Happy Holidays to All!
2015: A Year of Giving Thanks, Meeting Romance Idols, & Making New Friends
2015 has been a very good year for me. I am so thankful.
This year, I:
- published TWO books: A Man of Character, and A Matter of Time.
- met long-time romance writing idols Eloisa James, Sabrina Jeffries, and Pamela Morsi, as well as new favorites like Valerie Bowman, Cathy Maxwell, Kathryn Barrett, and Sue London.
- attended a number of writing conferences (the Library of Congress’s What Is Love? conference, the Chesapeake Romance Writers conference), book festivals (the Virginia Festival of the Book, the West Virginia Book Festival) and Virginia Romance Writers workshops and talks.
- met a ton of new people, and, even more amazingly, new fans! I, little ol’ Margaret, now have fans. What, what? But, yes, I do, like the oh-so-fabulous Annie, who even had lunch with me when she was in town.
- solidified relationships and friendships within my Shenandoah Valley Writers critique group and more, and basically surrounded myself with writer friends the whole year through.
- had the loving support of my family, including my very own computer-science-professor-in-shining-armor husband, who read BOTH of my books, just to support me (and help me find typos). He’s that awesome of a guy.
Yes, it’s been a very good year.
And I owe so much of that to you all.
Thank you to everyone who took a chance on A Man of Character (and now again on A Matter of Time!).- Thank you to the friends and family who’ve supported me, and the new readers who’ve picked up one of my books this year.
- Thank you to the book bloggers and reviewers who graciously gave their time to review my books.
- Thank you to Tessa Shapcott, my editor, for her invaluable guidance, and to Joy Lankshear, my cover designer and formatter, for making my books look better than I ever imagined they could.
- Thank you to the fellow writers I’ve met on Facebook and Twitter, whose companionship brightens my day every day, and whose wisdom is lighting this crazy, twisting and turning path I’m on.
- Thank you to the people who’ve liked my books enough to join my street team, Locke’s Flock, or to review them on Amazon or GoodReads, or even just to tell someone else about my books and/or me. All of those seemingly little things make a HUGE difference.
Simply put, I wouldn’t be here without you, and I wanted to express my gratitude as 2015 closes out and 2016 gets ready to begin.
What does the next year hold?
Writer Wednesday: Meet Scarlet Darkwood!
Woo hoo! Wedneday! WRITER Wednesday. Today we’ve got Scarlet Darkwood, writer of avant garde fiction in the genres of erotica, romance, paranormal, horror, Gothic, thriller. Yup, a little bit of everything, and a whole lot of spicy fun! So settle in with that candy cane and cup of yummy Christmas chai, and learn a bit more about Ms. Darkwood.
Name one interesting thing you learned in researching/writing your last book.
I learned about Venetian carnivals and how it had started out as a festivity, only to become a way of life for nearly a hundred years. The beauty of the original carnival was that it leveled the playing field between social classes because everyone wore a mask when they went out in public. All kinds of clandestine trysts went on, deals were made, and noblemen mingled with scoundrels without knowing it.
What one piece of advice do you wish you’d had when first starting out?
I wish someone would have said write a few books and publish them all at once. I think it’s better if a reader can read more of you if they enjoyed you the first time. The other thing I think new authors need to do is take a personality assessment of themselves and determine if they like writing by themselves or if they enjoy a more collaborative type of publishing, such as co-authoring or writing for anthologies.
Name two things people don’t know about you.
I adore bats. I own a retail shop.
[ML: I suddenly want to know if the two things go together!]
And now, a bit about Ms. Darkwood’s Taming Bad:
![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000037_00013]](http://margaretlocke.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/TamingBadebook.jpg)
Is biology a friend or foe? This question plagues Newton Grenfield daily. He believes that a man’s virility is the key to his masculinity, his identity. One man’s abundance is another’s curse. Newton discovers how cursed he really is when his libido refuses to shut down, spurring him on in the continual search for the right woman who will welcome his advances in the bedroom. Overeager attempts at finding love fall flat, earning him not only a cold shoulder from the ladies, but an angry father who decides treatment at The House, the local asylum, will do his son good. There’s one catch to this treatment the father demands of Dr. James, The House physician. He wants Newton’s antics stopped—for good.
The doctor has a radical, fail-proof plan that will cut to the core of his patient’s masculine ideologies in more ways than one. Above all, Newton’s attendant must ensure he’s as much of a man when he leaves The House as when he entered it, by helping him hone his lovemaking skills in order to secure the lady of his dreams. One night, Newton meets a young woman wandering the halls of The House, and his life changes forever. He thinks he’s found the right one for him. When he experiences the ultimate change at the hand of Dr. James, he’s left with answering to a confused lover, and wondering if the treatment made a bad situation worse.
Buy Links:
Amazon: http://goo.gl/K2VjwG
B&N: http://goo.gl/zWZxY6
iTunes: https://goo.gl/Y8uJDp
About Scarlet:
Scarlet Darkwood is an author with Booktrope, as well as an indie author publishing other material. For more information about the latest concerning Scarlet and her work, sign up for her newsletter: http://eepurl.com/Rt5HP
Writing in several genres allows her to unleash her imagination in different directions, creating stories for different audiences. Always preferring avant garde themes, her stories will take the reader on an unusual adventure, exploring the darker parts of the human psyche. From a young age, she’s enjoyed writing and keeping diaries, but didn’t start creating novels until 2012. She’s a Southern girl who lives in Tennessee and enjoys the beauty of the mountains. She lives in Nashville with her spouse and two rambunctious kitties.
Connect with Scarlet:
My Blog: http://www.scarletdarkwood.com
Google+:http://google.com/+ScarletDarkwood
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ScarletDarkwood
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scarletdarkwoodauthor
Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/scarletdarkwood
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/scarletdarkwood
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/scarletdarkwood/
StumbleUpon: http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/scarletdarkwood
Thanks so much for joining us, Scarlet! Wishing you a happy holiday season!
The Final Flash! Friday Fiction, & A Thank You to Rebekah
A few weeks ago, fearless dragoness and Flash Friday leader Rebekah announced she was closing the weekly Flash! Friday competition. While we Flash writers are sad, I understand Rebekah’s desire to send us out into the world, and her desire to concentrate on her own novel writing (and, people, she is seriously one of the best writers I’ve ever read, so watch for her to storm the world soon.) Huzzah!
Though I wrote these two pieces for the final Flashversary contest last Friday, I waited to post them until today because a) I didn’t want Rebekah to see them while she was judging (in case she was going to pick ME ME ME to win!), and b) (and probably the more truthful answer) I’ve been neck-deep in episodes of Outlander for the last few days.
But here they are – my final two Flash! Friday stories, each 100 words on the dot, as prescribed by the rules. The photo prompt was optional, but we were required to start our stories with the sentence, “On Friday everything changed.” One of my tiny tales is funny & light, the other an homage to the woman, the contest, and my fellow writers who’ve given so very much to me. I am 100% certain if I had not had the support from this flash community and my Shenandoah Valley Writers, I would not be a published author today. So thank you, Rebekah. Thank you, all!
Just Call It Puppy Love, 2015-style
On Friday everything changed.
It was totally like that old Cure song, you know? I was in love.
He was epic. Sick. Black hair slung low over ice blue eyes.
Full-on gone, peeps.
On Saturday we went out. Mashed all night.
I don’t care what Shanna says. I can’t even. Hashtag jealous liar.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday, just me and my bae.
On Thursday we hit the club. He hit on everyone in sight.
Shanna says she told me so. I told her off.
Thank God tomorrow’s Friday. Can I get an amen?
‘Cause on Friday, everything changes.
Hashtag so over.
In Praise of Dragons
On Friday, everything changed.
No, that’s a lie.
On Flash Fridays, I changed.
I took off the mask I’d worn for so long, bared my soul to the world.
I screamed, “Here I am. Take your best shot.”
I stood, vulnerable, heart wide open, awaiting written arrows, verbal bullets.
They never came.
I’m still standing.
I’ve come too far now to turn back.
I’ve spread my wings. Showed my scales.
She taught me how.
Just show up, she said.
Be kind. Give generously. Praise others.
Some will tear you down.
But you will rise up.
For love always wins.
Always.
And there you have it. I will certainly miss these weekly bursts of creativity, but hope to take the skills, enthusiasm, and delight in the written word that this contest sparked and infuse it through all of my future writings. Thank you, Flash!Friday.
Award-Winning author Beth Trissel Talks Her New #YA Young Adult Series!
Wow, am I excited to feature Beth Trissel today! Beth and I live in the same town (we’ve yet to meet in person, but it will happen!), and she’s been a great support to newbie me, so I’m so pleased to feature her here.
I managed to sneak in a few short questions of my own for a mini-interview of sorts, and then Beth tells us all about her NEW book, The Hunter’s Moon, the first volume in her brand-spankin’ new YA Secret Warrior series. But before you get to read about that, there’s this:
Beth says: Thank you, Margaret, for hosting me today!
What are your top three favorite romances of all time?
Katherine by Anya Seton, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I favor the classics. 🙂
Why do you write what you write?
Well, I’m all over the place with historicals, ghost stories, time travels, and YA fantasy romances. Every story has a historical basis, so that’s a constant, even if they are set in the present day. I have a strong draw to the past. I’m also a romantic, so each story is a romance, whether sweet or a bit spicier.
What’s one piece of writing advice you’d wished you’d had earlier on?
Think in terms of series.
And now, the Secret Warrior series:
Although The Hunter’s Moon (Book 1, Secret Warrior Series) is my first venture into the young adult genre, I’m an award-winning, multi-published author in historical, paranormal, and time travel romance. I was inspired to create this new series partly by my teenage nieces and younger daughter. We’ve watched a lot of YA movies and TV programs together and had book discussions, during which they urged me to take the plunge.
I pondered the concept behind Secret Warrior for years as it gradually took shape in my mind. My love of history, fantasy, and fascination with the mountain people and Native Americans is at the heart of the series. Living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia surrounded by mountains veiled in mist and mystery lends itself well to creating the characters and setting for YA fantasy romance, The Hunter’s Moon, and the stories that will follow. Some of the characters and creatures are based on lore I’ve learned. Others appeared to me, as characters have a way of doing. A great deal of research and intuition went into writing The Hunter’s Moon. Next in the series is Curse of the Moon (release date TBD). I purposefully kept these stories to novella length so they would come out faster, which means eBook format only. The Secret Warrior series is published by The Wild Rose Press.
Pre-order links for The Hunter’s Moon are up at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The official release date for the story is December 14th.
Here’s the blurb:
Seventeen year old Morgan Daniel has been in the witness protection program most of her life. But The Panteras have caught up with her and her younger brother. Her car is totaled, she’s hurt, and the street gang is closing in when wolves with glowing eyes appear out of nowhere and chase away the killers.
Then a very cute guy who handles a bow like Robin Hood emerges from the woods and takes them to safety at his fortress-like home.
And that’s just the first sign that Morgan and her brother have entered a hidden world filled with secrets.
Excerpt:
“Should we stay, or go while the smoke lasts?” The cloth muffled her voice.
“You can hardly walk.”
She couldn’t argue that point. Neither could they wait to be found. “The Panteras won’t give up until we’re dead.”
“Maybe they think we are,” he argued under his breath.
“Maybe.”
She suspected Mateo would demand a body, even a charred one. Make that two. She and Jimmy didn’t have much choice, though, other than to crouch in dread while the fire crackled.
“Next birthday, I want an AK-47.” He nudged her. “Look.”
She fixed her blurry gaze on what appeared to be a black wolf emerging from the trees. The creature was larger than she’d thought wolves were, and she’d understood none remained in these mountains. They were all farther north or west. Somewhere else.
Apparently, she was misinformed.
Judging by its size, she guessed this was a male. He stopped before their hideout. Eyes the color of red coals surveyed them before he turned and darted down the trail she’d spotted.
“Holy cow, Batboy. Did you see that?” she whispered.
Jimmy didn’t reply. He prodded her again.
She stared at the big brown and gray wolf that took the black one’s place. Where on earth had he come from?
The beast turned its furry head at her and Jimmy. His eyes shone with a luminous light, like fireflies…
A bit about Beth:
Married to my high school sweetheart, I live on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia surrounded by my human family and furbabies. An avid gardener, my love of herbs and heirloom plants figures into my work. The rich history of Virginia, the Native Americans, and the people who journeyed here from far beyond her borders are at the heart of my inspiration. I’m especially drawn to colonial America and the drama of the American Revolution. In addition to young adult fantasy romance, I also write historical, time travel, and paranormal romance, plus nonfiction.
For more on me, please visit my blog, One Writer’s Way: https://bethtrissel.wordpress.com
Like me on Facebook: Author Beth Trissel
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BethTrissel
Visit my Amazon Author Page where all my books reside: Amazon Author Page
