Lexa Cain: June 2015

Friday, June 26, 2015

Celebrate: Busy Muse & Giveaways!

Lady in the park

or man's face?

This week I'm celebrating:
1) I finally got some work done on my WIP. I wrote 3 chapters (7k) in 3 days. Yay! Now *all* I have to do is revise them.
2) I worked my muse so hard she completely abandoned me when it came time for this post -- thus the odd illusion pic I put above. What does it have to do with this post? Nothing whatsoever.
3) Inspired by Cathy Kennedy (of Curious as a Cathy blog) and her pictures of her ancestors, I scouted for my grandfather on the net. I found one pic. It's in the 40s, on Long Island, and he's standing next to Hedy Lamarr. In fact, it looks like he's got his arm around her! :O

Have you or anyone in your family taken a picture with a big star?

My kind and wonderful co-hosts of Celebrate the Small Things are:
L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge
Tonja Drecker @ Kidbits Blog

Celebrate The Small Things Linky:

Grab the Linky html-code here:

Celebrate the Small Things. To be part of this blog hop, all you have to do is visit the Celebrate page on Lexa's Blog for the rules, and then post every Friday about something you're grateful for that week. It can be about writing or family or school or general life. This is the funnest and easiest blog hop ever! (Originated by VikLit)

Foxy's Friday Freebies!

Foxy has been nosing around the net.

When she finds great FREE STUFF, she'll feature it on Fridays Freebies posts -

Free short stories, novellas, and novels
Giveaways for books and swag
Free services for authors

Here are Foxy's suggestions for June 26, 2015:

Free 5 Novels and $5 Amazon Gift Card – Win 30 SECONDS by Chrys Frey, SOUL CUTTER by Lexa Cain, POP TRAVEL by Tara Tyler, CLOAKED IN FUR by T.F. Walsh, and OF BLOOD AND SORROW by Christine Rains plus a $5 Amazon gift card via T.B.Markinson’s Giveaway Rafflecopter. (ends June 30)

Free Rhyming Riddle eBook - Jessica Haight and Stephanie Robinson of The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow blog are offering their book: Fairday's Riddles: Volume I (Make time to riddle and rhyme! 62 original riddles and illustrations.) It’s FREE at Smashwords if you use this Coupon Code: WQ28B (ends July 1) I got my copy - get yours NOW!

Free MG Historical Pirate Adventure – Win Cast Off: The Strange Adventures of Petra de Winter and Bram Broen by Eve Yohalem on The Childrens Book Review blog. (ends July 8)

Free Historical Novel – win To a Strange Somewhere Fled by DM Denton by leaving your email in the comments on Unusual Historicals Blog. Good chance – only 5 entries so far! (ends June 29)

For Foxy's other Freebies, go to the Freebie page.

If anyone has a FREE short story (for download or online at a free ezine), novella, novel, special giveaway, or author service, please let Foxy know so she can plug you here! Write to: laura.6eg(at)gmail.com

Friday, June 19, 2015

Celebrate: New Co-host, Art Therapy & Big Giveaways

The lovely Tonja Drecker of Kidbits Blog has agreed to help co-host Celebrate the Small Things and will be hopping around to your blogs along with LG Keltner. Yay!! It would be awesome if you stopped by her blog to thank her for becoming the new co-host.

I stayed up 24 hours yesterday because I was working on a new cover for a short story and making advertising pictures for my book and short stories. (I made the covers for "Biggun" and "The Mission.") I only work with GIMP, since that's the free one, but I manage to do pretty well -- and I LOVE to do it. It's like art therapy. It's nice to have projects that take 24 hours to finish as opposed to writing on a novel for months and months. And months.

Since I just woke up and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, I thought I'd share some of the pics I've taken off the net and airbrushed out words or ads and added my own:

And some inspirational ones, too:

What do you do to unwind from work?

My kind and wonderful co-hosts of Celebrate the Small Things are:
L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge
Tonja Drecker @ Kidbits Blog

Celebrate The Small Things Linky:

Grab the Linky html-code here:

Foxy's Friday Freebies!

Foxy has been nosing around the net.

When she finds great FREE STUFF, she'll feature it on Fridays Freebies posts -

Free short stories, novellas, and novels
Giveaways for books and swag
Free services for authors

Here are Foxy's suggestions for , 2015:

28 Free Books & Gift Cards – Jessica Therrien is sponsoring a huge giveaway with 28 books of all genres (including Alex Cavanaugh’s Dragon of the Stars book!) and gift cards. Enter via several rafflecopters on Jessica Therrien blog. (ends June 29)

18 Free New Release Books & eBooks – I located a blog hop running from June 16-30 where everyone is giving away a book on their own blog. 18 blogs = 18 books. You can enter all the rafflecopters and some blogs are giving away more than one book.. The first free book and the links to the other 17 blogs are on the Suze & Friends Australia blog. (ends June 30)

For Foxy's other Freebies, go to the Freebie page.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Celebrate: Bird Box Fangirling & Lots of Giveaways!

On Facebook this week, I stumbled on an author I know and admire commenting on a friend's post. It took me a while to work up the courage to "Send Friend Request." Then I held my breath -- and the next day he accepted!!

There may have been some Fangirling.

The author is Josh Malerman and here's his book (which has 12,700+ rates on Goodreads):

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.

Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat--blindfolded--with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?

Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.

Buy BIRD BOX on Amazon

This book was awesome! And I'm super picky about horror reads. It takes a lot to make me enthusiastic. (I haven't even been able to get through any King or Koontz novels in the past year.) But this book has an original premise, is exciting, dramatic, and scary, and I loved it!!

What have you "fan-girled" about?

A grateful shout out to Celebrate's own Angela Yuriko Smith of DandiFluff blog for her awesome review of my novel Soul Cutter: HERE. Thanks so much, Angela!

My kind and wonderful co-hosts of Celebrate the Small Things are:
L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge
Katie @ TheCyborgMom
Brief Note: Katie has decided to step down as co-host starting next week. She's been doing a great job for a long time, and I'll miss her a lot. So now that leaves L.G. and me -- unless anyone's interested in being a co-host. It means posting every single Friday and visiting about 20 blogs. You can email me if you're interested at: laura.6eg(at)gmail.com

Celebrate The Small Things Linky:

Grab the Linky html-code here:

Foxy's Friday Freebies!

Foxy has been nosing around the net.

When she finds great FREE STUFF, she'll feature it on Fridays Freebies posts -

Free short stories, novellas, and novels
Giveaways for books and swag
Free services for authors

Here are Foxy's suggestions for June 12, 2015:

Free 4 Novels – Win THE KEYS OF THE WATCHMAN by Kathleen C. Perrin, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE by M.K. Tod, TAKING THE CROSS by Charles Gibson, and JOURNIES THROUGH FRANCE AND LIFE by Glenda de Vaney via entry form on the France Tours blog. (ends June 30)

Free Contemp Romantic/Suspense eBook – Win an ebook copy of HOPE IN EVERY RAINDROP by Wesley Banks via rafflecopter on Mythical Books blog. (ends June 24)

Free 2 Horror Novels – win ebook copies of UNDERTAKERS: Secret of the Corpse Eaters by Ty Drago and SHADOWS FALL AWAY by Kit Forbes via rafflecopter on Mythical Books blog. (ends June 17)

Free $25 Amazon Gift Card – To celebrate the release of SWEETHEART DEAL (romance) by Allison Morse, she’s giving away a $25 Amazon gift card via rafflecopter on Romance Novel Giveaways blog. (ends June 19)

Free $15 Amazon Gift Card, Choice of any “Clean Teen” eBook, Bookmark Swag pack – To celebrate the release of VANISHING ACT (drama/romance) by Erica Kiefer, she’s giving away a $15 gift card, your choice of eBook from Clean Teen, and bookmark swag via rafflecopter on Mythical Books blog. (ends June 21)

Free $10 Amazon Gift Card – To celebrate the release of NEEDING HER (romantic suspense) by Allie Everhart, she’s giving away a $10 Amazon gift card via rafflecopter on Mythical Books blog.(ends June 17)

For Foxy's other Freebies, go to the Freebie page.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Celebrate: The Hard Part & T.B.Markinson's June Giveaway

We have a lot of wonderful people on the Celebrate the Small Things hop! Each week, I love visiting everyone’s blogs and hearing about their accomplishments and what they’re grateful for!

Naturally, some people don’t always have time to post every week. That’s okay. It’s a blog hop for fun, and I try to keep it that way.

April and May are especially busy because so many participate in the A-Z Challenge daily posts, and you have to be a super-blogger to try to keep another blog hop going during the A-Z. And by May, some people are collapsed on their couches or have unplugged their computer or are hiding in their closets mumbling to themselves. Many need a blogging break.

I like to give bloggers the benefit of the doubt and don’t take anyone’s name off the list until they’ve missed an entire two months of posts.

I began culling the list this week and will continue next week. If a name disappears, it’s just in the interest of efficiency, so people don’t have to click around to blogs that haven't been active in a while and who can’t return comments.

Anyone can get back on the list at anytime—just write to me and ask. :)

Do you think this is fair? Should I wait longer than 2 months?

My kind and wonderful co-hosts of Celebrate the Small Things are:
L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge
Katie @ TheCyborgMom

Celebrate The Small Things Linky:

Grab the Linky html-code here:

Foxy's Friday Freebies!

Foxy has been nosing around the net.

When she finds great FREE STUFF, she'll feature it on Fridays Freebies posts -

Free short stories, novellas, and novels
Giveaways for books and swag
Free services for authors

This week's Freebies are a special giveaway for the month of June. Here are the details from T.B. Markinson:

Each month, I plan to giveaway awesome books by wonderful authors and a $5 Amazon Gift Card. It’s my way of saying thank you to all my followers and fans. Some may wonder why I’m giving books away that aren’t mine. The answer is simple: I love to read and I love to help fellow authors promote their books.

The giveaway is easy to enter. Just click on this link to enter: Rafflecopter giveaway. At the end of the month, one winner will be selected randomly and will receive an ebook copy of all the books below. Good luck!

Here are the incredible books for June’s Giveaway.

30 SECONDS by Chrys Fey
Blurb:
When Officer Blake Herro agreed to go undercover in the Mob, he thought he understood the risks. But he's made mistakes and now an innocent woman has become their target. He's determined to protect her at all costs.
The Mob's death threat turns Dr. Dani Hart's life upside down, but there is one danger she doesn’t anticipate. As she's dodging bullets, she's falling in love with Blake. With danger all around them, will she and Blake survive and have a happy ending, or will the Mob make good on their threat?

Ebook Formats Available: Mobi and PDF
Book Links: Amazon US /Amazon UK / NOOK / KOBO / Goodreads

Where to find Chrys Fey: Facebook / Blog / Website / Goodreads

SOUL CUTTER by Lexa Cain
Blurb:
The Soul Cutter is hunting again.
Seventeen-year-old Élan spends her free time videoing psychic scams and outing them online. Skepticism makes life safe—all the ghosts Élan encounters are fakes. When her estranged mother disappears from a film shoot in Egypt, Élan puts her medium-busting activities on hold and joins the search.
In Egypt, the superstitious film crew sucks at finding her mom. When a hotel guest is killed, whispers start—the locals think their legendary Soul Cutter has come back from the dead. Élan's only ally is Ramsey, a film-crew intern, but he’s arrogant, stubborn—and hiding dangerous secrets.
When Élan discovers the Soul Cutter is no scam, she finds herself locked in a deadly battle against a supernatural killer with more than her mother’s life at stake. Élan is fighting for her very soul.
Ebook Formats Available: Epub, Mobi, PDF
Book Links: AMAZON / AMAZON UK / KOBO / SMASHWORDS / BARNES&NOBLE / BOOKSTRAND / OMNILIT
Where to find Lexa Cain: Lexa's Blog / Facebook Author / GR-Author / GR-Book

POP TRAVEL by Tara Tyler
Blurb:
POP TRAVEL is the way to go! (at your own risk) In 2080, technology has gone too far for J.L. Cooper. He is happily hidden in his simple, secluded life as a private detective in a small town, far from any pop travel laser teleportation stations. Until he takes on a client who insists pop travel made his fiancé disappear. When Cooper investigates, he finds evidence of pop travel's deadly flaw, sparking a series of murders, attempts on his life, and threats to his brother. He'd like to pass off the evidence but knows he's being watched and can't trust anyone. And who would believe him? The only way he can save his brother is to fool his observers while looking for a way to expose the problem. He decides to go to the source and confront the Creator of pop travel. On his way, Cooper meets Southern siren, Geri Harper (an undercover FBI agent) who tags along despite his protests. When they reach the Creator, he has plans of his own and leads them on a wild detour.
Ebook Formats Available: Kindle, Nook, Kobo
Book Links: Amazon / B&N
Where to find Tara Tyler: Blog / Facebook / Goodreads

CLOAKED IN FUR by T.F. Walsh
Blurb:
Cloaked in Fur sees rebellious Daciana cast into a life-threatening adventure against her will to uncover who is killing her friends before the predator sets its sights on her.
She'll do whatever it takes to stop the creature responsible. The police and her boyfriend, Inspector Connell Lonescu, are starting to question her involvement in the murders, which endangers her pack's secret existence. But when her alpha kidnaps Connell, revealing the awful truth about the creature and its connection to the pack, Daciana must choose between saving the man she loves and saving her pack family from certain death.
Ebook Formats Available: Mobi, Epub
Book Links: Amazon / Amazon UK / Barnes and Noble / iTunes / Romance Books
Where to find T.F.Walsh: Website / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads / Amazon

OF BLOOD AND SORROW by Christine Rains
Blurb:
Erin Driscol works the perfect job consoling fellow demons by feeding off their grief at Putzkammer & Sons Funeral Home.
When fledgling vampire Nicolas Reese comes to Erin for help, she learns the truth behind the legends and hides him from his sire and the vampire hunters who seek him. But when the Putzkammers begin to die one by one, Erin is caught between her act of kindness and the need to save her adopted family. Only by facing her own personal demons can she stop the slaughter and still rescue Nicolas from his dark fate.
Ebook Formats Available: Mobi, Epub
Book Links: Amazon / B&N / Kobo / Smashwords
Where to find Christine Rains: Website / Blog / Facebook

For Foxy's other Freebies, go to the Freebie page.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

IWSG: Naming Characters, Places, Pets & Titles

When I'm working on a story, I sometimes have trouble naming the main characters. It has to be just the "right" name. Something unusual, but not too unusual. Something that suits the characterization, the time period, and the place.

Once I name the main characters, I relax and start to write.

Wait a minute! Hold on!

All of a sudden the character's friends, family, teachers and/or employers pop up in the story. What the heck are their names??

There are always a lot more supporting cast members than I realize.

Here are some sites that help me:

Character Names

Real Names and Meanings (International names):
Behind the Name (first names): http://www.behindthename.com/
Behind the Name (surnames): http://surnames.behindthename.com/

Popular Baby Names by Year:
Behind the Name: http://www.behindthename.com/top/
Social Security Admin: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/index.html

Rank of Names Across the Decades :
(What YOUR NAME would be if you were born in a different decade)
Time Magazine/US Culture: http://time.com/3856405/baby-name-popularity/
(I had a lot of fun with this one!)

Fantasy Name Generators:
http://rinkworks.com/namegen/
http://fantasy.namegeneratorfun.com/
http://www.namegeneratorfun.com/

Town Names

Name Generator (fantasy): http://www.namegenerator.biz/place-name-generator.php
Name Generator (real or fantasy): http://www.namegenerator2.com/town-name-generator.php
Writers Den: http://www.writers-den.pantomimepony.co.uk/writers-locations.php
RPG Tools: http://www.rpgtools.us/town.aspx

Pet Names

Vet Street (Dogs & Cats): http://www.vetstreet.com/our-pet-experts/top-10-trendiest-cat-and-dog-names
Pet Names (any species): http://www.petnames.net/popular-pet-names.html
Cherily: http://cherily.com/

Title for Book or Story

Book Title Generator:
http://www.kitt.net/php/title.php
http://www.mcoorlim.com/random.html
Author Fun (fiction, SF, Fantasy): http://selfpubauthors.com/2013/08/09/author-fun-random-title-generators/

Will Your Title Be a Bestseller?

Lulu Title scorer: http://www.lulu.com/titlescorer/index.php

This is a post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh. It exists so the community of blogging writers can share and support each other, blog-hopping to cheerlead and commiserate. To find out more, visit: Insecure Writer's Support Group. Plus, check out the IWSG Website for lots of helpful info and links.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Congratulations to the Winners!

Thanks so much to the 40 participants of the "My Favorite Vacation Spot" Blog Hop! I loved visiting each and every post and seeing what vacation spot stole your heart!

The Rafflecopter random select feature chose these 6 entrants to win the 6 books:

Midway: The Harvesting Series Book 1.5 by Melanie Karsak

Winner:

Nichol Tone

Cloaked in Fur by T.F. Walsh

Winner:

Shelly Hammond

Drowned Sorrow by Vanessa Morgan

Winner:

Laura Thomas

Benton (Vol. 1) by Jolie Du Pre

Winner:

bn100

Zombie Rapture by Stuart R. West

Winner:

Janet Boyanton

Soul Cutter by Lexa Cain

Winner:

Cheryl Massey

(The winners will receive an email from the authors shortly.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Author

Pages

Friday, June 26, 2015

Celebrate: Busy Muse & Giveaways!

Friday, June 19, 2015

Celebrate: New Co-host, Art Therapy & Big Giveaways

Friday, June 12, 2015

Celebrate: Bird Box Fangirling & Lots of Giveaways!

Friday, June 5, 2015

Celebrate: The Hard Part & T.B.Markinson's June Giveaway

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

IWSG: Naming Characters, Places, Pets & Titles

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Congratulations to the Winners!