New Book Trailer

Pretty isn't it.  Hoping it's still right there when I post this.  The book will be out May 25th.

Boy - it's not easy to find pix that go with Historicals.  I'm slowly trying to put together a collection of pix but mostly they're just undatable(is that even a word?) pix.  Vague things that no one can say - that's the wrong time period - when they see them.  Realized it'll be a long time before I get up enough pix to try to do one on my own.  The mind boggles over what there might be for any of my Murray tales.  Oh, there are pix of men in kilts but they are so obviously modern they can't pass the vague test.  And the hours it takes to scroll through the sites that offer Public Domain pictures are ones taken away from what I should be doing - not to mention the strain on the eyes.

Anyhoo - hope you like this one.

If He's Wild by Hannah Howell

Organization.

No there's no reason my cat Jackson is there except that he looks like I feel a lot of days.  Lazy and easily annoyed by anyone bugging me - like an idiot owner with a camera who ought to be writing so that she can buy me all the best food and toys.

I have decided that I need to get organized.  At least a little.  So far this past month I've misplaced my character cards - the large cards on which I write down all descriptive phrases and facts concerning the hero or heroine.  I could only find the one for the secondary characters.  So - hours of searching ensued and I found them holding my place in a huge book with pictures of houses in it.  Why were they there?  Because I was reading the book at my desk and grabbed the first thing at hand to hold my place while I went and did something else.  Upon returning I obviously moved the book because it was in my way.  I've also lost or misplaced my rather large holder of cds for playing music in the car, my inhaler, a lot of e-mails my friends in the Rhode Island Romance Writers group sent me to answer a question about superstitions so I could write a clever blog about it, plus some pix I took( I know they're on the computer somewhere but which folder?) and --

Well, you begin to get the picture.  I seem to live on the edge of utter chaos.  Strangely enough the papers I need for the far too many conferences I signed up to go to this year are all neatly in a folder - marked clearly, and in the file drawer of my desk.  My actual manuscript in the process of being written is in just the right place and I can put my hands on research for 1479 Scotland - the setting of my current WIP - in a heartbeat.  My CDs and DVDs are all organized as are my bookshelves, research papers, and writing tips.
Anything beyond that and it becomes a crap shoot.  Paperwork done or needing to be done while I am working on the next book?  Easily lost.  Notes on a phone call I just got, especially if it interrupted me while I was working on a scene?  Who knows.  Things I printed out because they could be useful in some future story?  The gremlins ate them or they joined all those missing socks that never escape the dryer. The diningroom table?  Buried beneath weeks of mail and magazines and catalogs.   Hence saying I am on the edge of chaos.

Solution - get organized.  Question - when?  Also - can I do it?  When I'm writing I get very, very focused on that and that alone.  I may have a nice conversation with you on the phone but if you've interrupted me while I was writing I might not recall much of it after I hang up and have been back at work for a bit.  Did I say I'd do something?  Better remind me.  I can organize but am obviously very choosy about what I organize, thus the ever encroaching chaos around me. 

So I have decided to give organization a try.  Hopefully it will work out for me better than all my attempts at clear, complete, and well-charted plotting did.  I will organize one thing every morning.  Morning being the time when I am not really fit for writing.  My Muse likes to sleep late.(Wish I could do the same)  It can't be any harder than writing, can it?  Actually, for a pantser like myself it could be a lot harder but I need those hours I waste looking for something.  Not to mention the fact that not being able to find something you want becomes a little nagging worry in your head and that certainly doesn't help you concentrate on the old WIP.  So wish me luck.  I am about to confront the devil Chaos and wrestle it into submission.  I'm giving myself a month, making lists, and checking items off as I progress so that I can be inspired to continue.  I figure by the end of a month I will either have made a very good dent in the chaos or will be in the process of spending hours trying to find where I put those lists.

Nerds that rock by Jessica Andersen

Nerds that rock (and fight, fly, investigate, and do other very cool things)

Mayan lore and modern science warn that 12/21/2012 could bring a global cataclysm … a threat that is far more real than we imagine. Dark forces stand poised to overrun the earth and crush humanity beneath a vicious rule of terror and blood sacrifice. Our only hope rests with a group of saviors living in secret among us: modern magic-wielding warriors called the Nightkeepers.

Now, in the last few years before the 2012 doomsday, these magi must find and win their destined mates in order to protect the barrier of psi energy that forms humanity’s last line of defense against an ancient and powerful enemy.

Hi all!

(Waves.) Thanks to Hannah for letting me hang out at her e-home, and to you out there for joining me today as I celebrate the release of Demonkeepers!

It’s funny—although I love reading historical romance (Hannah, Elizabeth Hoyt, and Connie Brockway are among my faves), I always swore I wouldn’t ever write a historical because of the research involved … and then I ended up writing a series that is set in modern day, but draws heavily on the ancient Maya. Go figure!

The new book, Demonkeepers, is particularly close to my heart because at its core, it’s the story of a pair of nerds coming into themselves and realizing that they’re really only limited by their own self images. Since I’m a nerd with occasional delusions of coolness, Jade and Lucius’s story really speaks to me.

Lucius has been one of my two favorite characters to write throughout the series—he’s an expert in Mayan hieroglyphics, regularly gets himself into academic trouble for believing in the Nightkeepers and the 2012 doomsday, and wants to be somebody’s hero.

It was a real pleasure to finally get to his book—Especially since I was pretty hard on the guy in the first three books, what with the whole possessed-by-a-Mayan-demon thing and his habit of doing Very Bad Things whilst under the demon’s influence.

Jade, too, has been locked into librarian mode. Even though she’s a Nightkeeper by birth, and has some magical skills, she’s a member of a non-warrior bloodline and to her disgust is most useful playing support staff to the other magi.

And then, the one time she and Lucius broke the rules and had crazy monkey sex in the archive … well, more Bad Things happened, making them seriously leery about going back there. But when they’re reunited in a wild race to unlock the ancient library of the Nightkeepers’ ancestors and rescue the sun god from the underworld, they learn that they’ve been warriors all along … and that crazy monkey sex can sometimes lead to Very Good Things.

I’m guessing you can tell that I love these two together. In fact, I’m a big fan of The Nerd That Roars in books, TV and movies. I’m an X-Files geek from way back, think everyone deserves a Clark Kent-to-Superman moment, and am totally jonesing for next week, when we (finally!) get a new episode of Bones. And in the ‘new reads’ department, Linnea Sinclair’s brand new Rebels and Lovers has a most excellent glasses-wearing, data-crunching hero.

So, to celebrate rocking nerds, warmer weather, greener grass, and the release of Demonkeepers, I’m giving away a signed copy of Demonkeepers today. All comments are entered to win—name your favorite brainiac hero or heroine, comment on the books, or just say ‘hi.’ I’ll be here all day, and would love to hear from you!

For more information on Demonkeepers and the other Nightkeeper novels, please check out www.JessicaAndersen.com.