Who decides about the sequel...

Ok, admittedly, this photo doesn't have the most to do with the topic of my post, but as it is epic, I don't care overmuch.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I had a post on my Star-crossed:Secrets Facebook page from a fan. Yes, ZOMG, I have a fan. Awesome sauce. So, this fan loves the books, loves the characters (YAY!) and is dying for a third book (yay.) Hmm, yeah, there could be a third book. There are ideas floating in my head that could make it to the written page. It didn't seem like the second book (Star-crossed:Journeys) caught on that well, so I moved on to a new project. But, since my one fan wants it (I'm thinking of Mel on Flight of the Conchordes,) I could make it happen.

Herein lies the dilemma, from the way that she was talking about the characters, I can tell that she wants the love story to resolve a certain way. In my own mind, it goes differently (think Edward v Jacob.) Yeah, I am God of the Star-crossed universe, but perhaps I should satisfy my one fan. On the other hand, that is probably not as satisfying to me and doesn't make me want to write the third book as much. Not sure what to do with this.

Anyway, just happy to have a fan. Yay! Now slow down and obey the road signs...or I will destroy you!

A love that could not be...

So, this is what I came across on my image search for "Starcrossed".

Obviously, it was not the only thing I came across, but it was one of the more amusing things. Since, of all things, I aspire to amuse, this is the photo I selected. The photo to launch my new quest...which implies that there was an old quest. There wasn't. But I digress.

Those of you who know me know that I named my novel "Star-crossed" because I thought it was an appropriate title. And it was. But what I failed to do was to research how many other books out there had the title Star-crossed. It turns out, a butt load. So, as penance, I am now going to read every book titled Star-crossed. That's the quest.


This is the first one I am reading:

Mostly because it appeared as "people who bought your book also bought this book" with Star-crossed: Journeys and, it was 99 cents. I am not sure why the one person who bought my book would also buy this book, but there you have it. I am 1/4 of the way into this novel and I like it quite a bit...much more than many of the 99 cent novels I have read. It might even be better than mine (gasp!).

So, Starcrossed book number one. Give it a read.

The dangerous pitfalls of the eyeroll.

I am re-editing Journeys because, as always, there are some blatant errors hiding in there. And it can always use a bit more polish. But what I am finding is that my characters are constantly rolling their eyes or raising their eyebrows. Sometimes they even do that ever-tricky single eyebrow raise.

Yes, my characters are talented individuals.

Also, they probably look like they have some sort of seizure disorder with all the twitching and eye rolling.

So, I have to wonder, am I overdoing it? When you read a book and there is lots of eye communication, does it bug you or do you just go with it?

Pardee out.

Phallic anemones

When I was done with the second half of the Star-crossed series, Journeys, I decided that it would be sneaky and clever to put a watermark of very penis-looking anemones on every page. That way the reader would wonder if they were looking at penises on every page. And it was pretty darned funny, when I did it.

However, the watermark did not transfer when I changed the formatting to upload the file. So, the literary world will not have the pleasure of wondering "is that a penis?" on every page of my book. Sorry world. The time has not come.

Pardee out.

Also the search for the cover

Ok, I'm not very good at this. The picture of the cover was supposed to appear with the post.

Fail.

So, anyway, I have spent much of the last 24 hours searching for the cover for book 2, Star-crossed: Journeys. ( I have read on the web that to promote your book you should mention the title as much as you can, anywhere you can, so you can expect every other word in this blog to be Star-crossed: Secrets or Star-crossed: Journeys... I already am making myself want to puke)

Ok, so the "cover" story. I am trying to find an artsy cover along the lines of my first cover for the second book and, to make matters more difficult, it muse be a picture taken by me... or I get sued. A tall order. I love the photo that I just posted... somewhere... and had worked it up as a cover. But really, it belongs on a religious manifesto, or Deep Thoughts with Jack Handy. Sigh. So I am back to the drawing board.