friend and fellow author Elizabeth Rose for getting me out of my comfort zone and forcing me to stretch a bit. Elizabeth writes, Paranormal, contemporary and medieval. Check her out.  http://elizabethrosenovels.com/author/lizrosek

Considering that I prattle and get off topic because, believe it or not, I picture faces as I write, as though I'm actually talking to you. So it's a good thing that all of the authors participating in the blog tour have to answer the same four questions.  Mind you, I'll more than likely still stray, but basically the questions will get answered.  Just so you know what I'm going for, these are the question:

1)     What am I working on?

2)     How does my work differ from others of its genre?

3)     Why do I write what I do?

4)     How does your writing process work?

At the moment I'm working on Frog Prince, a humorous, contemporary, interracial love story.  

 

  

More recently, I finally put up the third book in my Undying Love trilogy. Full Circle.

 

Hopefully, my work differs from other authors writing about the same topic, because it contains some element of what's important to me. It took a long time for me to accept that my work has an underlying message, some moral lesson. Once I accepted this I didn't' wonder about it but I didn't think it was noticed by anyone else until I decided to branch out and write about vampires.  My editor, Sidney Rickman who edited 15 of my books, first with Genesis Press, then Parker Publishing asked me if I giving up trying to teach tolerance through my writing.  Considering that I believe she's the most brilliant editor around, I have no idea why I thought she'd not noticed what I was doing. But the answer to her question was no, wanting to teach tolerance is embedded in my DNA, even my vampire has a strong moral fiber. It doesn't mean he's a pussycat, he isn't. But he accepts responsibility (most times) for the things he does.

Hmm so did I actually answer that question? To put it a bit more clearly. God, is mentioned in everything I write. No, I don't write Christian fiction, but God is still there. That may be the way that my fiction differ from other writers who write romance, complete with love scenes.   It's not one or the other for me. It's both.

Why do I write what I write? Now that question is a bit more difficult to answer. Generally my stories contain at least a grain of truth. It can be something I hear on the news, or a conversation with a friend or relative. If there is something going on that involves an injustice (at least to me) then somehow my muse brings me the story.

I'm going to digress here a bit.  Probably about fifteen years ago my muse brought me a story idea about a married woman having an affair.  For whatever reason I wrote the story in first person which turned out to be emotionally draining and sad. If not for one of my critique partners in particular, Wendy Byrne,  www.wendybyrne.net  I would have scraped the book.  Anyway, because the book was making me cry as I wrote it, I decided I needed to add a character who would lighten things up for me and the reader. That book became The Gift and is  about a psychic and a psychic war. The third main character from the first book, The Affair, needed an ending his story. That's the book that just went on sale little more than a week ago, Full Circle.

I hope you're still with me and that you noticed I said these books were written fifteen years ago. Aren't you curious as to why it took so long to bring them out? Here's the answer: The Affair is women's fiction and like I said written in first person, something that agents, mine included were having a hard time selling. Although later Parker Publishing did buy the book and it was edited By Sidney.(the entire story is too long and best saved for another time)The Gift is paranormal and Full Circle is a spiritual journey. It's still hard to sell to a traditional publisher a trilogy where each book is a different genre. That's different, even for me. While waiting for the right time to bring the books out, my agent sold a dozen books to two publishers. I also began Indie publishing and put out several novellas and full length novel. Finally the time came where I thought it was time to bring the books out. They'd waited long enough.

 I've never wanted to write the typical story. I want to do the unexpected. As Elizabeth Rose mentioned to me, probably more than fifteen years ago, I like to push the envelope. Here's the place where I'm going to tell you a bit more about the first book, titled, The Affair. I didn't want the husband to be a bad guy. He was totally in love with his wife, and had done nothing wrong that he was aware of.  I just like writing about people who do the wrong thing for the wrong reason.

I suppose I should tell you that the idea of hero and heroines just plain irk me. I like characters who screw up, who make mistakes, dumb mistakes. I like them totally flawed, and there is not always a happy ending. I'm also aware that I'm going against the grain as far as romance writing is considered. There is always a happy ending in romance, that's the point. And there is a hero and heroine, or at least their actions are as such.

Remember I said I write to impart some moral value, to teach a lesson that's buried deeply within my story.  Well, I know lots of people who are flawed, myself included, and I write about them. I've had readers become angry and say at least one of my characters behaved like a "B" when on the first page I had her say she was a B.(That was in Many Shades of Gray)Romance readers do not want their heroine to behave like a B.  Most romance writers know this and acquiesce. I am not most romance writers. There's good and bad in my not following protocol.  Another story for another day.

Now where was I?

I do believe this is the last question, how my process work. I am what's called a pantser, meaning I write without an outline. An idea comes to me, and I sit down and begin to write.  I have no idea how the story will progress or end. By the time I'm done with the first draft I will go, WOW, I didn't know that. Then I put the finished first draft away and work on something else for about a month or so.   

When I come back to the manuscript I have fresh eyes and can find the holes in my plots. From working on so many books with Sidney I will admit and will not be afraid to say this: I've become very good at finding and filling holes. As an editor Sidney has been a great confidence booster for me. She thinks I'm a great storyteller and she also said I've become a good editor. The latter isn't exactly true because a writer always see the things she/he put on paper in their mind. Everything is the way it should be. There are no mistakes, no misspelled words, no misplaces commas. That's because it's done correctly in our minds, and when we read our own work we see the comma that's not there. So the last stage in my process is to have another author read it for clarity and mistakes. Lisa G Riley is excellent at being able to do this. She wants answers for everything, and since the answer should be in the story, but I could have missed it by seeing it with my mind, I'm extremely grateful that she catches those things.https://www.facebook.com/lisa.g.riley

Okay, it's Monday morning and Bill is waiting for me to make coffee, and I want some myself. So I'm basically letting you off the hook with the expected sale's pitch.  I am not however letting you off the hook with telling you to continue following the blog. Next Monday two of my friends and fellow authors will be blogging. Mary Jo Burke, writes contemporary paranormal. She has a wicked sense of humor and you're going to love reading her books.  https://www.facebook.com/MaryJoBurke?fref=grp_mmbr_list

Sonali Dev will have her first Bollywood romance, titled, A BOLLYWOOOD AFFAIR, coming out in October. I happen to be a bit psychic, and I can tell you now, this is one author you want to get to know. She's going as they say in our business, blowup. No doubt.http://www.SonaliDev.com 

Facebook/Sonalidevfanpage 

Also, stop by the website of Elysa Hendricks who writes contemporary and has a vivid imagination with her paranormal/fantasy books as well. Or stop by her facebook page.
Thank once again, to Elizabeth Rose, and do check out her Tarnished Saints Series! – Elizabeth Rose

Alright, alright, it would be really stupid for me to post this and not at least give you my own info. I hope you're aware that means I have to go to the sites and look up the info and come back here and post it.  LOL. Did I just go off on a rant? LOL.  I should be doing better, I stopped to make coffee and have a few sips in me. Oh well. Take care. Oh, and by the way, if you're interested my books are available at all of the on-line bookstores. The older ones are still available in the brick and mortar bookstores.

Dyanne

http://www.dyannedavis.com

http://adamomega.com 

https://www.facebook.com/DyanneDavisFdDavisAuthor