Melani Blazer

Thirteen Things about Melani Things I love about writing romance 1) Research…the kind you need for erotic romance (Thank God I have a husband with a sense of adventure) 2) Discipline- this is self explanatory, but it does take a lot of discipline to finish a book. 3) Education- writing is a business and there’s a ton to learn that you can apply to “real life” 4) Friendships- there’s nothing that can compare to the friendship of the women who share my goals and understand the ups and downs of this business. 5) Education–same name, different concept–I love learning about things I only have an inkling about but want to use in a book. Old fables, new places, historical facts. Sometimes I get caught up “researching” (not the kind in #1) and forget to make notes to write. 6) Shallow one here–it’s a good excuse to look up hunky pics of hot guys as inspiration. 7) another shallow one- I don’t complain that I get to cash a check, now and then. But I still would write if I wasn’t published. It’s part of who I am. 8) There’s a sense of satisfaction when I finish a book, even a chapter or a tough scene. I love setting a goal, and making that goal. 9) I get to kill characters to take out aggression. I also get to allow characters grow, fall in love and find a happily ever after. 10) I’ve learned to have really thick skin and learn from my mistakes. It’s not always easy to take a bad review or a tough critique, but I’ve learned to try to step back and be objective (and take emotions out of the factor—sooo not an easy thing to do), and have been able to recognize my voice, learn my weaknesses AND my strengths, know when to look for help and when to force myself to work through a problem. So many things there can apply in real life. 11) Don’t kid yourself, it’s a realllllly awesome way to live out fantasies–and I don’t necessarily mean sexual ones–I can live in another era, in another country or have powers that are beyond belief. 12) I have an excuse to be online. On the other hand, I’ve learned to manage my time–tho’ I’m definitely no pro at it. 13) I love having an excuse for anything stupid, silly or weird that I do or want to do. I can be “researching” a book or trying to see things from a characters point of view. Basically, being an author is (or shall I say can be, so as not to offend the sane writers out there) just a front for insanity.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Michelle was so awesome (and overly appreciative of what I did with her blog–note, the smilies still aren’t working in firefox for her, so please, please, if you have a clue what to do, email her!) that she made me a trailer for Hot Rod Heaven.

In case you haven’t read it or checked it out, here’s the scoop:

Two years ago, Brehann Williams rebounded into the arms of her ex-fiancee’s best friend, Sebastian Bernecchi and sent them all spinning out of control. The confrontation led to her ex’s death and Bash’s disappearance. Brehann has lived with the guilt ever since.

Now, Bash is back in town and isn’t shy about his intention to pick up where he and Brehann left off. Unfortunately, their chance at happiness is marred by the appearance of a sinister black corvette. With the past haunting them, Bash and Bree have to race to find a hope for the future. They must learn if their love is strong enough to escape being run down by the ghost who seems determine to separate them for all eternity.

The books is available in ebook and print from Ellora’s Cave.

Meet Ezmerelda.

Shannon Stacey’s book, On The Edge will be released March 27th, and the buzz is all about the Devlin Group. Ezmerelda couldn’t get Shannon’s fingers off the keyboard today, but she found another outlet. Using Shan’s wireless network, she hooked up the onboard computer of her Mini Cooper to the router and cruised the internet highway to the first unsecure network she could find.

Mine.

She’s here now, a nickel plated Taurus 40 caliber shoved in my ear as she demands I type what she says.

Ow, dammit, get that light saber away from my hair, I do NOT appreciate the smell of burnt flesh. Don’t you need to give that toy weapon back to your boyfriend, Lord Vadar?
Ouch! Okay, okay, you can keep it.
Now she says demands I have to show you what she looks like.

(more…)

I have made some decent progress on my current WIP. I sliced 10 pages of repetitive childish bickering and replaced it with about 8 pages of not so childish adult discussion and hopefully, a more tangible level of sex ten which explains why the heroine is fighting soooo hard against the hero at this moment.

If you haven’t checked it out already, Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow have opened a new kick ass hangout, the Raven Happy Hour Forum. I love forums so much more than yahoo groups, so I will definitely be trolling this place.

And of course, being a forum, one has to have a avatar and a signature banner. I love siggys. I do belong to another non-writing related forum and we have the most fun with creating siggys. Well, I don’t, I just admire the delicious artwork.

I naturally had to have a siggy for the Raven forum. Here’s two I’ve created so far. I’m using #1 at the moment.

The second one makes me wanna write more vamp stories (tho I do agree the market is flooded with them… sigh). I’d love to make one for Hot Rod Heaven. Will have to wait for inspiration to strike.

But, I’ve done talked myself into being “inspired” to write some more.

See ya latah!

…the new trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End?

Gasp!

Clicky the Pirate to take you there… and don’t hesitate to dool over look at the production photos as well.

As my daughter so eloquantly put it.

Oh.

My.

God.

but we’re diehard pirates nuts, so don’t worry, we’ll be okay. Eventually.

Is it May yet?

Looks like everyone had the same idea.

Mandy’s got her blog up and running smoothly. She amazes me with her ability with art. That blog rocks.

Then Michelle Pillow took the plunge. Hers is pretty damn cool too, but if you’re visiting using Firefox, her smileys aren’t clickable. They work fine in IE and I’ve gone over it a few times, but can’t figure it out, so if someone has a clue what’s up, get in touch with Michelle about it.

Then Angie got brave (I think it was the cold meds making her feel like superman superwoman) and upgraded. Her new blog is different but the same, and I like it more every time I visit it.

I ended up adding a few more smileys. Damn, I’m a sucker for them.

I have typed in about a thousand more words on my WIP and caught up with all my handwritten pages. I’ve wandered off from the synopsis I’d originally written, so I need to go back and re-outline (not formally synopsize this time). Just not sure if I should do that now or keep on writing. Sigh. (wait… I got a smiley to do that for me. No I don’t. Geesh, must go find a sigh smiley!) (Just kidding, not going there again today)

Hope everyone’s having a great weekend!

Oh, no, nothing bad, other than tweaking it and adding smilies and stuff is ADDICTING!

Mandy Roth decided to take the plunge. She’s so web savvy anyway, it was a piece of cake to get herself up and running. She had the entire template re-freaked while I added her smilies and made them show up on the comment page. Yee haw. She tried to give me credit, but that woman is amazing with a website. Damn.

She’s doing a really cool feature on marketing, so why don’t you stop over there and say HI!

I couldn’t help myself, and I got a few new smilies, too. Have fun with them. (And if you want any, feel free to help yourself!)

Off to write,
~Mel

It’s been my goal for awhile to update my book pages–and I’ve sorta started the process. As with most of us who have control over our own website, I’m sure I’ll fiddle with it more later.

So far I’ve updated SeXTC and Hot Rod Heaven’s pages. I still have another excerpt to tease you with for Hot Rod Heaven which I still need to figure out how to add, but…. feel free to tell me what you think.

Cheers!
~Mel

Lifetime’s been advertising this new show, Blood Ties, for awhile now. The previews looked mighty good. Now, let me explain two things. One, I don’t watch TV much and haven’t followed a series since ER for the first 4 yrs and about half the season of Heroes. I don’t give two shakes about Heroes right now–have no desire to pick it back up. I had delays. I want instant gratification, not two month hiatuses (haiti? *snort*).

Total aside here…just retrieved link for Blood Ties for you and realized it’s sorta based on books. I like that. Also, if you click books, it gives you some interesting vampire reads. There ya go.

So I decided, being a paranormal author and all, and having written two very different vampires stories for anthologies, that Blood Ties would be…sorta like research, right?

My thoughts on the show after I’ve had a night’s sleep.
(more…)

Took a mini road trip with the family today. Nothing major, just to a larger town about 30 miles east of here. Goal was to price TV’s at Circuit City, stop at the mall to check out Borders (and Hot Topic for the daughter) and head home. We did as planned, with dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. Yum.

All that went well. Borders was my highlight as always. They only had one of my books, Legend of the Leopard, but I always check out what’s there for my friends and publishing companies. It’s exciting to see so many Samhain Publishing and Ellora’s Cave books in there.

On the way home, my daughter and her friend (who we allowed to tag along to keep the daughter sane) were listening to their ipod and we end up behind someone who wants to do five miles less than the posted speed limit. Two lane highway with cars staggered JUST right to eliminate any chance of passing. Of course. This always happens. My husband swears we have a “go ahead, mess with me” neon sign on the front/rear of our vehicles.

Anyway, he’s trying to keep his mouth clean and his road rage to a dull roar. So he notices the plate of said car in front of us starts with 2DQ. He said… are they going to Dairy Queen? Maybe we should follow. (we won’t go there on what he wanted to do with said ice cream cone and driver’s backside…)
I responded, no, it’s 2 Dirty Quacks in the car.
He said, two Dumb Questions?
and it was on…
Some of the ones I remember were
2 Drama Queens
2 Dead Quail
2 Dingleberry Quartets (don’t ask, we were getting creative)
2 Detroyed Quasars
2 Done Quickly
2 Dented Quarters
(Q was really tough, let me tell you…)
2 Demented Quality Techs (that’s his job, so he was picking on his peers. No offense)

Can anyone else think of a funny one? I’m sure we had more, but it’s been an hour. My memory chip doesn’t hold info that long.
What else do you do to entertain yourself/family in the car?