Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Vacationing or Bang Zoom, Fly Me to the Moon
‘Tis the season for fun in the sun, swinging lazily on a
hammock, or sipping piña
coladas under an umbrella (that is, if you’re the alcohol-loving,
anti-tan type. No judgment here, trust
me. I feel ya).
I’m coming off a long weekend “away” myself. In the spirit of not killing ourselves or
each other, my hubby and I decided to do two long weekends of “vacation” as
opposed to an entire week spent in one place.
Previously, the one place has been a cabin in Maine. Walk to the beach, walk to the saltwater
taffy shop, walk to the zoo, walk into town and see some overpriced
artsy-fartsy stuff while trying to keep three kids from breaking things—you
know, the usual.
It was magical, but it also got old by the third day. For one thing, my husband is not fun to be with
in a car. He makes road rage look, well,
like a walk on the beach. So, picking two separate places to vacation is probably not
the best plan for someone trying to ride in a car less
with the Hulk. Buuuuttttt, being in a
small cabin for a week with three spirited (and sometimes, let’s face it,
assholish) kids, plus a husband with absolutely no tolerance for children, is
by no means a vacation. It’s an exercise in goal-keeping. I’m constantly trying
to stifle the loud annoying things kids do, rather than simply ignoring them like
a normal parent. It sucks badly. I’m on edge the entire time, trying to keep my
husband from being on edge, which he just normally is anyway.
It’s a recipe for
the Maine Lobster-pot Massacre.
So, my plan was to cut it short. Last year, one pair of kid’s
glasses was lost to King Triton, and one gold crown (my husband’s) was lost to
King Saltwater Taffy. It was enough for us to pack it in halfway through the
hell…erm torture…ah, I mean vacation, and go home early. We’ve actually
departed our little cabin in paradise two to three days early every time in the
four years we’ve gone. This year, we got smart and booked a long weekend, so at
least we aren’t paying for time we
aren’t there.
And now, we are done doing our weekend in Boston (halfway to
the prize—the new school year, of course). It wasn’t bad. No whale watch for
choppy seas, but we saw our old buddies, stomped around our old stomping
ground, and hopefully I’ve been fully indoctrinated with the flava of Beantown
so I can finish writing my current book (set in…you guessed it, Boston!).
In other news, I also got my cover mock-up for my rock star
M/M romance, “Forever is Now,” and my content edits, so things are rock ‘n rolling in
the right direction for my September 9th release. Woo hoo!
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| http://www.lsbooks.com/star-catcher-p799.php |
Anyway, if you plan to vacay and want something to keep you from paying attention to your partner's driving, or just need a lusty read
for your hammock time in the back yard, Star Catcher awaits your eyeballs. Try
a short staycation on Artanos with a hella-hot alien hunk this summer. We all need to get away once in a blue moon. ;)
-Kimber
www.kimbervale.com
Friday, November 23, 2012
What I'm reading
Having just finished writing another long book, my brain decided it was time to take a break. And what do I like to do when I take a break. I love to read. Reading relaxes me almost as much as sleeping. But more than that reading helps me to discover a new way of thinking.
Take, for example, the novella I just finished.
First, it's a novella. Hello? I can't seem to think of many stories shorter than 90K words. And yet here someone squeezed a mystery into a very short amount of space.
But best of all, the author had cleverly made a play on several fairy tales all in one spot. There was a frog prince, reference to Humpty Dumpty and Cinderella, throw in the Big Bad Wolf villain and it was very fun and enjoyable read.
Oh, and there was a dragon.
What was the story?
The Cleverest of Them All.
And so before the tryptaphan kicks in, I just want to say that The Cleverest of them All is an amazing example of how a talented writer can breathe new life into our favorite fairy tales.
Take, for example, the novella I just finished.
First, it's a novella. Hello? I can't seem to think of many stories shorter than 90K words. And yet here someone squeezed a mystery into a very short amount of space.
But best of all, the author had cleverly made a play on several fairy tales all in one spot. There was a frog prince, reference to Humpty Dumpty and Cinderella, throw in the Big Bad Wolf villain and it was very fun and enjoyable read.
Oh, and there was a dragon.
What was the story?
The Cleverest of Them All.And so before the tryptaphan kicks in, I just want to say that The Cleverest of them All is an amazing example of how a talented writer can breathe new life into our favorite fairy tales.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Sci-Fi Romances I Have Loved
My dad was a big sci-fi fan. Loved alien movies and he got me into watching Stargate and Stargate: SG-1. We enjoyed watching Star Trek: First Contact together and I laughed at him when he mispronounced the Syfy channel's original movie Epoch as e-pock. He didn't believe me that it was pronounced epic. Firefly quickly became one of my favorite shows when it debuted in 2002 (it seems impossible that it's been so long ago).
As much as I enjoyed watching sci-fi movies, it never occurred to me as a teen, young adult, or adult to look for sci-fi romance novels. I wasn't a fan of traditional sci-fi novels. Maybe it was the lack of romance and all the technical terms that I couldn't get into. I have trouble visualizing some of the equipment and machinery that the authors are trying to describe. So I simply didn't read sci-fi novels.
In 2009, after a long break from writing, I joined on online critique group to try and get back into the swing of writing. There were a lot of writers with a lot of genres in the group. I read a lot of contemporaries, I was writing a historical at the time, and enjoying the fresh bursts from the paranormal categories. One of the ladies who was critiquing my historical was writing a sci-fi romance. I thought, okay, this is a new one for me, but I'm going to give it a shot.
I loved it!
I don't think I got to read the entire thing, she removed it to work on it some more or started a contemporary or something, but what I read of it, which was probably 75%, I adored. I wanted more! Oddly, I wasn't really sure where to start my search for sci-fi romance, so I let it fall by the wayside. In 2010, I attended my local writing group's conference and in my goody bag there was Sherrilyn Kenyon novel. One of The League novels. I thought, eh, this looks kind of boring (further proof about judging books by their covers). It took me a while to work my way around to it, but within the first few pages I was in love with the characters, although it wasn't the first in the series and I was a bit confused about some of the settings and who all the characters we, I was spellbound.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that poor Ms. Kenyon was turned down repeatedly over The League novels. That they weren't all published by the same publishing house and she couldn't write them as though they were a series! Fortunately in the last few years, she's been able to have the first couple of novels republished by the same house. And she'd even written a couple more and has another one on the way in 2013.
So inspired by the lively characters in Firefly and The League novels, I tried my hand at writing a "space opera". Uh, it didn't work very well. It didn't even get far. But I think I'm going to keep at this, maybe even work on something in the next year after I finish up the Legends & Lovers Series.
Currently scouring the 'verse in search of excellent sci-fi romance novels.
As much as I enjoyed watching sci-fi movies, it never occurred to me as a teen, young adult, or adult to look for sci-fi romance novels. I wasn't a fan of traditional sci-fi novels. Maybe it was the lack of romance and all the technical terms that I couldn't get into. I have trouble visualizing some of the equipment and machinery that the authors are trying to describe. So I simply didn't read sci-fi novels.
In 2009, after a long break from writing, I joined on online critique group to try and get back into the swing of writing. There were a lot of writers with a lot of genres in the group. I read a lot of contemporaries, I was writing a historical at the time, and enjoying the fresh bursts from the paranormal categories. One of the ladies who was critiquing my historical was writing a sci-fi romance. I thought, okay, this is a new one for me, but I'm going to give it a shot.
 |
| Photo by Nicholas Raymond |
I don't think I got to read the entire thing, she removed it to work on it some more or started a contemporary or something, but what I read of it, which was probably 75%, I adored. I wanted more! Oddly, I wasn't really sure where to start my search for sci-fi romance, so I let it fall by the wayside. In 2010, I attended my local writing group's conference and in my goody bag there was Sherrilyn Kenyon novel. One of The League novels. I thought, eh, this looks kind of boring (further proof about judging books by their covers). It took me a while to work my way around to it, but within the first few pages I was in love with the characters, although it wasn't the first in the series and I was a bit confused about some of the settings and who all the characters we, I was spellbound.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that poor Ms. Kenyon was turned down repeatedly over The League novels. That they weren't all published by the same publishing house and she couldn't write them as though they were a series! Fortunately in the last few years, she's been able to have the first couple of novels republished by the same house. And she'd even written a couple more and has another one on the way in 2013.
So inspired by the lively characters in Firefly and The League novels, I tried my hand at writing a "space opera". Uh, it didn't work very well. It didn't even get far. But I think I'm going to keep at this, maybe even work on something in the next year after I finish up the Legends & Lovers Series.
Currently scouring the 'verse in search of excellent sci-fi romance novels.
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