Stacey Nash tagged me in the “Next Big Thing” Blog Hop–go back and check her post out. She’s a wonderful author with great stories you don’t want to miss.

So #pitchwars is coming and I’ll talk to you about Glowing Shadow. The story that will participate.

At the end you have an excerpt of the story. Not of the beginning but of a very steamy page.

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

1. What is the working title of your book? /2. Where did the idea come from?/3. Genre?

Glowing Shadow is a YA Urban Fantasy with strong romance elements. The idea actually came from a song. I was listening to it and all this feelings overwhelmed me and I thought about being an emphat. From there on the characters started to live in my head. They seemed to feel comfortable there since they didn’t leave in a year and still now I hear them.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Dalkiel is absolutely inspired by Ian Sommerhalder. One day I was watching the vampire diaries and some interviews with him and I thought this is Dalkiel. For Muriel I’m still searching. So hard to find her!

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When eighteen-year-old empath Muriel moves to Madrid, she finds herself fighting for her soul in the middle of a battle between lights and shadows. 

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I am searching for an agent that loves Glowing Shadow as much as me.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It took me a month, the story was so clear in my mind that I couldn’t stop writing.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Die for me by Amy Plum and Daughter of smoke and bone by Laini Taylor. Fantasy lives in big cities in each story. And the city itself is a character.

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book?

As I seed the need to feel others emotions took me to explore something unimaginable to feel them all. Shadows always intrigued me, there anything can live so it made me think about the Malekia. Of course the romance element came to me quickly. Love romance!

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It’s a story settled in the wonderful city of Madrid, were you explore beautiful places with Muriel. While you’re afraid of the shadows stealing her soul. If that’s not enough there’s a very steamy romance with lots of sexual tension.

EXCERPT:

Once the Bolognese was almost done, pasta simmering and cookies in the oven, I let myself enjoy my little addiction. Chocolate. Knowing that would calm my nerves at least a little I cut a small piece, put it on my mouth and moaned in ecstasy at the taste. My inability to stop moaning when eating chocolate always led my brothers to tease me but I couldn’t help it.

“What are you eating?” I felt the warm air of his breath when he whispered those words in to my ear, multiplying my euphoria. His chest brushed against my back. I jumped forward a little forward, but I didn’t get too far, I was trapped between him and the counter. My hormones awakened and overheated my body.

“Cho…colate.” I said almost without voice when I recovered a little.

“It seems you really like it.” He was still whispering in my ear while he put an arm around me to take a piece of the chocolate. “I like it too. It’s a great supplement for other things…” He turned away from me.

“What?”

“Forget it,” he said as a smile played on his lips. How hard was it for this man to answer questions.

Stacey Trombley

Clare Dugmore

I can’t believe it. Finally after two weeks rewriting the first chapter and one rewriting the rest. I have four chapters done, that I’m happy with.

It’s not that I rewrote the hole thing, but look for places to add or change a word or a sentence to convey or not something took me time. I wanted the first chapter to be perfect and I think I’m closer to it.

The kids don’t have school tomorrow but if I can do another five chapters by the end of the next week I’d be very happy.

How about you? Any news?

Hi!!

I entered the GUTGAA Pitch Polish, I’m very happy!

I just wanted to let you know my entry is number 43, here’s the link: http://deanabarnhart.blogspot.mx/2012/09/pitch-polish-43.html

If you have time to drop by, read and help fellow writers with their pitches, not only mine. We’d be grateful!

Have a nice day!

Hi! I’m Anabel Gonzalez and I’m searching for a critique partner and a group of critique partners.

I have been a writer for 5 years now. I write YA and new adult, paranormal romance, contemporary, urban fantasy and dystopian. Also you have to know my native language is Spanish but I learned to read, write and speak in English at the same time I did with Spanish.

I like to read of all the genres, except horror.

What I search in a critique partner besides the obvious is a long term friend. When you give someone your writing for critique you’re giving part of your soul so you want to have a good relationship with this person, a person who knows you, what you like and want, and that is completely honest for your own good.

I would like to find someone willing to give in depth critique, including grammar, plot, character development, etc. I offer the same in return.

My current project ready for critique is a YA paranormal romance about an eighteen year old girl who has the ability to absorb and transmit feelings. She goes to Madrid to study psychology and to try to control her gift away from her family. She already made her sister try to kill herself for some feelings she absorbed on the street. But in Madrid she finds strange shadows that what to kill her and wonderful lights that want to protect her. So she has to find what everyone is and why she must die, while feeling an intense and complicate love for the leader of the lights. Although she suspects he is not completely a light…

I’m totally ready to submit in the amounts you’d like.

So if you want a friend and a critique partner that’ll be completely honest with you and will be there every step of this long journey email me at: anacasamadrid AT Hotmail DOT com.

Welcome to my little corner. I’m so excited to do this!

First I want to thank Deana for organizing this amazing schedule for writers.

Now let’s start the meet and greet:

I’m Anabel Gonzalez.I live in Mexico City but I think of myself as a citizen of the World. I have lived in Spain (Madrid and Galicia) many years. I learned to read, write and speak English at the same time I learned my native language so both are natural for me. I love Historical places, read fiction, cook and just stay around my kids. Oh! by the way I’m married and I’m the mother of two awesome boys that bring me out of my world of fiction with smiles or shouts.

Where do you write? I write in the study I share with my husband. We have each our own space. I placed pictures all over my corner, a pink quartz heart and lots of notes and papers everywhere.

-Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see? The door. I sit in the right corner.

-Favorite time to write? The mornings, when the kids are at the school and I have 3 hours of complete silence to my fiction world.

-Drink of choice while writing? Flavored black tea.

-When writing, do you listen to music or do you need complete silence? I need silence, although when I’m searching for the emotion for certain scene I need the music to guide me.

-What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it? I was playing with the idea of two opposites falling in love. I adore romance stories. So I thought and thought until the leading male role started talking in my head.

-What's your most valuable writing tip? Write, write and then read. Every day of your life.

Since the kids went back to school I set a deadline for me to end this rewrite of my current MS, the end of September or the beginning o October.

But that wasn't very good of me. I set a goal that will put a lot of pressure on myself because I haven’t thought about all the things that come with the beginning of a new school year. All the lists of things the teacher’s want you to make or send and also to make Carlos (my ADHD son) go back to the school routine. I thought this wasn’t going to be hard for him since he was doing so well by the end of the last school year. But vacations altered everything and now is very hard to go back. It’s hard for him to pay attention and to copy what the teacher writes in the board, he is getting very distracted with everything and he doesn’t wants to do homework. So you can imagine how frustrated he is when he has to work all weekend in all the notebooks he got behind.

So it’s been a lot of hours focused on that, on school meetings, doctor appointments, etc. It just isn’t real anymore to set that goal because that wouldn’t let me breathe. For sure I want to end soon but I need to slow down a bit. Also I only have a few chapters of comments from my critique friends ( no pressure on you girls ).

So I think I should focus on a few chapter at a time, for example I would like to finish the chapters I have all comments of ( the first four) this week. That way I will do everything I can to make them perfect without pressure, if I went for the end of the month goal I’d need to do many more chapters.

Realistic goals are so hard to set, we always want to achieve everything soon. At least that’s my case.

How do you settle realistic goals?

Have a good day!

It is published in the Forbes.com webpage and it’s very interesting.

The title: “ Drowning In Indie Books - And That's A Good Thing”

Only a little extract of it:

“Since then I read more ebooks than physical books. I buy a lot more books, too. Last year I noticed that books were getting cheaper, but the writing was getting worse. It started to get harder and harder to shop the Kindle store because I was either upset by the price of a book or the quality of its writing. Accidentally, I had stumbled upon the new face of self-publishing.

My experience reflects a profound and wrenching transformation of publishing that is shaking the industry to its roots. The beneficiaries of the existing order – major publishers and their most successful authors have become the most visible opponents of the turmoil that these “Indie” authors have introduced.”

I’m still undecided of what is better or if both are better, but this article really made me think.

I highly encourage to read the rest here

What do you think?

Hello, everyone. I missed you all!

It has been a long and summer. But the vacations are over and kids are back in school and mommy has to work full schedule of writing again.

I spent the whole summer with the kids playing and going around. Also we had for 20 days the visit from my husband’s best friend and his family so we toured all the city.

Oh and I decided since kids didn’t wanted me to be closed in my study writing that I’ll take advantage of that and tidy up all the house so I wouldn’t feel bad if I neglected it more once they got back to school. Everything is organized, every single space, drawer, closet, etc. I got the chance to give up to Church eleven bags of things almost new that we were not using and I feel great about it.

Oh! I’m planning to make some post about what I saw this time in my tours around the city. We went with a friend that is an archeologist and explained us a lot of things we didn’t knew and also showed us places we never visited.

This is just an example:

This is the Sun pyramid in Teotihuacan. I went all the way up, but I’ll tell you that story in  the post about it!

Now I’m going to delve deep in revisions. I really want to end this revisions by the end or September or if my head doesn’t help by the middle of October. So back to work I go!

How was your summer?

Have a great day!

1. I have been studying a lot of grammar, since I’m done with Glowing shadow for now. I want to memorize the elements of style, I hope by the end of the summer I can make it.

2.Also I have been helping the kids with lots of projects. Seriously they send projects for my 3 year old in kindergarten, I couldn’t believe it. Anyway I tried to help in a way the work was from them but they understood it, so it was long but at the end had good results.

3. I have three noisy stories in my head. I’m trying to write every idea on a notebook to further outline them after I go back again to Glowing Shadow and the summer with the kids.

4. Yesterday I went with one of my best friends to see the movie Snow white and the huntsman. Well, I loved Charlize Theron as always, she does an amazing witch. As a lover of fantasy I loved what they did with the setting and the story. Kirsten Stewart was good but I couldn’t keep from thinking she was Bella, she couldn’t pull me out of that memory. What I liked most was this:

5. A random fact about me that you might not know. I not only know Spanish and English, I also know Galician, a Romance language close to Portuguese. I know it because my parents are from Galicia, Spain and they usually talk between them in that language at home. I learned it because I heard them and when I went to see my grand parents there were all these people talking to me on that language so I had to learn. But the reason that I think that made me understand it and learn it was that my mother when was angry with me always spoke in Galician so if I wanted to know what she was saying and my punishment I must understand her. It came naturally to me since I heard it since born, but I can only understand, speak and read it. I tried and tried, but I can’t write it.

Have an amazing weekend!

So it’s Wednesday and I’m back with the inspiring, funny or beautiful images I found out through my wall in Facebook. There you can search I the sites I like were I get all of them.

I wish there were someone who could tell us!!

A new word. I know many of you will like it.

One about writers! I think the best one is the one who’s on the verge of embarrassing you or make you hide away afraid if you can do it.

Certainly I don’t have strength!

Have a marvelous day!

Well, or at least for a few days. Now it’s on the hands of a great friend that will give me her opinion and in June another great friend will read it. I have amazing friends.

I still can’t believe that I translated this whole novel by myself and that I revised it 10 times. It’s been forever!

I want to thank all of you who encouraged me to do this by myself, to try and cheered me up all the way. Even if this novel never gets an agent or gets published I will be proud because it was my first in English.

Really I can’t thank you enough!

Now it comes time to plan and think, the YA market is very competitive and I already wrote a paranormal romance that has very few chances to get picked since there’s a lot out there. Summer is coming with kids at home for a month and a half so I want to outline three novels so I can draft them during he school year. I’m thinking about two contemporary and one sci-fi,fantasy, romance novel (if that genre even exists).

For one of them I have to research a lot about medical care in the US because I know nothing but I think all this time will help.

Also I plan to memorize the elements of style in the summer and read whatever good book about writing I kind find. I’m open to suggestions…

Glowing shadow will not go to submissions until my friends read it and I revise it again, then I will make a tea and wait.

For now I will take the morning off and go shopping!

Again thank you to all of you!

Sorry for all this days only post on Wednesday, but I’m deep in revisions of Glowing Shadow. It’s almost done and I can’t stop!!!

I hope this images inspire you as they inspire me every day. Feel free to tell which is your favorite and why or even share ours!

Since I’m an introvert I loved this one.

Tomorrow is mother’s day here in Mexico and I found this image and quote beautiful!

Have a great day! Back to revisions I go!

We just got back to normal, we had a long weekend here in Mexico. Friday kids didn’t had school because teachers have a meeting every last Friday of the month (Why I don’t know) Monday they decided it was a good idea to give it off since Tuesday was May 1. I wonder why this is a good idea since the kids just got back to school from two weeks of spring break. Oh and they are having Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 off to because the 15 is teachers day. I wonder how they’re going to grade April and May or most importantly if my kids are going to learn something this months!

Anyway, today I hope I can go back to my MS. Three more pages and it will be fully translated the I will have to go back to a revision and off to my awesome critique partner.

Well, so here are the images of the day:

And last I’m posting this image that I think is helpful for everyone:

I hope some images help you, inspire you or just make you laugh!

As always all this images I got them from my friends on Facebook!

If you like too share here images that inspire you or make you laugh, or only comment if some of them helped.

I hope all of you are well and having an awesome day!

I love strong female characters so I couldn’t resist sharing this.

Also I had to share something about writing, that’s what I do!

And to the end something funny!

I hope this images inspire you , make you laugh or think. If they did I’ll be happy!

Have a great day!

This Wednesday I have many images and quotes to share with you, I hope they inspire you as much as they inspire me:

This is very true with my WIP. The wrong choices are taking me to awesome places.

I would love to have a place like this one!

For all of you my friends:

Now I’m going to quote something from Kristen Lamb’s blog post: The secret to success- quitting. Read it if you have time, it’s great.

“You are a pre-published author...who happens to also be a stay-at-home-mom, a computer programmer, a salesperson, a whatever.” Kristen Lamb.

Have a great and inspiring day!

So patesden tagged me to this challenge. Thank you. Please go read her lines here:http://patesden.livejournal.com/96647.html

Okay so I will paste down here the explanation of the challenge:

The 7-7-7 Challenge:
Flip to page 77 or page 7 of your current WIP.
Find line 7.
Post the 7 sentences that follow.
Tag 7 more writers.

Here are the lines of my current WIP, Glowing Shadow, I didn’t wanted to cut in the middle of a sentence so is one more line:

Something punched my chest, slamming me against the walls. My vision blurred, my bones shouted in pain. My muscles ached. My thoughts hurt. I couldn’t move. Cold air danced around me, bit at my skin, and I swallowed with difficulty.

What happened? Lunging outward at my attacker, determination took possession of my body, pushing aside my pain.

I forced open my eyes and evil energy seized me. Brown eyes, full of anger and purpose, bore into me. A black mask covered the person’s face, making the stare more threatening. Muscles taut as if ready to attack again. The being moved closer, murderous and menacing as it crossed the space between us.

AND YOU’RE NEXT:

My 7-7-7 authors are:

1. Tracy_d74: http://tracy-d74.livejournal.com/

2.tracyworld: http://tracyworld.livejournal.com/

3.bogwittch64: http://bogwitch64.livejournal.com/

4.robinellen :http://robinellen.livejournal.com/

5.olmue: http://olmue.livejournal.com/

6. Demetra Brodsky:http://whyiya.blogspot.mx/

7. All of you my lj list who want to share! I couldn’t put everyone so this is a way.

Please don’t feel any pressure you can say no, or share from another story you wrote. I thought it was a good idea to pass on, to motivate each other.

Well, as you can see I’m back. Kids are at school and I’m back to writing!

Have a great day!

So, kids are on spring break for this week and the next one. I was prepared for that even when it’s crazy sometimes but for what I wasn’t prepared is for not having, telephone, internet or TV. Imagine the times when mommy is cooking or doing laundry and there’s not TV!!!!

So, I called the company and after having me the last week like an hour every time I called on hold they said that it was their mistake and that they will solve it within 48 hours. But it never got solved. I have my ear red of being in the phone. So today I cancelled my contract and tomorrow is coming another company to make all the changes.

So I’ll be away( although trying to read you and answer your posts) until kids get back to school.

This Wednesday images are perfect for what I lived these days:

I hope you have a great Easter and a more fun spring break!

"Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead."
~Josh Whedon

I took it from Mused

Happy day!

I’m proud of being the grand daughter of this marvelous woman who always had forgiveness in her heart, and she truly forgets everything. That woman that loves me with every bit of her heart and when she spent time with me gave me all the love she had.

Yesterday was her 84th birthday, here’s the picture:

She’s already losing her memory but you know what, she remembers me, she’s always asking for me by my name and also is asking about my kids. She says to everyone that her grand daughter loves her very much. And I’m so proud that even when she only hears me from the phone and sees photos I send her every once in a while she still remembers. I only pray to God to make me able to see her and take my children with me to see her before she completely loses her memory or dies.

The man of the back is also the best grandfather of the world but I‘ll leave him for another post.

Oh by the way yesterday arrived Carlos grades, they grade him in all the subjects in English and Spanish from 0 to 10 and he got all 10!! I’m so proud of him, of how hard he’s trying to be the best aside from his ADDHD.

Okay enough of things of being proud of. Back to work!

Have an amazing day!

writing

2. Glowing Shadow with this revision and translations sits now in 57,585 words , but I think that number will be lower after I make some changes I just thought. So I only have left 25,000 words more. Yay!!

3. I love my mornings. Every day my husband and I take the kids to school together at 7.30 am, After that we walk to this coffee place that I adore because it also has amazing black teas and we spent and hour there together.

4. we sit on those tables outside and my view is this one:

Since I love roses there’s no better coffee shop for me!

5. We have long weekend! Yay!! we’re going to sleep more! Monday is a holiday so we want to rest but also take the kids to somewhere fun lets what we do.

Have an amazing weekend, my dear friends!

I just decided that from now on I will try to upload every Wednesday and image or quote that I like, its funny, sarcastic or that I find inspiring.

I hope you like the idea!

So here’s the first one:

This image I think I got it from Trying gods patience in Facebook ( I have so many images saved in my pc that sometimes I don’t know were did they came from). Anyway if you have Facebook you can find her there.

Have a great day!

Seven years ago was one of the most important days of my life, but also one of the scariest.

This day seven years ago I gave birth to the most beautiful, loving and intelligent. When I first had him in my arms I started to tremble thinking: Oh my God! He only has me! What if I’m not a good mother? I was very scared to say the less, I love children but having your own is completely other thing.

I gave birth to this beautiful kid, that’s part of me and the love I share with his father and I ‘m so proud of not letting anything stop me from having him, from being his mother.

He has taught so many things, for instance how to be a mother, things I didn’t knew about myself and many things more. I know I’m not the perfect mother and maybe I will never be, but what I know is that I will care for him and love him till my last breathe and beyond.

So here is the birthday boy!

Have a great Monday!

In honor of my dear friend tracyworld, I will also use a pasta hat.I found it inspiring and maybe wearing it can help call the muse with pasta!

Anyway I love tracy for helping me star again making fun of myself!

Have a great weekend!