April Contest!

April isn’t just about pranks and eggs—it’s about spring, school being out, baby animals, family. New beginnings. With ONLY FOR THE MOMENT almost complete and ready for edits, that means a new book beginning, probably early next month! So this month, our April contest is all about IF ONLY.

You can win signed print copies of ONLY FOR THE WEEKEND and ONLY FOR THE NIGHT with their fantabulous new covers! I love great romances of all kinds, so I want to know—what are your favorite romance subgenres, tropes, and themes. Do you love alpha assholes? Shifter romances? Billionaires and secret babies? How about second chances, triumphing over adversity, or making love last after the “I do’s” have been said? Tell me; I want to know!

Head on over to my Facebook page to enter!

*** On APRIL 27th, one commenter will be chosen for a beautiful set of IF ONLY books of their very own! (Likes and shares with your romance-loving friends appreciated but not required!) ***

Funny Friday: The Shatner Comma...

Picked this up on Facebook the other day. What, do, you, think? :D

Funny Friday: A Little Editing Humor Here

So I'm deep into revisions at the moment, working on the first Southern Nights novel. I can't wait for you to meet Conlan and Jess! But in the meantime, I thought I'd give you a good look at what I'm doing right now, the prep phase. This:

Enjoy your weekend!

~ Ella

No Sick Days

There are no sick days in writing. Okay, for some people there are, but unfortunately I’m not one of them. Between the kids and the editing gig and just plain normal maintenance -- hey, this body didn’t get this way by itself. Actually, it did, but I’m trying to work on that! ;) -- I have to write when I have time, not when I feel like it. And that means writing when I’m sick. Depressed. Just don’t want to.

Suck it up, buttercup. You still have to write.

This week I’m on a deadline. My wonderful editor has sent me revisions that will make Just a Little More a “more better” story. And that means I need to actually follow through on them (imagine that!). I spent this past week struggling through therapy for a bulging disc in my neck, and this weekend both my son and I got hit with a nasty virus (him more than me). All I wanted was to curl up in the bed, cover my head, and sleep the bad feelings away…but I can’t. I have to write. The week ahead is already full of work, and the revisions have to be squeezed in around that. The whip must be cracked and the laptop must be opened. There’s no time to waste on a sick day.

My birthday is coming up in about six weeks. Think I could wish for a sick day when I blow out the candles? ;)

How ’bout you, do you get sick days? Wish you did? Save them for when you aren’t really sick? (Wish I had that option!)

~ Ella

Photo courtesy of mcfarlandmo.

Inspiration: "If I Lose Myself" by OneRepublic

I've been working like a mad thing on revisions for the first Southern Nights book, Teach Me. Sometimes, when a book has been a part of you for as long as this one has me, you lose the inspiration that originally had you revved about the project. Since I wrote the original manuscript in 2010...yeah, it's been a while, and making sure the story felt as fresh and alive as it did the first time I opened a Word file and began to type was very important to me. And then came Christmas, and the gift that keeps on giving: music. Every book I write has a playlist; it's part of my writing process, and also a quick way for me to dive back into a book when I've had to put it on the backburner to meet deadlines on other projects (you can see a couple of my playlists for books here and here). Teach Me, being the first book I ever wrote, didn't have a playlist -- I was too new to know what my process was then -- so keeping it fresh has been a struggle. For Christmas, though, I received OneRepublic's new album, Native, and found the inspiration for Jess's story.

"If I Lose Myself" is a song about looking out a window. Sounds simple, right? (Don't most songs? :) ) But it's not. It's also about life and deciding who and what is important, about risking and refusing to give up. Have a listen:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGx0rApSk6w?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

See what I mean? In case you didn't catch them, have a look at the lyrics:

I stared up at the sun, Thought of all of the people, places and things I’ve loved. I stared up just to see With all of the faces, you were the one next to me.

You can feel the light start to tremble, Washing what you know out to sea. You can see your life out of the window tonight.

If I lose myself tonight, It’ll be by your side. I lose myself tonight... (oh) yeah, yeah, yeah.

If I lose myself tonight, It’ll be you and I. Lose myself tonight...

I woke up with the sun, Thought of all of the people, places and things I’ve loved. I woke up just to see With all of the faces, you were the one next to me.

You can feel the light start to tremble, Washing what you know out to sea. You can see your life out of the window tonight.

If I lose myself tonight, It’ll be by your side. I lose myself tonight... (oh) yeah, yeah, yeah.

If I lose myself tonight, It’ll be you and I. Lose myself tonight... Whoooooooooo

Take us down and we keep trying, Forty thousand feet, keep flying. Take us down and we keep trying, Forty thousand feet, keep flying. Take us down and we keep trying, Forty thousand feet, keep flying. Take us down and we keep trying, Forty thousand feet, keep flying.

(Lose myself) If I lose myself tonight...

There are a lot of other great songs on the album, but this one in particular spoke to me. (And yes, for those of you who are familiar with my books, this will be the theme song for Teach Me, just like Dirty Little Secret and Naughty Little Christmas have their theme songs. :) ) Do you have a song that inspires you, a "theme song," so to speak? What is it, and what does it make you think about?

"Real" words

For those of you who don't know, I'm not just a writer. I've spent most of my life studying, teaching, and editing the written word. I can't get enough of it, which is pretty funny when you think about the fact that I'm somewhat hindered in my ability to use said language verbally. (Yes, I'm socially awkward. :p ) I'm a professional line editor, which means I tell writers the correct way to "do things," so to speak. Not everyone likes it, trust me. I hear more negative comments about line editors than I do about bad reviewers. Writers don't want to be told their sentence is grammatically incorrect and therefore so dang confusing I can't understand what they are talking about. They don't want to be told that they've referred to two different characters as "he" in a sentence and therefore I can't figure out who is doing what. I totally understand--I get a bit "rabid" about my own prose--but still, some things are just necessary for comprehension, people! :)

Where was I? Oh...

So when I saw a comment on Facebook the other day about something being a "real" word, it got my attention (most things like this do). An author on my friends' list was teasing their fellow writer about a certain word ("friggin") being "real" because they'd found it on Urban Dictionary. She's right, it is a real word, though it is actually "frigging" (see definition in Merriam-Webster) or "friggin'" if you're from the South like me, but still, even though I knew they were joking around, I cringed. Ach! Not Urban Dictionary! It's the bane of my existence, people, seriously. It's like telling a historian you got information off Wikipedia--watch out for the seizure! Really, it is, because anyone can add a definition or example sentence (and I've seen some doozies!) to the website, and no one polices it for accuracy. Take a look at this:

Urban Dictionary Word of the Day, July 26, 2013 -- Moronimated: "something so dumb it has to be animated. Axe Cop's Sockarang is moronimated."

Or how about: Urban Dictionary Word of the Day, July 30, 2013 -- Almost-quaintance: "a person to whom one has at one point sent a successful social networking friends request or from whom one has accepted such request. 'I really need to clean up my facebook friends list; my news feed is painful to scroll through: It's full of so many strangers' bullshit.' 'Yeah, gotta' love those almost-quaintances!'"*

O_o

How about "snice," which apparently means "combination of snow and ice." Followed by the clear example of "Man, the dog just came in covered in snice. Awesome!"

Yeah, awesome.

And "January," "Everyone's favorite month!!! playing in the snow, snuggling by the fire, and having excuse for ur penis looking so small."

<choking on my own combination right now--of laughter and, yeah, laughter>

The term "blowjob" has many definitions on Urban Dictionary, many of which start with sentences like "The best part of sex ever." and "An act of awesomeness." Worthy of Merriam Webster, let me tell ya. And that doesn't include the entries around "blowjob," like "Blow Job A La Mode" (all capitalized--must be extra special!) and "blowjobalicious." How about "blowjobalotstanka" and "blowjobbery" (actually I think that one was spelled as two words, "blow jobbery," which must make it right, right?)? Seriously? Not to mention the examples, such as "Thnx, babe, that was the best blow job I ever did get." Oh the inhumanity!!! The--wait, "inhumanity" isn't a real word; it isn't defined yet on Urban Dictionary. The fuckupery! The fuckupance--sorry, fuck-upance!

Oh. My. God.

Seriously, folks, Urban Dictionary can be great for a laugh, it really can (as evidenced above :) ). I think most of us get that, and that's how we take it (as a joke). But do you know how many people take it as gospel? How many people refuse to use any other dictionary? How many authors I've seen in line edits who've sited Urban Dictionary as proof that what they wrote is correct? Um, no, it's not. Despite what every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to post on Urban Dictionary (Tom, Dick, and Harry are "three young men that can be blamed for gay habits," by the way), it's not right. Not. Even. Close.

As casual as our world has become about everything from fashion to dating habits to what we can say on television, I do believe some standards give us a baseline for societal discourse. Personally, we may choose to meet it or not, but it's there.

Or maybe not, since according to UD, "baseline" is "the bare minimum standard that a girl must be at or exceed when considering fornication." Or "a sequence of low growling notes strategically played by nick beard, of the band Circa Survive, on his ernie ball music man stingray base guitar." (Apparently band names require capitalization but people names do not.)

Ookaaayyyy...

*Please note all grammar/punctuation errors were copied directly from the site and have abso-friggin'-nothing to do with me!