Retreat Complete!

I just put the final touch­es on my lat­est work, a con­tem­po­rary romance titled RETREAT. Both mean­ings of the word fit into the sto­ry of lost and found love. When I was almost fin­ished with this one, I got the wild hair to tie it into my first nov­el WYOMING SOLACE. The blurb is below, and I’ll post an excerpt soon.

Ten years ago, Andria Thomas cel­e­brat­ed her high school grad­u­a­tion with a retreat to a Wyoming guest ranch. She nev­er expect­ed to fall for a young cow­boy dur­ing her horse­back rid­ing lessons. There was no way that she would sac­ri­fice her well planned life for a long dis­tance rela­tion­ship with a guy she’d only known for two weeks! Time for a hasty retreat…

Now, after a bit­ter divorce, Andria returns to the V‑Bar Guest Ranch, and is sur­prised to find that not only did Jake Walk­er still work on the ranch; he was now run­ning the place. The last thing she needs is anoth­er dis­rup­tion, and re-treat­ing her­self to a fling with an old lover is not the way to relax and regroup. It was a good thing she’d have help resist­ing his charm, thanks to Jake’s wife.

Springtime in the Rockies

Spring is here! Wyoming got some rain this week­end. It turned to snow for just a lit­tle bit, and then back to rain, so in my edu­cat­ed opin­ion, that means only one or two more snow­storms until summer!

YAY!

I’m a sum­mer girl. I love the heat. I love the sun. I could spend sun­rise to sun­set on a beach in sun­ny Can­cun Mex­i­co (if some­one would just buy me plane tick­ets and lux­u­ry hotel room–email me). I’m one of those peo­ple who leaves her win­dows up in the car on a hot sum­mer day, and wal­lows in the 150 degree heat. I don’t even crack the win­dow until I break out in a sweat.

Why do I live in sub-arc­tic/high-alti­tude Wyoming you ask?

Yeah. I don’t know either.

Hap­py Earth Day Blog Hoppers!!


You should have reached my blog from the link you found at:

Do your part in sav­ing water…SHOWER DON’T BATHE
(Save even more water by show­er­ing togeth­er, right?!)
(Excerpt from Moth­er Nature Net­work MMN.com)



Near­ly 17 per­cent of house­hold water use takes place in the show­er, adding up to more than 1.2 tril­lion gal­lons annu­al­ly across the coun­try.
Show­er­ing instead of bathing can save more than 50 gal­lons of water each time. If you do take a bath, the EPA rec­om­mends clos­ing the drain imme­di­ate­ly and adjust­ing water tem­per­a­ture as it fills up.
To test your show­er­head­’s effi­cien­cy, show­er with a one-gal­lon buck­et. If it fills up in less than 20 sec­onds, you prob­a­bly need a low flow show­er­head; cheap­er ones run about $15. (You might as well keep the buck­et in the show­er. You can use that water to irri­gate your gar­den or lawn rather than let­ting it run down the drain.)


Okay folks…tear your eyes away…I promise you’ll find more deli­cious­ness along the way. Next up, get your drool bibs ready for a stop over at Gem’s blog… http://www.gemsivadauthor.blogspot.com/

Don’t forget~you must leave a com­ment to be entered to win the grand prize at the end of the blog tour, which includes a down­load of my LSB release Wyoming Solace! I hope you enjoyed your vis­it, and fol­low my blog for updates on my upcom­ing LSB release Préjà Vu and week­ly eye candy.

~Alan­na

Earth Day Blog Hop

Join me along with oth­er Liq­uid Sil­ver Books authors this Wednes­day, Earth Day, for a blog hop­ping expe­ri­ence that’s sure to put you in a green state of mind! We’ll be start­ing with Nina Pierce http://www.ninapierce.com/romanceblog, and you’ll find links to lead you on your mer­ry way. Some authors are giv­ing away free­bies to com­menters on their blogs, and one lucky grand prize win­ner will receive a pletho­ra of earth-friend­ly e‑books from the hottest sto­ry­tellers on this great plan­et of ours. It all starts Wednes­day morn­ing at 12:01 am, and runs until 11:59 pm Earth Day night. I’ll be giv­ing away a down­load in your choice of for­mats to a ran­dom­ly cho­sen com­menter that day, and will announce the win­ner on Thurs­day 423 at noon EST.

Mark your cal­en­dars, tell your friends, put on your drool bibs, because there will be eye can­dy galore!! See you there!

Wyoming Solace now on Fictionwise

Now you can find Wyoming Solace for down­load at two sep­a­rate sites, Liq­uid Sil­ver Books, and now Fic­tion­wise! Even though I’d rather every­one still pur­chase from LSB, i think Fic­tion­wise will get WySol in front of the masses.

I’ve fin­ished my next book. I’ve set­tled on the title sug­gest­ed by my father.

Pre­ja Vu

I’ve post­ed blurbs and excerpts in pre­vi­ous posts and at my web­site. I’m cur­rent­ly work­ing on anoth­er west­ern romance, but this one isn’t his­tor­i­cal. I’ll prob­a­bly wait until the last minute to title that one too, because that’s how I roll 🙂

I haven’t had a week this crappy since I left my job in Retail Management

You see I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve had a rough week. When my lap­top died in my arms, I thought that was bad enough. I had­n’t backed up my works in progress for six days, and I knew that I had lost about sev­en­ty hours worth of work. That was­n’t bad enough, so let’s throw in a 102.6 degree fever due to a strange hic­cup in den­tal work. Took the lap­top to the geeks, went to the den­tist, got some meds.…promptly dropped the bot­tle in a sink­ful of soapy dish­wa­ter. Well…I was shak­ing! Can’t sleep at night, can’t work dur­ing the day…I was like a zom­bie pac­ing my house look­ing for a purpose.

Then I broke two very expen­sive fingernails.

But I’m back. I had to rewrite what I lost, and I hate to admit it, but it came out even bet­ter the sec­ond time. Fever’s gone, so I can get my four hours’ sleep at night. I still haven’t been to the salon to fix my two fin­ger­nails, but I think I’ll live.

WIP Excerpt

As yet unti­tled, or hes­i­tant­ly titled either Pre­ja Vu, or Pre­view, I haven’t yet found one that smiles at me. Feel free to sub­mit suggestions! 🙂


You look like shit.”
Ryann looked at her friend, who was steer­ing back into ear­ly morn­ing traf­fic. “Thanks a lot, Ash­ley. I know I can always count on my best friend for some encour­ag­ing words.”
“You also know that you can count on me to tell you the truth,” she shot anoth­er apprais­ing glance at Ryann who had flipped the visor down to check the truth­ful­ness. “Did you stay up all night work­ing on those sketches?”
“No, actu­al­ly they came togeth­er sur­pris­ing­ly fast. I was done by ten. Wait ‘til you see them; I added an atri­um on the south fac­ing entrance. Remem­ber how Mr. Brackus want­ed to bring the out­doors in?”
“Yeah, I can’t wait to see them. Your archi­tec­tur­al genius nev­er ceas­es to amaze. Now, tell me what’s up. You had a dream, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
Ryann sighed, and pressed three fin­gers against her fore­head, as if that would keep the dream from begin­ning again. “I had a dream,” she said simply.
Ash­ley kept silent through­out the remain­der of their com­mute. Ryann was glad for it; Ash­ley seemed to know when to push and when to back off. Soon she drove the lit­tle four cylin­der hatch­back into the cov­ered park­ing garage and found a park­ing space. It took a moment for them to adjust their eyes to their dim sur­round­ings. Ash­ley cut the engine and turned toward her friend. “So do you want to tell me about it? I assume it was a death dream this time, oth­er­wise you wouldn’t be look­ing like a corpse yourself.”
Ryann’s dreams had been a dai­ly dis­cus­sion since the two met in col­lege. A few years ago, one of her dreams had made head­lines a few days after she detailed it over cof­fee one morn­ing. Anoth­er time Ash­ley encour­aged Ryann to make a report to the police. It turned out to be a good thing she had, it had saved a lit­tle boy’s life. After that, they began watch­ing the news­pa­pers close­ly for more proof. They final­ly assumed that each of her dreams had become real­i­ty, and the friends would spec­u­late on any pos­si­bil­i­ty of find­ing the sub­jects of the dream.
Ryann didn’t dream about peo­ple she actu­al­ly knew. They were strangers. There was no con­nec­tion that they could find between any of them and Ryann her­self. Each dream was a mon­u­men­tal moment in the lives of these strangers. Why that moment came to her in a dream days, some­times weeks before the event, was still unknown. Often the dreams were set in anoth­er coun­try, its par­tic­i­pants spoke lan­guages that Ryann could only some­times iden­ti­fy. She saw snip­pets of births, first steps, can­cer remis­sions, car acci­dents, grad­u­a­tions, and the most dis­turb­ing: deaths. Any­thing that could evoke a strong emo­tion­al reac­tion, Ryann would be an invol­un­tary observer.
Ryann met her best friend’s gaze. “Yes, it was a death. A murder.”
“Oh, God.” Ash­ley knew that a mur­der meant Ryann would spend the next few days try­ing to find the vic­tim before the event. The pos­si­bil­i­ty that the com­plete stranger would be found before being mur­dered was prac­ti­cal­ly impos­si­ble, and they both knew it. They both also knew that Ryann couldn’t pre­tend that she didn’t know about it. If there was any way she could save a life, she would. “Tell me about it,” she said softly.

Help Me!

Alright, my work in progress needs a title…

My hero­ine Ryann is a woman who has prophet­ic dreams. Every night she dreams about some­thing that will come to fruition some­where in the world. She does­n’t know the sub­jects of her pre­mo­ni­tions, and she just gets these snip­pets of their lives.

One night, Ryann dreams of a mur­der. The fol­low­ing day, she actu­al­ly meets the vic­tim. She is sure that she can pre­vent the mur­der if she sticks by this woman. Luck­i­ly, she has the help of a hottie.

My first title was “Pre­view”

My father sug­gest­ed “Pre­ja Vu”

What do you think? Either/or? Nei­ther? Suggestions?

IMDB Reject

I’m a hor­ri­ble movie-goer. I judge by the pre­views and trail­ers whether I want to see the movie, and then I make the deci­sion of see­ing the flick either in the the­ater or wait for the DVD. The prob­lem is, there are so many films that I haven’t seen, and then I for­get about them when it’s time to rent one! Maybe it’s because I have small chil­dren, because we NEVER miss a Pixar release.…

I’m going to con­fess some­thing right now…here on the web for every­one to see and make fun of me.

I haven’t seen any of the Lord Of The Rings movies. I know, I know! I also haven’t seen any of the Juras­sic Park movies. Go ahead, lay in…I’m ready.

I have seen the movie The Princess Bride at least a thou­sand times…

Gift Ideas

Too bad this is too late for Valen­tine’s Day. Maybe you and your sig­nif­i­cant oth­er are cel­e­brat­ing an anniver­sary, or per­haps wait until next Feb­ru­ary 14th, because this is just classic.

This is a cook­book. Yes, you’re read­ing the title cor­rect­ly. You can read more about it here:

http://www.lulu.com/content/4956212

and even see a few of the recip­ies. I’d like to chal­lenge all you bloggers…whoever buys this book and bakes a treat for their sweety.…PLEASE come and share the expe­ri­ence with the rest of us. I’m DYING to know!

My wireless drug

So my phone stopped work­ing. Not com­plete­ly, I could still do every­thing on it except make or receive phone calls. I’m always sur­prised, and a lit­tle ashamed when I can’t get through a day with­out my Treo stuck to me like glue. What is so all fire impor­tant in my life that I feel the need to be con­nect­ed to every­one who hap­pens to have my phone num­ber or email address? I berat­ed myself for two days, then today I got my replace­ment in the mail and WOO HOOOO I went back to my addic­tion like some crazed street drug user. Black­ber­ry devices have been laugh­ing­ly renamed “crack­ber­ry” for this rea­son. I’m try­ing to think of a good word to describe my Palm Treo…

Hap­py Valen­tines Day Blog Hop­pers!

You should have just come from Savan­na Kougar’s blog at http://kougarkisses.blogspot.com/ If not, you’re line jump­ing, and that’s a faux pas! 🙂 But if you got lost, or just came across us, be sure to start over…the start­ing blog is http://stephanieadkins.wordpress.com/blog/
because there are prizes galore! 

I’m new to Liq­uid Sil­ver Books, My first release Wyoming Solace is a west­ern set in Wyoming in 1894. Writ­ing a west­ern was fun, but it took a lot of research about things I did­n’t even real­ize I need­ed to know, like…were there indoor toi­lets in 1894? If so, were they com­mon on ranch­es in the mid­dle of nowhere? No there aren’t a lot of toi­let scenes in the book, but stuff like that comes up you know? 

Well, now that I’ve scared you off from read­ing my book, I’ll show you the best part about research­ing cowboys:

What I’d like to hear, is this guy’s name (that’s the hard part) and what three things you’d need if you were strand­ed on a desert island with him. Sure it’s cliché, but hey you can’t spend all day on this, Just a cou­ple of quick sen­tences. (Unless you extreme­ly cre­ative peo­ple would like to send me a com­plete nov­el, that would be just fine with me!) I’ll be giv­ing away a copy of Wyoming Solace to one lucky or tal­ent­ed commenter.

Enjoy:


From here you will be head­ing to
http://tinaholland.wordpress.com/ for some more tasty valen­tine eye candy.

I’ll be check­ing on posts through­out the day, and I’ll post the win­ner here and in the Liq­uid Sil­ver Forum by noon tomor­row! Hap­py Valen­tine’s Day!

Hero Hating

I want­ed a char­ac­ter who was­n’t the typ­i­cal nice-guy. I need­ed some­one who was hard-edged. dis­il­lu­sioned. My edi­tor Dean­na sug­gest­ed that I “set­tle into a char­ac­ter’s brain”, so I did, and wrote a few chap­ters. Wow. I real­ly don’t like him! He’s a real jerk! I write a bit more, and just get more and more disgusted.

Can I keep writ­ing this guy? What do I do with him…make him the vil­lain instead of the hero!?

It’s sad. He’s chang­ing my book by being this way, and I can’t seem to make him behave.

(I did give him a bloody nose, thanks to the hero­ine, but I’m still not satisfied.)