Category: The Blog

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

What, you don’t believe me when I say I’m losing my mind? (Triple Book Giveaway this week, comment to be entered)

Last night, Middle Monster threw up in her bed. No, she doesn’t have the flu. No, I don’t believe she was sick. She’d been rewarded with the chance to stay up 15 minutes later than her sisters, but when she went to bed, they were already asleep. It was storming, thunder and lightning. And big mean Mom and Dad wouldn’t let her sleep in their room. So she threw up on her bed. Solved that problem, didn’t she? Of course by the time I stripped the bed and got her clean clothes, all three girls ended up in Mom and Dad’s room. Yippee.

On the bright side, the Shadowed Blood came to pay me a visit in dreams last night. Oh, dear. It was quite a gruesome, terrible, bloody nightmare. I was so excited I got nearly 1400 words this morning D&E before work. That’s the most I’ve written in one sitting for quite a while…

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

This week the monsters are on spring break and I’ve already lost my mind!!! So I’m giving away a triple header:

1. Your choice of one download from my backlist: Survive My Fire, The Fire Within, The Rose of Shanhasson
2. Off Limits by Jordan Summers
3. My Immortal Protector by Jen Holling

I’ll e-mail your e-book choice to you immediately, and then snail mail the other two books to you. To enter, comment on this or any entry throughout this week through Friday, March 21st, midnight CST. The more you comment, the more times I’ll enter your name in the magic hat. If you don’t want to comment on the blog, you may also e-mail me once at joely AT joelysueburkhart DOT com to enter. Anybody on the planet is eligible, even if you’ve won something from me in the past. Note that I do not retain your name or e-mail address after the giveaway ends.

Edited: The Winner will be announced Saturday, March 22.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I received a shipment from VistaPrint and WHOA they look incredible! I have bookmarks for both The Fire Within and The Rose of Shanhasson, as well as oversized postcards of each cover. If you’d like any for yourself or to distribute, drop me a line at joely AT joelysueburkhart DOT com and I’ll be happy to mail you some!

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I haven’t done a snippet of the novella, The Fire Within, for quite a while, so I thought I’d share a little dream sequence. Dreams aren’t just simple sleepy-time visions in this world, as you will see. Darius is the High King of Shanhasson, the throne stolen from the legitimate blood line through murder and treachery. His sister, Eleni, talked him into letting her travel to Keldar to seek allies, where she plans to escape. War approaches Shanhasson, and Darius is desperate enough for more troops that he allows Eleni to flee. She’s never far from his influence, not when he can walk in her dreams with his dark power. She seeks sanctuary with Zahak and/or his brother, the leader of his tribe.

She walked on blood-red sands swept across a blasted land riddled with ravines. A full moon blazed down in the velvet sky, lighting the strange landscape. Ahead, a twisted black Spire pierced the sky. She wanted to run as far away from that Spire as possible, but it sucked her ever closer, her feet heavy and dragging through the sand.

Something in her blood stirred at the sight of that dull-black rock, like worms wriggling in a corpse.

At that thought, Darius appeared, walking across the cracked ground as though he were emperor of the world. She waited for the familiar flood of adrenaline, the rushing of blood in her ears, the vicious clenching of her stomach. Yet all she felt was a spreading warmth in her veins.

Tea. Fire Tea.

Keldar is a hard land.

She remembered Zahak, the feel of his arms sliding around her as she fell. The raw silk scent of his skin, dust and spice and sweat and man. He

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Krista asked about my “had” hatred and what that entailed.

About 3 years ago or so, I stumbled across something Miss Snark said about hating “hads.” I believe it was one of her Crap-o-Meters and how she hated all of the “backstory” up front, but somehow that hatred of poor “had” lodged into my brain and didn’t want to come out. I stripped nearly all the past perfect verb tenses out of my writing. Even though I knew it technically wasn’t the right tense, it was something my brain started doing as I wrote (not something I edited out later).

Now, I’m trying to break that habit and write any little introspection of the past or mini-flash-back of past history in the correct past perfect tense FIRST so I don’t have to go back through and add all those pesky hads. It’s been an amazingly hard bad habit to break.

For example, this is a little snippet from Beautiful Death before I fixed it:

As if it were yesterday, she saw her sister slung over an alien

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I’m feeling a bit scatter-brained this month, this week. The revisions to Letters still aren’t finished. I’ve written about 5K on Gregar’s book, which is good, but not as much as I wanted. Now I’m switching gears entirely to prep Beautiful Death for editor revisions.

Why? Well, you see, I had this small hatred of “had” for a long time, which Deena has patiently pointed out to me through the past 3 books. BD was written back in 2005/2006, so to say that I’ve learned a thing or two in the past years is an understatement. No sense in the editor wasting a ton of time fixing something I already know needs to be fixed.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Beautiful Death after being gone from it so long. It’s my rebellion child. It dragged me kicking and screaming to Olympus, just as Isabella and Hades both were betrayed and taken to face Zeus in the end. I had to get MAD to finish it. Mad at myself, mad at the world. In the end, I loved this book, because it helped me finish. If I hadn’t finished… If I’d quit a book again…

I really don’t know that I’d be here now.

So in many ways, BD saved me as a writer. It was my answer in the darkest moment of my journey to-date. So far, revising it has been like seeing an old acquaintance to whom a great debt is owed, and I’m feeling a little awkward and unsure how I can help it when it helped me so much. I’m starting with those “hads.” We’ll see what else needs gentle smoothing.

We had a horrid personal squick day yesterday with Littlest Monster. Let me just say that I’m still washing everything in the house and I seriously contemplated dragging out all the beds and furniture and just torching it.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Yay, the first review! Liz DeJesus attended the Drollerie Press chat on Sunday and won a free copy of The Fire Within. Her full review is here, but this was my favorite part:

I read this book in one sitting. I couldn’t stop reading it.

Thank you, Liz!

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Deena worked incredibly hard to get this fantastic cover. I love it! Please join us for a chat today at 4 PM Eastern here (link will be in the right-hand sidebar).

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Come chat today at Drollerie Press to celebrate the release of The Rose of Shanhasson and The Fire Within, 4 PM Eastern. The link to the chat room will be on this page.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I have the BEST FAMILY.

My beloved Sister, Papa from Mexico, Aunt BB and Uncle J came over today to help me celebrate the release of The Rose of Shanhasson. I made Settler’s Beans (with splenda brown sugar and drained all the fat off I could), Spinach Salad (with light sour cream and light mayonaise), potato salad (light mayonaise)—-and nobody noticed it was healthier than usual! We also had steak, delicious home-raised beef that Papa brought. I baked homemade bread and Aunt Molly brought cookies which I’m going to treat myself to one tonight.

We talked and talked and talked. We drank a couple of gallons of coffee. I had time for girl talk with BB and Molly and promised a trip to Sally’s Beauty Supply next Friday with BB and a trip this spring to introduce her to Papa’s horses. I forgot to tell Molly this, but I plan to come see her in Joplin too.

We topped the night off with a bottle of champagne and lots of wonderful words and support from three of my biggest fans: Papa, Molly and Aunt BB. I love you guys.