A New Post on the New Site

I'm slowly but surely moving to my new website...as I figure out how to build it, and put pretty buttons and links and stuff on it, I'll post here less and less. But I did manage to get up a new blog post over yonder at
TeriAnneStanley.com

Stop by and say HEY!

You Gotta Read Ruthie

I was amazingly fortunate to get a shot at Ruthie Knox's newest release, Flirting With Disaster, a couple of weeks ago. Na, na, na boo boo!

I'm a huge fan of Ruthie, and every new book just pushes me that much closer to the Land Of Fan Girls Who Can't Speak In Her Presence. Okay, that might be a stretch. I actually tend to ramble when I'm overwhelmed with awe, but you get my point.



Flirting With Disaster is a continuation of the Camelot series, though it's certainly Stand Alone Worthy. But why would you want it to be? You want to read the others, too. Trust me.

Anyway.

In brief, Katie is a woman on a mission to prove herself "enough" at something, so she's decided to be a field agent with her brother's security firm. Problem is, she gets partnered up with the one guy who won't speak to her. So obviously, she assumes that he doesn't talk to her because he holds her in poor esteem.

Well, guess what? He doesn't talk to her because he's head over heels in love with her, and he's got this little stuttering issue, which seems to blow up into a GINORMOUS issue where Katie is concerned. And her name couldn't have been "Ingrid" or "Sue." It had to be K-k-k-k-atie, didn't it?

Hijinks ensue. Hijinks of the oh-so-sexy and oh-so-heart-melting variety. And there's a musician with some issues and secrets, a stalker, some more sexy hijinks...

I'm going to suggest you run to Amazon and download this puppy right now. Or Barnes and Noble. Go on, now. Really. I'm done, I don't have anything else to say. You can go now.

Bye! GO!

Title Update

Hey!  I'm only about ten days late on my promise to have a title for my marina story...and a winner of the Amazon Gift card.

There's a story here. It's long and sordid, and involves babies (not mine), exterminators (mine) and a general inability to make decisions, resulting in brain spasms (something I invented recently). I'm not going to share it.

But after many emails and a phone call, my agent and I decided that as long as we had a title for the SERIES, we could work around the actual novel title for now. 

But I announced a contest, and while I might be slow and disorganized, I'm generally honest (notice I hedged on that statement). I decided, in order to be fair, to draw a name from the list of people who contributed AWESOME title suggestions for the marina story.

And the winner, of a $10 Amazon gift card, is the lovely and talented Kate Warren! Woo Hoo! 
*Applause*

Kate, please get in touch with me (email me at Teriannestanley (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll get you a code, with which you can buy many, many things from Amazon. As long as they are small things.

Everyone else?  You guys rock.  Thank you!

Honorable mention goes to Jami Field for "Muddled Moorings at Clandestine Cove."  When I change my name to Carolyn Keene and start writing grown up Nancy Drew Mysteries, I'm totally using that.

Oh. By the way. The series title is Hot Summer Secrets. Cool, huh? BWAHAHAHAHA!

COVER REVEAL! Malicious Mischief (Mischief and Mayhem, #1) by by Marianne Harden

*EEP!* I just re-read the directions, and I thought this was supposed to go live at noon, not last midnight. Sorry! 

Anyway. Fellow Entangled Publishing Author Marianne Harden has a cover to show off.



How awesome is that?  Look at that cute little skull and crossbones on the fountain! 

I can't wait to read this! Here's some more info--and a contest!

Malicious Mischief

 Career chameleon, Rylie Keyes, must keep her current job. If not, the tax assessor will evict her ailing grandfather and auction off their ancestral home. When a senior she shuttles for a Bellevue, Washington retirement home winds up dead in her minibus, sticky with a half-eaten s'more, head clad in a cellophane bag, and a pocketed complaint letter accusing her of driving by Braille, her goal to keep her job hits a road bump.

 
The deceased was thought to be a penniless Nazi concentration camp survivor with a silly grudge against Rylie. However, the victim has enemies who will stop at nothing to keep their part in the murder a secret.

Forced to dust off the PI training she's kept hidden from her ex-detective grandfather, Rylie must align with a circus-bike-wheeling Samoan to solve the murder, all while juggling the attentions of two very hot police officers.

About Marianne Harden

Marianne Harden loves a good laugh. So much so, she cannot stop humor from spilling into her books. Over the years she has backpacked through the wilds of Australia, explored the exotics of Asia, soaked up the sun in the Caribbean, and delighted in the historic riches of Europe. Her goals in life are simple: do more good than harm and someday master the do-not-mess-with-me look. She divides her time between Switzerland and Washington State where she lives with her husband and two children.

Marianne is giving away a $25 gift card to the book retailer of the winner’s choice:

Rafflecopter Giveaway

Find the Book

  Goodreads

Amazon

Barnes andNoble

 

Find Marianne Harden

Website: www.marianneharden.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/MarianneHarden

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMarianneHarden

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6572367.Marianne_Harden

Name That Novel Update, and other stuff

Hey!

Thanks, everyone, for the awesome name suggestions for the Novel Formerly Known as Safe Harbor. I'm still undecided, and working a few more things around--we decided I need a good series title and then we can settle on the individual book titles...feel free to toss more suggestions out there. When I make a decision, I'll let ya know.

And another thing. My friend and fellow Dangerous Diva Entangled NaNo Smackdown winner, Cathy Perkins, Entangled Release For Love or Money came out today. I bought it this morning, and I'm having trouble getting my family to leave me alone so I can read it...it's really good! And I say that in the "It's Really Good And I'm Not Just Saying This Because She's My Friend" sense of "good."

So you should go buy it. But while you're reading it, if you think up a name for my novel and/or the series, please let me know!

Name That Book--A Contest!

I need help! I realize that when I told people about my heart attack and you said, "If you need any help, just ask," you probably weren't thinking that I would ask you to come up with a title for a book, but...hey. I have a heart attack card. I'm playing it.

Okay, so here's the deal. I wrote this book. It's set at a marina, and there's some romance, some scary bad guys, and, well, here's a very brief synopsis:

Olivia Walker got more than she bargained for when she inherited the run-down Salty Bone Marina and its cast of misfits, including one incredibly gorgeous Army veteran handyman--who just might be seeing the ghost of his ex-best friend. When  bad guys, Olivia's bipolar mother, and some overzealous party planners show up, things go from OMG to worse!

 I need to give this book a name.

There are a couple more stories in the works, all set at the Salty Bone Marina, in Napier's Bend, Kentucky, so I'd love to find a group of names that go together. But really--I'll be thrilled to have one name.

Something river-y, stream, harbor, dock, shore... would be great. But with sexy and thrillery/mystery-y, included...I love titles that are a spin on song titles or movie names...I just keep drawing a blank when I try to come up with something for this book.

HELP!

What, you need a reason other than the heart attack card to help me? How's about some incentive...a $10 gift card to Amazon to the person who saves my desperate butt!!!  I have to choose a name by Monday, or my agent will send me back to the slush pile (she won't really do that. I don't think). But I want to pick a name so she can maybe sell this puppy and make us both rich and famous.

Post your ideas in the comments, or email me (teriannestanley at gmail dot com), okay?

All right. Get your thinking caps on. GO!

It Really Was Just a Little Heart Attack

So, I guess I haven't been getting enough attention lately, what with all the signing of contracts and going to the Romantic Times convention and all. So this past Sunday, I decided to have a little heart attack.

Let me back up.

I came home from RT with bronchitis. I think everyone did. I got my Z-pack, a steroid shot, stayed home a few days from work, and started to feel better.

I'm a generally healthy person. I'm a good fifty pounds overweight, and I don't get enough exercise because I have arthritis in my feet, but otherwise, I'm healthy. I suppose there is maybe a little stress in there, but... I've got a full-time job, three kids of my own plus a couple of extras living in my basement, two dogs, a travelling husband, a budding writing career...but nothing CRAZY. I'm not diabetic, I don't have a family history of heart disease, I don't smoke, blah blah blah. Okay, there's a minor caffeine habit, but hey! I'm a writer. It's kind of a job requirement. But I don't even DRINK ALCOHOL, fer chrissakes!

So this past Sunday--yes, that would be Mother's Day--I spent a few hours at my brother's house on the other side of town. Very fun, I like my family, no drama. I left Mr. Stanley at home to talk to India about his issues with Windows 8.

On the way home, I felt this weird...lump of ick in my chest. Kind of a tightness. Kind of...like how they describe heart attack symptoms. And my left arm hurt. So I thought, "Gee, these are classic heart attack symptoms, but I'm a woman, so it must be indigestion. I could stop here at this hospital...or this next one...or the one after that, but I'd probably better get my kids home, because since it's just indigestion, I would be getting them all stirred up over nothing."

So I came home and told Mr. Stanley about it, and maybe we should go confirm that this is, indeed, indigestion (I ate a LOT of that bagel dip at my brother's house).

So we went to the Emergency Room, and after a grueling fifteen second wait, was ushered into the triage room, where I sat for an interminable thirty seconds describing my symptoms and rolling my eyes at myself for over-reacting.

And then, suddenly, I was in a room, being bled and injected and fed nitroglycerin and covered with stickers that held electrodes, and tweeting #tweetsfromtheER, because, you know, it was kind of funny. Until Dougie Howser's little brother came in and told me I was having a heart attack, and they were just waiting for a bed in the ICU.

WAH!? HUH????  I'm only 49 years old!

I think there was some morphine added to the situation at this point, because it gets a little fuzzy for a while. The brick of undigested bagel dip got a little bigger and started trying to strangle me a little more, so there was some more nitroglycerin and some more morphine (I really liked the morphine part. Totally made the whole experience worthwhile).

So, Blah, blah, blah, Doctor visits, IV's, blood draws, Angiogram, Echocardiogram, blah blah blah, here are a bunch of prescriptions, good luck keeping all of this straight, and by the way, you have to stop taking your arthritis medicine.

Forty Eight hours in the ICU, and I'm home. No blockages, just some narrowing of one artery, some meds, and significantly less caffeine.

So I have a new crusade. Watch that video above, but don't forget the "usual" signs. And don't worry about over-reacting. I got a lot of pats on the back for coming in right away and not ignoring the bagel dip feeling.

Do you think I'll get kicked out of RWA if I can't drink real coffee anymore?

Romantic Times Hangover

Whoa. What a week!

I'm back from the Romantic Times convention in Kansas City, and taking a much needed recovery day. I had an absolute blast--a lot of YAY!  with a few moments of Oh, No!

1) Riding to KC in my new car

Me and Jess

YAY:  The car goes really fast, and we didn't get any tickets. Jessica Lemmon and I yammered the whole way.

Oh, No!:  That is one seriously long-ass ride. I mean LOOOOONG. And coming home was even longer.

 2) There were cover models

YAY: There were cover models.

Oh, No!: They can run really fast, and are hard to catch.

3)Stalking Andrew Shaffer and Tiffany Reisz

 YAY: Andrew wasn't really hard to find. He tweeted the whole conference, and didn't seem to miss much. We finally cornered him at the book signing.  If you look above, he even participated in the cover model procession across the stage. 

Oh, No!: Tiffany Reisz wasn't as easy to find. And when I did finally connect with her, she was hiding under the book table, trying to...Well, just look carefully at the picture below. 

 4) The hotel was haunted. 

YAY: okay, there's nothing yay about a haunted hotel, except it was fun to speculate about.

Oh, No!: The hotel room drawers wouldn't stay closed, and the elevator was a little weird about following directions.

My roommates, Maisey Yates and Jessica Lemmon, in the haunted elevator

 5) The interesting party favors from Ellora's cave

YAY!: um, they're interesting

Oh, No!: It's just a lava lamp, and it doesn't vibrate.

6) Meeting my internet writer friends: 

YAY!  Linda Grimes!

YAY! Christine Bell! 

 Oh, NO!: I didn't get pictures of everyone. I also got to have lunch with Suzanne Johnson, and I ran into ...Oh, hell. I'm not even going to try to list everyone I saw.

7) I met Jude Deveraux

YAY!: She was really nice, which is good, because she was my very first favorite romance author. 

Oh, No!: I couldn't think of anything to say. 

8) I got to hang out and chat with Ruthie Knox and Cara McKenna. 

Me, Ruthie, and Cara

YAY!: I love, love, love these women. So smart and funny and wonky. 

Oh, No!: I probably over-shared while we were talking about...stuff, thus ensuring my place in their "people to avoid next year" lists. I took out my verbal filters before RT and the replacements are on back-order. 

9) There was a secret BDSM starter kit included with the swag we collected. We had to kind of hunt through things, but with a bit of creativity and not much sleep, three romance writers can be very, very inventive.

YAY!: I have never laughed so much. We did a very clever little twitter photo essay.

Oh, No!: We might be the funniest people we know. When we tried to show people later, those who hadn't seen it on twitter, it wasn't quite as funny.

Maisey paddles Jessica with something that other people might use as a fan.

There is a lot of other cool stuff that happened that I didn't get pictures of, so the Yay is the fun stuff, the Oh No! is the lack of pictures.

We went to a party hosted by  Megan Mulry and Sasha Hananananannananarananan. I may have engaged in a bit of hyperbole with Sasha's last name. You might also recognize her as @caribbeanaccent. That was fun, and Sasha brought a lot of...interesting...treats from Trinidad. The pickled cherries are still confusing me.

I met a lot of my Entangled Publishing co-workers. I'm not going to try to list everyone, but I'm just going to say that I am so thrilled to be working with these folks. Liz Pelletier is amazing, and the people she has involved are awesome.

What else?  I met Landra and Riley Darkes.

I sat in the lobby at the same time as E.L. James. Okay, whatever. Jessica and Maisey got their pictures taken with her.

I got to hang out with my peeps from the Seymour Agency. Our author spotlight gala thing went really well, and meeting my agent, Nicole, in person, was wonderful. She totally rocks, and I am totally motivated to start earning us some money!

I'll probably share a little more about the trip as I recover from the cold that Jessica and I picked up for the ride home. Between the two of us, we went through most of a box of Puffs Plus between KC and Ohio. Grrrr.

Introducing Tucker University: a Story of SWAG FAIL

Gah!

So, in my exteme excitement over my upcoming trip to RT in Kansas City, I've invested about sixty times more in swag than I'll earn with my first advance (that might be an exaggeration, but not by too much). 

I decided that I needed book marks, but not just plain book marks, I had to put tassels on them.  You know, so people will maybe spend an extra half second deciding to throw them out.

I also made the very cool Book Thongs, which I showed you the other day.  Those are actually pretty fun to make, and my poor arthritic hands are only mildly crippled right now. Okay, actually, I didn't realize my hands are arthritic until I'd made fifty of those summbiches, but still. Only mildly crippled, and I do have a prescription for dicolfenac.

I wanted something to showcase my book, Deadly Chemistry. But I don't have a cover yet.

So, hey! I thought I'd make something up that pokes fun at the setting: the prestigious, albeit fictional Tucker University, in Tucker, Kentucky.  The mascot is the Trojan.

I am incredibly proud of myself for being so darned clever. Hopefully not quite so clever that noone else gets the joke here.

So what's the problem, you might ask? It might be a little fuzzy, and granted...the writing is TINY...but I misspelled my own fake name there at the bottom!  I left off the "e" at the end of "Ann."

GAH!

My favorite daughter's suggestions was to fix it with a sharpie, but I'm thinking that might look just a little cheesey...
Then she suggested I just change the name of my website. Which led to a long boring explanation of domain names and how I've already sent TeriAnne not Teriann to Entangled, and...yeah, she tuned me out, too.

But then Thelma (I'm Louise. Or vice versa. Anyway, Jessica Lemmon, with whom I'm travelling, in a convertible, to RT), suggested that I buy that name and redirect it to the right spelled one.

*Sigh*

Okay, let's make that sixty times more $ than the advance sixty-one times more...

 

 

We'll be Comin' Around With Swag, When we Come...

Sorry for the title. Long day.

They Seymour Agency is hosting a Shooting Stars Author Gala at the Romantic Times convention next week, and me, myself, and I are (am?) hosting a table. There are going to be all kinds of fun things going on...games, prizes, alcohol, chocolate, and probably a free book or six.

Each author is bringing a goody basket to award to some lucky attendee, and since my book is so far off  that I don't have a cover yet, my theme is going to be "How I got here." Aptly titled, "

Results Not Typical: 
The Teri Anne Stanley guide to starting a novel, selling it, signing with an agent, (and gaining an extra ten pounds) and THEN finishing that novel, in ninety days or less. 

I'll probably post the whole clever little thingy I wrote to go with it here eventually, but for now, here's a picture:

Yeah, I know you can't really see what's there...I think maybe I over-emphasized the labels, relative to the actual "stuff". But they're so CLEVER. Let me tell you some of what's in it:

A gift certificate for a workshop from Savvy Authors

A bottle of some sort of liquid that may or may not contain alcohol

Lots of little notebooks so you never have an excuse to not write down your thoughts. 

An official TeriAnneStanley coffee mug (can I just tell you how much I love free stuff from Vista Print?)

Some do-hickeys and thing-a-majigs (AKA swag--you know, like bookmarks and stuff)

Some official NaNoWriMo pencils. 

And some other cool stuff. You'll just have to stop by, if you can, and check it out!

Meanwhile, I've also been putting together stuff that I hope people will at least look at before they throw it out. And heck. Even if it gets pitched and no one remembers my name? At least I had something to work on this week so that I don't chew off my fingernails in anticipation of this trip! 

Behold: Teri Anne Stanley Book Thongs!

What are book thongs? They're pretty book marks made of ribbons and beads. And I made them. My favorite daughter helped. 

I've also got buttons coming. They're fun and clever, too, but I'm not showing them to you yet, because, you know, I don't actually have them in hand. 

Okay, back to Camp NaNoWriMo!

A Writer's Blueprint: Guest Post by Ana Kenley

Happy Thursday!

I am delighted that another of the Dangerous Divas (my Savvy Authors NaNoWriMo team) is here to offer up another perspective on "what works for us".

I kind of think that one of the drawbacks of social media is that there are SO MANY choices when it comes to getting advice on how to write. But that is also one of the most awesomest things, too...there are blogs and websites and e-books and everything else out there...so if what you're doing isn't working, go find something else to try.

But at the end of the day, it's all about the BICHOK (Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard), isn't it?

Thanks for being here today, Ana!  

 

A Writer’s Blueprint
By Ana Kenley

I wish being a writer came with a manual, or a blueprint, or instructions—anything that made being a writer easier. Unfortunately, there’s tons of workshops, worksheets, systems and software, that sometimes it’s hard to figure out what might work for you.

For me, I got so caught up in the process of writing that I wasn’t even really writing. So I had to take a long look at what was actually working and what wasn’t. Filling out character profiles isn’t for me. I get frustrated if I can’t answer what my heroine’s favorite flavor of ice cream is, and then I wonder how well I know her… because if I really knew her, I’d know she loves strawberry. And if I was able to complete the ten page profile, by the time I finished the plot outline I no longer wanted to write the book.

I didn’t need any more classes or worksheets, but to be accountable. I needed something—or someone—to answer to. So I began a mentorship. I’m getting my writing done, I’m going to be submitting it, and I’m learning as I go. It’s what works for me, but it might not work for you.

We all have things that work for us and things that don’t. Don’t get bogged down by the things that don’t work. Cut them out and use what is useful to you. There’s no right or wrong way and there’s no quick fix software out there. The only writer’s blueprint that will ever exist is to “sit butt in chair and write—or type”.

Ana Kenley is a young adult author who has recently completed her first novel, Forbidden. Ana is a member of Romance Writers of America and Savvy Authors, where she volunteers her time and co-writes a new monthly blog featuring industry professionals. You can find her at www.anakenley.com, on Twitter @authorana, and on Facebook.

Lippincott's, Page 99

 

Amidst all the chaos and WTFery of the past 24 hours, I've seen a lot of Facebook posts about the awesome things that people do in response to terrible shit. Between the terrible shit and the politicizing, there is Mr. Rogers, reminding us to look for the helpers. My friend Erin is a first year med student, and she entered this poem in a contest (which she won)Yay, Erin!. I am sooo proud to know you. Anyway, this speaks to me about why doctors, nurses, and first responders do what they do: Lippincott’s, Page 99 By Erin Armao   Question 5: A 4-month old infant is seen by the pediatrician He was born on a Wednesday, three days after Christmas. His mother said he was her best present.   for failure to thrive.  Examination shows distinct hepatosplenomegaly. He was just starting to smile, especially when his daddy blew raspberries on his belly.   Lab results show elevated transaminases and bilirubin, Out of nowhere he was sick- so sick.  His sister gave him her favorite teddy bear   suggestive of liver failure.  so he wouldn’t be lonely in his hospital crib.   The boy dies shortly thereafter And then, suddenly, he was gone.   and upon autopsy, precipitated carbohydrate was found in the liver. After a while they lifted him-still and pale and impossibly small- from his mother’s arms.   The boy most likely had a mutation in which of the following enzymes?     A: His name was Jacob.

Guest Post: Anne Lange and The Making of a Great Team

Happy Thursday! 
It's rainly and...WARM here (woo! spring! finally!)...a great day to sleep late, snuggle on the couch, and get some writing done. Which is why I'm here at my desk at the lab after a delightful 75 minute commute (all of 17 miles. DELIGHTFUL 75 min. commute), ready to take on the world. After a couple more glugs of coffee.

ANYWAY.

My friend Anne, co-Dangerous Diva, is here to offer her perspective on teamwork and NaNoWriMo.
YAY!

*applause sign lit*

Thanks for being here, Anne!  

The Making of a Great Team, by Anne Lange

As writers, many of us struggle with finding the time to actually write new words each and every day. Because like anything, it takes practice, and it takes discipline.   

I’ve been writing for about three years, and taking workshops through Savvy Authors for almost as long. Until last fall, I never really gave NaNo much thought.  National Novel Writing Month (people shorten it to NaNo) brings people from all over the world participate in a global writing event each November. Many groups, such as Savvy Authors, offer their version of NaNo in both the fall and the spring.  They commit time and focus to their particular writing project—to write new words, no editing—for 30 days.

Because I’m still struggling at finding my rhythm, I thought this might be just what I needed to force myself into the habit of writing every single day.  The thing I liked about this particular event, with this particular group, was the team work, the encouragement, and the camaraderie.  Everybody cheers you on.  There are daily goals, group sprints, challenges, and friendly bantering.  The people at Savvy make it FUN.

Unfortunately, some teams don’t always work well together, or they simply fall apart for a variety of reasons.  I was on the team Dangerous Divas. There were five of us. We didn’t have this problem.  We clicked. We supported each other from day one, both on and off the official loop. We talked daily, providing encouragement and advice, keeping each other motivated. We’ve never met face-to-face. We don’t even live anywhere near each other.  We write different genres.  But we clicked. And because of that, we’ve been successful, both individually and as a team. 

We all completed that first event together last November. In 30 days, we completed rough drafts of a novel. Thirty days, over 50,000 words each.  Wow.  For me, I proved to myself that I could do it. Depending on the length of my story, my daily goal will change, but the point is, it doesn’t have to take 2 or 3 years to write that novel. It can be done in a month—if you’re disciplined.

Since then, the Divas have kept in touch.  We still talk, even just reaching out to say hi. We still offer words of encouragement and advice. And when the April Boot Camp with Savvy came up, we didn’t even hesitate to come together, as a team, once again.   At the end of Week 1, the Diva’s surpassed a total of 40,000 words. 

This time, I’m working on the second book in a series. I completed the first book during the November event.  That story is out on submission.

My current release, Worth the Risk, I actually contracted just before we started the Entangled Smackdown last November, and I was smack in the middle of formal edits while I was also writing that new book.  But I still managed to do it. I’m so proud to say I’m part of this team; I couldn’t have done it without them.

Blurb

Even the hottest sex might not be enough to ease the pain of the past…

Molly Simpson arrives at a beautiful provincial park, ready to spend the May Two-Four holiday camping with friends. This weekend is the highlight of her year—or it was, until Tanner Daivies showed up. Her high school crush is all grown up, sexy as sin, and he’s demanding answers—answers Molly isn’t sure she can give him. She had her reasons for leaving him all those years ago, but now, sex with Tanner is scorching, and when they’re together, it’s clear they were never meant to be apart. But the past doesn’t want to stay buried, and Molly isn’t sure reliving it is worth the risk…

To see an excerpt – go to http://authorannelange.com/books/worth-the-risk/worth-the-risk/

 

Author BIO

Anne Lange grew up with a love of reading. In fact, if you take a close look, she’s got a book with her where ever she goes, and will usually sneak in at least a chapter or ten whenever she can spare a few minutes. She reads many genres of fiction, but prefers to write sexy romance with attractive men, strong females, and always a happily ever after.

While embarking on a career as a romance author, Anne juggles a full time job and a family. She grew up in Southern Ontario (Canada), but now makes her home in Eastern Ontario where she lives with her husband and three children, and Rocky the bearded dragon.

Buy Links

To purchase Worth the Risk:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

All Romance Ebooks

Kobo

Connect with the Author

To connect with Anne:

Web Page/Blog

Facebook Author Page

Facebook

 

Twitter:

Goodreads

Pinterest:

Amazon Author’s Page

 

Come Visit Me!

Hi!

*waves*

While I struggle to get my daily April Camp NaNo word count out, I am even farther behind on my blogging...but I did make time to visit a friend.  Come see me here:

Anne Lange

And then in a few days, come back and see Ann, here! 

Bike Week on My Kindle

What? You don't think Jax Teller would be caught dead on that bike?  Okay, me neither, but it's kind of sweet, isn't it? 

I'm knee deep in the climactic, OMG part of Kristen Ashley's newest release, Own The Wind . I love me some KA...it's like fiction crack. Or maybe meth, since this one's about bikers, LOL.  Shy and Tab are awesome, and I love to see how Tyra and Tack from Motorcycle Man are such an important part of this story. 

Own the Wind is the first in a new series about the Chaos Motorcycle Club...your basic anti-hero type guys--bad boys who are good underneath it all. Woot!

And then I realized that next up on my TBR list is Hell on Wheels by Julie Ann Walker . Which is the first of another biker club series, except her guys are secret under cover special force spy guys.  So good guys who pretend to be bad?

I'm looking forward to reading this series with trepidation, because, you know, I do have some work to do. Can't be getting too sucked in to all this reading crap. Sheesh.

Okay, I have to go. I need to find my leather jacket.

And it's Not Even November!

Hey...did you know that it's NaNoWriMo again? 

Okay, not really...more like Camp NaNoWriMo .



How fun is this?  Well, it's more fun than dental work, anyway.

Camp NaNo is much more laid back than the November version. There is no guy with a stopwatch standing there measuring your word count (and yeah, that metaphor is totally screwed up, but it's Monday, people). 

I signed up to NaNo with my teammates from last November's Savvy Authors Smackdown Bootcamp.  Or Bootcamp Smackdown.  Whatevs.

Anyway.

We are the Dangerous Divas, and we're teamed up again to compete with other teams of Savvy Authors for points, which we get from participating in chatroom/write-ins, word count, and so forth. 

We were compete strangers last fall, but we've kept in touch and become friends. We're at different places in our writing careers...two of us are published, two of us are pre-published, and I am...somewhere in that gray zone, which I'll call "almost published."

I guess you could call me a NaNoWriMo success story, huh?  It's the project that I wrote last fall that got me "the call" from Entangled in January, which led to finding an agent, and needing an Author site on Facebook.  Proof that if you get in there and get to work, and ignore the internal editor that tells you that you suck, you can do it! 

Okay, that's all for today.  I'm trying to blackmail the rest of the Dangerous Diva's into coming here and doing guest posts through out the month of April...if I don't get volunteers, I may start publishing their email addresses here so you you can spam them into showing up...

Flailing About in the Land of Social Media

In case you've been under a rock for the past twenty four hours, or for some reason, just don't pay much attention to book news, let me tell you:

AMAZON bought GOODREADS.

There is a ton of buzz out there about whether this is a bad thing or a good thing or a combination. To me it seems a little like if McDonalds bought Weight Watchers. Like, in the sense that there might be a conflict of interest.  But you know what?

I am so busy flailing about in the land of social media, flapping my arms around trying to catch something (not sure what) and hoping I don't put out anyone's eye (or accidentally touch anyone's junk), that I just don't have time to worry about it.

Can't do anything about it, anyway.

I'm just not all that good at Goodreads. I'm on there...and when I remember, I add books that I've read and that I've loved.  But really?  I just don't have the time and energy to figure out how to use every single kind of social media there is out there. I'm blogging, and soon to be moving to a REAL WEBSITE.  I bought a domain name yesterday (and I even know that that means!). Check it out . http://teriannestanley.com/

The Bearded Wonder is helping me set it up, so don't expect miracles for a while...like, you know, any actual CONTENT, but at least I've moved beyond the ads that the hosting site had up there.

And TBW put a truly delightful "wait here" link up. Which is delightful to him, but not sure most of the rest of the universe quite gets it. But that's okay!  It's not Horse Pr0n.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Ack! This Sh*t is Getting Real!

Sooo...I have a Facebook Author Page  now, and as soon as I figure out how to install the linky widget deal, I'll do that, so you can like me (you like me, don't you?). 

And I finally did the author page thing because I got added to the Seymour Agency email loop, and someone asked me for my Facebook link. 

And I got added to the Seymour Agency email loop because, you know, that's where my agent lives.  Not inside the loop, I'm pretty sure she's a real person, I've seen pictures and we've spoken on the phone.  I don't think she's a man pretending to be a woman so that I'll feel like an idiot in front of all of ESPN.  Anyway.

And I got an agent because I wrote a book, and Entangled is going to publish it, and OH YEAH!  It's got an official title now! 

*drum roll*

Coming soon from Entangled Publishing....DEADLY CHEMISTRY. 

Ta da! 

I'm also going to get a real website soon. I think. That's a whole 'nother learning curve, though.

UPDATE: (later that day, after much twisting and turning)  I found the Facebook badge widget thingy!  woot!

A Look Back? Or Forward?

Last week, my friend Jessica Lemmon posted a link to a blog that I wrote over two years ago, when we were both in a blogging slump. So we traded places. I wrote her blog post, she wrote mine.

Ah, those were the days. We were both just little tadpole writers, swimming around in the big pond, hoping to become frogs some day. Now Jessica's published, and her book is doing pretty well.  Woot!

I'm getting there (I think...this business seems to run on something different than Teri Time).  I haven't achieved Book Cover, Official Title, or Release Date yet, but I have achieved I Need a Business Card/Bookmark, at least!  And probably, I am even almost to the "I should make a Facebook Author Page" stage.

Anyway, I don't have much of brilliance to share today (do I ever? Eh, it doesn't matter).  I just wanted to post links to those old blog posts.

Now I have to go walk around in the girl shoes I bought to wear at RT, to practice falling on my ass gracefully.

In Which I Do Not Whine About Being Curvy

Because, really, I don't have anything to whine about. And no cheese and crackers to go with it.

I've been compulsively checking my email for...something.  I can't really remember what, but I'll know it when it comes in.

Anyway

I had this brief moment the other day when I decided that I was going to stop trying to lose weight, and get comfortable with my body, just kind of stretch it out every now and then and make sure that blood goes to all the parts, even the cushy parts.

But then I went to buy a fancy dress for the RT Anniversary Ball in May. And I found one that fit. It's green. I look like one of those giant snowball cupcake things--I couldn't find a picture of a green one, but I'm pretty sure that at some point, they did make green ones.



And yeah, technically it FIT, but...only if I don't breathe or sit down. So probably, if I lost a little weight before RT, then I'll be much more comfortable, and look more like a willowy reed (okay, probably not). 

So this decision to get some more exercise and eat more vegetables threw me into a feeding frenzy, the likes of which the Jaws franchise never imagined.  I really hope I can let that dress out a little.
Or get a really spectacular smoothing and shaping undergarment. And some sort of IV thing that will oxygenate my blood and remove carbon dioxide without me actually having to inflate my rib cage.

It's all good. I love myself.  Really!

Yay for My Kid!

I'm going to take a break from my writer persona to be a mom (and yeah, okay, there's not really much difference, just the name I call myself).

My son, Sam, earned his Eagle Scout award yesterday. Actually, he really earned it over the past 12 years, from the time he became a Tiger Cub as a first grader, but he had the official Board of Review last night, where a whole mess of adults put him in the hot seat and grilled him about his experiences as a Boy Scout.

And let me tell you...that was longer than most PhD dissertation defenses I've witnessed.

There will be a ceremony in a few months, but as of last night, he is officially the newest Eagle Scout of Troop 805. 

WOOT! 

PENS not PEN_S

I went to a great program this weekend at the Woodford County Public Library, which is just outside of Lexington. It's called PENS on Fire (even though everyone, including the Favorite Daughter misread the title of the program).

Anyway.

There were seven romance writers there, and they shared a little about their books, and their publishing experiences, and their writing process, and then there was a book signing.  It was especially cool, because I got to meet one of my very first Twitter friends in person...the most amazing Tiffany Reisz, who writes some seriously "0_0" stuff. And writes it very well, I might add.

So that was very cool. We got to sit down and chat a bit before the program started, and she was just as nice in person as she is online.

There was quite a variety of romance presented...the first writer who spoke was  Hallee Bridgeman , who writes inspirational romance (though she pointed out that it's not your Amish love story...because real Come to Jesus stuff isn't usually pretty).  I was interested to talk to her because something she does besides write and raise kids, is make everything her family eats from scratch. We're talking grind-the-wheat scratch.

She's the Anti-Teri Anne. When my kids were little, I wrote a recipe column called The Three Ingredient Gourmet for a small magazine (that, yes, my mother edited, but whatever. It was an outlet). I was almost syndicated as a counterpoint to the Amish Cook, but that's another post. The point is, my family is all about the processed cheese food.  Although, in my defense, if the zombie apolcalypse comes and we have to start over from the basics, I can spin wool, and knit it into socks and sweaters, as my contribution to society.

 I was interested to see what Hallee and Tiffany might have to say to each other, given the opposite ends of their writing spectra, but then...Halle writes "edgy" Christian romance, and Tiffany's chief kink-meister is a Catholic priest. And Halle's written some cookbooks...the first one being "Fifty Shades of Gravy." The next one is "Walking Bread." So.

THEN I met Robyn Peterman, who is also very awesome. She's just published her first book, "How Hard Can It Be?", which I just downloaded. We made plans to meet up at RT, which I'm looking forward to.  She's hilarious in person, so I can't wait to read her book.

I met Robyn because my friend Marilyn knows her (and I keep forgetting to ask how they know each other, not that it matters, but still.  I like to have my family tree well-organized).

AND there were four other very interesting women there, but I'll have to blog about that later,  because I'm out of time.

Anyway.

It was a really fun program, and I came home highly motivated to get some more writing done, and to start thinking about branding myself.  Not, you know, with hot metal on my skin.  More like coming up with some sort of clever little logo kind of branding.

Okay, that is all. I have to go make science happen. What did YOU do last weekend?

Monday, Day Six

So, last week I had the big idea that I would do forty "things" that are good for my mind, body or spirit for lent.

1. Wednesday I gave up sugar

2. Thursday I donated blood (a double red, thank you very much)

3. Friday I drank sixty million gallons of water (or at least the requisite 8x8oz glasses)

4. Saturday I...OH!  I know. I went to a charity fund raiser and spent a lot of money at the silent  
     Auction. I now own $150 worth of amercan flag drinking glasses, just because I NEEDED to  beat  that other person who was bidding.

5. Sunday I...*crickets chirping*...I guess I kind of lay around all day reading and feeling crappy and then I went out to dinner and ...Okay, so today I need to do two things, okay?  Geez.

6. Monday, today, I'm giving up flour, to make up for yesterday. And I'm going to start writing 2000 words a day, how's that sound? 

I think, maybe, tomorrow I'll clean off my desk. But we don't want to count that chicken before it hatches. 

If you could change one habit, what would it be? 

40 Days

Happy Thursday after Ash Wednesday! 

Oh, yeah...there's some sort of other name for this day...something about a saint with an arrow?  Anyway.

Yesterday my Favorite Daughter* had a check up, and part of the paperwork involved a questionaire with the following questions:

• How many servings of fruits and vegetables do you eat a day?
• How much TV/Video Game/Computer time do you engage in a day?
• How much do you exercise?
• How much sugary crap do you drink every day? And yeah, okay, that's not EXACTLY how that one was worded.

You get the idea.

We didn't score so well.  I figure I get at least half the blame for the low score because, you know, I'm the mom, and everything's my fault, right? 

Aaaargh! 

 I can only nag so much. I could definitely fix a real sit-down dinner more often.  And I can set a better example.  So I've decided that this year for lent, I'm going to pick forty things that I can do to improve my mind/body/spirit. 

Yesterday was the big one:  Give up Sugar and Flour.  Maybe I can count that as two things, if I get farther in to this and get stuck... I know, it sounds impossible, but it's doable, I ate that way for two whole years a while back.  And might I mention that I was thin and energetic then, too?  Huh.

Today I'm donating blood.  I figure that's a "spirit" one.  Apparently I have good blood...I'm 0+, and lack some sort of antibody that makes my blood more attractive to premature babies.  That's what they tell me, anyway.  It might be a ploy, but I'm nothing if not a sucker. 

Tomorrow will probably be "Drink more water" day...and maybe "Eat a bunch of red meat" day, since I'll need to replenish the blood supply.  But I'll let you know.

What are  you going to do this spring to make your life a little better? 

*I only have one daughter, I'm pretty sure.

The Zombies Are Back!

WOOT! 

I've been suffering through Sunday night football and a lot of other unpleasantness lately, waiting for the Walking Dead to come back to AMC. 

Of course, I am painfully disappointed in Darryl.  Doesn't he know how much Carol loves his greasy red-necked self?  Jeezo Peet.
Granted, if he just went back to the prison and fell sobbing into her arms, he would have lost some tortured hero points, but still.  Rick is losing his stuff again, because Ghost Lori is up there on the balcony.  The gang needs a little Darryl right now.  

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, it might be time to go to Netflix and get caught up.  All the cool people are doing it. 

Bad Ass Heroines

I'm on a quest to find the movies with the most baddest assed heroines...and of course, as soon as I start trying to make a list, my Mental Pause starts acting up, and I draw a blank.

I'm thinking, Sigourney Weaver in Alien/s and Demi Moore in GI Jane. But that kind of dates me, doesn't it?

Anybody got anything else for me? 

Crying through the Super Bowl

Good Monday, Everyone!

Here we are, everyone trying to pretend we didn't overeat or overdrink or both yesterday, during Commercial Fest. There was even kind of an interesting football game during breaks between commercials. And that woman with the booty pop and whippy hair thing was kind of cool.

What was your favorite commercial?  The one that got me tearing up was the Clydesdale...nothing like the song Landslide to make me cry in the first place...then throw in a baby horse and a cute farmer (or trainer, or whatever his job title was)?  Fuggeddaboutit. And I wasn't even full of Budweiser! 

My favorite was the commercial for Time Warner Cable, with Darryl from Walking Dead.  I love Darryl.

Not quite sure I "got" the first commercials for the new Bud brand.  I suspect I'm not the demographic they're aiming for (you know, middle aged, ex-drinker)...

I also didn't quite "get" the Doritos goat (bwah hah ha--get it? Get your goat? ) until I'd seen it a couple of times, but the dress up dad one was cool.

I liked the Paul Harvey farmer one, too, but shhh....don't tell Mr. Stanley....he's a Ford truck guy. 

I would post links here, but frankly, I'm sure you've seen them all six times already. 

My kids are big fans of the E Trade baby...Mr. Stanley has them convinced that the guy who does the voice of the baby is a friend of his, who he only identifies as Shankapotamus. And my kids are teenagers. I think they'd have better bullshit detectors, but whatever! 

Okay, so tell me what you liked!