'Tis More Blessed

Greetings, Fire Enthusiasts. How was your Christmas? Did Santa forgive that bit of bad behavior this year and make a visit to your house? I hope so. I was very pleased to receive iTunes gift cards - which I am well on my way to burning up! *laughs* I also welcomed the huge Blu Ray editions of The Exorcist, Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia into my collection. Very awesome. I am particularly fond of that last one. As you may have heard, we lost Peter O'Toole just recently. I was a very big fan of his and will miss him. Thankfully his work lives on in film. Our work will live on, too, after we've gone, but I digress.

For those of you who have missed me - bless you! I have missed all of you. I am venturing out of writers' cave only momentarily, however. As I pen this post I am at 48 thousand words and counting as I put all of my free time into writing this first draft. It is book three in my Dance on Fire crossover vampire series and I am very happy with its progress. That is why you haven't seen me in a while. I am on my traditional holiday vacation from the day job, but am still working at disciplining myself to write in the morning and then stay off the laptop and focus on family for the rest of the day. As I have mentioned previously, I spent far too much time with my nose glued to the screen these past five years or so, doing all of the promotional stuff that we have to do. Sound familiar? :) I'm getting better, but there's still much to do.

So, you may ask, have I given up on the social media? No. I am instead shifting my focus temporarily from the Internet world to the physical one. As you can see from the photo, my latest book Seeing Ghosts is now available in paperback - something which just happened. I have been giving some copies away and turning my attention to locating a store in town to sell them. Now, if you are unaware, although I live in a small town in Central California, my stories take place here. In other words, I have potentially a built-in audience that I need to do a better job of reaching. Nothing is official, but I spoke earlier this week with a shop owner and she is incredibly excited to do business together. It isn't a book store, but its clientele is the perfect demographic for my paranormal romance, and my book would be the only one there. It was my first choice and we should be announcing our partnership in the next week or so. We have already discussed book signings and other events to get the word out. She's excited and so am I.

A moment ago I mentioned something about giving copies of this new paperback away. Today is week four in author Milo James Fowler's 'Tis More Blessed Christmas giveaway extravaganza. I am pleased that he asked me to be involved, and especially pleased to offer a couple of autographed copies to raffle winners on the domestic side of things. My apologies to my friends around the world, but I haven't sold any of these yet. I hope you will understand.

So, what must one do to win one of these, you ask? Nothing. It's the holidays. We've all been running around, going crazy with the shopping, finding time for family, etc. For once let's make something stress free. Just leave me a comment, saying you'd like to be entered and make sure I can get hold of you. In the figurative sense, of course. Not the sketchy sense... *pauses momentarily, recalls how cute many of you are* Look at me! Already getting in trouble with Santa for next year! *slaps hand*

Alright, I'm going to sneak back into the cave. Love you guys! I should have more news soon, as well as news about my long awaited reduction in hours at the day job.

Leave your comment and we'll leave this giveaway open until January 6th. I would like to encourage you to check out each of the other giveaways. You can find them listed at Milo's site here. I know I'll be there.

I hope you've had a blessed Christmas and, from my house to yours, I wish you and yours a very Happy New Year.

We'll talk soon.


Peter O'Toole
1932 - 2013

"...Good-night, sweet prince..."