Rose Marie Wolf, Author

Been a While

2009-11-01T23:20:00.002-05:00

I know I haven't posted in a while. I sometimes forget to post on my blogs when twitter and facebook are so darn convenient.

What's going on? Well, I am still pregnant...will be ten weeks this upcoming Tuesday. Hubby and I are excited, but I'm also scared. This is my first pregnancy and I'm worried about miscarriages and trying to do things right. I hope it all goes well because I really want to have this baby.

Writing's been slow, but it's November and that means National Novel Writing Month, which I am going to participate. As of today, the 1st, I haven't written a single word on my project. Not a good start, but my anniversary was last night and I'm just wanting to take it easy. Monday's always a good day to start a new project anyway.

Not 100% sure what I'm going to write about. I think I might just write off the top of my head this time instead of plotting. I'm wondering what will come out.

Our new puppy, Ranger, had his first vet visit Friday. He has mange, which is bad, but treatable. Vet says he must've got it from another dog, and we've only had him for a month, and he was all scabby and itchy when we first got him, so we concluded that he must've gotten it from the dogs he was around then. I thought he was just irritated from fleas, but then he started losing big patches of hair. He has to be washed in a special shampoo and was given medicine for the itching and to get rid of the mange. Also, he has to take an antibiotic every day. Poor guy. I'm a bad pet owner. I should've taken him sooner.

Glad I'm on vacation from work. It seems to get harder and harder to make myself get out of bed and go to work, but I have to do it...Nausea seems to hit me right about 10 or 11 am. Sometiems it hits at night. Annoying, but I haven't gotten to the point where I have to rush to the bathroom to upchuck.

Changed is out in e-book now! Whoo!

Anyway, I'm heading off. Happy Late Halloween everyone and have a good week.

Interview and A Contest

2009-10-12T17:38:00.002-04:00

I did an interview with blogger Ruthie and there's a contest as well!

http://ruthiesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2009/10/interview-giveaway-with-rose-marie-wolf.html

Feel free to comment about the interview and enter the contest.

Well It's True...

2009-10-07T17:40:00.002-04:00

Went to the dr today and they confirmed it. I am pregnant. I am six weeks along.

I go next week for my first prenatal exam. I hope it all goes well.

What's Going On

2009-09-30T16:02:00.002-04:00

Well, not much is going on on the writing front, but personally...yeah...

Sunday, I took a home pregnancy test when I realized oh, wait, I was supposed to be all pms'y and I wasn't...two pink lines that mean positive.

So, made an appointment for next Tuesday to confirm the results.

I'm excited, but scared at the same time.

Another Week

2009-09-20T20:55:00.002-04:00

This week was a little rough. Work sucked, more so than usual and for some reason or another, my leg's been hurting.

I haven't written a single word on any of my stories in about a week. it's been a struggle for me just to think about writing, much less do it.

Hopefully, after a couple days off, I'll feel better and I'll get some writing done. NaNoWriMo's coming up and I want to finish my current WIP so i can get ready for it.

Website Updates

2009-09-14T23:38:00.002-04:00

I updated my website today.

www.rosemariewolf.com

Among the new updates: new reviews and a release date for Changed.

Hopefully I will be updating it soon with Part Four of my short story Moon Over Me.

Author's Day, and Other Stuff

2009-09-01T09:24:00.002-04:00

It's Author's Day today on my Yahoo Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rosemariewolf) Authors and readers are invited to join and post promos, excerpts and chat about books. There is also a contest in which participants can join in to win a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

On to the other things, writing is going well. I try to average about a 1000 words a night. I really want to finish this book before Nov. I want to participate in NaNoWriMo again, and if I get this book finished, I can started on the next one in the series. I'm up to chapter fourteen so far, and at my estimate, a little bit more than halfway through the book. There are a lot of things I'm not happy with in the writing so far, but my goal is just to do the 1st draft, and worry about editing later.

I had a weird dream about my cousin last night. He killed himself back in June, and in my dream, he was still around...but he wasn't alive. He was a ghost or something. I remember I'm sitting at at table with him, his mom and dad, and we're just all talking. He's telling me that he knows what he did was stupid but that he's happy now, to which I answered "I don't believe you." He just gives me this look.

I honestly don't know what to make of it.

One last thing, did anyone ever see the Tin Man miniseries on Sci-fi? I rented it from Netflix. I get the allusions to the Wizard of Oz, but it's so much more than that...and frankly, a little confusing at times.

The Moon Series @ Amazon.com

2009-08-23T14:16:00.003-04:00

The Moon Series

By Rose Marie Wolf

Sweet Moon Dreams, Book 1 of the Moon Series

Blurb:

A werewolf from birth, Rose Sullivan has had to deal with her share of secretive living in order to preserve her own life, but things have gone too far. She is wrongly accused of homicide, and a hunter by the name of Marcus Brown has found her out. When cornered she has no choice but to kill him.

It was self-defense, but Rose has endangered all of her kind. Now, she is on the run, desperately trying to reach the home of her fiancé and fellow werewolf, Jason Barnett. Being the supportive mate he is, Jason vows to do anything to keep Rose safe, even if it means dealing with the rest of the hunters face-to-face...

Blood Moon, Book 2 of the Moon Series

Blurb:

Werewolf hunter, Simon Conner, thinks he has finally won. After a successful raid upon a safe haven for psychics, vampires and werewolves, he has come closer to his final goal than ever before. Rose Sullivan, a werewolf, is the key to unleashing his terrible plot and she is finally within his grasp.

Having witnessed Simon’s terrible anger upon her mate in the raid, Rose believes him dead and has lost all hope. At the mercy of her captors, Rose learns the secret of Simon's plans. Horrified, she realizes her only chance of freedom is to put her trust into human hands.

Jason Barnett, a half-blood werewolf, awakens to find his mate gone, in the clutches of the very man that left him for dead. Enraged, he vows to find Rose and destroy Simon once and for all. On his journey of revenge, he encounters fellow werewolves, banded together in their fight for survival and together they uncover more about Simon than they ever wanted to know.

Hunter's Moon, Book 3 of the Moon Series

Blurb:

Jason and Rose Barnett believed hunter Simon Connor to be dead and gone. But Jason continues to have strange dreams, which reveal something that could destroy the Paranormal Research and Development Institute and tear relationships apart.

Jason becomes a vigilante, fueled by his growing psychic powers that tell him something—or someone—is still out there. Rose, no longer able to stand by while her mate destroys their lives, begins her own struggle to save what little relationship they have left, before it’s too late.

Then the unthinkable happens. A stunning eye-opener and an unexpected attack once again threaten their existence, and the rift between Jason and Rose becomes irreparable as their tumultuous past once again surfaces and their future becomes increasingly bleak.

Dark Moon Magick, Book 4 of the Moon Series

Blurb:

Werewolf Rose Barnett has a serious problem: She's pregnant and unsure who the father of her child is. To make matters worse, her husband, Jason, is gone, unknowing that she is even carrying a child and a new werewolf arrival to the PRDI brings a wave of unexplained "accidents", that threaten her and her unborn child...

As Rose's pack bands together to uncover the truth behind the accidents and keep her safe, Jason works ceaselessly to find out the truth behind his growing psychic abilities. When an unexpected psychic call for help leads him to a research facility, Jason meets a strange woman who may be the key to discovering his true self. But before he can return home with his findings, he must stop a new threat before it is too late for them all.

A Few Things

2009-08-05T16:12:00.000-04:00

First off, no luck on chapter 12 or 13. Guess I'm not in a writing mood lately.

Updated my website today. www.rosemariewolf.com. Updated a few things and added a few new links, like to Twitter.

Speaking of, http://www.twitter.com/RoseMarieWolf

Also, if any of you use PaperBack Swap, I'm a member there. I've got quite a few books I'm trying to swap, so if anyone of you is a member as well, and interested, check me out at http://rosemariewolf.paperbackswap.com

Well, I guess that's all for now. Think I might do a little reading.

Half-way There

2009-07-27T11:35:00.001-04:00

I think I'm about halfway there with my WIP.

I only plan on having twenty chapters for my book...but it might change, depending on what happens, but the story is falling into place. Well, more or less. There are some parts that are running slow, but I can edit that, cut some stuff out later or whatever.

So, yeah, I just started chapter eleven today, so I'm halfway there.

Now, I need to finish 3000 words for today.

Writings Going Okay

2009-07-14T22:37:00.002-04:00

I finally got back into the groove, so the writing thing's going pretty okay. At least I'm meeting my goals, more or less.

I admit, I did skip some days, but you try working at Wal-Mart all day, then trying to write in the evening on top of every day household stuff. It's not easy. I think I prefer writing on my days off. I just kind of save up my daily quotas, add them all together, and then try to write that, plus extra.

My main concern right now is that my story is moving slowly. I know I will eventually cut a lot of it, but I'm nowhere near where I want to be, plotwise.

Oh well, that's what the editing process is for.

So Far, So Good

2009-07-07T20:46:00.001-04:00

I'm getting back into the writing thing.

500 words a day. I can easily manage that. By mid-late September, I should have my current WIP finished.

If I start falling off track, someone smack me.

Guest Blog Hiatus

2009-07-01T12:32:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone.

I've decided, with all the things that have been going on in my personal life, I am going to be suspending my guest blogs for a while. I am going on hiatus. I hope by January things will be straightened out and I can once again invite authors to join me on my blog.

Thanks for everything.

Happy Reading!

Yeah, I Know

2009-06-30T00:06:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I posted anything. Guess I haven't really felt much like blogging this past month.

But, things are looking a little bit better. Still sad somedays, other days not so much.

As for writing, I've pretty much given up on it this month. Too much going on to really sit down and write. Maybe July will be better.

Going Away

2009-06-19T00:22:00.001-04:00

I will be visiting my family in Kentucky this weekend, so I will be away. I won't be checking blogs and groups, but I will be checking email. If any of ya'll need me, I'm just an email away.

I'll be back Monday.

Later!

This Can't Be Happening

2009-06-09T21:43:00.000-04:00

I'm tired of death. Just found out my cousin shot and killed himself this morning. We were close growing up, real close.

GUEST BLOGGER: Pam Champagne

2009-06-02T08:00:00.000-04:00

My guest blogger this week is Pam Champagne! Please give her a warm welcome.

***

She’ll make him finish what he started—if they live through the night.
About a year ago during one of my random marathon cleanings, I found the journal I faithfully kept during my road trip from Maine to Alaska. Driving a GMC 250 with a camper riding piggyback and towing a Wells Fargo trailer, my husband and I drove to Alaska with full intentions to live there. Reading my entries brought back wonderful memories, and I also stumbled across the idea for Alaskan Heat hidden within its pages. The eighteen hundred miles of ALCAN (Alaskan/Canadian Highway) remains the highlight of my Alaskan experience. As I wrote Hawk and Sophie’s tale, other plots and characters popped in my head, so don’t be surprised to see more novellas with a similar setting.

At a campground in British Columbia one evening, I ventured to the Beta pool at Liard Hot Springs by myself, ever so conscious of the danger of bears. Swimming into that hot water put me in heaven. I’ll never forget it and want to experience it again some day. The isolation of the pool added to my enjoyment. The 700 meter depth made me wonder what might be lurking beneath the hot water.

We didn’t settle in Alaska. After the summer we drove the 5,000 miles back to Maine. We’d planned to buy something on 50 acres close enough to a city to find work. Not a possibility, as we discovered. Here we are back in Maine where we found exactly what we sought, proving the grass isn’t always greener…

Paperback Swap

2009-05-30T00:53:00.003-04:00

Hey guys,

I'm over at Paperback Swap. http://rosemariewolf.paperbackswap.com

I like this site. I'm trying to get rid of some books, so if you're a member, check it out.

Later.

P.S. I'm feeling better now. Thanks for the condolences and comments everyone

RIP Spike

2009-05-27T22:12:00.003-04:00

Not three weeks after we buried Lucky, our cat Spike, gets hit by a van.

Yeah, Cindy was walking Princess and Spike was going too...something he never EVER does. This dumbass in a van was driving like he's in the fucking INDY 500. Cindy goes to grab Spike as he dashes out and the van hits him. Guy doesn't stop. He just keeps on going. And he had to have seen them.

I'm more pissed off than anything. Spike was the sweetest cat ever.

Why do these things have to happen?

Dark Moon Magick, In PRINT!

2009-05-27T18:42:00.001-04:00

Dark Moon Magick, Book Four of the Moon Series is available in print from Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Moon-Magick-Book-4/dp/1604359536/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

:-)

Go see!

Here's The Thing

2009-05-27T05:04:00.001-04:00

I can't sleep. I've been worrying about a lot of things lately. Like my dad for example. It's been hell. Writing sucks. Work sucks more. I feel like I'm sinking into a hole that I can't climb out of. I don't know what to do.

That, and I feel a bit drunk.

Oh well. What can a girl do?

GUEST BLOGGER: Amber Leigh Williams

2009-05-26T12:53:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone. Today my guest blogger is Amber Leigh Williams!

***

I always knew I would write about Fairhope, Alabama. My hometown is as pretty as they come. Founded on the picturesque Eastern Shore of the Mobile Bay and only a hop, skip, and jump from the white sands of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, a group called The Utopians set out to create “a town with a purpose.” It is now a lush and quiet haven for retirees and starters alike. It’s renowned for its nurturing of the arts. In fact, Fairhope is a nesting ground for writers the likes of Fannie Flagg, Sonny Brewer, W.E.B. Griffin, and Winston Groom. Events like the Art Walk, Jazz Festival, and the annual Arts & Crafts Festival draw artists and visitors from as far as Canada.

Until I sat down to write A Summer’s Hope, the first book in my Fairhope series, I realized I’d never written about a place I’ve been completely immersed in and love deeply—so deeply it’s a part of me. In Fox & Hound, the descriptions of the Louvre were based on virtual tours and pictures from websites sprinkled with a few nifty imaginings of my own to help my jewel thieves get in and out without detection. Same with Denied Origin—the Sistine Chapel and the Taj Mahal scenes were researched to the nth degree yet I threw in secret doors and creepy catacombs. Yet A Summer’s Hope was different. I knew my descriptions of Fairhope had to be dead-on. How do you describe a place so vivid? How do you pen to paper a place that simply breathes peace?

An answer came from Fannie Flagg herself in the book Fairhope by Cathy Donelson: “Although I’ve done my best to describe it, the truth is, Fairhope is really a state of mind and cannot be explained by using mere words. It must be felt.” On brainstorming drives, I’d wind up sitting on Fairhope’s most enduring landmark, the Pier, facing the bluff where I planned to build my heroine’s B&B, Hanna’s Inn. Upon my return home, my lost and haunted hero, Cole, solved everything with the following observation:

The Fairhope pier was empty but for the early-morning fishermen who reclined in beach chairs and dozed as their lines drooped over the railing and down into the shallow bay water below. The only sound was that of pelicans doing their far-from-graceful dive for breakfast or the heavy splash of crab nets hitting the water. The bells of buoys could be heard over the lull of silence as well as the lap of water against the boats harbored by Yardarm, the pier’s only business—a seafood restaurant—midway down the historic pier. Part of Fairhope’s most enduring residential park, it had survived numerous hurricane forces and modern industrialization.

As he sat drinking coffee inside the long-standing restaurant, his eyes were not on the sailboats that well-to-do hobbyists had taken out early or the pelicans that swooped into view. His eyes were on a building in the distance. About a quarter of a mile south of the pier on a high, grassy ridge stood Hanna’s Inn.

The inn was built much like a waterside Tara with white, wooden walls and regal columns gracing the bayside façade. A private pier, sundeck, and boathouse were alluring benefits—not to mention the long, green sweep of landscaped lawn. It was as charming as it was striking, one of many decades-old, southern-style houses travelers admired.
From the distance, it was all its promotional brochure promised: a serene getaway. Forget the world, it had coaxed. That was what he was counting on.

Serene getaway. Blissful escape. It summed up my hometown to a t!
So plan your getaway, forget the world, and book your escape at Hanna’s Inn. Let Briar make you feel welcome and let Cole charm you to your toes. Forget the world with the release of A Summer’s Hope on May 27, available in e-book and print!

Amber Leigh Williams
http://www.amberleighwilliams.com/
Romance Across the Genres
Anytime! Anyplace! Anywhere!

Twitter

2009-05-22T11:24:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know I don't need another social site, but I couldn't resist.

http://www.twitter.com/RoseMarieWolf

GUEST BLOGGER: Helen Madden

2009-05-19T18:56:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone! Here's my guest blogger for this week, Helen Madden! I apologize as this was supposed to be up earlier today. I totally flaked!

Without further ado, here is Helen's post on podcasting!

***

What Podcasting Can Do For Writers

Guest blog post by Helen E. H. Madden

Thank you Rose Marie for giving me the opportunity to blog here today! When I first approached Rosemary about writing a blog post for her site, she told me she was looking for articles on anything related to writing or publishing. Well, I write every day, and I've got two books published, but there's a special little project I've been working on for almost two years that has really made my career.

Back in the spring of 2007, I was a writer no one had ever heard of. I had a handful of published stories to my name and one novel that had just been contracted to an e-publisher, but I was still a complete newcomer to the world of "published author". I was at that point in my career where I knew I could write and write well enough to get published. But with the new contract on the book, I was suddenly faced with a problem.

How could I get people to buy my book?

I didn't think of it in those terms at the time. It was more, "Yay! I published a book! Uh, now what?"

"Now what" turned out to be marketing said book. We all know that every author, published or unpublished, ought to have a marketing plan, a way to tell people you've just written the most wonderful book ever and then get those same people to BUY THAT BOOK! And we're all familiar with the most popular ways to market a book -- Yahoo groups, blogging, guest blogging, contests, reviews! We join FaceBook and MySpace and Twitter to connect with potential readers, and we work our butts off to get the word out about our books. But pretty soon all that marketing becomes so much work that pretty soon it starts to interfere with what we writers truly want to do, and that's write!

As a stay-at-home mom with two small children, I'm very conscious of how little time I have each day to write. Marketing my first novel cut that time in half. I spent so much time on Yahoo groups and in chats, trying to lure readers into buying my book. Meanwhile, stories I wanted to write languished in my ideas notebook because I didn't have time to do anything with them. Less writing of course meant less to offer to the audience of readers I was trying to grow. I needed free reads! I needed to get into anthologies! I needed to feed my audience! But I couldn't seem to write and promote at the same time.

Enter podcasting. For those of you not familiar with the term, a podcast is a way of delivering content to subscribers via RSS feed. It's a lot like a blog, only with audio or video added to it. People subscribe to the RSS feed, using a program like iTunes or iPodder, and can then downloads the media file straight to their computer. From there, the files can go on an iPod or other multimedia player to be enjoyed at any time.

That's a lot of techno-babble, I know. So think of it in these terms. Podcasts are like radio or TV shows that people can subscribe to and watch whenever they want. You, the author, create the show, and audiences sign up to get it.

Podcasting completely changed my marketing plan. As soon as I realized what I could do with podcasting, I came up with an idea for a show. I would write a new short story every week, record it, and upload it to a website with an RSS feed. I let a few people know the show was out there, and they subscribed to the RSS feed to listen. The show was free, so it wasn't hard to get those first few listeners. And when those listeners decided they liked the show, they told other people, who also signed up. And when those people liked the show, they told others, who signed up and told others, etc., etc., etc.

It was like killing two birds with one stone. I wasn't getting paid for these new stories I was writing, but in just a few months, I had 200 subscribers. That was 200 people who I knew wanted to hear my stories. Now, nearly two years and 91 stories later, I get close to 2000 downloads a month!

It sounds crazy, right? I've given
away 91 storiesand didn't make a cent off of any of them! But think about it. That also means I **wrote** 91 stories in the last two years. And people are **listening** to those stories. And they're sending me e-mails saying how much they like those stories. And now that my second book, Future Perfect, is out, I'm starting to get e-mails from those same people saying how much they enjoy the book! I'm no longer the author no one's ever heard of before. I'm Helen E. H. Madden, writer and producer of the popular Heat Flash Erotica Podcast! Best of all, I've already got a publisher interested in putting out a collection of the first 100 stories from my show... in e-book AND in print.

It's been a lot of work, keeping up with writing and recording a new story every week. I still have to spend some time promoting the podcast, but not nearly as much as I did trying to promote my first book. Podcasts are viral. Once you set them loose on the internet, they have a way of getting around and promoting themselves and the authors behind them. If you're looking for a new way to promote yourself and get some writing done, consider podcasting! But be forewarned. Once you start, you may suddenly find yourself the proud author of a popular new show. And Heaven only knows what that will do for your writing career!

Links for Helen E. H. Madden
The Heat Flash Erotica Podcast - http://www.heatflash.libsyn.com
Future Perfect: A Collection of Fantastic Erotica - http://www.logical-lust.com/futureperfect.html
Writing website - http://www.helenehmadden.com
The Adventures Of Cynical Woman - http://www.theadventuresofcynicalwoman.blogspot.com

GUEST BLOGGER: Janis Susan May

2009-05-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

My guest blogger this week is Janis Susan May. Please give her a big welcome!

***

Notes from a Sub-divided Psyche, or a Rose by Any Other Name…

Mention a major author’s name and it’s almost like naming their genre. Grisham – legal thrillers. King – horror/thriller. Koontz the same. Christie – mystery. Patterson – mystery/thriller. Brennan – romantic thriller. Roberts – romance. The list goes on. To be taken without prejudice in another genre, most authors have decided to take another name and persona for that genre to avoid disappointing/confusing their established readership. It’s called branding.

Not that I am anywhere near being a major author, but if I have to take a pseudonym for every genre I write… Ack! I don’t know if there are that many names!

The simple truth is that I get bored writing the same genre all the time, and if the writer is bored, you can bet the reader will be too. Not good, and something I have tried most assiduously to avoid, both for the reader’s sake as well as my own.

For example, novels of mine available now are THE FAIR AMAZON (just released this week) and SECOND CHANCE, both traditional English Regency romances from Awe-Struck Ebooks. PASSION’S CHOICE, a sensual time-travel romance set in Ancient Egypt, and THE OTHER HALF OF YOUR HEART, a contemporary romantic mystery adventure set in my old home town of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, both available from Red Rose Publishing. DARK MUSIC and ECHOES IN THE DARK, two traditional gothic suspenses set in the 1960s from Vintage Romance Publishing. And lastly, what is probably the book of my heart, a memoir written in a postmortem collaboration with my late mother called THE LAND OF HEART’S DELIGHT, published by Swimming Kangaroo Books.

I think that’s all.

Oh, and I have a children’s book coming out (as of now) in January or February of 2010 called DANNY AND THE DUST BUNNIES. For once my bad housekeeping came in handy!

About all I’ve missed is straight horror and straight mystery, but I’ve written both and am currently shopping them around.

While I admire those who can write one genre consistently, I don’t see how they do it. I won’t even attempt it. Simply keeping track of their pseudonyms and attendant personalities must be a fairly full-time job! I’ll just keep using Janis Susan May for everything and worry about using another name when I get rich and famous.

With one exception. My husband is a big mystery buff, so I’ve decided for several reasons that when I start selling in straight mystery I’ll use the name Janis Patterson. It will honor him… and, with any luck at all, it will get me shelved next to James Patterson! You’re known by the company you keep.