Angst

Alanna Coca

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve got a book 99% fin­ished. The end is so close I could write it in a few hours. Why then, am I not doing just that? I keep find­ing oth­er things to occu­py myself. A shiny new romance book taunts me from my desk­top. Just one more tweak on the web­site. One 140 char­ac­ter tweet on twit­ter. Maybe I’ll just check face­book to see what’s going on. Noth­ing? That’s okay, I have forums to haunt, peo­ple to send sense­less text mes­sages, and maybe a movie or two to watch.

I’m pret­ty sure the trou­ble lies in the stress that comes with a fin­ished book. If I have one in progress, then I’m “writ­ing”. Once it’s fin­ished, I have to fig­ure out where I want to sub­mit it. Once I’ve decid­ed that I have to actu­al­ly do the work to send it in (if the pub requires a syn­op­sis, that’s a whole ‘nother issue!) Then comes the worst part.

WAITING. The fact that after sub­mit­ting to a pub­lish­er, I have to wait two to six months to hear a yes or no…nerve wrack­ing to say the least. Maybe sub­con­scious­ly I’m putting off the stress of wait­ing, when real­ly I should fin­ish the darn thing so I can get the wait­ing over with. Now I’m search­ing the Inter­net for a slap in the face. Let’s hope I don’t get distracted.

Six Sentence Sunday 3/14/10

Alanna Coca

Wel­come again to my SSS post. This week I’m shar­ing six sen­tences from my work in progress (wip), an erot­ic con­tem­po­rary western.

She col­lapsed on his chest, and his arms went around her. “If you treat­ed all your cow­boys like this, I doubt you’d have any turnover.”

She smiled. “Do you think I should start a new ori­en­ta­tion program?”

“No,” he growled, and brought her face to his.

For more SSS par­tic­i­pants, vis­it the offi­cial blog See you next week!

Saturday Survey 3/12/10

Alanna Coca

Ah, it’s a cold spring day, and I have a buck­et of pop­corn and my net­flix. What bet­ter way to spend a lazy week­end than with my favorite roman­tic movies of all times? I’ve list­ed some of my favorites below, but there real­ly was­n’t a way I could put them all here.  I did find a pret­ty com­pre­hen­sive list HERE if you’re inter­est­ed in the top 100 romance movies of all time. What’s yours?

Six Sentence Sunday 3/7/10

Alanna Coca

 

I was in bed all last week­end. (No, noth­ing fun, I was sick. Sheesh you peo­ple and your dirty minds) So I missed last week­end, but I’m back, thanks to Alexan­der Fleming.

This week I’m fea­tur­ing six lines from my book Préjà Vu.

He was so damn sure of him­self. The fact that he had read her cor­rect­ly didn’t help her calm down. In fact it infu­ri­at­ed her. She glared at him, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw began to hurt, and long bursts of air came through her nose. When she remained silent, he shook his head.

“I swear, some­times you act more like a spoiled lit­tle girl than a pro­fes­sion­al woman.”

She heard the sharp crack before she real­ized that she’d slapped him.

Check HERE for more par­tic­i­pants of SSS.

Bald Faced Liar

Alanna Coca

Thanks a lot Gem Sivad! Are you say­ing I’m a liar? Well okay, I guess it comes with the ter­ri­to­ry. I call it “cre­ative license”.  This should be easy for any of you who fol­low me on var­i­ous social net­work­ing sites. It’s not like I have a prob­lem talk­ing about myself. There are sev­en state­ments about me below. Only TWO are true.

The rest are bald faced lies er…fiction.

1) I’ve  played the vio­lin, vio­la, alto sax­o­phone and flute  since age 6

2) Where I live, it has been known to snow every month of the year.

3) I wrote my first nov­el Wyoming Solace in two weeks.

4) I have five cats, two birds, a dog and two turtles.

5) I must have com­plete silence when I work.

6) I am flu­ent in three languages.

7) I am an only child.

Leave a com­ment, and tell me which two state­ments you think are true, and which five are “cre­ative writ­ing”. When you’re done, you can vis­it the fol­low­ing blog­gers who I’ve tagged as Bald Faced Liars:

Ser­e­na Shay * Christa Paige *   Paige Tyler

Six Sentence Sunday 2/21/10

Alanna Coca

I’m hop­ping on the SSS wag­on! Fol­low­ing are six sen­tences from my Work in Progress that does­n’t even have a title yet. I’ll keep you informed

“Don’t go.” She said the words before she could even think about the wisdom.

He speared her with those elec­tric blue eyes. The heat behind them only fanned her desire. He sucked a breath through his teeth. “Brynn…”

“Stay.” She moved a step clos­er and gripped his fore­arm. “Please.”

For more SSS fun, vis­it Dee Car­ney , Sara Brookes, Jeanne St. James and  Hai­ley Edwards. I’m pre­post­ing this blog, since I work on Sun­day (can I get an “awwwww” ?) So if you’re also SSS­ing, leave me a com­ment so my read­ers can find you.

Saturday Survey 2/20/10

Alanna Coca

Every rela­tion­ship gets a first date. Some­times the date does­n’t come along until months after the rela­tion­ship begins, and some end the moment that first date is over. We’ve all had a first date from hell, that will have to be anoth­er Sat­ur­day Sur­vey. Tell me your idea of the best first date.

 Don’t be sur­prised if you find your first date idea in one of my books!

 

Be My Valentine!

Alanna Coca

Hap­py Valen­tine’s Day blog hop­pers! If you aren’t on the Booknib­bles Tour Bus, click now to join us at the begin­ning. Isn’t this a great way to take a guid­ed tour of some of the web’s best and bright­est authors and blog­gers? We’ll be hop­ping along all week­end, so take your time, check out my books page to see what I’ve got going on, and enjoy the eye can­dy along the way. Don’t for­get to leave a com­ment here to be entered in the draw­ing for a share of the grand prize!
I’ll be chat­ting on Sun­day 2⁄14 from 2pm to 5pm EST  if you’d like to join me, I’d love to meet you. Win­ners will be announced in the chat room at 5pm EST, and post­ed HERE I hope you come back soon!

Meet Andre:

Eye can­dy real­ly is the best thing for Valen­tine’s day, it actu­al­ly burns off calo­ries!  Good luck to all in the final grand prize give­away which includes my book For a Price. Thanks for stop­ping by!

Be My Valentine Blog Hop

Alanna Coca

Wel­come! If you’re just stum­bling across my blog, be sure to click HERE to join us at the begin­ning of the

Be My Valen­tine Blog Hop

where almost forty blog­gers have joined forces to bring you an eye can­dy over­load, just in time for Valen­tine’s Day. Today I’m fea­tur­ing male mod­el Bran­don Vols.

There is some­thing very sexy about black and white pho­tographs. Maybe it’s the old movie feel. The above pic­ture reminds me of  romance nov­el I remem­ber read­ing as a teen. *sigh*

Ah, a close up…now you can see those eyes. And stub­ble. Rawr.

These pic­tures are all cour­tesy of C.M. Soto Pho­tog­ra­phy and can be found HERE along with more infor­ma­tion about Mr. Vols.

I hope you’re enjoy­ing the blog hop! I’ll be chat­ting with read­ers on Fri­day from 7pm to 9pm EST in Gem’s Chat Room, where I’ll be post­ing excerpts of my pub­lished nov­els, and maybe some of my works in progress. I’d love to meet you, so please stop by the Chat Room at the end of the tour. Don’t for­get to leave a com­ment here to get your name in the hat to win a pletho­ra of prizes, includ­ing my con­tem­po­rary west­ern romance Retreat.

Thank you Booknibbles.com for host­ing the blog hop today!

Hap­py Valen­tine’s Day Everyone!

New Reviews

Alanna Coca

Two of my books received some great praise ear­ly this week. Since I have no prob­lem toot­ing my own horn so to speak, I’m going to share them with you here!

Préjà Vu received five hearts from Romance Book Scene! Here is a snippet:

“Inter­est­ing sur­prise end­ing twist in this sto­ry keeps read­ers guess­ing through­out the novel.
I just loved Ryann and Trevor as the hero­ine and hero of this book. Ryann is intel­li­gent and well spo­ken. She isn’t some psy­chic or tarot card read­er off the street. She has no idea where the dreams come from and she does the best she can under the cir­cum­stances. Trevor [is] com­plete­ly tak­en with Ryann and isn’t afraid to show it.
This is a good read for those who like mys­tery, sus­pense with great romance and bed­room scenes.”

Nice huh? I like hear­ing good things about my books (from peo­ple oth­er than my moth­er, sor­ry mom) it gives me a lit­tle warm fuzzy.

And Fine Print received four and a half dia­monds from Got Erot­ic Romance! a snip­pet from that review:

“Wow…as an author myself, I was blown away by this sto­ry. It has everything…wonderfully devel­oped char­ac­ters, a deli­cious love sto­ry and a bit of sus­pense thrown in. I absolute­ly adored the build­ing, halt­ing rela­tion­ship between Kara and Derek. And I think the author hit the mark (at least with me) because I fell com­plete­ly in love with Derek. He’s the quin­tes­sen­tial hero. And the way he wove his patient and lov­ing way around the anal-reten­tive Kara was beau­ti­ful to watch. Seri­ous­ly, this was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. Nice job, Alan­na Coca. I can’t wait to read more from you!”

I always love read­er feed­back. If you’ve read one of my books, love it or hate it, I’d like to hear from you. Some­thing you would have liked to see? Some­thing you did­n’t under­stand? Won­der why I use so many ellipses? (So do I…it’s a weakness…I can’t seem to stop myself.) Drop me a line, or just leave a com­ment here.

Back to writ­ing. Olivi­a’s got a sto­ry she just HAS to tell, and since I’m the fin­gers of this team, I’d bet­ter get with it.  Stop by on Fri­day where I’m par­tic­i­pat­ing in a week­end-long blog tour loaded with prizes and eye can­dy. More infor­ma­tion HERE. See you then!

Saturday Survey 2/6/10

Alanna Coca

Okay, you know these guys. The type of men that could read you the news­pa­per, and you’d still swoon. The Irish accent was recent­ly vot­ed the sex­i­est. There are so many that I’ve left off…so feel free to leave a com­ment and let me know your favorite.

What is it about accents? Is the Amer­i­can accent sexy to a Euro­pean woman? These are the things that keep me awake at night folks. Well, that and some of these guys are just too sexy for words…but don’t stop talk­ing boys, we love ya.

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A Corpse, a Cop, and Canines.

Alanna Coca

Wel­come to the pro­gres­sive sto­ry, a great way to cel­e­brate Ground­hog Day! You’ve found Chap­ter one of our story,

A Corpse, a Cop, and Some Canines. I’m sure this will be on the best­sellers list soon, and it might win a Pulitzer or two. I’m not sure how that works, but I do know that this will be a lot more fun than watch­ing Punx­atawny Phil on TV.

UPDATE! The entire pro­gres­sive sto­ry is now avail­able for free down­load right here: 

DOWNLOAD NOW

Table of Con­tents. It is sort of like the Holy Grail.

Chap­ter 1: Alan­na Coca

Chap­ter 2: Dee Car­ney

Chap­ter 3: Juniper Bell

Chap­ter 4: Ann Marie Gamble

Chap­ter 5: Bar­bara Sheridan

Chap­ter 6: Christo­pher Daley

Chap­ter 7: Ray Garton

Chap­ter 8: Heather Wild­man

Chap­ter 9: Saran­na De Wylde

At the end of Chap­ter One, you’ll find a link to the next blog, erot­ic romance author Dee Carney.

A Corpse, a Cop, and some Canines

Chapter One–> (more…)