Celebration Day

Greetings, Fire Enthusiasts. I hope this post finds you and yours well. As I pen this note to you it is a wonderful Saturday morning. It’s March 23, and yesterday was my forty-fourth birthday. It was very nice and I thank many of you who bombarded my Facebook Profile with well-wishes. I don’t know how, but I had forgotten how great that day is thanks to social media. I thank you all for making a crazy day very special.

If you were here for a visit last week you are aware that I am being transferred from the main facility to a cold storage facility that Sun Maid owns that is just a few minutes down the road from there. I’m unsure whether I start this new gig on April Fool’s Day or the Monday after that. I promise you it isn’t some sort of cruel joke – I am being moved. In any event, potentially yesterday was my last day with my 100+ employees; a crew that I have known as their supervisor for ten years, and many of whom I’ve known in one capacity or another longer than that. So the day was bittersweet. There was food, cake, wine (ok, I took that home unopened) and very nearly tears shed as most were quite unhappy to see me go. We were busy, I’ve been pulling away to enable my partner to realize how tough the job is going to be without me doing most everything, I was celebrating a birthday at the same time that I was saying goodbye. As I said, it was a crazy day.

In book news, I’m waiting to hear back from my editor extraordinaire. She’s had Seeing Ghosts for a week now. As for the cover, I have given sneak peeks to a bunch of my besties and the reviews have been ecstatic. Once I get a feeling for how big the final editing job might be, I’ll begin setting plans in place for the reveal. I promise you you’re going to love this cover. If you would like to potentially be involved in that reveal, simply let me know. I will provide the cover and a pair of synopsis to choose from via an e-mail, and anyone can choose to be involved or not. No pressure.

I do have a secret project taking place this summer which I will divulge at a much later date. I’m a little nervous since it is a collaborative effort – something I’ve never done before. I can’t say much about that. I’ve probably said too much already…

Other than that, this year will be about promoting the new book. I will be working on soft cover versions for all three of the books, which most likely will include new covers for the vampire books.

Before I go, I would like to leave you with the blurb for the new book once again. I hope the regulars aren’t getting too sick of it already. I know many people can only visit a few times a month. I’m like that myself. If you haven’t visited and potentially might like to make yourself available for a cover reveal, interview, guest post or review once the book comes out, I’d love to hear from you.

 

“Paul Herrera finds himself bequeathed a mysterious old house near the California central coast by a deceased aunt he never knew. The woman who shows it to him is the spitting image of his wife, taken from him three years before in a senseless car accident which also took his unborn son. While he deals with the ghosts of a past he cannot let go, there are new ghosts Paul must deal with - alone for the week in the expansive two-storey house that he will soon discover holds many secrets. Eventually, he will see that he is surrounded by ghosts as he struggles to hold onto the only thing that he has left in this world - his sanity.”

 

Now I’m going to go play with my birthday presents. I received three Blu-Rays: Les Miserables, Let Me In and Led Zeppelin’s Celebration Day. Yes, I’m a brat. Was there ever any doubt?

We’ll talk soon.

The Dawning of a New Day

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. I hope you’ve had a good week, and that the new one treats you equally well. Everyone here is well. That list includes my teacher wife, my 15 year old son, my 18 year old son and me. My wife also coaches track this time of year which makes for some long days. The boys come and go with schedules that get harder and harder to remember seemingly every week. They are doing well in their respective schools, are involved in music programs, as well as church, and don’t get into any trouble. Their bedrooms look like war zones, and I cringe every time I glance inside; however, if that’s all I have to complain about, than life is good! Am I right?

As for me, my last week and a half has been crazier than usual. It all began with me simply attempting to perform my daily schedule, all the while plotting the schedule of my new book. I want to build a slow buzz over the course of spring/summer until the eventual release. The cover’s done and frigging awesome, so I want to build a buzz for the reveal. However, I want to make sure I get completely through the editing phase before I get too far ahead of myself with that. Then there’s formatting and researching reviewers for arcs, etc, etc.

That’s when the Plant Manager at my day job pulled me to the side and informed me that there was an opportunity to change jobs.

What?

If you’ve been around me enough you have no doubt heard me whine about my 3 am alarm, my 3:45 am start time, my 11 hours, and more recently about working Saturdays. Well, I work as an Administrative Supervisor in the Packaging Department for Sun-Maid Growers of California - the lady on the red box. Now I was being offered a chance to transfer to another facility that we own and operate that’s just down the road from the main plant. I would go from 100+ employees to about 20-30. It would also be a lot less production lines and items. However, although it would be lateral for the moment, it is basically running the entire facility myself (Processing, Packaging, Inventories, Sanitation, Shipping, Quality – everything except the Maintenance). I’ll have a second Supervisor who handles that part.

So, why am I telling you all of this? Because after dealing with the prospect of having to interview with some Managers, the Plant Manager and the Vice President, and all the stress of that – I got the job. In a few short weeks my schedule will be more like 7 am to 5 pm. Hopefully this will be much better for everything I’m currently juggling, and there will be much less whining. Of course, I can’t promise you anything. *evil grins*

 

My thanks to all who’ve signed up for a cover reveal that should occur sometime in late April or early May. It will all depend on the editing process. I’m still looking for more help there, so let me know in the comments. My plan is to reveal the cover and blurb to you well in advance, and allow you to make the decision to be involved or not once you’ve seen it. Trust me. This cover is gorgeous! You will not be disappointed. I’ll leave you once again with a short blurb for the Paranormal Romance that I'm calling, Seeing Ghosts.

  

Seeing Ghosts

Paul Herrera finds himself bequeathed a mysterious old house near the California central coast by a deceased aunt he never knew. The woman who shows it to him is the spitting image of his wife, taken from him three years before in a senseless car accident which also took his unborn son. While he deals with the ghosts of a past he cannot let go, there are new ghosts Paul must deal with - alone for the week in the expansive two-story house that he will soon discover holds many secrets. Eventually, he will see that he is surrounded by ghosts as he struggles to hold onto the only thing that he has left in this world - his sanity.

 

 We’ll talk soon.

Something for the Paranormal fans

Hello, Paranormal Romance enthusiasts. How’s it going? Can you tell I’m grinning? Trust me. I am.

I am so excited to be reporting this week that things have progressed well on my latest novel. We have a cover, a new title and have already passed the first beta hurdle.

You know, I have never really spent that much time choosing a book title. With Dance on Fire, I recall hating it, and assumed I would find something better by the time I’d finished the book. Well, as many of you know, it took nearly twenty years to complete. By then, the title had already cemented itself into my head and there would be no changing it. Flash Point had itself titled well in the beginning because of the whole fire theme. I had planned to use “Inferno” for the next one, but Dan Brown just grabbed it, so we’ll see what happens. See how important it can be? I finally did get around to checking how many books had the original title I had hoped to use. The result of this caused me to change it. There was much discussion as to what title I could choose, but everything seemed too dark or just plain silly. With a paranormal audience in mind, I think I found just the right balance.

Therefore, my latest novel is entitled: Seeing Ghosts.

The manuscript has been to the first beta reader. With her busy schedule she had it read in four days. She reported that she cried at the end. That’s got to be a good sign. Right? And, no, it wasn’t my mother! She’s actually got next. J My friend the beta did give me some great feedback. I have already taken some of that to heart and made the necessary tweaks. It’s going to be read a couple more times, but then it’s off to my professional editor.

As I mentioned previously, I had been working with Author and cover artist extraordinaire Maria Zannini. We spent the big money and a good bit of time on this, and the result is quite striking. My wife and kids adored it immediately. Bless her heart, Maria also made me a wallpaper of the cover. I have it on my computer at work and the guys can’t stop drooling over the lovely model that graces the cover. I have shared it with another writing buddy. She was very envious and called it a “gorgeous cover.” I think you’ll agree, but I apologize because I’m not ready to reveal it. *teases*

What I am doing right now is building a list of folks who might be interested in hosting a cover reveal. Trust me - you’re going to adore this cover. However, you do not have to agree to do anything until you’ve seen it. So, leave me a note somewhere. You can e-mail at rapture22 (at) hotmail (dot) com, leave a comment here, or drop me a note on any of the social networks – wherever is the easiest to get hold of you. I will then send you the cover and you can choose to be involved or not. I’m easy. At that point, if you just wanted to display it somewhere, you could do that. Perhaps you would schedule it as a post one day, along with the synopsis; or perhaps we could do an interview where we discuss the cover and the book. Whatever. Again, I’m easy. I’d also love to hear from you if you’d like to read/review it…

  

Seeing Ghosts

Paul Herrera finds himself bequeathed a mysterious old house near the California central coast by a deceased aunt he never knew. The woman who shows it to him is the spitting image of his wife, taken from him three years before in a senseless car accident which also took his unborn son. While he deals with the ghosts of a past he cannot let go, there are new ghosts Paul must deal with - alone for the week in the expansive two-story house that he will soon discover holds many secrets. Eventually, he will see that he is surrounded by ghosts as he struggles to hold onto the only thing that he has left in this world - his sanity.

 

I think that’s enough for now, my friends, but oh so much more to come. I hope I’ve whetted your appetite, and you are as excited as I am about this latest project.

We’ll talk soon.

Updates n' Things

Greeting: Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. How’s it going? I had planned on simply posting excerpts from either my debut vampire novel or perhaps tease you a bit further with my current WIP, but in the end decided just to offer an update on several things. I realize no one likes to read a lot of something unless they bought it. I get that. Besides there’ll be plenty of time for that in the coming months while I finish the work on my paranormal ghost story.

Latest: I just finished the last edit before beta. I’ll be printing the novel and handing it off this week. The reader is a co-worker who has read my work before and seems really excited to be involved. I will then make any necessary changes and send it off to my editor. I have changed the title because the previous one has been used a few times and very recently. Once I finalize it I will share it with you, along with the cover. Speaking of covers, I have been working with the wonderful Author Maria Zannini on that front. Right out of the gate she came up with some great stuff. It’ll probably be a while yet on revealing that, but I’m very excited about where we’re heading.

Promotion: I’m pretty much dead in the water here. I just don’t have the time. That’s why you’ll see some more teasers this year. I have some fairly good vampire stories out there that few know about. Perhaps it’s the subject matter. I’m not convinced there’s an issue with them since the reviews have been very good. I’m really hoping the paranormal market will embrace me and then find my other novels. We’ll see.

Physical: Many will recall my whining about gaining a bunch of weight during the holidays. I’m usually at about 183 or so. I ballooned to 188 and the clothes weren’t fitting all that well. J I have been watching the portions, laying off the garbage and hitting the treadmill especially hard – and am pleased to report that Saturday evening the scale displayed 176.8. Now…where’s the chocolate? *grins*

Music: I haven’t offered much in the way of what I’ve been listening to in a long time. I go back and forth. Treadmills are boring so one has to spice it up in order to keep climbing back up on them, especially when sessions last anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes. In the past week I’ve been listening to Green Day, The Rolling Stones, 30 Seconds to Mars, Iron Maiden and Jamie Cullum… What? Cullum? Who’s that? C’mon, you know. If you saw Eastwood’s film Gran Torino than you must know that song. My 18 year old got me hooked and I have been playing the heck out of him for the past 6 months or so. Check him out. He’s not just a jazz guy. This weekend while catching up on yard work, I listened to Cullum and Melody Gardot. How’s that for a wide range of music tastes? Now, back to my Zeppelin.

Books: I continue to read slowly due to lack of time. I actually do the first part of my treadmill routine – time permitting – by power walking with my Kindle. I’m currently reading Kate O’Reilley’s book,It’s Nothing Personal. It is a work of fiction based on actual events that happened to her. I recently finished Dark Corners by Liz Schulte and Coincidences by Maria Savva. I enjoyed them and I think many of you might as well. In fact, many of you already have – that’s how behind I am in my reading. I will have reviews for them very soon on Goodreads, if not here as well.

Dreaded day job: Thanks to many of you who have wished me well of late. We didn’t work this weekend and my partner should be in line to work the next one. I know I shouldn’t complain since many of you have to work Saturdays and I rarely have over the years. It just isn’t fun to work 11 fairly tough hours and then not have an entire weekend to decompress from it. Oh, well. It is what it is, as the saying goes. You don’t want to hear about it and I certainly don’t want to think about it until my alarm goes off at 3 am and I start the next work day.

Final word: That’s enough for now, I think. Have a great week. Now that I’ve come toward the end of the writing part of my WIP, you should begin to see me a bit more around the blogosphere. We’ll see how that goes.

We’ll talk soon.