Nicki Elson's Not-So-Deep Thoughts

Check out the...er, unusual reviews for Debra Anastasia's Fire Down Below: So, you know when someone says "Ew, gross. Smell this," And then, for some inexplicable reason you do? Well, I smelled it. And you can read my review at Goodreads .   #‎FireDownBelow ▴Amazon US ➜ amzn.to/1HvQywp   ▴Amazon UK ➜ amzn.to/1DgCa4U   ▴Amazon AU ➜ bit.ly/1CkOCDU   ▴KoBo ➜ bit.ly/166Xtej   ▴iBooks ➜ bit.ly/1Kfvpmh   ▴B&N ➜ TBA There are a lot of eyes in Debra Anastasia’s house in Maryland. First, her own creepy peepers are there, staring at her computer screen. She’s made two more sets of eyes with her body, and the kids they belong to are amazing. The poor husband is still looking at her after 17 years of marriage. At least he likes to laugh. Then the freaking dogs are looking at her—six eyeballs altogether, though the old dog is blind. And the cat watches her too, mostly while knocking stuff off the counter an...

On Saturday, I'll have been a published romance author for five years. Throughout those five years, I've often sensed the disdain that accompanies utterance of the term "romance" in the literary world. It's so far beneath all those other genres of real fiction, right? At my local library, the used book shelf sells old VHS tapes---that most people can't even play anymore---for a dollar, while used romance books sell for ten freaking cents. Kinda gives a girl a complex. So I was ecstatic to get a bit of vindication this past weekend when I sat on a panel called Real Life/Real Love at the first annual Elgin Literary Festival. While one panelist wanted to make it very clear that she wrote (highly esteemed) literary fiction and not (blechy) romance, edgy YA romance superstar Simone Elkeles  explained why romance is the hardest genre to write. I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially what Simone said was that at the beginning of a romance novel, or often from ...

Has anyone out there not heard of IWSG yet? If so, learn all about it here . Thank you Alex J. Cavanaugh for bringing us all together! I know everyone has their own writing process and that what works for one person may not work for another, but I've just realized another benefit to the plow-through-the-first-draft-no-looking-back approach, and I want to share it with you.  I write this way because I learned that if I don't, I'll never finish anything. I get too caught up in editing, so I simply can't let myself do it until version one of the story is all out of me. That's benefit #1. As I work on the second draft of my current WIP, I've seen benefit #2 in action. Since I didn't spend time re-re-re-re-reading chapters to mold and polish along the way, I'm able to attack this draft almost like a first time reader. I think with all writers, the more times we read our own words, the more attached to them we become and the more right they sound to us no...

I'm so excited to feature a brand new novella---just released today!---by Rumer Haven. Rumer has such a lovely way of painting stories with words, and this particular story features one of my favorite twists ever in a romance. It's a perfect short read for Valentine's season.  FOUR SOMETHINGS & A SIXPENCE by Rumer Haven Adult Contemporary Romance Available February 3, 2015   from Battered Suitcase Press (an imprint of Vagabondage Press) SUMMARY : One wedding. Six participants. Be they sitting in the pews or standing at the altar, bearing witness in person or only in spirit, each of them knows something about the unsmiling bride. Go ahead—offer them a sixpence for their thoughts, and they'll make you these vows: One would love to declare this woman his “awfully wedded wife.” One fears what she already has and will have to hold—if not from this day forward, then soon. One takes her to be richer, not poorer. One is better for what she told...

Today's the day the cover for VIBRIZZIO gets plastered all over the book bloggerverse! If you haven't bumped up against it yet, you can see it at Will Read for Feels . Or A British Bookworm's Blog , Collector of Book Boyfriends , The Phantom Paragrapher , BookSkater , Carol Oates , The Book Addict ,  etc. etc. etc. Thank you to Xpresso Book Tours for organizing such a smashing event! I'd love it if you'd come back here to let me know what you think of the cover. The blurb is posted along with the cover, but at my place I'd like to give you just a smidgen more. Below is a teensy excerpt from a conversation between our leading lady & her BFF.  It's the gist of the story in few words: “Just because he’s a guy doesn’t mean he and I can’t be just friends.” “And just because you don’t have to insert batteries into him doesn’t mean you can’t be more." VIBRIZZIO has it's first review ! The lovely Jennifer Lane , author of chart-topper B...

It's heeeere, Something Wicked by Carol Oates. Now available Kindle  *  Nook  *  Trade paperback For the enticing blurb & author bio, please visit my cover reveal post . Carol took time during her busy release week activities to stop by and answer one simple question: If you had to choose one song that best captures the essence of SOMETHING WICKED, what would it be and why? There were quite a few songs on an eclectic playlist when I started writing this. It’s difficult to pick just one. For writing the 19th century scenes, I preferred something with a classical feel. I love Divenire by Ludovico Einaudi and listened to it while writing an early scene, which was particularly horrific for the main character. It was the scene where Henry goes through the final moments of his transition to a vampire. He doesn’t realize the extent of what has happened to him and is, in fact, filled with a sort of hope that he’s still alive and will see his fami...

Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to the first 2015 meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group , founded by the one and clonely Alex J. Cavannaugh . (If you haven't joined the club yet and are interested in learning more, click on either of the links in the preceding sentence.) JUST read the memo about the brief introduction, so here it is: I live in the Chicago 'burbs w/ one husband, one bunny, one teenaged son, and a daughter who also lives across the state border at university. I work in digital and print marketing for a local retail icon so I get to do lots of writing at my day job. I realize now that I've written fiction in my head my whole life but I didn't start putting my stories into words until the summer after I turned 40. I'm so happy I didn't wait any longer. I burrowed pretty snuggly into the Land of Offline the past several weeks, so I'm excited to bop about today to see what's up with all of you. My insecurities are the same ol...