I Did It!

As you know from my last post, I had a TV interview about my book on Tuesday. Well, the day before, I went to see the doctor because I haven’t been feeling well. Come to find out, I was at the beginning stages of pneumonia, and I was running a fever, which I hardly ever do. But did it stop me from doing this interview?
Hell, no.
I could have easily bailed out. I mean, hey, I basically had pneumonia which was a damn good excuse. I didn’t though. Instead, I ignored how I felt (like dog poo) and faced yet another fear this year.
So how did I do?
I don’t know. . . 

Kevin said I did well. He did tell me I said “—and stuff like that” a lot, and I licked my lips quite a bit. But my mouth was so dry, I couldn't help it.
I could go into detail about this experience because it was bizarre and surreal, but then this post would be too long. So I’ll just tell you the basic stuff.
This was filmed in a warehouse type of setting, but as a TV viewer, you wouldn’t know it.
Oh, and the “green” room is not green—by the way.
There was a black curtain that enclosed the area we were filming in, and tall, blaring lights, and cameras were circled around us. When I looked beyond the cameras and lights, all I could see was pitch black. They had me sit at a high table and introduced me to the person doing the interview. Then they did a quick photo op of me and the interviewer. After that we went over the questions. They noticed how nervous I was and tried to talk me into reading an excerpt from my book. Their thinking on that was it would waste more time because they were concerned I would clam up. But I told them no. They kept pressing me to do it, and I repeatedly answered with a flat out no. Later on, Kevin was like, “Wow. If you don’t want to do something, you’re not going to do it.” And I told him, I said no because the interview was only 20 minutes long, and I knew once I started talking, time would go by quick and it did. In fact, I thought it was a bit rushed.

That’s what concerns me.

I’m afraid I didn’t get what I wanted to say across right because I had to hurry things along.
Do you know what I mean?
And the interviewer kept looking out the corner of his eye because he had an ear piece in where they were telling him how many minutes he had left. He told me ahead of time to ignore him when he did that, but it was hard not to. Every time he did that, I lost my train of thought, and then had to quickly recover myself.

I’m so worried about that.
Anyway, before they started taping the interview, Kevin was ushered into the control room where he watched us live. He said there were TV screens and computer gizmos everywhere. The producer was in there as well, and after the interviewer asked me about my book, the producer looked at Kevin, smiled, and said, “There she goes.” And then, they couldn’t shut me up.

LOL.

When I was asked about my parent’s paranormal investigations, I told the story about investigating our own haunted house because it was the quickest story to tell, but I really wanted to tell the world another one. However, I knew if I were to do so, it would eat up the rest of the time, so I refrained from telling it. I also wanted to go into more detail about my book, but again there wasn’t enough time.
Oh, well.
I'm grateful for having the opportunity to get some exposure for my book. I just hope and pray I did a good job, even though Kevin said I did; otherwise I’m going to be horrified when it comes on in October. Frankly, I don’t know if I’m going to watch it.
Ooops. This post is kind of long, huh?

My bad.
I hope you have a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Have fun and be safe! J



  




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Another Fear to Face

8/27/2012 , , , 2 Comments

Tomorrow I’m going to be doing something for the first time in my entire life–a TV interview.

Yup, that’s right. I’m heading to Fargo tomorrow morning to be on a talk show where the host will be talking to me about my book BEYOND THE EYES.

Yikes!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for this opportunity to promote my book and series.

I am.

I just hope though, my mouth and brain will decide to play nice and work together because usually my mouth tends to be like an impatient, unruly child. It doesn’t wait for the brain to process the message. Instead, it blindly snatches words floating around in my mind that’s in the process of assimilating those words together to form a cohesive thought before reaching my lips. But my mouth doesn’t care about the *yawn* mechanics of the brain. It wants to do what it wants to do and doesn’t give a shit how I look when the words tumbling from my lips are completely wrong in context or meaning. Or, the message I’m trying to convey comes out backwards.

Kevin told me not to have any preconceived ideas on what the questions are going to be because if I do, I’ll formulate the answers in my mind before hand.

What’s wrong with that, right?

Well, his reason is if I do that, when the time comes to answer those questions, I’ll screw them up. But how can I not wonder what questions will be thrown at me?

I don’t know.

All I know is since I’ve released this book, I’ve faced a lot of my fears in order to promote it. I’ve done things I never thought I could do. So being on TV and talking about my book is another fear I’ll have to face. But at least it’s not live. I do take comfort in that. Maybe someday I’ll have to do a TV interview live, but not today.

Not today.

I honestly don’t have a problem facing my fears if it’s for something I really want, and I really want this series to do well.

So I’ve come to the conclusion I’m just going to be myself in this interview and ignore the cameras. If I say "dude" or "cool" a lot, so be it. I do hope though, besides sounding halfway intelligent, that I don’t go into a coughing fit. I still have that dang cough from the virus Kevin passed along to me. Last night when I was going to sleep, my chest was rattling big time and all my sick twisted mind could think about was "the death rattle."

Lovely.

But it’ll be okay. I know my story and my family history when it comes to dealing with the paranormal.

Anyway, it’s tomorrow Tuesday, August 28th at 1:00 p.m. in Fargo. I have to admit, I am looking forward to meeting the guy who will be interviewing me and of course the producer who invited me on. They both seem like very nice people.

Wish me luck, and I’ll letcha know how it goes.

*waves bye*

2 comments:

The Vampire Diaries Part II

I decided to do another blog on The Vampire Diaries because . . .

A.) My husband gave me his cruppy, lung rattling, loogy hocking, semi-zombie, virus, and my brain isn't working right.

B.) Since my brain isn’t working right, I can’t really think of anything to write about.

C.) I love The Vampire Diaries, I know other people do too, and it’s fun to post about.

Those are good enough reasons, don’t you think?

Now let’s talk about TVD . . .

Do you remember when the writers killed Jenna off?

Weren’t you like so mad?

I was.

In fact, I almost stopped watching the show because of it. However, I kept watching it anyway, which I’m glad I did and all is now forgiven. But I have to admit, it still makes me sad and upset everytime I watch or think about this scene.
 
 

 
 
I still don’t understand, though, why Jenna had to die. She and Alaric made a cute couple, and they both would have made a great team . . .

And then, they had to kill Alaric off.

WTH?

Why did they do that?

I don’t get it, but I’m hoping (fingers crossed) they’ll figure out a way to bring him back.

Alaric’s last scene when his spirit appeared in front of Jeremy choked me up. Alaric knew how alone Jeremy felt, and he wanted Jeremy to take comfort in the fact he’d always look out for him.

How sweet is that?
 
 


So what do you guys think? Do you think the writers should have kept Jenna and Alaric in the series? If not, why?

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Sex in Young Adult Books

When I wrote BEYOND THE EYES, I was wondering how I should write the sex scenes. What was appropriate and what was crossing the line?

Before I go on, there may be spoilers in this post.

You have been warned.

My main character Paige, gets sexually involved with Nathan, rather quickly. She’s not a slut or anything. In fact, she was a virgin, however, she couldn’t deny her feelings for Nathan. I knew though, as I wrote this book that some people wouldn’t buy the whole love-at-first-sight deal. But I left it there anyway because it does exist and can happen. I know because it happened to me back in January of 1994. I did wonder though, how I should tastefully write the sex scenes. I then thought about the popular teen shows on TV, and reflected back to when I was a teenager. I also thought about the romance novels that wrote stuff like, ‘he put his throbbing love muscle into my dripping honeypot.’

Um, no.

There’s no way I’ll ever write something like that because it’s ridiculously funny and cheesy that when I read something like that, it always makes me giggle.

Call me immature, but it is what it is.

So I had to be creative in writing the sex scenes and not be too explicit. I had to write it in such a way to where the reader could fill in the blanks with their own imagination. But then I wondered, would that be supporting promiscuity among teens? I mean, shouldn’t I be standing on the pulpit promoting abstinence instead?

Maybe.

But the truth is, teens are having sex, and with the technology we have nowadays, they’re constantly exposed to anything and everything that has to do with it.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have the internet and computers weren’t prevalent in every household. Hell, we didn’t even have cell phones. If we wanted to send a message to somebody, we wrote a note and would slyly pass it in class to that person. Instead of having the internet to look up sexual content, we had Playboy or Playgirl. We also had the VCR and HBO, which meant easy access to porn.

The point is, even back then, without the technology we have today, teens knew about sex and were having it. Even the movies back then, like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, didn’t hide the fact that teens were doing it.

So as a writer in the YA genre, I had to come to terms with the whole "sex issue."

Should I leave it out and not promote it and turn a blind eye to the fact that teens are having sex? Or, should I keep it real, and trust my teen readers to be levelheaded enough in their own life to make the right decisions for themselves?

I decided to trust my teen readers and to write each sex scene modestly, even though they can click on the TV and see teens having dirty, monkey sex.

No. I wouldn’t ever take it to that extreme when writing in the YA genre. If I was writing erotica, yeah, but not in a book about teens.

So to sum it all up, I don’t see any harm–if it’s done tastefully–in writing about older teenagers having sex.

2 comments:

Dark Frame of Mind

I heard from my editor the other day, and he is so ready to read and edit my next book in this series, however, I need to do the second round of revisions before I send it to him. There is something missing, though, and I haven’t quite pinpointed it yet.

This next book, Dark Spirits, is much darker than the first book, therefore, I have to get into a dark frame of mind before I start this next round of revisions. I’ve read that Stephen King listens to Metallica when he writes. I don’t know if it’s true, but if he does, I can see why. I mean, checkout this verse in Metallica’s song Enter Sandman, which by the way is a kick ass song:

Hush little baby, don’t say a word.
And never mind that noise you heard.
It’s just the beast under your bed.
In your closet, in your head.

I started reading The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, which is a good book so far. I’m thinking though, I should be reading something much darker, to get me into that mind set. I was talking to my Goodread’s buddy about Anne Rice’s Vampire chronicles (Interview With The Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of The Damned, etc.). I told her she needs to read it because they’re awesome.

The reason why I’m bringing this up is because I should probably be reading those vampire chronicles, instead of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, because they’re much darker than that book. But I started this book, so I’ll finish it.

I’ll find another way to get into the mood I need to do my revisions . . .

I know. I’ll watch clips like these, from the movie Interview With the Vampire and The Queen of The Damned.
 

 



 
Yeah, I know these are vampire scenes and my series has nothing to do with vampires, but this will work. It also helps that it’s cloudy, rainy, and cool out today.

So here we go.

*rubs hands together and sits up straight*

Let’s do this!

0 comments:

The Vampire Diaries

I know I should be writing a post about how I’m gearing up for my second round of revisions, and that my editor is waiting to edit my next book in my Beyond the Eyes series. However, I felt like doing a post on this instead. So if you love The Vampire Diaries TV show like I do, or you’re curious about it, sit back and enjoy and let’s have some fun.

I became friends with a wonderful girl, on Goodreads, and her and I have been discussing The Vampire Diaries. If you have never watched this show before, and you’re into the paranormal, I suggest you start watching it because it’s that good. In fact, Kevin knows not to bother me when it’s on. Hell, everybody knows not to. LOL.

If you don’t know anything about this show, you might be lost while reading this post, however, you can check out the videos down below, it might pique your interest enough to watch it.

Anyway, I told my Goodreads’ buddy that I would like to see Damon and Elena get together in this next season, which starts, I believe, on October 11th.

Yay!

I told her that I know Damon has done some horrible things, but he does have a good side to him. He actually cares a lot, but he shuts off those feelings (his humanity) because it hurts too much. He wants so badly to be human again, but can’t, so he gives into his vampire side so he doesn’t have to feel those feelings. When I mentioned this to my Goodreads buddy, she reminded me of some things he'd done that was pretty messed up, like this scene down below.

 


Yeah, Lexie was a vampire, but she was a good person. Damon should have never killed Lexie. And then my Goodreads buddy reminded me of when Damon snapped Jeremy’s neck. For those of you who have never watched the show, Jeremy is Elena’s brother. They’re both human. Damon and Stefan are vampires, and they’re brothers who are in love with Elena. Here’s the scene where Damon snaps Jeremy’s neck. Thank God; Jeremy was wearing the ring.
 
 



 
Okay, so my Goodreads buddy has a valid point. Damon should have never done those things, and he can be an asshole. But then I think about this.
 


 
I know it’s no excuse for being a jerk at times, but there’s good in him. Also, he didn’t want to be a vampire, but after Stefan turned into a vampire, he encouraged Damon to become one as well, because he didn’t want to be alone. So I’m hoping in this new season, Damon will give into his true self and be a better person.

And then there’s Stefan. . .

I have to admit, he is hot.

Back in the day, Stefan did some horrible and gruesome things, like completely wiping out families. He was known as The Ripper.


 
But then Lexie helped him defeat that side of himself. She rehabilitated him. She was truly a good friend.


 
Then one day, Stefan saw Elena, and he couldn’t stay away from her. They fell in love.
 

 
So is the best yet to come? A lot has happened since Stefan and Elena first met. Are they meant to be together? I know Elena has feelings for Damon now. I mean, check out this steamy scene.
 

 
So, who is Elena going to choose? Will it be Stefan or Damon?

6 comments:

Twilight Heartbreak

I usually don’t get caught up or pay much attention to celebrity gossip because it’s none of my business what goes on in their personal life, and anyway, most of it is probably embellished by the reporters so they can sell more magazines. However, when I saw what was going on with Kristen and Robert, I couldn’t ignore it.
 




I’m not a huge Twilight fan. I do have all the books though, and I’ll admit, I’ve read them more than once. Not because Stephanie Meyer’s writing is exceptional.

It’s not.

I also don’t like that Bella has a self-depreciating attitude, and she’s co-dependent on Edward, and the whole sparkling vampire deal . . . Lame. However, the story is captivating and despite those flaws, it pulls you in.

I do have to give kudos to Stephanie Meyers though, because I’ve discovered while stalking other people’s blogs (yes, I’m a stalker) there are people who started writing stories because of her. There are also people who have never got into reading books, until they read Twilight. So I’m giving Stephanie a virtual pat on the back because Twilight has inspired countless people to read and write.

Anyway, I’m sad about what’s going on with Kristen and Robert. She publicly admitted she kissed her Snow White and the Huntsman director and apologized profusely to Rob for her indiscretions. There were steamy pictures taken of Kristen and Rupert (director) embracing and making out, so of course she had to come clean. I just wondered if she would have if those pictures had never surfaced.

I feel so bad for Rob.

I had read he once said in an interview that when he’s with one person, he’s with that person all the way. He also had said he never understood why people would cheat. If he did actually say that, it seems to me he’s a monogamous type of person, which one should be in my opinion. So if he’s really like that, I bet Kristen’s betrayal totally crushed him.

Poor guy.

Kristen publicly said what she done had jeopardized the most important thing in her life, the person she loves and respects the most, which is Rob. And then she ended the apology with "I love him. I love him. I’m so sorry." Shortly after (according to the tabloids of course), Rob kicked her out of the house they shared and won’t answer her calls.

Having that fling with her director, who is married by the way, was a lapse of judgment on her part and apparently she’s devastated.

A source close to Kristen had said Kristen didn’t have an affair with Rupert, it was one fleeting moment. But still, why would she do that if she loves Rob so much?

I’m not judging her or anything. I mean, I don’t know her and nobody but her and Rupert really knows what happened between them. My heart breaks for Rob though, and I honestly hope they work it out. I think they make a good couple, and although I don’t know them personally, they seem like good people. If she honestly just had that one fleeting moment with Rupert and that was it, and if she and Rob truly love each other, I think they can still make their relationship work. Of course, there would be trust issues to overcome, not to mention constantly being scrutinized by the public because they’re famous. But I’m a romantic at heart, and I think if Kristen didn’t sleep with Rupert, and if she and Rob are meant to be together, they can work it out.

What do you think?

2 comments: