And I am not ready. I’m not ready for Christmas, I barely made it through Thanksgiving and New Year’s is barreling down on me like a freight train. In 2025, I’m trying something new as an authorâa release schedule that doesn’t sync up with my work conference season, and a “long” quick release schedule. In romance publishing it’s not uncommon to see authors releasing books in a series mere weeks or a month apart. But I tried that in 2022 and I think I’m still recovering.
In 2025 I’m planning on releasing a complete trilogy, but I plan on doing them three months apart — March, June, and September. This will off-set them from peak seasons at work and also give me a little breathing space, while hopefully keeping readers engaged. But that means that I’m setting up a lot of marketing now in 2024. And if I’m putting my time toward one thing then I’m taking time from somewhere else.
So what should you be doing – if not preparing for 2025?
Christmas shopping! I don’t even have proper list or a spreadsheet! I’m just randomly buying crap and hoping that I’m getting closer to wrapping.
Upon reviewing those last few sentences, I have come to the conclusion that I might be a giant nerd. Does anyone else have a shopping spreadsheet? Just me? OK, well, if you do… nerds unite! You are my people.
But I haven’t even put up a tree. The stockings are up, so we’re not totally without Christmas, but still… The days are ticking by too fast! Although, I can’t tell for sure if that’s true since we didn’t get an advent calendar either. How can I really tell how close we are to Christmas without small amounts of chocolate being continually fed to me?
Meanwhile, I feel like I’m ADHD as I try to wrap up all my writing goals for the end of the year. There’s all the marketing I need to do, a contest I want to submit to that means I have some pages that need polishing, a novel that needs polishing and a paranormal romance that is begging to be written. And every time I work on one I feel guilty that I’m not working on the others.
How am I supposed to get enough family time, let alone Christmas cookies, into my December with that many projects? If you’ve got time saving tips or great gift ideas–I’m all ears.
But what I hear you saying is that there is a new series coming?
Yes. There is! The Valkyrie Brother’s Trilogy! Half rom-com, half mystery and all fun. The series features three brothers navigating reuniting their family, fighting off bad guys, and coincidentally meeting their true loves in elevators all across town. Book 1 – Elevator Ride – will be released in March of 2025 and is currently available for pre-order. If you want to learn more, it was recently featured over at Dru’s Book Musing Blog! And while you’re over there check out Dru’s fabulous reviews and other content.
Next week will see the release of Luckless Love, a contemporary âenemies to loversâ romance with a hint of âmistaken identityâ set in Eastern Washington with a âhappily ever afterâ ending. This standalone novel was fun to write, but more fun to research. The story revolves around a winery and itâs head enologist (thatâs wine maker for us less fancy people) who falls for a new-to-town photographer. To be fair, Juel Lugo, my co-author did the most research, I just tasted the wine. And I was very much OK with that division of labor.
Did I Learn Anything?
Yes, I did! Dom Perignon is not just the name of expensive champagne. He was a real person who helped in the invention of champagne. The people of Champagne wanted to make it more bubbly and Monsieur Perignon figured it out. This fact is of zero relevance to the plot of Luckless Love, but I still enjoyed learning it. Each section of Luckless Love does come with a wine recommendation and I hope that readers enjoy trying new wine as much as my co-author and I did.
So What is the Book About?
Photographer, Simone Laurent is homeless, loveless, and luckless when her motorhome conks out on the last leg of a year-long road trip. Arriving at Ryanâs Garage in the small town of Luckless Washington, Simone meets Jordan Ryan, the grumpy wine-maker from the Amante Winery, and mistakes him for a mechanic. But while sparks and tempers flare, normally sunshiney Simone is still unable to pay for repairs to her motorhome. Simone sets out to get a job, vowing to dismiss all thoughts of the sweaty âmechanicâ from her mind. But thatâs hard to do when Jordan turns out to be her new boss. But while Jordan and Simone are determined to focus strictly on the big wine event coming to town, their friends, family, and Cupid have other plans. With the crush coming from more than grapes, this hapless duo will need all the help they can get to make sure they end up in Luckless Love.
Luckless Love is a wholesome standalone rom-com, full of quirky characters, laughs, true love, and a guaranteed happily ever after. The print edition is now available! Follow the links below to get your copy!
Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of action-adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someoneâs hind end. She participates in many activities including swearing, karate, art, and yelling at the news. She can usually be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel (or screenplay). You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.
https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/LucklessLove-3DinVineyard-02.jpg10811081Bethany Maineshttps://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aug2016-Logo-op3-300x69.pngBethany Maines2024-11-13 05:15:362024-09-03 11:14:34Luckless Love
In my upcoming release, Luckless Love, my heroine is returning from a year long road trip and searching for someplace to belong. Wanting to belong to a community is a universal theme that I think appeals to readers, but when I started to write the book, I didnât immediately leap to that theme. I had to explain my reasoning for using it to my co-writerâJuel Lugo.
Luckless Love started out during COVID when Juel who is my business partner in real life and I took a script writing seminar on how to write a Hallmark movie. We both felt that we could write one, and with too much time on our hands and since we were in each otherâs COVID pods, we gathered around a computer and took notes on how to write a Hallmark movie.
What Are Your Co-Writer Goals?
Juel is not particularly interested in being an author. She doesnât want to do the work of putting words on a page, but she is endlessly interested in stories and structure. As a life-long reader, and marketing expert, she knows that stories are what move the human psyche. So our deal was that she would do the bulk lifting on inventing the plot. I would walk her through how to outline and then I would do the actual writing. But that meant that we had endless discussions on our characters, their motivations and how to get them to fulfill their plot obligations.
I donât know how other co-authors work together, but with over ten years of experience in working with each other, we managed to make it through the outline with very little disagreement. Having both taken the seminar we both could recognize when we were deviating from the Hallmark pattern. And then we could also agree when we were fine with leaving that path. Hallmark has a lot of constraints about how serious or realistic things can be (donât mention divorce or cancer!), which is understandable for their brand, but for writing a novel it can feel like the characters are lacking in depth.
Did We Make it the End?
So did we make it through the writing process with our friendship and partnership intact? Absolutely. It was a fantastically distracting project during a time when we very much needed one. It was also fun to take on a challenge that neither of us had done before. The script version achieved a PNWA Literary Contest Finalist ranking and we are quite proud of our little romance novel. Weâre looking forward to itâs upcoming release on November 18. Check out the links below if youâre also interested in a sweet romance, all about wine, second chances and finding some place to call home.
https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/LucklessLove-titleb-square-04.jpg10811081Bethany Maineshttps://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aug2016-Logo-op3-300x69.pngBethany Maines2024-10-09 04:15:112024-09-03 11:17:30Can I be a Co-Writer
As someone who works in a creative field professionally, Iâm endlessly interested in how creativity functions. Where does anyone get their inspiration? Heck, where do I get my inspiration? The Greek idea of a museâa goddess who comes by to inspire an artistâmakes sense to me because sometimes ideas do feel external to myself.
Well, how did you come up with that?
Well, first I was doing the laundry while listening to Pandora (canât get away from those Greek myths today, can I?) and the song used the phrase âbad for businessâ which reminded me of Risky Business, which made me think of Tom Cruise, and then I started to wonder why so many people were confused by the original Mission Impossible plot. Thirty minutes later, I was jotting down an idea about what would happen if a demon burst through the floor of a non-profit fundraiser. Basically, I came up with the idea by having a lived experience and feeding it all into the hopper of my brain and letting everything pinball around like one of those kidâs mower toys with the balls that go pop-pop-pop.
So You Live With that Brain All the Time?
I do! And I like it! I worry about people who canât connect completely random dots. Donât they get bored just going from A to B to C? Itâs so much better to go A to Q to C to R. But thatâs not to say that creativity is just something that happens. There are ways to lure the muse into the house and trap her in a box.
To be clear, Iâm referring to a computer where my muse has full reign to create whatever she wants. We are not shoving women in boxes over here. (I never saw Boxing Helena, but I have been troubled by it since I read the back of the box in a Blockbuster in the 90s. Who greenlit that?! Donât Google it. Youâre happier not knowing.)
The trick is to gather both the correct input (Read books! Watch movies! Experience the creativity of others!), and make sure I have the space and time to create. But probably my number one trick is to look for a problem to solve.
What problem?
I love James Bond, but when I wrote my first novel, there werenât a lot of female spies in the marketplace. So I solved that problem. I wrote Bulletproof Mascara about a girl who starts by selling make-up and ends up saving the world. Check out my my full catalog to see what other problems I’ve solved.
Short stories are their own art form and while I enjoy writing them, I will frequently wait for inspiration to strike rather than trying to force one into existence. And this year, I’ve only had one short idea that I wanted to work onâThe Rage Cage. However, once I do have a story, I really like to give it a chance to exist out in the world. Submitting a story is usually a long wait for a stack of rejections which may or may not be kind. And usually I take a spreadsheet approachâpick my targets, check my deadlines, read all the lists, and be strategic about my submissions. But this time I had barely finished The Rage Cage when I saw the deadline for this Larceny & Last Chances Anthology was quickly approaching. The fourth anthology from Superior Shores Press has a theme could not have been more perfect for my story. But even more desirable, the promised wait time between submission and rejection was only a few weeks. I leaped into action to get the story proof read and formatted per the instructions and turned it in. And then I had to wait… Fortunately, The Rage Cage was accepted and I could breathe a sigh of relief.
Larceny & Last Chances features twenty-two stories that must include, yes, you guessed it, theft and a final chance at something. In The Rage Cage my heroine Amber has a dog, a Dutch oven, and finally a plan. Amber’s life has been complicated by poor choices, but when she realizes that she’s not entirely to blame for everything that’s gone wrong, she decides to pick herself up and steal her last chance at happiness and maybe sobriety.
The Superior Shores Anthologies have been nominated for multiple awards and I’m excited to have been included. You can find all of the anthologies — The Best Laid Plans, Heartbreak & Half-Truths, Moonlight & Misadventures, and now Larceny & Last Chances –– at all book retailers. (But here is a quick link to Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UmMrvV )
Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense
Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk
Sometimes itâs about doing the right thing. Sometimes itâs about getting even. Sometimes itâs about taking what you think you deserve. And sometimes, itâs your last, best, hope.
Featuring stories by Christina Boufis, John Bukowski, Brenda Chapman, Susan Daly, Wil A. Emerson, Tracy Falenwolfe, Kate Fellowes, Molly Wills Fraser, Gina X. Grant, Karen Grose, Wendy Harrison, Julie Hastrup, Larry M. Keeton, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Gregory Meece, Cate Moyle, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Kevin R. Tipple, and Robert Weibezahl.
2025 is Coming!
/in General WritingAnd I am not ready. I’m not ready for Christmas, I barely made it through Thanksgiving and New Year’s is barreling down on me like a freight train. In 2025, I’m trying something new as an authorâa release schedule that doesn’t sync up with my work conference season, and a “long” quick release schedule. In romance publishing it’s not uncommon to see authors releasing books in a series mere weeks or a month apart. But I tried that in 2022 and I think I’m still recovering.
In 2025 I’m planning on releasing a complete trilogy, but I plan on doing them three months apart — March, June, and September. This will off-set them from peak seasons at work and also give me a little breathing space, while hopefully keeping readers engaged. But that means that I’m setting up a lot of marketing now in 2024. And if I’m putting my time toward one thing then I’m taking time from somewhere else.
So what should you be doing – if not preparing for 2025?
Christmas shopping! I don’t even have proper list or a spreadsheet! I’m just randomly buying crap and hoping that I’m getting closer to wrapping.
Upon reviewing those last few sentences, I have come to the conclusion that I might be a giant nerd. Does anyone else have a shopping spreadsheet? Just me? OK, well, if you do… nerds unite! You are my people.
But I haven’t even put up a tree. The stockings are up, so we’re not totally without Christmas, but still… The days are ticking by too fast! Although, I can’t tell for sure if that’s true since we didn’t get an advent calendar either. How can I really tell how close we are to Christmas without small amounts of chocolate being continually fed to me?
Meanwhile, I feel like I’m ADHD as I try to wrap up all my writing goals for the end of the year. There’s all the marketing I need to do, a contest I want to submit to that means I have some pages that need polishing, a novel that needs polishing and a paranormal romance that is begging to be written. And every time I work on one I feel guilty that I’m not working on the others.
How am I supposed to get enough family time, let alone Christmas cookies, into my December with that many projects? If you’ve got time saving tips or great gift ideas–I’m all ears.
But what I hear you saying is that there is a new series coming?
Yes. There is! The Valkyrie Brother’s Trilogy! Half rom-com, half mystery and all fun. The series features three brothers navigating reuniting their family, fighting off bad guys, and coincidentally meeting their true loves in elevators all across town. Book 1 – Elevator Ride – will be released in March of 2025 and is currently available for pre-order. If you want to learn more, it was recently featured over at Dru’s Book Musing Blog! And while you’re over there check out Dru’s fabulous reviews and other content.
Learn more about Elevator Ride: https://drusbookmusing.com/cover-reveal-elevator-ride/
Pre-order: https://amzn.to/3AnaMLQ
Luckless Love
/in Life, The Stiletto GangNext week will see the release of Luckless Love, a contemporary âenemies to loversâ romance with a hint of âmistaken identityâ set in Eastern Washington with a âhappily ever afterâ ending. This standalone novel was fun to write, but more fun to research. The story revolves around a winery and itâs head enologist (thatâs wine maker for us less fancy people) who falls for a new-to-town photographer. To be fair, Juel Lugo, my co-author did the most research, I just tasted the wine. And I was very much OK with that division of labor.
Did I Learn Anything?
Yes, I did! Dom Perignon is not just the name of expensive champagne. He was a real person who helped in the invention of champagne. The people of Champagne wanted to make it more bubbly and Monsieur Perignon figured it out. This fact is of zero relevance to the plot of Luckless Love, but I still enjoyed learning it. Each section of Luckless Love does come with a wine recommendation and I hope that readers enjoy trying new wine as much as my co-author and I did.
So What is the Book About?
Photographer, Simone Laurent is homeless, loveless, and luckless when her motorhome conks out on the last leg of a year-long road trip. Arriving at Ryanâs Garage in the small town of Luckless Washington, Simone meets Jordan Ryan, the grumpy wine-maker from the Amante Winery, and mistakes him for a mechanic. But while sparks and tempers flare, normally sunshiney Simone is still unable to pay for repairs to her motorhome. Simone sets out to get a job, vowing to dismiss all thoughts of the sweaty âmechanicâ from her mind. But thatâs hard to do when Jordan turns out to be her new boss. But while Jordan and Simone are determined to focus strictly on the big wine event coming to town, their friends, family, and Cupid have other plans. With the crush coming from more than grapes, this hapless duo will need all the help they can get to make sure they end up in Luckless Love.
Luckless Love is a wholesome standalone rom-com, full of quirky characters, laughs, true love, and a guaranteed happily ever after. The print edition is now available! Follow the links below to get your copy!
***
Can I be a Co-Writer
/in Craft, Life, Romance, The Stiletto GangA Co-Writer Spills the Beans
Luckless Love started out during COVID when Juel who is my business partner in real life and I took a script writing seminar on how to write a Hallmark movie. We both felt that we could write one, and with too much time on our hands and since we were in each otherâs COVID pods, we gathered around a computer and took notes on how to write a Hallmark movie.
What Are Your Co-Writer Goals?
Juel is not particularly interested in being an author. She doesnât want to do the work of putting words on a page, but she is endlessly interested in stories and structure. As a life-long reader, and marketing expert, she knows that stories are what move the human psyche. So our deal was that she would do the bulk lifting on inventing the plot. I would walk her through how to outline and then I would do the actual writing. But that meant that we had endless discussions on our characters, their motivations and how to get them to fulfill their plot obligations.
I donât know how other co-authors work together, but with over ten years of experience in working with each other, we managed to make it through the outline with very little disagreement. Having both taken the seminar we both could recognize when we were deviating from the Hallmark pattern. And then we could also agree when we were fine with leaving that path. Hallmark has a lot of constraints about how serious or realistic things can be (donât mention divorce or cancer!), which is understandable for their brand, but for writing a novel it can feel like the characters are lacking in depth.
Did We Make it the End?
So did we make it through the writing process with our friendship and partnership intact? Absolutely. It was a fantastically distracting project during a time when we very much needed one. It was also fun to take on a challenge that neither of us had done before. The script version achieved a PNWA Literary Contest Finalist ranking and we are quite proud of our little romance novel. Weâre looking forward to itâs upcoming release on November 18. Check out the links below if youâre also interested in a sweet romance, all about wine, second chances and finding some place to call home.
Creativity
/in Carrie Mae, Life, The Stiletto GangIs it Creativity or Goddess?
As someone who works in a creative field professionally, Iâm endlessly interested in how creativity functions. Where does anyone get their inspiration? Heck, where do I get my inspiration? The Greek idea of a museâa goddess who comes by to inspire an artistâmakes sense to me because sometimes ideas do feel external to myself.
Well, how did you come up with that?
Well, first I was doing the laundry while listening to Pandora (canât get away from those Greek myths today, can I?) and the song used the phrase âbad for businessâ which reminded me of Risky Business, which made me think of Tom Cruise, and then I started to wonder why so many people were confused by the original Mission Impossible plot. Thirty minutes later, I was jotting down an idea about what would happen if a demon burst through the floor of a non-profit fundraiser. Basically, I came up with the idea by having a lived experience and feeding it all into the hopper of my brain and letting everything pinball around like one of those kidâs mower toys with the balls that go pop-pop-pop.
I do! And I like it! I worry about people who canât connect completely random dots. Donât they get bored just going from A to B to C? Itâs so much better to go A to Q to C to R. But thatâs not to say that creativity is just something that happens. There are ways to lure the muse into the house and trap her in a box.
To be clear, Iâm referring to a computer where my muse has full reign to create whatever she wants. We are not shoving women in boxes over here. (I never saw Boxing Helena, but I have been troubled by it since I read the back of the box in a Blockbuster in the 90s. Who greenlit that?! Donât Google it. Youâre happier not knowing.)
The trick is to gather both the correct input (Read books! Watch movies! Experience the creativity of others!), and make sure I have the space and time to create. But probably my number one trick is to look for a problem to solve.
What problem?
I love James Bond, but when I wrote my first novel, there werenât a lot of female spies in the marketplace. So I solved that problem. I wrote Bulletproof Mascara about a girl who starts by selling make-up and ends up saving the world. Check out my my full catalog to see what other problems I’ve solved.
A Little Larceny…
/in Anthology, mystery, The Stiletto GangIs it Larceny or Just Larcenous?
Short stories are their own art form and while I enjoy writing them, I will frequently wait for inspiration to strike rather than trying to force one into existence. And this year, I’ve only had one short idea that I wanted to work onâThe Rage Cage. However, once I do have a story, I really like to give it a chance to exist out in the world. Submitting a story is usually a long wait for a stack of rejections which may or may not be kind. And usually I take a spreadsheet approachâpick my targets, check my deadlines, read all the lists, and be strategic about my submissions. But this time I had barely finished The Rage Cage when I saw the deadline for this Larceny & Last Chances Anthology was quickly approaching. The fourth anthology from Superior Shores Press has a theme could not have been more perfect for my story. But even more desirable, the promised wait time between submission and rejection was only a few weeks. I leaped into action to get the story proof read and formatted per the instructions and turned it in. And then I had to wait… Fortunately, The Rage Cage was accepted and I could breathe a sigh of relief.
Larceny & Last Chances features twenty-two stories that must include, yes, you guessed it, theft and a final chance at something. In The Rage Cage my heroine Amber has a dog, a Dutch oven, and finally a plan. Amber’s life has been complicated by poor choices, but when she realizes that she’s not entirely to blame for everything that’s gone wrong, she decides to pick herself up and steal her last chance at happiness and maybe sobriety.
The Superior Shores Anthologies have been nominated for multiple awards and I’m excited to have been included. You can find all of the anthologies — The Best Laid Plans, Heartbreak & Half-Truths, Moonlight & Misadventures, and now Larceny & Last Chances –– at all book retailers. (But here is a quick link to Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UmMrvV )
Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk
Sometimes itâs about doing the right thing. Sometimes itâs about getting even. Sometimes itâs about taking what you think you deserve. And sometimes, itâs your last, best, hope.
Featuring stories by Christina Boufis, John Bukowski, Brenda Chapman, Susan Daly, Wil A. Emerson, Tracy Falenwolfe, Kate Fellowes, Molly Wills Fraser, Gina X. Grant, Karen Grose, Wendy Harrison, Julie Hastrup, Larry M. Keeton, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Gregory Meece, Cate Moyle, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Kevin R. Tipple, and Robert Weibezahl.
Release Date: June 18, 2024
Buy Link: www.books2read.com/larceny