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Published on 2 Comments on Grey’s: From Post-Its To Pacifiers?

This week two couples on Grey's Anatomy were talkin' babies.  Will it go beyond the talking stage?  Will the stork drop off a bundle or two to some of Seattle Grace's finest? 

Yeah, yeah, I know that when Ellen Pompeo was pregnant she and Patrick Dempsey sat down with Shonda Sunshine and suggested that Sunshine write the blessed event into the show. And yeah, I realize that Sunshine said no.  I've heard that she's hinted/said/implied (take your pick) that there wouldn't be a McBaby.  But I've heard other things too, and Sunshine does like to keep the fans guessing. 

Recently, on the March 25th edition of the Ausiello Files, Sunshine did a guest blog post about this season's finale.  And she who created the McDreamy world says that it's "the kind of finale that changes everything."  She called it a "GAME. CHANGER."  Emphasis and punctuation - Shonda's.   

...continue reading "Grey’s: From Post-Its To Pacifiers?"

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And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

He is not here, but is risen...

 

May you have a happy and joyful Easter!

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Published on 5 Comments on Smash It Again Mark!!!

Once upon a time, a handful of publishing companies decided what Americans could read.  Those companies lived in the great literary castle.  No common writers were admitted to the castle.  The publishing royals would periodically admit certain citizens that they deemed worthy to petition them on behalf of the common writers. By and large, most of the worthy citizens had either worked in the castle in years gone by, or they had worked for other worthy citizens that the royals had known for years. It was an insider’s paradise and no outsider need apply.   

The worthy citizens had the loathsome job of dealing with the commoners in the Kingdom.  Someone had to do it and it wasn’t going to be the royals themselves.  After all, the royals couldn’t dirty their hands by working directly with those who created the products that paid for their castle.  No, let the worthy citizens deal with the rabble.  Best of all, the worthy citizens not only protected the royals from the rabble, the royals didn’t even have to pay the worthy citizens.  The worthy citizens took their fees from the rabble’s proceeds.  A cut of the bounty paid by the royals to the rabble rightly belonged to the worthy citizens. ’ Twas a small enough price for their having to deal with the commoners and sort through their barrage of products to find the work that worthy citizens thought would be deemed acceptable by the royals.

Most of the commoner’s notions got rejected by the worthy citizens.  Those esteemed folks worked and socialized directly with the royals and knew what the royals would and would not deem worthy.  Or at least, they believed that they knew.  And the worthy citizens did not, as a rule, challenge the royals to accept something too new or too different.

And thus was born — the sacred system.

...continue reading "Smash It Again Mark!!!"

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Published on 2 Comments on My Heroes Have Always Been Varmits

Everyone I know is flawed. All of the people I love and adore have blemishes. Each of my co-workers, from the boss on down, has defects. And me? If there were a country called Flawed, I'd be its Queen.

I'm working on a new book. Actually, I'm juggling two - a historical and a contemporary. I was working on the historical yesterday when it struck me that the hero was pretty damned tarnished.  My mind flipped over to the contemporary and realized that yep, sho 'nuff, the hero has potholes in his character big enough to drive an 18-wheeler through.  

My personal creative process starts with the characters and builds from there.  From the characters flows the story.  When its going well, one of them will often lead me down a path I never intended to travel, he or she will change the direction of the whole bloomin' book in a way that's gonna cause me no end of re-writes.  Those characters, the ones whose tale I'm telling?  They're never the good guys in the white hats from stable backgrounds earnestly seeking only a permanent committed relationship. 

Invariably, my hero will be the spoiled rascal who's always lived life on his terms, by his rules.  And those rules, like everything else in his world, tend to favor allowances rather than limits.  His background may have been more or less stable, but it'll have enough instability, enough challenges, that it's made him tough, wily, and smart.  My heroes are always smart.  But he won't be looking to right the world's wrongs.  Heck, he won't even be looking to right his own. 

My hero will never walk into the story as the guy avoiding the tawdry, temporary pleasure of sex without strings.  He surely won't be seeking a committed relationship.  My hero will embrace the tawdry and wallow in the sex whilst avoiding good girls like they were one of those diseases he might pick up in his favorite brothel. 

Yes, you guessed it.  My heroes have always been varmits. 

...continue reading "My Heroes Have Always Been Varmits"

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Hey guys. Mary Anne's busy with work on top of work, so she asked me to write a blog entry. Everyone always says to write what you know, and I'm a technology guy, so this is going to be about my take on digital publishing technology and some of the changes in store for books because of it.

First off, I don't think paper books are going to completely go away. There's something comforting about the physicality of a book. The smell and feel of the pages, the easy-to-see contrast of the ink on the paper, the order of the vertical lines on a filled bookshelf - it all adds up to an experience you can't get from any digital device. At least, not yet.

A good model that we can use to see where books are headed is music. Saying that the e-book will eliminate paper books is like saying the MP3 song has eliminated concerts. Obviously, that hasn't happened. There are sights, sounds, and other stimuli you get at concerts that you just can't get from iTunes.

...continue reading "An Angry Old Fat View of E-Book Technology"

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Hi kiddies, AOFM again. Just wanted to inform you all that Griffin's Law is now available in both paperback and e-book from Amazon, Smashwords, and CreateSpace. Once a few other e-tailers' systems get finished digesting it, it should be out for the Nook and Barnes & Noble as well. Keep watching our book list page for updates on where all of Mary Anne's books can be obtained.

Have a great Sunday, and talk atcha laters. AOFM out.

Published on

(Upset Hubby Alert - I can't remember where I read it!)

Read somewhere (hence the hubby alert above) that some of the editors at the big publishing houses are now looking for contemporary romances.  Actually, I think I read in a couple of different places over the last week or two, news that contemporaries may be the next hot thing.  What do I say to that?

THANK GOD, THE GREAT GREEN TOAD FROG AND ALL THE RE-FRIED CLAMS IN THE UNIVERSE!!!

I like historicals and I write historicals, but there are times, many times, when only a contemporary will do.  Some of my favs from that genre are folks like Diana Palmer, Linda Howard, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jayne Anne Krentz.  I can curl up in a chair and watch hours pass like minutes while I read one of theirs in paperback form,  or - as I add more to my Sony Reader - in ebook form.  I'm eyeballing a purchase of a Diana Palmer and a Brenda Jackson Westmoreland anthology for my e-reader as we speak. 

I also love contemporaries.  I also WRITE contemporaries.  I previously published Email Enticement, a contemporary set in my home town of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  I just published Griffin's Law, a contemporary set at the University of South Carolina's Law School in Columbia, SC.  Both books take place at that interesting mental spot where love and the law intersect. So, does my gratitude about the return of the contemporary contain some amount of self-interest?  You bet'cha.

But, keep in mind, that I write contemporaries because I read contemporaries.  I write contemporaries because I love contemporaries.  I don't agree that you have to write what you know.   I do agree that you have to write what you love.   Enthusiasm and joy and a page turning experience will never happen for a reader if they didn't first happen for the writer.  Fun is contagious. 

...continue reading "Will Vampires & Zombies Exit Stage Right?"

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The book that, to date, I had the most fun writing, Griffin's Law, is being published as I type. It's out there on Smashwords and almost out there (it should be through the publishing grinder shortly ) at Kindle. It'll take a couple of weeks or so for us to get the paperback version out.

The Amazon process for Kindle puts the book out in stages. As I write this post, Griffin's Law is up on the Amazon site, complete with hubby's fantabulous cover image and, by the Great Green Toad Frog, with a buy button. The cover blurb hasn't fed up yet. And this blog post is partly about Griffin's and why it was my most fun book to write, and partly about that cover blurb.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of Grey's Anatomy and of its creator, Shonda Sunshine (Rhimes). And Grey's Anatomy inspired this book. One night, as I watched the folks at Seattle Grace Hospital, I asked myself one question -- What if Grey's Anatomy took place in a law school? 

...continue reading "Griffin’s Law – To Compare Or Not To Compare?"

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Published on 1 Comment on Creating a Book Cover, Seriously This Time

The not-so-jolly fat man here again, peeps. Apparently Mary Anne had wanted a serious post, even though she knows I hate serious. I think everything should be fun and funny, especially for an audience. I'm not so different from my wife in that aspect; she's trying to provide her readers an escape from their humdrum everyday lives through fantastic love stories, where I try to lighten everyone's mood via humor.

But she wants serious, so now I'll take you there.

...continue reading "Creating a Book Cover, Seriously This Time"

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Published on 3 Comments on How AOFM Creates a Romance Novel Book Cover

Hello everyone, it's Mary Anne's husband, Angry Old Fat Man (AOFM for short).

If you're a regular reader of this site, you probably know that I, AOFM, create all of Mary Anne's book covers for her. She expressed her desire to let you, the reader, have a peek behind the scenes of the creative process I go through to make nebulous clouds of thought into solid color images on thick cover stock paper.

So come along with me while I indulge her.

...continue reading "How AOFM Creates a Romance Novel Book Cover"