Archive for June, 2009

…well one is a little older, I just didn’t pick it up on Google alerts for some reason. Anyway… *commences tigger bounces* … Moon Madness got four, count ‘em, four tombstones from Bitten by Books and a lovely write up from Julie…

“…sixty pages of sex, fights, and unforeseen twists and turns. The plot was well thought out and intriguing…I had to keep reading to find out what happened next, and even managed to sneak in some pages during work hours. Ms. Carter is definitely going to be an author I’m keeping my eye on.” Julie, reviewer for Bitten by Books.

Read the review

I have been thinking of a second book after Moon Madness set in the same pack, called Spring Fever. I have half an idea for a plot rattling around in my head so we’ll see how long it takes for it to take root and I HAVE to go and write it. Lol, which is normally not long!!

And Moonlight & Magic got four nymphs from Literary Nymphs Read the review

I’m not sure if I posted this link when it went up what with the mad whirl last week was so here it is Rie over at Author Offerings was kind enough to let me waffle on about my latest release Sunlight & Slavery…

http://authorofferings.blogspot.com/2009/06/author-offerings-from-mina-carter.html

You know, I’m having one of *those* months. You know the kind, the ones where you tread water like mad but never actually get anywhere.

At least, it seems that way. But anyway, let me catch you up on the news. Sunlight & Slavery is out and I’ve had some fantastic reviews on that one which brings the biggest smile to my face imaginable. On the submissions side, I wrote a story, Faery Dust, for the Last Call series which was just accepted by Changeling Press *VBG* and I also have Hawk’s Warden out which I’ve got my fingers crossed for.

On the writing side, I’m just in the middle of the third in the Moonlight & Magic series, Deception & Desire, but took time out to go away this weekend with the family. I did mean to get some writing done but, for some reason, whenever it looked like I might get the laptop out, brat wanted to snuggle or read a story, or have a nap with Mummy. Naps with toddlers rule big time, even if you do get dribbled on and they snore in your ear. She’s normally past the nap stage now but with all we were doing she was worn out and… you know? I really missed nap times with her. When she was tiny we used to snuggle down on the bed at one o’clock and have a sleep. It was nice. Probably why I always get sleepy at one now though…

I’m off with the tiggers again. Goddess Minx over at Literary Nymphs gave Sunlight & Slavery four nymphs!!

Check it out! http://literarynymphsreviewsonly.blogspot.com/2009/06/sunlight-and-slavery.html?zx=ae4b4fe47728073a

*pops head out of writing cave and blinks blearily at the light*

Okay, I apologise for the break in your scheduled show here. This week has really been blink and you’ll miss it. So what have I been up to? Glad you asked. I’ve finally completed the rewrites on Earth Warden. Previously called ‘Dead before Dawn’ this is the story that started this whole mad publishing thing off. Well, in a way.

You see I’ve been writing for years and I *thought* I needed to be a fantasy writer – think Tamora Pierce and the like.

Guess what? I suck at writing fantasy. Or I did back then. I spent YEARS on this manuscript. I have 30K of it sat on a pendrive somewhere never to see the light of day in it’s current form, and it’s still not complete.

Why? Well, a couple of reasons. One, I had absolutely zero idea about plot so I just threw anything and everything in there. There’s probably about three different stories all fighting for dominance. Then there’s the bad habits…like some seriously bad habits.

But you know, I was happy writing it, and I probably would have finished it but you know what stopped me writing? I got burned in an online writers group. Badly. Now don’t get me wrong, I think writers groups are great. You can learn a lot from them. But like any group of people, they can go wrong and when they do it’s nasty.

With me, I lost all confidence in my own abilities. Convinced I couldn’t craft a decent sentence, let alone a story, I packed the ms away and was going to shut down the PC never to come online again.

I didn’t. I wandered about the internet a little bit and ended up in a chatroom. Which was where I got recruited to an online writing game. It was fun, it wasn’t ‘real’ writing so I figured my deplorable skills wouldn’t be too much of a handicap. They weren’t, I spent six years playing…*looks around to check no one’s listening* Star Trek. Yup, there it is. I’m a geek. Not only do I love writing star trek, I like playing with code. Total geek.

But anyway, back to the story such as it is. I wrote lots in those six years. Some of it total crap but I enjoyed all of it. Still, something was missing. No matter how I looked at it, I was still playing in someone else’s sandpit there. I wanted to create my own worlds, my own races.

So fast forward to early last year. I caught, quite by accident, a mail about the Nocturne bites ebook line. It tempted me out of my writing exile. 15, 000 words. I figured I could do that and if it was crap, well, I don’t have to see these people do I? What did I have to loose?

So I sat down with the laptop and decided if I was going to do this I needed to learn as much about the mechanics of writing a story as I could. Plot and all that. Then the PLOT bunny took hold! I wrote Dead before Dawn and sent it off, started the next story and when that was done, the next.

Dead before Dawn was rejected by Nocturne but I got a very nice rejection letter from them saying why. But I got something more important as well. I got my writing back. So thank you Nocturne, I owe you one.