Secret

So I have a secret to share. See I've got a pretty bad memory. Been working on the new Sam book over the past week and realizing I've forgotten a lot of the side character names and motives. Crazy right?

Spent part of last night rereading Inheritance. Will have to reread the entire series just to get caught up to where I am with Sam. 

The bad guy in the last book? Can't remember his name. Took me forever to remember Roman's first name. How sad is that?

The nice thing is that it helps me rediscover Sei and Gabe, see their faults and remind me to bring them to play in this new book. 

Everyone says Gabe is so perfect, but he's really not. There are small things that Sei doesn't really notice because he's crazy about Gabe, but Sam sees them but Sam is not enamored. It's interesting how a different perspective can shed light on a character. Gabe's got some serious flaws. His lack of communication being a big one. He hides a lot of his vampire problems from everyone. Which is going to be part of the problem that Sam finds as he's trying to adjust to his new life. 

So while the book is Sam's book, we're going to start to see Gabe destructing. (Scary!)

What would you like to see?

So I'm working on Sam's book. He's an angsty boy. You all know Gabe's book comes after his. So what do you want to see in Sam's book? What sort of things are you curious about that hasn't been addressed (other than a lot of the vampire thing which is going to be in Sam's book anyway)

How you all doing?

Thought I'd check in with you all. I've sort of been running around the past two weeks. Had to go to Florida for the EDJ, and though the weather was nice, the days were long.

I'm almost done with a new book. These days just seem to go so fast. I spent the whole weekend not even leaving the house. It was sort of nice. :)

I hope you are all well.

Contest!!

Okay so here it begins. First here's a picture of the fun chibi's that I'll be giving away:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/parisbva...

And here are the details:

Most points win (if there are some with the same amount of points it will be a drawing).

How do you get points? Note you can do this for each book. Name must be associated even if it's a fake one. Anonymous is too easy to fake, sorry.

Review on Amazon: 5 pts
Review on ARE: 5 pts
Review on BN: 5 pts
Review on GR: 5 pts
(another review site i missed?): 5 pts
Like on amazon: 1 pt
Rating alone on any of the above sites: 1 pt.

Reviews do not need to be long, just hey I liked this or didn't like this, or whatever. Once you've gotten all your ratings done, please post in reply with what you've done so I can tally points.

I'm trying to think up some secondary prizes.

Runtime: this contest starts today Dec 21, 2012 and Runs until New Years eve.

Any questions?

Reminder!

Today is the chat on Goodreads. So stop by if you have some time. The blog hop starts Xmas day. I do have a set of chibi dolls I'd like to give away, but not sure how to do that yet. I know some of you who went to GRL got to see them as I gave away two sets. And you can see pictures of them on my FB page.

Did you guys want another snippet from Sam? Talk to me folks.

Chat coming up!

So on December 8th, I think it is, I'll be doing a GR chat hosted by Dreamspinner. Not sure what time yet, so I'll keep you updated.

I've never done one of those chats before, so I hope someone shows up! :)

Obsessed much?

So I don't really consider myself a huge modern music fan. I hate listening to the radio. The whole play the same 40 songs over and over drives me nuts, and then all the talking... 

In my car there is always a CD going. At home I usually have my earbuds in and my ipod playing. Right now I've been obsessed with Adam Lambert. Got an acoustic cd from his website, that I was expecting to be only okay, since acoustic sets usually suck even for artists I love, but I have fallen madly in love with it.

I have not yet seen him perform live. I sort of avoid that if I really like an artist, because most can't translate the polish of a full set of recorded tracks, to live. It's very different to perform live, I used to sing so I know this.

About eight years ago I was pretty obsessed with Matchbox 20. I still like them, but would not pay to go to a show again. The first show I went to was shortly after their first album Yourself or Someone like you. Rob Thomas was awful. I couldn't figure out how such a terrible singer could record such a great album, but sing so badly on stage. Later it was said that he was heavily on drugs, which probably equated to the bad performance. After shelling out $50 for a ticket, I didn't want a repeat. So I waited, skipped many shows only deciding to try again a little over a year ago when Rob had done a little solo thing. This show was cheaper cause it was at a casino, but $35 is a lot per ticket, and my mom wanted to go really badly so I bought her one too. The show wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. His voice was better, the acoustics sucked and some of the songs did not translate well to an acoustic set. My mom wanted a Tshirt, but they were $35 and I said no.

Now I look back on that an the numerous other fan girl moments I've had with many artists who have turned me off with there personality and begin to wonder why I get obsessed anyway.

Before Adam was a man called Darren Hayes, former lead singer of Savage Garden, and one of the most asinine men I've ever had the displeasure to met several times. I even flew all the way to Dublin to see him once. But he's not good with people, he's very self absorbed, and now no one much cares what he does. So it makes me wonder if the music made him that way, or did he start that way? I sort of think that you have to have it inside of you to begin with.

Last night I watched a long interview with Adam who was talking about a subject that I have been hearing about a lot lately, Outsider syndrome or Impostor syndrome. It means that even though you're part of something that makes you "famous" like being a recording artist or actor or published author, you feel like you're not really one of them, that somehow you cheated to get there.

Now this is something that most of us fairly new writers can relate to, I think. At least I do. I've been writing since I was 5, and am in my thirties, only published for a little over a year, so it's still fairly new to me. It doesn't feel real sometimes. And I worry that I disappoint people even though I'm doing the best I can. It's hard being in the spotlight and having people expect things from you. And while my spotlight is no where near Adam Lambert's it's pretty hard to find the confidence to continue sometimes.

I love writing, crafting the story, building a character. I get my inspiration from lots of places, though I've never written fan fiction, scenarios often play out in my head. No I don't imagine I'm ever with Adam. That would be silly. The man is gay and has a hot boyfriend, I'm perfectly only with that. :P

You'd think knowing all this would keep me from obsessing over anyone or anything, but it doesn't. Maybe it's some weird psychological thing I just haven't read about yet. I dunno. But I'm pretty obsessed. Was thinking about flying to SFO to see him perform for xmas. I won't mostly because I'm afraid of disappointment. I do have posters of him in my house, he's very pretty, and am have a character who oddly enough came out looking a lot like him (was not intentional but hey whatever works).

So what do you guys obsess about? Am I just weird? Sorry for the long winded post.