About Palm Springs!
You’ll be seeing me talk about other worlds, romance, and do a readings from The Pyramid Waltz and For Want of a Fiend. I might even give away some spoilers…
Like who this guy is ^_^
It’s gonna be a wild time.
PALM SPRINGS!!!!
So do come out and say hello. Seriously, do. I hate eating alone.
That’s probably me that brought that giant cheese.
Everyone getting excited about the Bold Strokes Books Festival in Palm Springs, Thursday, February 28, to Sunday, March 3, 2013 at Casitas Laquita and the Palm Springs Public library!
There are many great authors going, but it’s my blog, so I’m gonna tell you where you can find me. 
On Friday, March 1st:
At 12:30 to 1:45, I’ll be on a panel called Other Worlds where we’ll probably be talking about creating fantasy or sci-fi settings
From 1:45 to 3:00, I’ll be moderating a panel called The Art of Romance. It’s my first time as a moderator, so I pretty sure we’ll be talking about writing romance. Well, the authors will be talking, and I’ll be making pithy comments.
From 6:00 to 7:30, I’ll be participating in an author roundtable where I’ll read and answer questions about my book!
I’ll also be doing signings and mingling and if I’m lucky, eating food. I wouldn’t mind company at any of these things, so if you show up to Palm Springs, please come say hello. I hate mingling by myself.
Is anyone reading this actually planning to be there? If not, what the hell do you have that’s so pressing you can’t go to Palm Springs in February/March?!?!?!
If you had told me I’d be speaking in front of people about my book years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you…and I might have thrown up a little.
And if I had committed to speak then, they would have had to drag me in like this:
Even though I did theater in high school, I’ll always had a hard time with crowds. It’s more than being an introvert, it’s an aversion about talking about myself, especially my work.
I’ve met a lot of women who resist talking themselves up, even when it’s appropriate. It’s a pretty hard skill to acquire, and I’m still flabbergasted when people ask me about my work. I still think someone has paid them to be interested.
I pictured my first Q&A would go like this:
Fortunately, my first talk went worlds better than that. WORLDS. However, if you do meet me and ask me about my work or compliment me, please forgive me if I stammer a bit. After years of practice, I can handle that hair question easier, at least. From airports to restaurants, all over the world, people have always wanted to know if this is my real hair.
Do you have to jump start your brain when someone asks about your work? How about if they ask you about your hair?
2013! We just know it’s gonna be awesome. First a recap of all the places you can find me later in the year:
February 28th-March 3rd Bold Strokes Books Festival
Casitas Laquita Resort
Palm Springs, California
March 22-24, 2013 Aggiecon 44
Hilton College Station & Conference Center
801 University Drive East, College Station, Texas, 77840-2116
April 5-6 Lone Star LesFic Festival
Crystal Auditorium at Nature’s Treasures
4103 North IH-35 Austin, Texas 78722
August 2-4 Space City Con
Houston Marriott Westchase
2900 Briarpark Dr. · Houston, Texas 77042
I might also be at freaking World Con in August/September.
And now for the big reveal! Here’s the cover for For Want of a Fiend, the sequel to The Pyramid Waltz (now also on Amazon for Kindle)!
Double squeeeeeeee
*SPOILER ALERT* IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE FIRST BOOK (And seriously, why haven’t you?!?!?), THE SYNOPSIS FOR THE SECOND CONTAINS SPOILERS
Here’s the synopsis:
Princess Katya Nar Umbriel’s uncle Roland rose from the grave, kidnapped her cousin, and stripped her of her greatest weapon—her Fiendish power. Without her Fiend, Katya doubts her ability to weather the storm her uncle is brewing. When she lacks what even the children in her family possess, can she even call herself an Umbriel?
In only a short time, Starbride has become the princess consort, a pyradisté, and a member of a secret order in charge of protecting the crown. Even steeped in responsibility, she’s still an outsider. While wading through court intrigue and resisting schemes to break her bond with Katya, Starbride must prepare for a covert war. Roland is waiting, watching, ready for any chink in their armor, and he doesn’t care who knows their secrets.
*END SPOILERS*
I’m so excited. And more books are coming! I’m working on them, I swear!
Thanks to everyone who made this year so wonderful for me. I feel so lucky right now, I might go play all the lotteries. And because of Christmas, I can now bring you the whole family!
From left to right: Maia, Brom, Reinholt, Einrich, Catirin, Averie, Katya, Dawnmother, Starbride. Up front: Pennynail
You can probably tell that so far, Pennynail is one of my most beloved characters. I’m glad people are enjoying him/her. Guess what? In For Want of a Fiend, I’ll tell you what that is under the mask!
Fancy a bit of crumpet?
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s Eve and day and a safe holiday. If you had a terrible 2012, I hope your luck much improves this year. If you had a fabulous 2012, I hope it gets even better for you. Thank you for coming on this wonderful ride with me. Let’s see just how far we can go!
Okay, plans for 2013, let’s have ‘em. Tell them to me, tell me your secrets… (Nope, not creepy at all. Nailed it.)
Today I’m over at Terri Bruce’s blog, pimping it. As in, that’s what I’m doing there, not that her blog is about pimping it.
Though it kinda is….
Anyway, come on over and see what the hell I’m talking about before even I forget it.
Please read it, please, please, please!
I’ve been tagged by that cool kat, Melissa Brayden in the Next Big Thing Blog Hop! If you’ve never heard of this, it’s where people stalk you over the internets, weaving a web of blogs until they can find all your personal info and steal your credit card.
…um, okay, it’s not that.
It is a good way to find new blogs and read about awesome people, though, so I’m gonna give it a whirl.
Name of the book:
The Pyramid Waltz and For Want of a Fiend. Yeah, I’m doing two. I live to pimp.
Where did the idea for the book come from?
I’d say both came from the fact that I wanted to write a lesbian romance and that NaNoWriMo was coming. I knew that if I was going to be strong enough to write my dream book, I needed the support of the great Nano and all my fellow writers. Then I just sort of put my head down and went for it, running for the finish line.
What genre does your book fall under?
Several. Mostly fantasy. Then fantasy romance. And then lesbian fantasy romance. If asked what kind of fantasy, I usually say traditional as there are swords and magic and a made up kingdom.
Which actors would choose to play your characters in the movie rendition?
I’m gonna have to go with an assortment of Barbies and Kens.
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
The Pyramid Waltz: Princess Katya Nar Umbriel wants a perfect romance, but her Fiendish nature and duties to the crown mean she can never tell the truth – until she meets Starbride, a woman who gets to the heart of every secret, even if it’ll be the death of her.
(SPOILER ALERT!) IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST BOOK, THE SYNOPSIS FOR THE SECOND CONTAINS SPOILERAGE.
For Want of a Fiend: Without her Fiendish power, can Princess Katya and her consort Starbride stop a magic-wielding madman from sparking an uprising in the kingdom of Farraday?
(END SPOILER)
What is the longer synopsis of your book?
The Pyramid Waltz: To most, Princess Katya Nar Umbriel is a rogue and a layabout; she parties, she hunts and she breaks women’s hearts. But when the festival lights go down and the palace slumbers, Katya chases traitors to the crown and protects the kingdom’s greatest secret: the royal Umbriels are part Fiend. When Katya thwarts an attempt to expose the king’s monstrous side, she uncovers a plot to let the Fiends out to play.
Starbride has no interest in being a courtier. Ignoring her mother’s order to snare an influential spouse, she comes to court only to study law. But a flirtatious rake of a princess proves hard to resist, and Starbride is pulled into a world of secrets that leaves little room for honesty or love, a world neither woman may survive.
(SPOILER ALERT AGAIN.)
For Want of a Fiend: Princess Katya Nar Umbriel’s uncle Roland rose from the grave, kidnapped her cousin, and stripped her of her greatest weapon—her Fiendish power. Without her Fiend, Katya doubts her ability to weather the storm her uncle is brewing. When she lacks what even the children in her family possess, can she even call herself an Umbriel?
In only a short time, Starbride has become the princess consort, a pyradisté, and a member of a secret order in charge of protecting the crown. Even steeped in responsibility, she’s still an outsider. While wading through court intrigue and resisting schemes to break her bond with Katya, Starbride must prepare for a covert war. Roland is waiting, watching, ready for any chink in their armor, and he doesn’t care who knows their secrets.
(END SPOILER)
Will your book be self published or represented by an agency?
Both books are published by Bold Strokes Books. The Pyramid Waltz is available now. For Want of a Fiend will be available in May 2013.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Since it was a Nano to start with, 30 days. But that was very very rough.
What inspired you to write this book?
I’ve written a lot of blogs dealing with this question. ^_^ Like this one. I’ll just sum up and say, I needed to write it.
What else about this book might pique the reader’s interest?
Swords, sorcery, and lesbians, baby! What else do you need?
Tag You’re It.
Two words: Jennifer Lavoie. Three other words: You are it!
I’m gearing up for Women’s Week in Provincetown! Now’s your chance to meet me in person if you haven’t already. On Thursday, October 11th, I’ll be at the BSB Author Meet & Greet at the Harbor Lounge from 5 to 6 pm.
On the 12th, I’ll be doing a reading and talking about why my book was Worth the Wait at the Provincetown Library at 2 pm. That same day, I’ll be doing a signing at Recovering Hearts at 4 pm.
On the 13th, I’ll be reading and talking about my favorite parts of the book at Gabriels at 2 pm. Then I’ll be doing another signing at Recovering Hearts at 4 pm.
I hope you can come out and see me!
Starting today on the Bold Strokes Books website, if you order The Pyramid Waltz in paperback it ships right now or if you get it in e-book form, you could get it RIGHT NOW! How cool is that?
What are you waiting for? Go, go now! ^_^
I’ve been a fan of Barbara’s blog for a while (yes, I squeal out loud with joy every time my email alerts me there’s a new post at her site, and yes, I drop whatever I’m doing and read the post immediately because I always know she’ll make me laugh), so I was thrilled when she offered me a spot to talk about my approach to writing women as part of the Hereafter release party blog tour. I really wish Barbara was going to illustrate this post with Barbie shots, but, alas, no such luck (the woman is imperious to sad puppy-eyes pleading).
So…what is my approach to writing women?
When I set out to write Hereafter, I had two goals: to write a story featuring an “ordinary” woman and to write a story in which the woman has to save herself. Unfortunately, it’s these two goals that ultimately posed the greatest problems for Hereafter and made it a very hard book to get published.
The first problem was that Hereafter wasn’t a romance novel. Why was this a problem? Well, in tone and in scope, Hereafter falls closest to the Chick Lit or Fantasy lit genres—both of which generally involve a romance plot line. Without a romance, it became unclear what genre Hereafter was. I had a LOT of people, including a couple of agents, arguing for a strong love interest. One agent wanted me to change Jonah, the fourteen-year-old boy in the story into a “nineteen-year-old college hottie that Irene ‘cougars’.” There was a lot of trouble accepting a story featuring a woman—that wasn’t women’s fiction—that didn’t end with “happily ever after.”
A romance just doesn’t fit with Hereafter, though. Setting aside the logistical issues of a romance that starts after the person dies, Irene isn’t in a place emotionally or mentally to be a fit mate for anyone. For her to find true love by the end of Hereafter she’d have to undergo a radical transformation—the sort of radical transformations I HATE in romance novels. The one where the heroine wakes up one day and realizes she needs to completely change in order to be worthy of the hero’s love, and—instant presto—she just makes up her mind to change and that’s that. If only it was that easy. I wanted, more than anything, for Hereafter to be realistic, to be grounded in the reality I know, the reality where change is not easy, where I can’t always change despite my best intentions, and where wrapping my head around a problem (and getting my own thinking about it straightened out) is a much a part of the solution as anything else.
The second big problem was that many readers find Irene to be just too damn bitchy (excuse my French) to be likeable. She’s not soft and cuddly and she’s not sweet and virginal. Apparently women only get away with being snarky and having a chip on their shoulder if they can also kick your ass. Anita Blake or Lisbeth Salander, she’s not, and so Irene doesn’t get a pass on the needed attitude adjustment. On the other hand, she’s snarky and even bitchy, but not to the point where she’s an outright villain that we can boo and hiss or love to hate. She’s in the middle ground of a woman who is outwardly confident but inwardly afraid, who is self-assured and yet supremely lacking in self-esteem, and who is smart but has been made to feel that her intelligence is a detriment, who is embarrassed by her physical appearance but has been made to feel her looks are the only thing of value about her. In short, a woman who is complicated, conflicted, and struggling to figure out who she is—which I think is a position many women find themselves in. So, what, exactly is the problem with Irene that causes so many people to have such a strong negative reaction?
Well, it turns out, surprisingly, a large number of people (mainly women) are completely horrified by how much Irene “bullies” Jonah. Irene isn’t maternal, and that seems to be her biggest sin. She could be as snarky as she wanted if she had more “female agency”—that is, if she was more maternal and protective of a child. Jonah bullies Irene right back, but readers don’t seem to notice that. Jonah made me laugh when I was writing Hereafter—he’s a little monster, really (I say that with nothing but love and affection, I adore Jonah). His bullying is often subtler, more passive aggressive and emotionally manipulative, and I just love him, because he’s just so darn clever at getting what he wants.
As Irene and Jonah develop a friendship and Irene becomes nicer to Jonah, readers warm up to her. Apparently women who are “kick ass” heroines earn our respect and women who are maternal and nurturing earn our sympathy and women in love earn our empathy, but women who are none of these things—well, we just don’t seem to know what to do with them and we find them off-putting. Looking around at women I know in real life, I realized that this was in large part true. Insecurity manifests itself in a variety of ways, none of which are pleasant to be around—over-compensating, competitiveness, cruelty, irrationality, short-temperedness, neediness. It’s usually pretty easy to pick out someone who is insecure.
The interesting part is that all of this has made me think. Insecurity is generally reviled—we tend to avoid insecure people, which is actually the opposite of what the person needs. Certainly, for Irene, all the people who walked away from her only served to re-enforce her insecurity. Only empathy and unconditional love are able to help her finally overcome her fears (notice I said love, not romance). When I set out to write Hereafter, I wanted to create a heroine who saved herself—by discovering her own self-worth rather than having one given to her (by a hero); that her self-worth would be organic to her, rather than a reflected or oblique sense of worth derived from the love of a romantic partner. While Jonah is the catalyst for Irene finally attempting to overcome her self-destructive tendencies, he cannot be the sustaining agent. Because Jonah is not a love interest (and this is why it was so key that he not be), if Irene is to continue with the gains she has made she’ll have to do it on her own. And that, dear readers, will be the challenge of Book 2. 
Barbara sez: To go along with the FABULOUS interactive graphic/page (made by the highly talented Rebecca Johnson, here’s an exceprt from Hereafter:
She wasn’t sure what to do next. The house seemed quiet and still—in fact, almost dead. She listened hard. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but somehow the house, her house, seemed foreign and strange. The house seemed to be holding its breath, almost as if it was waiting for something. She felt the thick, gathered pause pushing around her. Irene shivered. She crossed her upper arms, trying to smooth away the sudden goose bumps. How could she get goose bumps if she was dead?
The phone rang, causing her to jump. Her drink crashed to the floor. She stared at the phone stupidly for a moment, and then, recognizing LaRayne’s phone number on the caller I.D., she grabbed the receiver.
“LaRayne?”
“Irene?”
“Yes! It’s me!” Relief flooded through her. LaRayne could hear her!
There was a pause and then LaRayne said, “Hello?”
“LaRayne? Can you hear me?”
“Hello? Irene?”
Relief fizzled away. Disappointment washed over her, so strong her knees buckled and she grabbed the counter for support.
The line went dead. LaRayne had hung up.
Slowly, Irene replaced the receiver, numb with shock.
The phone rang again. Irene let the answering machine pick up this time.
“Hey, Irene. It’s LaRayne…I’ve left you some messages…well…you know…call or whatever.”
Irene cleaned up the spilled drink, sweeping the broken glass into a dustpan and dumping it in to the trash, and then mixed herself another one. She wandered back to the hall and then back to the kitchen and finally to the living room where she dropped heavily onto the couch. She sipped her drink, not really tasting it. Then she spied her laptop across the room on a chair. She fetched it, firing it up.
Email. Yes, that’s it—email. I’ll email everyone and tell them what happened, she thought through a fog of mounting hysteria.
Even as she thought it, dully watching the computer scroll through start-up screens, the “drunk emailing” incident of a few years ago—which had led to then-boyfriend Chase becoming ex-boyfriend Chase—came to mind. The part of her that was still thinking rationally pointed out that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to email anyone until she knew for certain what exactly was going on.
You still don’t know what you want anyone to do, she thought. Call a doctor? Perform an exorcism? What, exactly, was the remedy here?
Buy Hereafter from Amazon and Eternal Press and wherever books are sold!
About the Author:
Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats.
Contact Details
Email: tbruce@terribruce.net
Website/Blog
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter: @_TerriBruce
No one can live at that speed!
I’ve been working hard.
Behold!
I made a book trailer. ^_____^
Here’s the link.
No, seriously, I’ll give them to Goodwill.
^__~
