Anya Bast

Cupcakes are my kyptonite. I fall to my knees and am powerless against a chocolate with buttercream frosting.

Hey, all — I’m not sure I mentioned this before. I just turned in a contract for the Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance, which will be out in 2009. It will be a collection of short stories within the sub genre of, you guessed it, paranormal romance. 🙂

Anyway, I’m really excited to be participating!

Here’s the Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance on Amazon, which release at the end of July. Just a bare sampling of the authors included is: Karen Chance, Lilith Saintcrow and Vicki Pettersson.

Today it is SO hot. Wow. Here’s me, very happy we have central air again. 🙂 We spent the day at the library and then at the (very crowded) public pool. Hope you’re staying cool wherever you are!

Why does my husband not understand that books are not a luxury? They are a necessity, like prescribed medicines and bread. I must have my books. I must! Therefore, when he gets the credit card bill and sees what I’ve spent on books he should not read it as a charge for inconsequentials, but for my life’s blood. He should be happy I’m not off buying shoes or purses. That would be a much more expensive past time. Why does he not understand?

*screams and has dramatic breakdown*

No seriously, though, it’s damn hard to live with someone who is not A Reader. I’m doing all I can to ensure my daughter is A Reader. Then he’ll be outnumbered. *laugh of evilness*

In a bit of good news…I surpassed the halfway point on Witch Fury yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to write yet today (what a crazy day!), but my characters are about to come against a huge challenge. My fingers are literally itching to get at the keyboard. I can’t do that until I have a quiet house, however.

In yet other news, we picked the first first organic tomato off the vine two days ago and savored it sliced with a bit of salt. Yuuuum. So good. Summer is officially here.

I am about 40% finished with Witch Fury and rapidly reaching the halfway mark. It’s misleading to say I’m “40%” finished, however, because there’s always so much cutting, rearranging, adding, rewriting, ect during my editing portion of the book writing process. But this is how far along I am in the initial draft.

The male lead is infuriating. He won’t do what I need him to do. Sometimes characters are like that. You create them to be a certain way and then their personalities make “dealing” with them difficult. In this case, the hero is stoic, untalkative, gruff and uncooperative. He was like that in Witch Heart too, but in that book he was only a secondary character. I’m going to have to get the whip out soon.

I’m writing this morning, but will probably knock off at some point today to take my daughter to the zoo. It’s beautiful here. I hope it’s half as pretty where you are.

If you have a second, be sure and check out Lauren Dane’s new cover for Fated. Also, go on over and take a peek at Megan Hart’s cover for her next Spice release, Stranger. They are both incredibly pretty!

I have like ten gajillion books on sale at Amazon.com, yet every time a new one goes up for pre-order I always go Eeeeeeeeeeep!!!!! Hello, Witch Heart! Nice to see you there!

I have an FANTABULOUS cover for this book. Unfortunately I don’t have the final version yet and can’t post it. I have news too. Oh, such shiny, pretty publishing news! I can’t share that yet either. As soon as I can share the news and/or the cover, I’ll be over here burning up my blog’s keyboard, you can lay money on it.

The heating and air conditioning guys are here bright and early for the second day of the installation of our new central air/heat pump. Yesterday they spent about eight hours ripping out what seems like the guts of our house and installing vent/duct work (new veins?) in the two rooms created by the renovation we did to the house over Christmas. Today apparently they’re finally actually installing all the new guts and finishing off the vent/duct work.

The latter will make me very happy because since yesterday afternoon we’ve had two more or less open holes leading into the crawl space and that made me wake up in the middle of night on the sudden thought, Oh, my god, there are brown recluse crawling up from the bowels of house! Heh. This is brown recluse country, but I have ample reason to believe we are brown recluse free. That was just middle of the night paranoia.

The sad part is that we probably won’t even use the air conditioning all that much for a while. I told my husband last night, “Yeah, but I looked at the weather and it’s only going to be 90 tomorrow!” His face looked like this: :- / I’m more of an environmentalist than he is. We got through all of last summer with no air conditioning. I only turn on the air if it’s really, really HOT and 90 is not really, really HOT to me because I have sure fire strategies of keeping the house much cooler than that during the day (it helps that we have lots of trees shading our house). If the heat index gets up into the mid to high 90s, then I relent.

See, every time I turn on the air conditioning I think of all the polar bears who don’t have any ice to stand on and that’s pretty much enough of an image for me to suffer a little bit of heat. I tend to drive as little as possible too. It’s not the gas prices deterring me, (though they definitely help). I’ve always kept my driving to a minimum by avoiding unnecessary trips and planning out my errand running in the most effective way possible.

This weekend, Renaissance Festival! Yay! I love me some Ren Fest.

We watched Cinderella a few days ago and now my daughter is ALL ABOUT that movie. Shes always fishing it out of the DVDs and bringing to me. When I try to put a different DVD in, she says No! Sssss MORE, PEAS! (That means “More Cinderella, please.”)

Cinderella is not my personal fave of all the Disney princesses, although she’s much less wishy washy than I thought she was. Cinderella is not all content with her lot in life, even if she doesn’t do much to change it. She’s even a bit sarcastic upon occasion. And at the end she’s really doing all she possibly can to get downstairs and try on that damn slipper. My favorite part as a child was always the bibbity, bobbity, boo and this part (along with the mice, I suspect) is also my daughter’s favorite part.

Anyway, we’re on the second showing of Cinderella today alone. Oy.

I hope as she gets older she’ll like Mulan. She’s by far my favorite Disney “princess”.

A couple things before the meme….

Does anyone else keep thinking about Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan series every time they talk about the tomato scare on the news, or is it just me? Also, just because I’m being denied tomatoes I’ve developed a huge craving for them…and I don’t really even LIKE tomatoes.

Second random bit…there’s this thing that writers need to have and it’s called DISCIPLINE. It means you sit your ass down in your chair every day or every evening and you write. We need to be disciplined because we have this other thing called DEADLINES. Deadlines are a part of a writer’s life, really the fiber of an author’s career, dare I say. *head tilt* The category authors have this great acronym — BICHOK — Butt In Chair Hands On Keyboard. Yeah.

Now things happen and sometimes an author might miss a deadline. Sickness might occur, or natural disasters. Sometimes the book just simply doesn’t flow the way you want it too. Stuff happens. But that latter thing shouldn’t be used as an excuse because authors need to plan for the “worst case scenario”. That’s why I don’t lie around not writing until two or three months before my deadline. I start right away, anticipating I’ll be blocked here or there, or that I’ll have to rewrite significant portions. I plan for my “muse” to take a leave of absence at some point.

Bottom line is that I don’t wait around for my muse to strike me. My muse is discipline. My muse is MY CHECK in the mail. Dude, my muse is the POST PERSON. So, if you’re making six figures on your books and you only have one measly deadline a year, meet it. Don’t whine and make me want to kick your ass.

*deep breath*

Okay, meme time. I was tagged by Lauren Dane to share six things about myself.

The rules:

a. Link to the person who tagged you.
b. Post the rules on your blog.
c. Write six random things about yourself.
d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.
f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

1. I chain chew Orbit gum (the bubblemint flavor) and can’t keep in the house.

2. I have a major caffeine addiction

3. I’m pretty superstitious by nature. It really bothers me a lot if you spill the salt in my presence and don’t throw some over your shoulder.

4. I’m fascinated by bugs in a way that leaves me intrigued and grossed out at the same time. I won’t kill a spider in the house (unless it’s too fast to catch and relocate, is exceptionally huge, or I think it could be harmful). I will immediately kill any centipede I see and then do the YuckYuckYuckThatWasACentipede! Dance of Blarg.

5. I must read every night before I go to sleep, even if it’s just a paragraph or two, or I have trouble sleeping.

6. I love, LOVE, LOVE vacationing at the beach even though I was not made for the sun. I don’t tan and must make sure I’m slathered with sun block at all times, and I get horrid heat rash.

I tag: Patrice Michelle & Lisa Shearin

I’m reading a book I picked up in the goodie room at RT called Seduced by a Spy, by Andrea Pickens. I believe this is the second book in her series, but I don’t think you have to read them in order. This one seems pretty stand-alone. I used to love historicals and lately have acquired a taste for them again (I’m not the only one, looking at reading trends within the romance genre).

This book is set in the Regency period and is chock full of spies, action, and espionage. The premise is intriguing. The heroine comes from a school called Mrs. Merlin’s Academy for Select Young Ladies. All the ladies are orphans taken from London’s slums and taught not only how to comport themselves in society, but also how to spy, wield weapons and seduce. Oooh…cool! I’m so there!

Is the premise historically accurate? Probably not. If it is, please correct me, but I think that if there had really been such a school in real life, learning about it would have kept me awake more often in history class. I’m sure many people have dismissed the series because it’s not true to history, but my attitude is this–it’s fiction I’m reading here. It’s not a history book. I’m reading to be entertained and I am very capable of suspending my disbelief as long as the story is good. Give me interesting characters with depth and a well-written, well-executed plot and I’m more than happy. You can give me the hero, Alexandr Orlov, while you’re at it too. I think I’d forgive him anything. Yum. In any case, so far I’m really enjoying the book.

Do you enjoy historical romance? What are some favs if you do? (Lord of Scoundrels, by Loretta Chase is probably my absolute favorite) And how about that historical accuracy thing? Do you need it, or can you suspend your disbelief enough to leave it?

I attended my second Lori Foster Get Together in Cincinnati over the weekend and, like last year, it was a blast. I loved getting together to see old friends and making new. Here are a whole bunch of photos. Originally I’d planned to post a few of these a day while at the hotel, but I had technical difficulties. So you get all the photo goodness in one go….

Anya & Amelia

Karen B (winner of the Maverick Author gift bag) and Lauren Dane

Anya & Rhonda

“I’m a little teapot!” Readers participate in a game hosted by JC Wilder, Carolyn Ivey, and the Mavs. Really Bab Barb helped to coordinate and hand out prizes.

Anya & Annicats

Lauren Dane, Megan Hart & Yuvonne

Beth Williamson

Lauren Dane & Megan Hart

Ellie Marvel/Jody Wallace

Laura, Lauren Dane, Laura Bradford, Megan Hart, Rhonda & Anya Bast

Laura & Anya