My Superpower by Catherine Bybee

Thank you so much for having me on your blog today. I’m taking requests for blog tour topics from my Facebook friends.

Today’s guest blog topic comes from Tracy… She asks about what superpower I’d love to have.

Oh, Tracy this one is so easy for me. As some of you may or may not know, in addition to writing
contemporary romance I also write paranormal time travels. Yeah, we’re talking kilted burly, drool-worthy guys and the heroines that tame them. Well, without plugging an entirely different book than Not Quite Mine, this question is easily answered by reading Silent Vows.

I’d love to have the ability to move objects with my mind. Oh…the possibilities. The housework that could be done in a blink of an eye, keeping that kid upright on their bike. Making that plate of food fall into the lap of the guy who just pinched the ass of the waitress. And the waitress wasn’t impressed. Yeah, I’d love to move stuff with my mind. Having Mr. Stud-Muffin accidently fall into me as I walk by. Yeah… that’s the power I want!

I grew up watching Bewitched and would run around moving my nose in an effort to have that power as a kid. *sigh*

Take a Bite Out Of The Big Apple By Traveling To These 5 Hotspots

New York City has so many things to offer that people often have a hard time deciding what they want to do. Don't worry. Just take a bite out of the Big Apple by putting these hotspots on your itinerary.

Visit Madison Square Garden

Image via Flickr by Daniel Morris

 Madison Square Garden is one of the greatest venues in America. You can't go to New York without visiting it. Hopefully, you can get New York Knicks tickets beforehand to watch the pro basketball team play on their home turf. If sports aren't your thing, look for musical acts that perform at the Gardens. Absolutely all of the best touring acts put it on their schedules.

Experience the Bustle of Grand Central Station 

If you're heading to the Gardens, then you might as well stop by Grand Central Station, too. It's located right underneath Madison Square. Grand Central Station is a beautiful space that gets extremely crowded during rush hours. As long as you're not in a hurry, though, you can take a seat at one of the many restaurants and watch the crowd go by. Don't spend all of your time people-watching, though. Look at the ceiling and the rest of the architecture so you can appreciate the expert craftsmanship it took to make this spectacular building.

6 Cars that Will Save You Money on Gas

Gas is a major expense for many families in the United States; and it’s also a cost that’s hard to avoid. That’s why you should look for a fuel-efficient vehicle if you do a lot of driving. Not only is it better for the environment, but it will save you money, too. So, take a look at these six hybrids that get good gas mileage.

2013 Toyota Prius

Image via Flickr by mariordo59

 Gas mileage: 51 City / 48 Hwy The Prius has always been among the most fuel-efficient cars, and Toyota keeps the price low so more people can afford it. It has a 4-cylinder, 1.8-liter engine that can go from 0 to 60 in 9.8 seconds. One thing that many consumers like about the Prius is its roomy back seat that fits three adults.

The Top Ten Murder Mystery Rules

SOME RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN. Others are broken at our peril. And still others are made to create peril, delicious, lovely peril for the victim in a good old fashioned murder mystery. With that goal in mind, for your consideration I hereby present my Top Ten Murder Mystery Rules. Mystery authors should feel free to stretch them to the breaking point, but do bear in mind that most of the great murder mystery novels abide by them all, and for good reason. They work. 

1. There must be at least one murder, or else good reason to believe a murder has been, or will be, committed. 

2. The murderer’s identity must be unknown to the reader. If the murderer’s identity is unknown to the protagonist but known to the reader, the book is a suspense or thriller novel, not a murder mystery. 

3. The murderer may not be identified through a character’s psychic powers, or through magic, or through time travel, or a futuristic machine. In such cases, the book is some form of speculative fiction, not a murder mystery. 

4. The murderer and the motive for the murder must be clearly identified in the novel, preferably at the end. 

5. While the murderer may be insane, the reason for the murder must be understandable. 

Sidhe, Freargde and Unseelie, oh my!

It’s difficult to fit so much history and magical creatures and well, general exposition, in three hundred pages. If I’d left nothing out there’s a good chance Silver Hollow would have been closer to five hundred. For those of you who were curious and have asked, here is more of my original write up of the magic behind this world within worlds. 

Instead of the traditional outline, I wrote these little snippets about characters and people/places. The following is just a light portion of the bulk brainstorming.

The People

They choose to live with the old ways, contrary to what is popular or modern. Those outside the Borderlands often live in the cities, where they corrupt society at its core and abuse their gifts for their own merit. But those inside prefer to live in a way the rest of the world forgot. Each holds unique gifts like the angels in Amie’s last novel. Those in the Vale and Borderlands are forbidden to have contact with the outside world. Only a select few go into the cities for specific reasons, to protect their own interests and the interests of their own kind.

But as far as they’re aware, these people are not the descendants of angels. Their life lines are very long, though. It is difficult to tell their ages from person to person. Depending on the purity of their blood and the fullness of their power, one of their oldest can seem to be only thirty and be three hundred. For example, Uncle Henry was actually the younger brother but appeared far older than his younger sibling because he inherited more a gift for knowledge and learning than the Gifts.

Guest Post with author Rebecca Graf

Creating Suspense

Writing a suspense story is not something that comes just from putting words on paper. It entails much more than that. Creating suspense has to be crafted and done with just the right amount of subtlety.

Be Elusive

Suspense comes from never telling the reader everything up front. You don’t want to tell your readers that there is someone hiding in the attic. You want them to wonder what is going on in the house. You want to them to come up with their own wild explanations for strange things. You have to be elusive. Create strange things that happen in the story. The cook might accuse someone in the house of stealing food because some is missing. The gardener finds footprints walking to a wall and never returning. The vase of flowers keeps getting moved during the night. Make things out of place but don’t be obvious. It could be nothing. The explanation for it could be easily explained logically, but something makes the reader think otherwise. Add some nothings in the story. Don’t put a big neon sign pointing to the clue. If the reader misses it, okay. They’ll pick up on it later and be impressed that it got by them.

Using Dialogue

Many people forget that dialogue can be used to help set the scene. It only takes a word or a phrase to get the suspense intensified. If someone is being stalked, a friend could mention seeing someone by the door or ask why a window is open. Immediately, the target and the reader tense up. Sometimes peripheral characters are great for adding to the suspense. They see things the main characters don’t and can give the story a slightly new dimension.

Three Ways to Teach Young Children About Money

Teaching children how to budget money and spend it responsibly is something that parents can start doing when the children are still very young. Most preschoolers understand that it takes money if you want to buy things at the store. It isn't enough, however, to merely tell your child that things cost money. Instead, you have to show them how to make money and how to be responsible with the money they make. Don't worry; it isn't as difficult as it sounds.

Let Your Child Pay

Children must understand that money is a tool and not a toy. One way that you can instill this value in them is to let them pay at the checkout line. In today's world, it is all too easy to just swipe a credit card. That doesn't teach children about money since they associate the card with an endless supply of money. Instead, stop at the ATM or the bank and get cash. If your child is old enough to count, have him or her help you count out the money at the checkout line. While this may take a little longer, that time will be well worth it when your child grows up knowing that money must be handled properly.

Teach Your Child to Comparison Shop

Teaching your child to comparison shop is something that you can do from the comfort of your home using the Internet. Pick an item that you need to purchase. Of course, this can be any item whether you actually need it or not. Visit a variety of websites with your child. You can visit mass merchant sites, discount sites, and secondhand sites.

Guest Post with author R. Costelloe

My wife’s love inspired me to write, but that takes a little explaining.

I wrote some as a kid mainly because of my parents. They encouraged me to try it, then cheered along my progress. In high school, I turned in science fiction short stories whenever the assignment scope permitted. In college, I wrote very little fiction. But I would sometimes compose novella-length stories while commuting by bus and subway train. In sort, I was an incidental fiction writer, at best.

But other forces were gathering that would eventually activate a compulsion to write. And they are forces that go back a-ways. As a child I developed an interest in romantic love that was unusual for a boy. And I guess I have a pair of older girl cousins to thank for that. They lived with us at various times, and I noticed that they were never happier than when they were romantically involved. Did I say happy? Better than that. They were near ecstasy whenever they were in love. I looked at them and saw something beautiful. As a result, I looked forward to the distant day that I could share such exquisite feelings with a girl who was just bound to be gorgeous. The only problem with this picture was that my cousins didn’t turn out to be very good at this romance thing. They were in and out of love because they kept getting their hearts broken, or they were breaking up with their beau of the month on a regular basis. Their woes caused me to look around at the relationships adults had, and that’s when I really got alarmed. Most adults had romances that seemed junkyards of how they started out. So humdrum, so bored, plus adults tended to let themselves go to pot, physically, so that they didn’t look the part of a romance partner anymore. Why was that? I didn’t know, but I was determined to have better if I could find a way.

What’s A Witch To Do?-The Soundtrack

I don’t do silence. I can’t. I grew up surrounded by chaos instrumented by three demons by the names of Ryan, Liam, and Trevor, my three younger brothers. These were not, and still aren’t, studious, well behaved darlings who liked nothing better than to sit down with a good book or play with her dolls like their angel big sister. No, these boys had enough energy and testosterone to supply an entire Starbucks and bodybuilding gym with some still left over to attempt to “kill” or “wrestle” their sister and each other. Screams, whining, and loud bangs on the television and walls were staples of my youth. So when I moved out on my own, I soon discovered I needed the noise. There is always a television or radio on, even as I fall asleep. This is true when I’m writing as well. I can write pretty much anywhere (if you have a strong desire to stalk me, see the acknowledgments page of my books to see where I write), but the one thing that helps get my creative juices flowing the most is music. The right song can make or break my scene, even inspiring me on some occasions.

As I’m writing, I find that certain songs really helped pump up the visuals and mood. They helped me get to a place where I needed to get inside my head to convey what was going on in my imagination and translate that to the page. Music just adds so much more to the experience. So I started compiling playlists for the books. Like the book, the soundtrack has a narrative flow in line with the book. You don’t have to like all the songs, I have eclectic taste, but at the very least if you sample them, you’ll get a feel for the book. Since this one, What’s A Witch To Do? is set in the South, and I am a closet country music fan, these selections are some of the best Nashville has to offer. Even if you don’t think you enjoy country music, just try one or two. We may make a country fan of you yet. So here it is:

Three Sides to the Story By Scott R. Caseley

Isosceles begins with nineteen-year-old Sean McIntyre finding his longtime best friend Trey Goodsby dead in the bathroom either intentionally or accidentally by his own hand. On the back of the toilet, a cell phone display reads, Missed Call From Madeline Edwards. Before determining the immediate circumstances that would bring the three of them to this scene, the pertinent question became where did they meet? I floated a few ideas around, but none of them seemed natural. One concrete thing was it needed to be a place where on the outset they could be equals. Ironically, the answer came to me as the first day of school. When many of us think of our school days, we think of struggling to fit in, to climb our way up the social ladder. Then I posited, that whatever lasting impressions these three had on each other should be seeded in this environment.

On a sunny autumn day, Sean walks into the classroom with a sea of children before him as an ironic homage to a scene in one of my favorite films, “Goodfellas”. There’s a famous tracking shot where the camera follows Ray Liotta’s character Henry Hill taking his girlfriend Karen played by Lorraine Bracco to the Copacabana through the back entrance. You see all the various people doing their thing, and Hill walks through like he belongs, almost like he’s royalty. However though Hill felt all that confidence, I wanted Sean to feel small and insignificant.

After that moment, I knew the next place to go was to introduce Madeline into his world in a surreal way. It had to contrast with the faces of his classmates whom he cannot put a name to, yet I knew it had to keep with the notion of his insecurity. When he sees Madeline in the sunlight and is completely transfixed, it was important to state she has an ethereal glow. This served a dual purpose, not just his attraction, but to establish her as someone whom Sean sees as above him.

Supplements Are Great in the Morning for Breakfast Skippers

Skipping the morning meal may give you extra time to get to class on time or beat traffic while heading to work, but you may be skipping out on some important vitamins and nutrients too. Fortunately, most of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that you need can be found in supplements; some of which need to be taken with some type of food or beverage, but a bagel or a glass of orange juice can take care of that without seriously slowing your schedule down.

Hazards of Skipping Breakfast

Skipping breakfast itself isn't bad, as long as you don't skip out on essential nutrients too. Having supplements instead of meal can have a significant impact on your overall productivity during the day. If you skip breakfast and do nothing to supplement the nutrients you are losing, you are more likely to make unhealthy eating choices during the rest of your day, according to research cited by the Society for Neuroscience. Other potential issues associated with skipping breakfast include:

• Raised cardiometabolic risk factors
• Elevated cholesterol levels
• Decreased energy levels 
• Reduced productivity

 
Choosing the Right Supplements 

Now that you know that you need supplements to get the nutrients you need for the day, the next step is choosing the right supplements. Everybody needs certain vitamins and nutrients to sustain energy levels throughout the day. Most of the vitamins you need to start your day can either be taken with breakfast or found in a supplement, which may include a protein shake, protein bar or a multivitamin. The basic vitamins and supplements that most people need on a daily basis include:

Barbara Morgenroth Guest Blogging About Bad Apple

I always knew serious writing was in my future, once I had all my adventures out of the way. After being a photography major in college, I had a stable and was teaching horseback riding when the owner decided he wanted to use the property for something else. Suddenly, my timeline was massively compressed. What I thought I would do later in life, became what I would do right then.

I started in Young Adult books, one was made into a television movie and that got me thinking a bit of changing my life around again. I wrote another book and that got me into television which is very exciting and somewhat over-stimulating!

I was doing some non-fiction when the experiences that made up Bad Apple began. Life is full of surprises, twists and turns. You make plans and life has other ideas for you.

Bad Apple had two sources of inspiration. One was that I have a neighbor who presses apples into apple cider.

Guest Post with author Traci Douglas

 Happy Valentines Day!

Someone asked me an interesting question today.

Do you believe in Love At First Sight?

My knee-jerk reaction was: Absolutely. But then, after I thought about it a bit, I’m not so sure.

I believe in instant like at first sight, and definitely lust at first sight. (Hugh Jackman, Colin Firth and Bradley Cooper, to name a few… HELLO people!) Even friendship at first sight. In fact, some of my best friends are people I knew right away I’d get along with.

But true love at first? Not so much.

To me, true love is something deeper, something that takes time to ripen—like a fine wine.

Why Above Ground Pools Are Preferred For Growing Families

Many people have outdoor swimming pools that they can enjoy during the summer, while being covered over during the winter. Many of these are of the “above ground” type, with wooden, brick or other material for their frames and fencing to prevent people from falling off. Such pools are often a better choice than in-the-ground pools, especially for growing families.

Here are several of the reasons why.

Safety 
Above ground pools are generally much safer than in ground ones are. This feature is essential for families that have small children, who can easily fall into in-ground pools and be drowned. Above-ground pools are not accessible to children in the same way.

Health 
Another reason for choosing such a pool is that it is much healthier. This is because it is the leaves and other debris can be kept away from it. Also, just as the pool is inaccessible to children, so too it is inaccessible to animals, whose germs might contaminate the water. For the same reason, the process of cleaning and maintenance is a great deal less complicated than it is for a pool in the ground.

Guest Post with author Sands Hetherington

Night Buddies is the result of a bedtime collaboration my son John and I had many years ago.  I was his single parent and had read to him every night since he could walk, maybe for longer than that.  It was an essential for us and went on for fourteen years.  One night when John was six and I was done reading and John wanted more, I may have suggest he invent a lights-out companion to go off to sleep with.  Or maybe I didn’t and he undertook the matter on his own hook.  In any case, the next thing I knew, there was Crosley the crocodile, complete with goofy name and bright-red color.  I was duly charmed, and John and I started throwing Crosley ideas around and making up episodes.  This went on for a year or more and Crosley developed into an important family member.  Even after John tired of the game, Crosley would pop up in conversations.  He refused to fade away.

Maybe it was a couple of years after John invented him that I got the idea of giving Crosley some proper print.  The thing was right there: not ready-made but at least a neat premise.  John would be in it, of course, and the two of them would have themselves an adventure.  The trick was to figure out why on earth Crosley was red.  You couldn’t just plop a red crocodile down as one of the main actors without some explanation.  Then it occurred to me: Crosley was red because he was allergic to water!  Well, sort of.  If he got water on him he broke out doing the Black Bottom dance and couldn’t stop for hours.  Unless he took his antidote pills. These stopped the Black Bottom well enough but turned him red at the same time!  It was one of those side-effects you can get from Black Bottom pills.

The rest fell into place fairly easily.  Crosley started as a lights-out buddy for a kid named John who wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet, so why not make him a member of Night Buddies Amalgamated whose charter is to rescue kids from lying  in bed awake and take them out on adventures.  He shows up in John’s room on the night of our stories.

Steps For Video Conversion Made Easy

There are many different video file formats, and each format is useful for something. MP4 videos work with the iPhone, WMV videos work best on Windows computers and DivX is often used when ripping a DVD. Since there are so many different file formats, it’s very common for users to have a movie that isn’t the right format for their needs. There are many different ways to convert a movie file from one format to another. You will need a video converting program for this to work. There are many free versions online, and most computers have software with some basic conversion tools.

Find Software 
Most computers come with a basic video editor that can convert videos. While the conversion process is usually limited, the editor might have the exact features that you need. If you have an Apple computer, then try using iMovie. If you have a Windows computer, then try using Windows MovieMaker.

If neither of these programs have the format that you need, then you will need to look online for video converting software. It’s best to search for the format you need. For example, if you want to turn an AVI file into an MP4, then go to your favorite search engine and search, “convert AVI to MP4.” You should find a listing for a good program near the top of the search engine.

Guest Post & Top Ten List with author Cynthia Woolf

Thank you for having me as your guest today. I’ll be giving away a copy of my new book, CAPITAL BRIDE, to one lucky commenter and a $5 Starbucks card to another so be sure and leave me a comment.

I’ve been very lucky in my publishing journey. I was laid off June 17, 2011. Though I continue to look for a “regular” job, I knew that this was my opportunity to fulfill my dream of writing and I grabbed on with both hands. Let me back up a bit.

I was in the hospital in April 2011, recovering from a severe anxiety attack. You see, I thought I’d had a heart attack. But it was just anxiety, brought on by my current job and soon to be lack of job. I found out in April that I was being laid off in two months. Though I was unhappy in my job by this point, I was even more scared not to have one. Hence the reasons for impending anxiety attack.

After the attack I’m in the hospital and can’t rest. I have insomnia and all the tests…I simply couldn’t calm down, so I asked my husband to bring me a pad and pen. That night I finished my second book, Centauri Dawn (CD) It had been languishing in my mind for years so I knew where it was going and I couldn’t get it down fast enough once I started writing. It was the first one I would publish even though the western Tame A Wild Heart was already finished. I decided it needed more polishing than CD so CD got published first.

After I got out of the hospital, I was talking to my friend Michele Callahan, and she told me I could publish it myself and told me how. That was the beginning and I haven’t looked back since. I also haven’t had another bought of anxiety and my blood pressure is great. I think that self publishing agrees with me.  I’ve now got out 10 books and novellas. All except the first two written in the last eighteen months.

Guest Post with Jessica Aspen

Hi Billy! Thanks for having me as a guest on Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. I do have a question though, can you be a writer and not be coffee addicted? Just kidding. I ask because I think writing and coffee go hand in hand. Writers need that caffeine to stay up late and hit those deadlines, to get up early and write before work, or to keep up with a life that includes kids, dogs, and spouses. (Those spouses need attention too!) I know that those days I wake up at five (well before my alarm) I go straight for the deep, dark, rich, jolt of java juice. MMMM.

If you want to lure writers of all types, but particularly romance writers, all you need to do is toss out that invite to a coffee shop. Or show up with chocolate. Hold up a bag of dark chocolate at romance writer’s meeting and see if you get out alive. Authors love lurking at their local coffee shop and there are very specific needs for an author who is trying to write. While writing Little Red Riding Wolf I got my best writing done after work (away from the kids, house, and husband) at my local coffee hang out.

Here’s why when twisting fairy tales and writing about shape shifting lovers I go to my small town coffee shop:

Finish the Sentence...

I invited my heroine and hero from my paranormal romance, Kindred of the Fallen, to join me in playing “finish the sentence”. After a bit of negotiating, Serenity and Cyrus both agreed.

I’m thrilled to go first. Finish the sentence- 

1. One book I wish I had written…The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice.

2. One food I never eat…okra. Yuck! My husband loves it, but I can’t stand it.

3. One movie from last year that I loved…Magic Mike. Lol! Honestly, I haven’t seen it…yet. My hubby is still deployed so I don’t think he’d mind if I ordered a little eye candy on Netflix. Seriously, I loved The Dark Knight Rises.

4. If I could spend a day with a writer, it would be…Nalini Singh.

5. My favorite scene in my book (tough since I have a few, but will go with my favorite in the first 100 pages): While Serenity and Cyrus are in a deadly struggle with a Kindred suffering from blood rage, their latent powers emerge.

Cyrus, finish the sentence- 

Why The Undead Are Still Alive by Lindsay J. Pryor

I’m a British author of dark, paranormal romances. The first three books in my Blackthorn series were recently bought by London publisher, Bookouture. The first two are about vampires – the ‘romantic’ type, in an ever-so-slightly disturbing type of way. And I love my genre. Because of that, I can’t help but feel defensive when others say this vampire obsession is just a trend – that fans will eventually get bored. That this current epidemic will fade to nothing.

The evidence screams everything to the contrary.

Vampires are embedded in our society’s psyche. In fact, they’re embedded in the psyche of many societies outside our own. Nearly every country on our planet has its own version of the vampire myth. Even before Dracula was penned over a century ago, real tales of vampirism had been rife in Eastern Europe for decades. And when those stories (along with the Serbian term ‘Vampire’) infiltrated our society in the 1800’s, apparently any newspaper containing such tales sold by the bucket load. But why? Admit it or not, on some level we all have an instinct to be fascinated with the mysterious and the macabre. We’re all a little bit intrigued by the supernatural, not least our lack of ability to explain it.

So what is it about vampires in particular? What is it that has made them such an iconic romantic figure? Whether it’s the social fascination with bad boys or the psychoanalytic view that vampire fantasies are no more than subliminal repressed sexual fantasies, vampires have got an incessant appeal. But let’s be honest, our current vampiric heroes are a long way from archaic tales of hairless beasts with protruding ratty teeth and rank breath. So when did it change?