I was doing a little surfing yesterday and I found a new review for Best Man over at The Romance Studio.
"Ceri Hebert has written a wonderfully gripping fast-paced book. The book was so emotionally-charged that it was almost impossible to put down. Her writing style made the plot come to life. She described the New England surroundings so vividly I felt as if I was seeing it myself. The sensuality was sweet as well as hot. This storyline was so well written that I wanted the story to continue." Go here for the full review.
The reviewer gave it 5 hearts!! Yes, I'm pleased!
Less than 2 weeks until NaNo!! Still not sure what I"m going to write.
What's a witch to do when she refuses to use magic to find love? Beautiful Wiccan Charlotte Noone has a shop for magical supplies and a goddess who's pushing her to find the man of her dreams. When Patrick Riordan, a straight-laced non-believer enters her life, Charlotte falls madly in lust with him. Despite their very... different lives, neither can stop the erotic journey they’ve embarked on, but will it be enough to break through their barriers so they can accept that love itself is magical?
That Kind of Magic will be available on November 17th from The Wild Rose Press
I'm so psyched about this one! Well, I'm psyched about all of them, but it's so satisfying to see something I've worked so hard on be presented to the world!
Well, November is almost upon us, and we know what that means. NaNoWriMo. Yes, I'm participating this year with all the good intentions I can muster. I still have to pick my story, but I've got one on the brain so I think I'm going to go with my revampation (yeah, I know that's not a word) of Dreamer's Sea. This time with more ghosts.
When November comes to an end I'll be giving my attention to the sequel to That Kind of Magic.
At least I'm in the mood to write. I guess my muse has returned. Just hope she sticks with me for a few months.
I'm ready to throw up my hands and go it alone with editing. I'm getting such conflicting opinions within the crit group I belong to, and while I'm getting lots of good suggestions I also hear "you have too many details, it slows down the pace." and "you need more details so I feel like I'm there." And "what is her/his tone of voice when she/he says that?" and "you don't need so many dialogue tags." My head is spinning! I'll admit it freely, I like details. I like knowing how things sound and smell and look, how a shadow is cast, how something feels to the touch. It's how I write. Maybe this means I'll have trouble with getting published with Harlequin or I'll just have to compromise what I want to get across. November 1st is just around the corner and I'm still not 100% positive on what project I'll work on, the total rewrite on Dreamer's Sea or my brand new story idea. At this point I'm going to end up doing "eeny meeny miney mo" on Sunday morning. Well, we'll see.
1. Thanksgiving is this week! Where are you going? Besides eat, what do you do on Thanksgiving? Do you have any family traditions you’d like to share with us? Don’t forget to take pictures! (You’ll be asked to show them next Monday! This will also prove handy for Coffee Chat!)
This year Thanksgiving will just be DH and two of our kids and I. Two kids will be going to other places. Usually we go to my sister in law's who puts on a big spread, but my mom is out of town this year, down in Texas with my brother, sister and their families. We'll have a belated Thanksgiving on Sunday with my in-laws (due to my m-i-l's work schedule). Don't know whether we'll have turkey or not. Maybe we'll do a pot roast. And no, don't think we'll take pictures.
2. What is your favorite gadget? Why is it your favorite? If money was not an object, what gadget would you buy for yourself?
I love my mp3 player. I listen to it at work every day (need my favorite talk radio show fix) It's not fancy, just a Sony Walkman that holds about 300 songs and has a radio. Can't afford an iPod and I don't really feel like I need one. I have a pretty basic phone. It does take pictures, but I could probably do without if I absolutely have to. If I had to have a gadget.... hmm... no, can't really think of anything that I really really really want. Maybe a new digital camera.
3. You’ve been chosen to be a contestant on “Survivor” and you leave in 6 weeks. How will you spend the next 6 weeks to prepare for the challenge?
I haven't watched the show, so I'd probably spend 6 weeks figuring out how I could get out of going. I'm not into these weird survival, eating bugs and swinging on ropes over 500 pits. I'd do much better, as another blogger says, on Biggest Loser (and I have thought about it).
4. How many times a week do you visit the ATM machine? Do you normally carry a lot of cash?
A few times a week. Usually to get lunch money for DH. No, I don't carry around a lot of cash. I dont' have a credit card, I do have a debit card and I prefer it that way. I've had issues in the past and I have no wish to go there again.
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I'm home for a little while, just til my son gets home from school. I'm very pleased with myself actually. Yesterday we spent most of the day at my mother's house since she left crack o' dawn yesterday for Texas. I came armed with only my laptop and my memory stick... which didn't work with my laptop (argh) so I got a pad of paper and started writing. Later I grabbed an older memory stick from home and typed my fingers off. I'm pleased to say I'm up to 47848 words!! Woo hoo! Only 2152 to go!!! So yesterday I wrote over 3000 words. I know I have many many many words to go before this one is finished so even if I get to 50K by tomorrow, I probably will put it aside and get back to the Sweet Forever sequel.
As always, I've been thinking of different angles for Dreamer's Sea. And I tossed around an idea which would COMPLETELY change the entire fabric of the story. Maybe the change would be too drastic and would render it unrecognizable as Dreamer's Sea. But what I thought was writing it over again... in the first person and making it more humorous. I would have to drop some of the story lines, or at least change them a bit so I lose the drama queen tone.
Would I really want to do that to a manuscript that I've put so much into? Or just write something completely different. After all, I'm planning on participating in January NaNo with some writing friends. Even though it doesn't have to be for new projects, maybe I could give it a shot.
But I have time to think about that. For now I just want to hit that 50K mark.
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Well, the whole family, except for my oldest, has done the stomach flu thing. My lucky DH got it twice. Fun for all!! I just hope my oldest doesn't get it. That would be horrible.
Well, not really, but it was a day away from writing anyway. Except for some notebook writing, I stayed away from NaNo yesterday. But I did help make Whoopie Pies, chili, go to the grocery store twice (which is a long trip since we have no grocery store within 20 minutes of home) and did a Walmart run. Ca-ching. I can't believe how expensive groceries are getting! At least gas prices are going down, but still...wow. We made the executive decision to get rid of our water cooler rental and buy one of our own. We don't have good drinking water from our tap so we go for bottled but it's one expense that isn't a necessity (well, we have lots of those, but this is the easiest to give up. So, I've lost a day, but my word count is at 37546 currently so I'm not in bad shape. 12454 words to go in 14 days. So I need to average 889 words a day. I can do that easily. Oops.... I shouldn't get cocky. On other fronts I've been brainstorming with a friend regarding whats to be done about Dreamer's Sea. I'm planning on leaving it alone for now because just thinking of the overhaul it needs makes me want to crawl under the covers and hide. It means taking one of my secondary characters and giving him a much bigger role in the story, which also means changing his personality from cold elitist jerk to absent minded cold elitist jerk and I'm not sure that will go together. So I'm not going to worry about it right now. I have a few minutes to write, so I'm going to make an attempt to shave off some of my average words per day.
I've been talking to friends who know a little about Dreamer's Sea and I've come to the conclusion that I need to shelf it until I can decide what I need to add to it to make it completely awesome. Not that it's not completely awesome right now, but I've decided that it's missing angst. With a few exceptions, it's a story that kind of strolls along with no twists or turns. I came up with a few wrenches to throw into the works for my heroine and hero, but none that really grab me. I really want to avoid the whole love triangle thing. I've invested too much time to give up on the story completely, but seriously, it needs more than just a new query and synopsis. I'm sad, but I figure if it took me over twenty years to get Finally Home published then I can wait a little longer on Dreamer's Sea. In the meantime I'm speeding through my Nano story and I have another story that's waiting for me. I have plenty of angst in both. In fact I have a bunch of angst-ridden stories that are awaiting my attention. I have no lack of wips to work on, thank goodness. My word count thus far is 31153. Yahoo! That means 18847 words left to write in 18 days. That's only 1047 words a day. I'd love to finish it in a week.
1. Do think it’s okay to bring your own snacks into the movie theater? Why or why not?
With 4 kids I don't think I'd be able to get away with bringing THAT much snacks. I think bringing candy in would be acceptable, but not chips or popcorn. Besides I really like movie theatre popcorn.
2. If someone were following you, would you: A. Attempt to lose them. B. Turn around and confront them, asking them what in the heck were they doing?? C. Nothing. D. Something else (do tell!) Tell us about a time when you thought someone was following you. (Don’t we all have those stories? I do!)
I'd try to lose them. I'm not gutsy enough to do anything else. When I was about 14 I found myself without a ride after a school dance. I was supposed to call my brother but I had no change for the payphone (this was in the days before cells) so I thought I was going to have to walk. About 10 miles. At 11pm. I was beginning my hike when a guy was on the other side of the street. I dont know if he was actually following me, but he seemed suspicous. It freaked me out and I started to cry. He told me that he wasn't going to hurt me. He sounded drunk to me. Luckily my brother came along and took me home, berating me for not having change for the payphone. He was right.
3. What is your highest level of education? What were/are your thoughts about school? Would you ever consider going back to school? If so, for what? If not, why not?
I went to college with the intention of getting my bachelors degree in whatever (I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do). Once I realized my college wasn't going to give me what I wanted because I didn't know what I wanted, I opted to take the credits I had and graduate with an Associates Degree in Liberal Arts, which about amounts to nada. I did go to a travel agents school but didn't use that either. No, I wouldn't go back again. There's no reason for me to do so, it wouldn't advance my career in any way. My life is too busy to even think of adding one more thing to it.
4. Do you order photos online? Do you print your own photos or go someplace to print them off? And do you order photographic gifts too?
I've never ordered photos online before. We have a pretty decent printer that we get pictures from. We can even take slides and negatives and get photos. Anything else I'd just drop them off at Rite Aid or somewhere like that. No, never ordered photographic gifts either.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NaNo is going well. I'm DETERMINED to reach 25K today. That would be so awesome!! I'm already up to 23645 words. I've come to a place this morning where I need to stop. I need privacy when typing it... it's one of THOSE scenes. So I'll continue it this afternoon before I have to pick up the girls from 4-H.
I'm surprised I got so much writing done yesterday. DH has the flu (he got his flu shot Friday and immediately came down with the flu. I never understood that) so he's been miserable and needy. We watched some movies but I had my notebook next to me and wrote like a fiend. I'm digging it!
It helps that I have the following inspiration.....
I'm up to 7451 at the end of my third day of NaNo. I'm pretty darned pleased. While I'm not blown over by the story, I really like the characters and I'm drooling over my model for the hero (see Diane's blog for more of Jeffrey Dean Morgan). I have to get them in a few scenes together, but I'm about to give them one right now. Okay, so he's quite a bit older than she is, but that should be okay. Tomorrow I may have problems maintaining my momentum. It is, after all (for those who haven't been paying attention), election day. And it's Parent/Teacher conference day. All the schools in our district are closed and having these meetings. What a joy to have to schedule 3 meetings at 2 different schools. Fun fun. Well, I've been hearing bad things from the new neighbors. I tell ya, from how I talk people must think I live in a dive in a horrible neighborhood. I really don't. I live in a nice neighborhood. My landlord just makes bad decisions as to who he rents his units out to. We got a really nice young couple, artsy, polite, just pleasant. Apparently they haven't been too impressed with the young guys who just moved in. They live directly underneath these guys and they're very loud at any time of the day. My DH hears them tramping up and down the stairs at all hours and apparently there was an incident with a girl acting a little, um, strange (to say the least) in less than appropriate clothing.... much less, and she was outside on our front porch. Ugh. So the nice couple are planning on moving out. It just makes no sense. Anyhue.... 42549 words to go on NaNo. That means I need to average 1575 per day. Piece o' cake!
If only it could happen in real life. I dreamed that I heard back from Harlequin and they included a check for 9400.00 as an advance for That Kind Of Magic! Wow! I was absolutely thrilled. And to add to it I had another letter from another publisher with a check for 120.00 for a short story. Hey, a girl can dream, right? And so this morning I'm back to editing because I'd really really really like to someday receive a check like that. I've pretty much decided that I'll do NaNo. I've got a story brewing in my head and it won't leave me alone so I'm going to go for it. Ive got my characters picked out, I've got my setting, which I absolutely love, I'm going back to horses in my story, which I miss. I'll post a collage and a blurb on the story when I get it put together. This means I have half a month to finish up on Dreamer's Sea, which I think I can do. The synopsis is the most difficult part I have to face now. I really dislike doing them, but gotta do what I gotta do. We got more painting done (I'll have to post pictures when we're done) this weekend. Just need to do trim and then move my desk so we can finish the dining room. I really like the colors and can't wait to get new curtains. Going to be real purty. Time for breakfast. I'm enjoying a quiet morning. The kids don't have school today so they're sleeping in. I really enjoy the quiet even if I have to get up at 4am to get it.
Location: Southwestern, New Hampshire, United States
I'm 44 year old mom of 3. I work as a customer service rep for a publishing company, and I write. I have five published novels and working on adding to that.
THAT KIND OF MAGIC--AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 17,2010
What's a witch to do when she refuses to use magic to find love? Beautiful Wiccan Charlotte Noone has a shop for magical supplies and a goddess who's pushing her to find the man of her dreams. When Patrick Riordan, a straight-laced non-believer enters her life, Charlotte falls madly in lust with him. Despite their very different lives, neither can stop the erotic journey they’ve embarked on, but will it be enough to break through their barriers so they can accept that love itself is magical?.
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