Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

We in Novelists, Inc. are sick and tired of “sick and tired economy” stories, so we’ve created a stimulus package no fictioneer will want to miss! If you write novels—or you’re an editor or agent looking for your next, best novelist—our NINC Goes Platinum conference in St. Louis, September 30th-October 4th is where you’ll want to be.

Why? Because we’ve lined up a fabulous program guaranteed to stimulate your writing and career, but also because we’ve cut our conference fee in half! The first 100 to register pay only $187.50 for the conference fee. And even beyond that cut-off, our early bird rate is still only $287.50. Couple that with special rates at the Drury Plaza Hotel in easily accessible St. Louis, and you can’t afford to miss this conference!

Check out our Conference Center at www.ninc.com, or keep reading here! I’ll tell you what we’ve got planned and how YOU can get in on it.

What You’ll Get at the NINC conference:

We start off with a BANG…as in, NINC Does Forensics, a Thursday pre-con workshop with Dr. D. P. Lyle. The $75 fee covers lunch and a full day of crime scene investigation, criminal psychology, and how to write about these topics accurately. We’re inviting agents and editors to attend this session as our guests (see the Industry Registration form on the site). We’ve nicknamed it “C-S-I Don’t Think So!” and it’s going to be, well—a blast!

We offer members-only Nite Owl sessions where we can let our hair down: everything from grousing about the writing life, to learning to characterize with the Tarot, to Feng Shui for success…how to stay sane while everything around you goes crazy. And yes, the hotel has a bar and we’ll see how long it stays open.

Our sessions on Friday and Saturday are scheduled three-deep, so you won’t wonder if there’s anything worth attending, you’ll have to CHOOSE which one you can’t miss! We offer sessions on small press and e-pubbing, world building, psychopaths, ghost busters, podcasting, organizing your space, as well as agent panels and editor events. Our presenters include Tami Hoag, Kay Hooper, and many other big-name bestselling authors. Sunday morning we tend to a little business at our General Meeting and wrap it up with insider straight talk about the publishing biz from Lou Aronica. For more info, check out our conference offerings at www.ninc.com.

What You Will NOT get at the NINC conference:

We don’t sponsor contests, do book signings, put out promotional items, herd you to endless award ceremonies, or offer agent/editor pitch sessions because our members do all these things in their other writers organizations. Instead, you’ll be able to chat up industry professionals and other writers in a laid-back, enjoyable setting where you can have FUN networking and meeting new friends. It’s a safe place for introverted writer-types to come out and play without having to be “on” all the time. We’re all multi-published, and that levels the playing field. NINC’s mission is to stimulate your writing at the gut level, on the page, and in the marketplace.

How can you sign up?

If you belong to Novelists, Inc. go to www.ninc.com and click your way to a wonderful conference!

The NINC Goes Platinum event is for members only, or for publishing industry professionals. So if you’ve had two novels published (one in the last five years), check out our membership qualifications at www.ninc.com. Because we want professional novelists to have access to such a great conference, we can offer expedited membership approval—so act now! Our staff is totally volunteer and, hey—we have a conference to get ready for!

We’d love to see you in September! We’re Novelists, Inc. We write success stories!

BREATHLESS will be out in December and I know that May is early for posting the cover, but seriously, could you wait to post if this was your cover?

When I opened my editor’s email and saw her I gasped and slammed back into my chair. She’s exquisitely lovely. Romantic, sexy and the corset is perfectly suited to the novella also titled Breathless. The novella is my time travel story back to the heyday of Perdition House, the bordello featured in my Midnight Confessions stories.

That’s right, a time travel rather than a ghost story. It was time for a woman from today to go back and meet Belle, the madam, and all the other women whose stories I’ve told. Seemed fitting.

It’s interesting how a small flash of creativity can bring about so many downstream effects in a story. Three years ago, when I was dreaming up the details of a heroine’s life, I walked by a poster of Marilyn Monroe (the famous subway grate shot) and I *knew* that my character would own a vintage clothing shop and that she would always dress like a movie siren. I liked the idea because she had to have some appreciation for the past, the clothing, the lifestyles of women from a previous century.

Sometimes you just know when it’s right and you grab onto the detail and run with it.

Several stories later, I’m back in that shop, with that heroine who encourages a woman to try on a vintage corset and well, I couldn’t have picked a better cover image if I’d made a pact with the devil.

From cover love . . . to the caprice of public opinion. My last release, THIGH HIGH has been nominated as having the worst cover image of 2008. Seriously! Check it out at http://covercafe.com/contest/2008/coverintro.shtml
where you’ll see all the nominations from best to worst.

Kensington Aphrodisia Feb/08

You'll have to move on by Christina Dodd's Thigh High to find mine on the last page. But do please take the time to vote for your faves on the way to the "worst" nominations page. (remember to vote for the cover you think is the worst on that page) If you can figure out what it is about this cover that would make someone call it the worst...please say so and you'll have a chance to win a copy. I'll announce the winner on Sunday in the comments here!

And for the record, I'm submitting BREATHLESS for consideration for next year’s competition. I thinks she’s a winner! (And I liked Thigh High too!)

And, if you like to receive newsletters, I’ve just added a subscribe link on my site: www.bonnieedwards.com And I’m now on Twitter @BonnieEdwards

Life’s sweet! Enjoy it,

Bonnie

Okay, so I’m a hard core JR Ward fan. Seriously in love with the Black Dagger Brotherhood and have been anxiously awaiting Rehvenge’s story in LOVER AVENGED. Not just a little anxious, but big time, as I pre-ordered it online knowing I wouldn’t be able to get to a store on April 28 and well aware I didn’t want to wait a moment longer. The book arrived the day after I completed my latest book, DemonFire, which is the first story in my new Demon Slayers series for Kensington Zebra, so I was ready. I curled up on the couch, the house was quiet, and I started to read.

Now, if you’re really into a series, ANY series, you know what it’s like when you start a new story. You already love the world or you wouldn’t be buying the books–in this case, forking over WAY more than I should have for hardcover. LOVER AVENGED is a huge book–close to 600 pages, and I was all the way to page 368 when I went to 369, AND IT WAS FRICKIN’ GONE! TORN OUT, JUST A LITTLE PIECE STUCK NEAR THE BOTTOM!!! I sat there for a good five minutes in total disbelief–I had been so caught up in the story that it was like getting physically ripped out of another dimension.

Finally I set the book down and decided to walk away for a minute. Had to leave Caldwell, NY and all the brothers and return to my own dimension, which, of course, meant checking email and going on Facebook, where I did a primal scream and told the world what had happened.

Within SECONDS I had a reply from a Facebook friend, a woman I’ve never met but someone who took pity on me, scanned both sides of the missing page and emailed them to me. Liz from Colorado has been elevated to heroine status in my book–the pages arrived, I went downstairs and crawled back into the BDB world and stayed up half the night to finish the book, but I realized, as I closed the pages, that what had occurred would have been impossible just a few short years ago.

It also reminded me what terrific people we are privileged to meet through various online communities. Sometimes I complain about what a time suck Facebook and MySpace and even blogging can be, and then I realize what an important connection the Internet has given me with people I’d otherwise never have a chance to meet. There are wonderful folks I’ve met through my newsletter that I have gotten to meet in real life on the occasional trips my husband and I take–others I’ve gotten to know through Facebook and MySpace, through replying to their emails about Wolf Tales, all individuals I never would have met if not for this medium that can be either a boon or a blessing.

For what it’s worth, the Internet has changed my life, and I’d have to say it’s all in a good way. What about you? Can you think of something that’s happened in your life that’s been totally due to people you’ve met online? A change in your career, maybe someone you’ve met you might never have known? I started thinking of all the things that have changed for me, and realized I could go on for days, from my first published books that were digital, to Liz sending me pages 369 and 370 after taking pity on my total frustration. We are a digitally connected world, from Twitter to MySpace, to Facebook, blogs and plain old email. And it’s not impersonal at all–it’s one more way to connect with some truly fantastic people.

And Liz, this is my public thank you for making this latest book even more special for me–that someone I have never met would take the time to scan and send me the missing pages meant more than you can possibly realize.

**I will be giving away a copy of Wolf Tales VII (or another in the series if you already have that one) to one of you who leaves a comment. Drawing at the end of the week.

April 29: Water’s 70 degrees. Wetsuit was a little too tight after all the partying at RT—felt like meat squeezing into a sausage casing, so braved it in just my swimsuit. Didn’t get my head wet. Didn’t suffer hypothermia. Woohoo!

April 30: Fished a shrew out of the pool and a ton of fuzzy walnut tree “balls”. Water 72 degrees. Could feel the difference. Went deep end diving for crickets.

May 1: Talked mom into joining me. After laughing my ass off at her gasping for breath, checked the temp. 73 degrees. Mom, don’t be a weenie.

May 2: Still 73 degrees—and the wind whipped up. Storm rolling in kept the air cooler than the pool. Nice!  

Okay, so maybe I’m a bit obsessed. But after a winter of taking care of a pool that didn’t provide me a minute of joy, I’m soooo ready to get in that I don’t care that it’s not comfortable. I don’t like to exercise. But I will swim. When the pool’s warmer, it will be an hour in the AM before I start writing and an hour in the PM after I finish my daily pages. I’ll admit I’m a water baby. Maybe it’s because I’m a Cancer.

I prefer the pool to the lake. It’s cleaner. I don’t like green mossy slime under my feet (reminder to self to add the algae-killer to the pool water), I don’t like fishies nibbling at my toes. I don’t like a ton of people around me when I swim. Swim-time is like meditation for me. I do laps, okay short laps since the pool is only 18×36. But after I “feel the burn” in my arms, back and legs, I roll to my back and float. The water seeps into my ears and I only hear the drone of the pump. I can’t feel any pressure around or under my body so I imagine that it doesn’t exist, and all I am is the view above me. I live in the boonies of Arkansas, and that view is filled with green tree branches and birds.

My favorite times to swim are during storms. Not during lightning, I’m not that stupid. But during a really heavy rain, I love to swim because then it’s hard to tell the difference between the water below me and the water falling on me, and I feel primal. And sometimes, when it’s dark I’ll creep outside, turn on the underwater pool light and skinny dip. It feels naughty even when I do it all by myself with no one but the frogs and crickets to see.