Saturday, June 28, 2014

Home from a Trip Where I Wrote 17k New Words!

Me at a waterfall in Myrtle Beach-close enough!
An opportunity arose to accompany one of my sisters to a veterinary conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I agreed and we decided to head to Florida first, to visit our parents. Dad just turned 89, and it had been some time since we had made the 550+ mile trip to their beautiful home.

Eating out, visiting other relatives, driving the golf cart around the huge gated community, and swimming in the pool were relaxing, yet I still found some private moments to work on promotion and write chapters in my new book.
Marina Inn at Grande Dunes

When we arrived at the Marina Inn at Grande Dunes in Myrtle Beach, we enjoyed a lovely visit. I woke up at 6:15 each morning to grab free coffee in the lobby at 6:45 and watch my sister take the shuttle bus to the conference hotel a mile away. 

I wrote, I swam, I wrote, then headed to the luxurious lobby every afternoon to write while I waited for free cookies and lemonade at 3:00.  I then waited for my sister to arrive, and we made our evening plans. We had dinner at Ruth Chris' Steak House, and Joe's Crab Shack. Yum! (and, according to yesterday's doctor visit, I only gained 1/2 lb!)
View from our 7th floor balcony

Our 2 bedroom, 2 bath, full kitchen suite overlooking the pool and the marina was beautiful, and during the writing sessions, where I also did a lot of editing, I wrote over 17,000 new words! Good words, too, and my story is headed close to its ending. It is the second book in my Kilted Athletes Through Time series, and I cannot wait to share it with you. For now, enjoy the trip photos.

Nancy Lee Badger
Nancy Lee Badger loves chocolate-chip shortbread and wool plaids wrapped around the trim waist of a Scottish Highlander. Her stories tempt you with the clang of broadswords, and the sound of bagpipes in the air.After growing up in Huntington, New York, and raising two handsome sons in New Hampshire, she moved to North Carolina where she writes full-time. Nancy is a member of Romance Writers of America, Heart of Carolina Romance Writers, Fantasy-Futuristic & Paranormal Romance Writers, Triangle Area Freelancers, and the Celtic Heart Romance Writers.  

See all Buy Links for My Lady Highlander HERE

Friday, June 13, 2014

Nancy Lee Badger Interviews Author James Hutchings


Please welcome author James Hutchings all the way from Australia! His book, 
They Say the Sirens Left the Seas, is a collection of poems, often fantasy-themed, and was released on May 26.

Please tell my readers a little bit about your book. 

It's a collection of 46 poems. It has a particular emphasis on poems that tell a story, particularly in the fantasy genre.


When did you start writing toward publication? 

I wrote a novel in the early 2000s that's best not spoken of, but I've been writing and submitting continuously since 2010.

I started submitting stuff (turned out to be crap) in 2007, and sold the good stuff starting in 2010. Practice makes perfect! Do you have any rejection stories to share?

I got a rejection email for one of my poems which said that "There were several amusing parts in this poem, but it’s not consistently funny throughout, which is what I’d be looking for in a humour poem. I think the problem (as I see it) is that you’re often vague or allusive; specific details tend to be funniest." This would have been a lot more encouraging if the poem was meant to be funny.

What is your writing routine like?

I've heard some writers say they can only write in a particular room, or only at a particular time of day or something, but I've never had anything like that. At the moment I mostly write last thing in the day, but I'd be happy to change this if circumstances required it. I've done a lot of writing on bus or train trips.

Me, too! With a husband and several volunteer 'jobs', I try to get 'stuff' out of the way, then write until something else interrupts. Are you a member of any writing organizations and, if so, have they helped?

I've been a member of a few different face-to-face critique groups, as well as online ones, and have found them mostly useful. However I've never been a member of bigger, fee-charging organizations like Writers Victoria. I've found that, at least for an amateur like me, the cost isn't worth what they offer.

Please share THREE fun facts about you that most people don’t know:

1) I have three nipples (the third one is small, and looks like a birthmark or a pimple, but it's a nipple).

2) This isn't really a fun fact, but it's a strange fact. Some local neo-Nazis called Australia First recently decided (falsely), that I was the author of an anti-Nazi blog. They published my photo, name, address and even date of birth online (I assume they found them on facebook). I went on local radio with the real author of this blog to prove that we were two different people- but even after I did this they kept insisting that I was really him! I've actually had to get lawyers to threaten to sue them.

3) I used to dance like no one was watching, but everyone stared at me.

What’s next for you?

Later this year I hope to put out two more ebooks: one based around a long poem set in my fantasy city of Telelee, and the other around a long Western poem called 'Confession of a Bounty Hunter'. At the moment I'm working on a longer poem, set in the distant past and with a fantasy-like atmosphere, but no magic or monsters.

BOOK BLURB

The last dragon faces his death...
A magician bases his life on a misheard word...
A teenager goes looking for his friends' girlfriends, none of whom have ever been seen...
46 poems by James Hutchings.

Excerpt:

The Cat and the Toad

At the dawn of the world on a tree-sheltered road
an agreeable cat met a horrible toad.
When the cat saw its neighbor it fearfully shook
for in those days all creatures would act as they looked
and the toad was all warty, and bulging, and slimy.
The trembling cat mewed a terrified "Blimey!"
(more vigorous oaths had not yet been discovered)
and looked at the evil made plain on the other
one hideous sin for each hideous feature.
"Oh please do not kill me, most wicked of creatures!"
it begged without hope. But the toad thought awhile
then it gave what might almost have been called a smile
and it said, "You may keep what you carry within
but if you are to live, you must give me your skin."
Now the cat had no choice, though it bitterly cried
but to take off its fur and to put on the hide
of the venomous toad, and no creatures had made
such a villainous threat, such a terrible trade.
Then the cat hopped away where it once would have strode
for the toad was a cat, and the cat was a toad.

This explains why the toad, though so utterly charmless
is gentle in nature and totally harmless
while cats appear graceful and splendid and good
but would murder us all in our beds if they could.

(Disclaimer: This only refers to other cats. Your cat is lovely of course).

Thanks! 
How can my readers 
buy your book? 


MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Hutchings
James Hutchings lives in Melbourne, Australia. He fights crime as Poetic Justice, but his day job is acting. You might know him by his stage-name 'Brad Pitt.' His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Wisdom Crieth Without among other markets. His ebook collection 'They Say the Sirens Left the Seas' is now available from Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and DriveThruFiction.

You can find more information 
about James here:

BLOG    Goodreads 

Goodreads  

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Nancy Lee Badger-Positive Quote of the Week

Evil often triumphs, but never conquers –Joseph Roux
I am posting this because I just finished working through an important moment in my latest novel. My heroine is nearly drowned by a man who got a little too friendly. It was an accident, but two handsome men come to her rescue. It works, and there is enough conflict to keep the story moving forward. 

Evil is necessary, even in a romance, novel, and I firmly believe we do not know what is important until it has been yanked from our hands. A writer of romance works hard to make the story flow with ups and downs, but always gives their readers a happy-ever-after ending. 

Have a great week!
Nancy Lee

Sunday, June 1, 2014

It is Flip a Coin Day!

June 1st is
FLIP A COIN DAY

If you flipped a coin, what would you wish for?

More money?

A fabulous new home?

What about world peace?




A better job?

I have the best job in the world...I am an author.

And if you like those coins sporting dragons, 
here are the blurbs of the three stories included in 
my book
DRAGON Bites

DRAGON'S CURSE, set on the Scottish island of Staffa in the late 16th century, features a young man cursed to transform into a dragon at inopportune times.
SOUTHERN FRIED DRAGON pairs a Scottish dragon-turned-woman and a federal soldier at Ft. Sumter on the eve of Civil War.
DRAGON IN THE MIST is a contemporary love story on the shores of Loch Ness. This short story won 1st Place in its category in the 2012 Self-Published Stars Contest.


DRAGON Bites is available in ebook 
and trade-size paperback.

              


   
                                    
                 iTunes    Smashwords