Amie Stuart ~ On the Back Porch

The house is mine again. Dropped #2 son off at football at 7 AM. #1 son got on bus at 6:45 AM. Early mornings means tired children who don’t stay up late talking smack and playing HALO 3.

Can I get a woot-woot!!?!?!?

And if that weren’t enough good news, THE BOOK IS DONE!

And if that werne’t enough good news DEATH RACE is out.

And if that weren’t enough good news I have a new book out.

And if that weren’t enough good news I’m off work Tuesday and Wednesday–while the kids are in SCHOOL BWAAAAAAAAAA

So come on. Share. What’s your good news? Come and be happy with me!

Hey all,

This is Emma Petersen here. *waves* Nope, you didn’t click on the wrong blog address link. You have reached Amie Stuart’s blog. I’ve just taken it over for the next day or two. (Or five.) And no, I do not have Amie tied up somewhere. (Even though that’s a great idea. *Grin*)

Amie is away on an adventure to a magical place called Deadline Island. On this island, cabana boys serve you drinks and feed you chocolate. It’s awesome and a place we’d all like to visit. (Yeah right.)

So while Amie is away on her awesome, magical adventure we (me and you) are gonna have some fun! AND I’m gonna give away some of Amie’s books! Did she authorize this you ask? Well, define authorize. Is she aware I have hacked into her blog and am being naughty? Define aware, hacked and naughty.

 Seriously. What is up with all the questions? There are free books involved people. FREE. BOOKS.

Now on to the good stuff. Tying up Amie. Oops. I so meant to say free stuff.  Amie’s book Make U Sweat, which is wicked awesome, comes out TODAY! It’s a heart warming tale about three kick ass girls and the three Texas bad boys that win their hearts. Is it heartwarming? Yes. Is it hot? Hell yeah! So what do you, the lovely reader, have to do to get your hot little hands on a copy?

1. Read the excerpt one here.

2. Fill out the contest form here.

3. Send Emma Petersen chocolate. (Okay, I guess I’ll make this one optional.)

And on to the sucky boring part. Yes, like everything in life there are rules.

1. You must be 18 and older to enter and/or win.

2. You must collect your prize within 10 days of prize announcement or prize is null & void.

3. Must answer contest question correctly in order to qualify for prize drawing.

So here’s the blurby type dealy.

When the Cavanaugh women inherit the family moving company, they figure they’re “man” enough for the job. They’ll show those bad boys of Texas just how good these three gals are at getting exactly what they want…

Reecie is a caretaker from the word go–she’s all business, whether it’s family or work. So she is more than ready to let easygoing Jack Saunders step in and take care of her in the most intimate way possible…

Robbie Jo loves a good time at work and in bed–until she meets rodeo rider Cash McBride and realizes she’s ready to settle down and ride one man long and hard…

Carla is tired of sweating for a living. But getting hot and bothered around real estate attorney Josh Winters puts her in the mood for some seriously steamy sex…

Sidenote: I’vte read this and it’s awesome. Awe.Some. (See it is possible make the word awesome into two words.)

So here’s the question. Jack & Reecie starting dancing to a TLC song but what song did they stay for?

Click here to read the excerpt. Click here to enter the contest. And click here to send Emma chocolates.

Copy the list below. Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book. Italicize what you’ve watched. Tag 5 people to perpetuate the meme. (You may of course play along anyway.)

1. Jurassic Park
2. War of the Worlds
3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4. I, Robot
5. Contact
6. Congo
7. Cocoon
8. The Stepford Wives*
9. The Time Machine
10. Starship Troopers
11. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
12. K-PAX
13. 2010
14. The Running Man
15. Sphere
16. The Mothman Prophecies
17. Dreamcatcher (started the book. never saw the movie)
18. Blade Runner(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
19. Dune
20. The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
22. The Iron Giant(The Iron Man)
23. Battlefield Earth
24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25. Fire in the Sky
26. Altered States
27. Timeline
28. The Postman
29. Freejack(Immortality, Inc.)
30. Solaris
31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32. The Thing(Who Goes There?)
33. The Thirteenth Floor
34. Lifeforce(Space Vampires)
35. Deadly Friend
36. The Puppet Masters
37. 1984
38. A Scanner Darkly
39. Creator
40. Monkey Shines
41. Solo(Weapon)
42. The Handmaid’s Tale
43. Communion
44. Carnosaur
45. From Beyond
46. Nightflyers
47. Watchers
48. Body Snatchers (Guessing this is different from Invasion of the Body Snatchers?)

*I realized last week that the dude who wrote Rosemary’s Baby also wrote The Stepford Wives and they’re both now on my To-Buy list.

PLeaseeeeeeeeee come cheer me up people!

Not only did I (haha) celebrate my last 30-something birthday on Monday, the ex called and asked how I liked turning 40. Not nice dude. Not nice. 

Then this morning I had to get up and go pick up school schedules.

High School. I have a *sob* Freshman.

*sobsob*

And my baby is going to Jr. High. *waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa*

The talented Carolyn Jewel is our guest blogger at SFC Today! I hope you’ll stop by!

Interesting conversation with small children on Saturday. We dropped the dog at the groomers and hit Borders. It was my b’day weekend and I wanted some new books. I’m standing in the romance section and #2 child makes fun of…the romances. I send him away and then he comes back a few minutes later with #1 child and they start up again. I send them away again. Finally, I’m getting ready to check out and I look at both my kids and say, “Those romances you were making fun of? They paid for the braces in your mouths.”

*headdesk*

Was digging through an old wip the other day. Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with this sentence and would you like to guess just how old this WIP is?

I wander the aisles with my headphones and CD walkman on, hoping no one will talk to me.  

On the happy side, I discovered this manuscript is actually in pretty good shape. The opening chapter needs work (as does the synopsis), but I think it’s something my agent can totally shop.  And somewhere I have the opening few pages of the second book (it’s a two-book project).

Thanks to everyone who came by! You can have your choice of any Aphrodisia novel–including Make U Sweat–I should have author copies any day now!

Linda Winfree

Jess

Margay

Kaitlyn

Please email me at amie at amiestuart.com with your snail mail addresses and book choice.

Apologies again for the gross delay in getting this last lesson out. Life intervened in a big way. Due in part to character problems. Which is why I wanted to chat about what to do when you get stuck.

Currently I’m writing two heroines in two novellas who are night and day. Somewhere along the way with the first heroine I lost track. Funny enough I know exactly what I did. With a hero who’s a hired killer, I spent a LOT of time making sure he was likeable, that you could see his growth etc…and the heroine fell by the wayside.

I got an email from my CP that basically said, “I’m not connecting with her anymore.” Of course, at the same time, I was emailing her with, “OMG I’m stuck. I took a wrong turn somewhere. I just can’t nail this ending. hEPL!” LOL

OTOH the second heroine is rich and spoiled and well, has no conflict. Obviously this is a problem. Now I have to go back and weed in some conflict, which luckily was easily found.

And often, as writers, we can’t see the forest for the trees so here are some helpful suggestions:

1) Trust your instinct. Nine times out of ten if something feels off with one of your characters, that’s because it is. At the same time, I’ll be the first to admit I’m my own worst critic, but I’ve learned over the years to trust my gut.

2) Go whine to your critique partners. They will probably see something you don’t. Even if you don’t quite know what’s off, another brain always helps. And even if they don’t see the problems that YOU see, their observations could help you figure out where you went wrong. And help talk you off the ledge.

3) Print your manuscript. There are things that you will see on paper that you’d never find on a computer screen. Don’t whine about the trees or the cost of printer cartridges. Go invest in a cheap HP Laser printer. It’s well worth the cost, and a tax deduction. Jackie Barbosa (who is not only my editor at Cobblestone but my CP) is the ONLY person I know who can get away with not printing a hardcopy and editing.

4) READ your manuscript. Maybe this one goes without saying. Not only does it remind you that, hey it really doesn’t suck, it’s another way to help pinpoint a problem.

5) Walk away. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just take a break from the work so that you can go back and look at it with fresh eyes. Go read a book or walk or *gulp* clean or something.

Now……..back to the WIP I hope ya’ll enjoyed this and got something out of it. Again, feel free to post questions and please feel free to post some of your own character-making misery so we can commiserate. I’ll pick five winners on…Monday…from all the commenters last week and from today’s post who can have their choice of Aphrodisia titles.