Just A Little Update...

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged...anything!  I thought, since I've gotten a few questions in real life, asking 'When's book 2 coming?', that I should provide a little update; letcha know what's going on in this head of mine. First, my nephew was born a week ago today.  Man, time flies!  He's such a little cutsie pie!  Check this out:

I am one happy auntie...

Second, I just sent off my newest WiP, with a working title of Soul Avenged, to my beta readers.  This is book 1 of the Sons of Wrath series...clearly a distraction for me, but one that I couldn't let slip past without writing it down.  Here's what happens:  I'm this walking, open vessel for ideas.  It's a curse, really.  I can't get over how many silly things manage to inspire a story.  I hear a song...BOOM, a story pops in my head.  I rifle through pictures of a recent trip...BOOM, a story pops in my head.  I read someone's brilliant poetic words...BOOM, a story pops in my head.  I don't even know where Soul Avenged came from, what of the million little inspirational gems I've been exposed to since last October, might've given rise to these voices and scenes.  But they did and I went with the flow.  In the end, I wrote a 100K novel that I'm hoping is being torn to shreds by my betas at this very minute.

So my nephew is born...my distraction is sated (sort of)...what happens next?

I've already begun the prequel novella to Halos.  You want answers and I'm going to start giving you some.  But I think you know me well enough by now, to realize you're not getting everything...hehe.  Well, because I like to torment.  That's just how I roll.  So I'll sneak a few answers in to hold you over until book 2 comes out.

When is the prequel expected to arrive?

Because it's just a novella, I am going to shoot for completion at the end of summer.  It will go through the same process - beta readers, editor, cover reveal etc.  AND BOOK 2?!  You ask, with your hands on your hips and that unyielding expression on your face.  Book 2 will be out shortly after the prequel.  So hold tight...but don't worry.  Distractions are a natural part of my genetic make up.  They don't mean I've off and left y'all hangin' like a dangling chunk of tuna bait over shark infested waters.  Uh...sharks being your overwhelming curiosity...

I'm hoping to give you more to devour.  Soon.

Just want to tell you how much I love your continued interest in the trilogy.  The emails, the comments on my FB pages, the conversations in person...all so humbling.  Thank you for being such awesome readers.

In the meantime, check back this Friday...I'll be posting another flash story based on some characters from Soul Avenged!

Sexiest Couple Award!!

The 2nd Annual Boogity Boo Awards are going on now through the month of April over at I Smell Sheep blog. COLTON AND ALLIE ARE UP FOR SEXIEST COUPLE!!! 

Please stop by and vote!

Phew!  The competition is tough.  I’m truly humbled by the nomination.

The best part…

A sheep will be donated in the winning authors’ names to a third-world family through the organization, World Vision.  How cool is that?!?!

And…. If you leave a comment on the site, you’ll be entered for a chance to win a $20 giftcard to Amazon, Barnes & Noble or the Book Depository.  More books!

Go go go!!!  CLICK HERE

And the Golden Halos Award Goes to...

One of the toughest tasks for any author, but particularly the self-published author, is achieving ‘reach’.  We tweet, we blog, we practically shout our Facebook status and if we’re lucky, sometimes it rouses some interest in the book.  What we need is a vehicle to carry the message to the farthest edges where our voices can’t be heard.  Or better yet, many vehicles…hehehe.  Enter my best friend, Diana. Now if you’re a regular to my blog, you’ve seen this post.  If you haven’t, I’ll wait until you read it.  Because there is another agenda for this one, but I have to let you know just how awesome this person is and how important she is to me.    Without a doubt, one in a million. 

I ain't one to brag...but this is definitely brag-worthy...

When I released Somnium last month, Diana contacted me and asked if I could send down a bunch of books – signed. 

“Sure!  What’s up?”  I asked.

“I’m throwing you a launch party here in Texas,” she responded. 

“Um…Diana, I would love LOVE to come down there, but it’s really not a good time to do that.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.  “I’m throwing it without you.”

I felt like a pin had deflated every bit of air inside of me.  Humbling is a good word, but not even that truly captures the gratitude I felt for such a gesture.  Diana has always been a giving person; so thoughtful and kind.  You know, that friend who ALWAYS picks out the perfect card for an occasion and chooses the exact words that will turn you into a blubbery mess.  Yep, that's my Dee! 

So hells yes I sent down a package filled with books, bookmarks, poster and t-shirt.  Diana got to work and gathered up her best troops.  She had invitations made, using the signature black and gold of the book and website.

 

 Awesome!!  Next, Diana donned the black Halos t-shirt I sent her, tailored to her trendy style of course...hehe (look closely at the ripped neck of the t-shirt)

She set out autographed copies of my book and bookmarks for guests to grab.

   

She made sure that no guest would go thirsty, offering a nice variety of wine and vodka (diet tonic of course).  Light snacks were also provided - Kahlua fruit dip and fresh cut fruit, a veggie tray, cheese tray and hummous. 

Then the guests started to arrive...

 

  

These wonderful ladies not only purchased copies of my book, but also volunteered to help spread the word to their parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, book clubs and colleagues.  And as if that isn't generous enough, they offered to leave reviews for the book!

Everyone had a good time!

  

And as is customary for one of Diana's bashes, the party moved outside...

  Um...since I didn't see, 'bring a swimsuit' on the invite, we'll just give you a peek at the digs and assume they all sorted out the swimming attire...

So I want to extend my sincere and heartfelt thanks to these angelic ladies and especially to my best friend, Diana.  You guys get the golden Halos for most rockin' fans of the week!!  So glad you had a good time!  And I understand those who've read Somnium are jonesin' for some more yummy Colton Briggs??  Ho ho!  I promise to deliver.  Working on book 2, Requiem, and hoping for a summer release!  You'll meet some more of those sexy Halos soon...

 

Got a book club or think you might be interested in hosting a Halos party?

Contact me via email at keri@kerilake.com  for details and I'll hook you up with some Halos swag including autographed books, bookmarks, poster and t-shirts.

And If you have any fan pictures, send em my way!!  I would love to feature them on my site!  :) :)

I'm curious, how awesome is your best friend?

RELEASE DAY: Somnium (Halos)

I had this crazy notion a few years back:  to write a book.  I'd written enough of the small stuff (flash, poetry, short stories) for a while.  It was time for a REAL commitment.  It's so easy to find resolution by the end of a short story, but attempt that in a novel, and well, that requires a bit more than just a few minutes jotting down a storyline.  I'd written chapters, scrapped them, saved some on floppy disks somewhere.  Is there a computer in the world that can read a floppy nowadays?  This was going to be it for me.  My novel.  The one I'd publish. So I sat and wrote every chance I could steal:  before work, in my car at lunch, after work, on the weekends.  I even wrote on Christmas morning before my kids got up.  And we all know how early kids get up on Christmas morning.  Yes, I loved writing that much.

I attempted to send out a few query letters.  The truth is, I had no idea what I was doing.  In fact, I don't even know if I sent them to approrpriate agents.  I got the impersonal stamped rejection letters, did a little research, sent out a few more and had a couple of nice handwritten letters come back.  Rejected of course, but kind.  Not realizing that this was all part of the process for writers, I gave up on the project and figured perhaps I wasn't meant to write a book.

Then a new idea hit me...

The second book was an urban fantasy and I was so incredibly excited about the storyline, I found even MORE cracks in my day to write.  I'd keep notecards next to me on my desk at work and jot ideas while I was waiting for reports to generate.  I would steal moments in the elevator, by myself, daydreaming of a scene to write.  There were times I'd be reading a patient chart and be struck by dialogue that I'd have to quickly scribble on a scrap of paper tucked somewhere in my labcoat.

Same routine.  I wrote up, what I considered, a very spiffy query letter.  Researched a list of agents.  This time, I was much more organized about it.  I had contact names and even used red font to strikethrough them when my query came back rejected.  What am I doing wrong?  Is my writing that horrible?  Well, maybe it wasn't my best, but I still hadn't learned anything about the slush pile.  Whoa!  I know what you're thinking...how did you even get that far?

So for kicks, I stopped writing for a bit and studied the publishing industry.  I bought books on the topic and familiarized myself with some bestselling authors.  I had always liked reading, but I never paid attention to what was really popular.

My sister called me out of the blue one afternoon.  Now, for those who know nothing about my sister...phone calls with her can be incredibly entertaining.  As a matter of fact, I just recently had a phone call that I was pretty sure would land me in the ER, I was choking from laughing so hard.  Some of her stories are not even intentionally funny - just her naivete.  Don't get me wrong, the girl's a bit genius (she's the engineer that Allie, in Somnium, is based off of), but she has her moments.  Going back to the phone conversation, in a matter of minutes, she detailed her interactions with some of the men she worked with and the military guard on base that she was sort of crushing on.  I cracked up at some of the thoughts that would go through her head when she saw this guy.  And then we hung up.

I don't even know when it happened, but sometime in the night, Colton materialized in my head and began speaking to me in that smooth and sexy tone.  I realized, he was the guard at the gate.  Sure military guys are cute, but I never really fantasized about one...until now.  For a moment, I felt that familiar spark of excitement as he whispered sweet nothings in my ear.  I fought against it.  Criminy, I have to get up in the morning.  I am NOT starting another book.  But he persisted.  Okay.  But just a short story.  That's it.  So I woke up the next morning and began to write.  And I wrote during lunch.  Then when I came home that evening I wrote some more.  Dammit.  I'm writing another novel.  If you can believe it, I managed to squeeze even more time out of my day.  In meetings, I could hardly concentrate...which landed me in some pretty embarrassing moments.  Picture a love scene playing out in your head at about the same time the CMO asks a direct question.  "Uh.  What?"  Sorry, I was licking a tattoo on a nice juicy bicep a second ago.

I decided not to bother much with agents.  I wrote out a query letter and sent to a couple of agencies.  But I STILL haven't heard back from them.  Pretty sure that was a year ago now.  I joined a writing group and met some great people that I now call friends.  A blog followed soon after that and I sat, hands trembling, writing my first blog post.  This is going to be out in the public!  The public, Keri!  People will see this!  I agonized all the while.  I joined Twitter and found myself scared shitless.  How the hell am I going to read all of these tweets everyday??  There's thousands of them!  And more just keep popping up!  *clears throat*  A Facebook account and fan page came after and I sat for hours trying to figure out what the heck to call myself.  Author?  No.  Writer?  I guess...but, what's the difference between author and writer?

Then came telling friends and family I wrote a book.  Here's how that went:

Me:  Um.  So I uh...wrote a story.  Well, not really a story.  It's longer than a story.  It's actually.  Well, I guess you'd call it a novel.

F&F:  Awesome Keri!  What kind of novel is it?

Me:  Uh.  Romance.  *voice suddenly cracks* Paranormal romance

F&F:  So is it like people having sex with ghosts?

Me:  Well.  *lightbulb*  Maybe at some point.  But this one has angels and demons

It's been one thing after another since then.  Blogposts that became easier over time.  Chats on Twitter.  Postings of my writing.  Interviews, giveaways and now...publication.

Such a strange little path with odd twists and turns along the way.  But it's been fun and I can't wait to see where the next bend in the road leads.

Step Inside My Head - An Author Interview

The very awesome Colin F. Barnes, author of The City of Hell Chronicles, interviewed me on his blog and asked some very interesting questions... Curious to know why I decided to self-publish?  What 5 books I'd like to have if stranded on a desert island?  Where I plan to be in 5 years?

Click HERE to check it out!  I'd love to know your thoughts, so feel free to leave a comment.

DELIVERY!!

I remember when I was little, I had a book of addresses to different companies that I could have, what I considered prizes, sent to me (though most mothers would probably consider it junk).  It was completely centered around the experience of receiving something in the mail.  And we all know how much kids LOVE to get mail.  It’s sad that such excitement changes over time…those letters from cousins, cards from grandma and stray Christmas presents from loved ones across the country suddenly morph into the mortgage bill, a summary of winter taxes due, the water bill, the plethora of magazines you never signed up for but mysteriously get sent anyway, etc. etc.  The shine of getting mail begins to dull. And then you publish your first book…

Excitement bubbles inside of you, like a lonely house pet that turns hysterical when its owner approaches the door.  You watch through the window like a true stalker as the mailman climbs out of the vehicle.  Your heart hammers.  Which house is he going to?  Mine?  The neighbor’s?  He rounds the back of the little…mail car.  The salty taste of blood coats your tongue where you’ve bitten your inside lip too hard.  He pulls out a good size box and glances at the house across the street.  No! 

He turns to check out the address on your mailbox, comparing it against the number on the great mystical parcel in his arms.  Yes!  Yes!  A smile lights his face and he does one of those cheesy nods that only television commercials can pull off…as if every mailman gets a thrill out of delivering a big package.  In slow motion, he makes his way up the driveway.  A gust of wind blows through his comb-over, tipping it completely upright on his head.  What an ass.  He climbs the stairs to the front porch.  You stand behind the curtain with a ridiculous grin on your face; your hand balled into a fist, caught between your teeth.  He drops the package on the porch, winks at no one in particular, then skips down the stairs…all still in slow motion.

You wait.  Mustn’t open the door while he’s still in view.  You’ll look too much like a scavenger.  Desperate.  A bit nutty. 

He putters off down the block and you shoot across the living room to the front door; a sprint that would have made your track coach proud.  A golden light shines down on the package, sitting magnificently on your doorstep.  You reach down to nab it up and shake it a little.  Yep.  YEP!!  They’ve arrived.  Without bothering to close the front door, you race to the kitchen and scour your junk drawer for a box cutter.  Damn it!  When the hell did I use it last?!  So you grab one of your abnormally sharp Cutco knives from the block, nearly removing your fingertip as you slice through the packaging.  Honestly, would you have felt any pain?  Probably not.  You’d have dug a bloody, fingertipless hand inside the box and still held up one of these beauties in all its gory (glory):

        

Yeah baby...the bookmarks arrived!!  Thanks to Su at Earthly Charms Graphic Design and Printing, they turned out exactly...no, BETTER than I imagined!!  If you need bookmarks, she's reasonably priced, does a nice job and collaborates on the design.

And so I decided to see if any of the local businesses would be willing to set them out.  I recruited a couple family members to help me out with this.  Well, turns out a lot of places were willing to set them out and I want to give them a big HUGE thank you! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You guys rock!!  Also thank you to Caribou Coffee in Ann Arbor, Panera Bread in Green Oaks and Grand Blanc, and Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Grand Blanc for setting out my bookmarks.

So...think you might like to have some Halos bookmarks for your local coffee shop, books store, or even hair salon?  Let me know and I'll send ya some!  Fill out the form on the Contact Me page :)

They're Here!!!

So I'm sitting here at my computer earlier this afternoon when I hear a knock at the door.  Who the hell?  I get up to check and see nothing through the front door window.  So I open the door.  There, on my front porch is a medium-sized box.  Now, I just went crazy over the weekend with Black Friday purchases...but this is a bit too early to be expecting any of THOSE goodies. My heart begins to pick up the pace.  I check the return address to confirm my suspicions.  Yep.

They're here!!!!

Check 'em out:

 

 

 

 

Halos Somnium Book Trailer!

I think it's pretty safe to say that a book trailer is one of the thrilling moments of publishing a book.  You condense everything you've written into one enticing little preview. It's a moment, aside from actually holding a copy in your hands, when the book becomes more than just an idea that you've written on paper.  It becomes a vision of so many other things.  A visual representation of something you've created.  Like a movie that's been playing out in your head the last few months (years) on display for everyone else to see.

So for this project, I teamed up with my brother (who is also the designer of my site) and asked for a bit of help.  I directed.  He designed.  I provided details and elements from the book and my brother so brilliantly projected them into a 60 second trailer.

I recommend making it full screen by clicking on the 4 arrows at the bottom right of the video (click play first and hover over bottom right of image).

Check this baby out and tell me what you think:

COVER REVEAL - HALOS: Somnium

Okay…so every time I think I’m going to post one of my flash stories, there’s a new development with my book!  And this one has been very difficult to sit on because I’ve been dying to show you the cover.  Somnium is going to be available in paperback and e-book.  The wraparound cover for the paperback is pretty darn awesome too!  I had two designers on this that did one kick ass job:  my brother, Ryan, and Nick from Everything Indie.  If you haven’t yet checked out Nick’s site, you must: 

http://www.everything-indie.com

 

And here is my lovely (which is a little bit difficult to see against the background of the website): 

For a better look, go to my Facebook page:  http://on.fb.me/jdf0ia

 

  

And the book blurb:

  

A work assignment in Kittery, Maine should be routine for Allie Lynch; nothing more than to prove herself as a brilliant engineer. Instead she finds herself torn between two men: a gorgeous military guard, Colton Briggs, and her devilishly handsome colleague, Drew Costa. To resist temptation, Allie does the only thing she can: she throws herself into her work.

But fate has other plans for Allie. Women are going missing all around her, Allie is struck with a series of life-threatening mishaps, and she becomes the obsession of a local deranged psychopath.

Thrust into a dark world that she can hardly fathom, Allie must fight for her very survival, open her mind to new realities – and open her heart to the possibility of love. Because both of these men are trouble – but one is a greater danger than she could ever imagine …

   

So excited I could combust right here, right now!!! 

And as I mentioned in my last post HALOS: Somnium comes out DECEMBER 16, 2011.  Continue to check back for more details and giveaways!

I Have an Announcement...

   

December 16, 2011. 

What’s so special about this date??

Is it my birthday? 

Nope.

My wedding anniversary?

Nope.

A due date?

Yep.  Wait.  WHAT?!?!!!!!!!!!

 

Settle down.  I’m not expecting another mini-me on this date.  No, no.  This is something that took much longer than nine months to produce.  And I’m hoping the delivery is far less painful…

It is the date that I’ll be releasing my debut novel.  The first in the HALOS Series, titled Somnium.

That’s right.  You’ll soon be able to purchase your very own copy!  Whoooohoooo!!!!  Mark your calendars!  Keep an eye on the blog!  In the next few weeks, I’ll be revealing cover art and giving away some goodies. 

Spread the word.  Tell your family.  Tell your friends.

 

DECEMBER 16TH, 2011.

 

ALL HELL IS GOING TO BREAK LOOSE…