Tag: A. Catherine Noon

  • Step Into the Mists with Me

    Join me today at Beyond the Veil and step into the mists of history.  Find out what an Irish-American Marine vet and a Daughter of the American Revolution have in common.  History.  It gets personal.

  • Join the Tauruses for Tiger Tiger and NaNoWriMo

    Join me today at the Noon and Wilder blog, Taurus and Taurus.  We have an update on TIGER TIGER and the editing process, as well as some NaNoWriMo conversation.  Stop by!

  • Sunday Box Talk: The Next Big Thing

    For today’s offering of Sunday Box Talk, I offer you the Next Big Thing, an event where participating authors share their insights on their current in-progress novel. My agent provocatrix is Meg Allison, fellow author at Beyond the Veil and \”wife, mom, and published romance writer\” (love her tag line, don’t you?).

    I know talking about my favorite subject, my writing, isn’t exactly about the boxes of life, but here’s how I’m thinking of it: my life centers around my writing and my family or home. I think ruminating on that for a while is a useful exercise when we’re thinking about our boxes and why they’re there.

    So, without further ado, here are my Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing. Stay tuned at the bottom for links to some other participants in this event.

    TNBT: What is your working title of your book?

    Noony:  Our next book is called BOUND BY FIRE.

    TNBT:  Where did the idea come from for the book?

    Noony:  I was at my coauthor Rachel’s house and we were talking late one night. She has a print over her desk of a dragon at the portcullis of a castle and he is talking to a castle denizen. Of course, the assumption is the dragon’s there to eat the occupants, but I got to thinking, what if the dragon were an ally?

    TNBT:  What genre does your book fall under?

    Noony:  Fantasy M/M romance.

    TNBT:  Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

    Noony:  We actually selected models to play the two main characters, and use a lovely site called Beautiful. It’s a labor of love by two men in Europe and is one of the most professional sites on the internet for erotic male photography. If you haven’t checked it out, take a visit (not work safe and make sure you’re over 18).

    TNBT:  What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

    Noony:  Gosh. Good question! I always find these exercises tough. We struggle over the blurb for the books we write and I hope, someday, they’ll get easier. Let’s see what I can come up with for now:

    Will Vanya, apprentice to an unscrupulous sorcerer, be able to free himself from a powerful binding with an elemental or will he become bait for a dragon?

    TNBT:  Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

    Noony:  Neither. We are targeting a specific house for this one, but we do not use an agency right now.

    TNBT:  How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

    Noony:  Not very long; the first draft only took a month or two. The challenging part has been the ending and bridges in the middle. I’m finding the endings are the most challenging part of any project.

    TNBT:  What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

    Noony:  Some of the elements of the MYTH ADVENTURES series by Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye influenced us, as well as the early Harlequin white-covers where the romance is between two people brought together by arrangement.

    TNBT:  Who or what inspired you to write this book?

    Noony:  My inspiration comes from many different places, especially my coauthor Rachel Wilder and the crew of Writer Zen Garden. I love you guys.

    TNBT:  What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

    Noony:  There are snakes, and bears, and sorcerers, and dragons. What more could you want? Oh, yes. The smut. Lots of lovely smex.

    Be sure to check out some of the other participants in the Next Big Thing:

    Kimberley Troutte’s Blog

    Selena Robins Musings

  • The Power of Gratitude

    Wonder how to utilize the power of gratitude?

    So glad you asked!  I have just the thing for you.  Join me at Torquere Press\’s Blog, Romance for the Rest of Us, for my take on how to harness the power of gratitude.

  • The Influence of History

    Join me today at one of my team blogs, LGBT Fantasy Fans and Writers.  Our theme this month is \”Where We Come From: the Influence of Our History, Either Immediate or Long-Gone\”, and I share a personal take on the idea of history. Enjoy!

  • Contests, and How They Help Your Writing – A Conversation with Kimberley Troutte

    My friend Kimberley Troutte is up for several awards – congratulations, Kimberley!  I got to thinking, why would an author want to work on contests?  Does it help their writing process?  I mean, obviously it\’s awesome to get the recognition, but how does it fit into all the other stuff that helps us write and publish and do all the stuff we\’re supposed to do?

    Then it hit me – ask someone who\’s done some contests!  Derp!

    And she didn\’t even laugh when I asked to interview her.  Real peach, this one is.  Just don\’t tell her I said that, or I might blush.

    Come on over to the Writer\’s Retreat with me and join me as I talk to Kimberley about all the stuff you\’ve ever wanted to know about contests, but were afraid to ask.

  • Leather and Love – How Romance Helps Stamp Out Hate

    Welcome to the 2012 Torquere Press Charity Sip Blog Hop, to benefit the NOH8 Campaign.  Be sure to visit the other participating authors in the hope this weekend, Friday November 9th through Sunday November 11th.  Torquere will be giving away a grand prize of a $50.00 Gift Certificate to the Torquere Books!

    You can click on the Charity Sip image to return to the Torquere Press Blog and the other hop participants.  Remember to give some love to the authors in the comments.  We love to know you\’re out there!  We are grateful to your support and readership.  Together, we do make a difference.

    Our theme this year is \”Leather and Love – How Romance Helps Stamp Out Hate.\”  When I started to write this post, the election hadn\’t happened yet and the world seems different to me a few days later.  We received some sobering news about a death in the family and it\’s rocked all of us.  I decided to share my thoughts, rather than write the upbeat post I originally planned, because I think it behooves us every-so-often to stop and remember what we are all one.  Hatred solves nothing.

    Romance warms our hearts and sends our pulses racing.  It can cross borders and cultures, as in the classic romance between Romeo and Juliet.  Going back into antiquity, we have Helen of Troy, whose face launched a thousand ships and changed the face of the ancient world.  Can we really doubt the fundamental nature of romance when such things are its fruit?

    I don\’t have the words in me to express myself adequately in the wake of this week\’s events.  I think I\’ll leave it up to the great Bard himself, whose own words surpass my keyboard even on a good day.  What I do hope to leave you with, though, is the sure knowledge that love is the deepest power on earth and it can truly change the world.

    Sonnet 81
    by William Shakespeare

    Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
    Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
    From hence your memory death cannot take,
    Although in me each part will be forgotten.
    Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
    Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
    The earth can yield me but a common grave,
    When you entombed in men\’s eyes shall lie.
    Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
    Which eyes not yet created shall o\’er-read;
    And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
    When all the breathers of this world are dead;
      You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,
      Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

    Welcome, my friends, and may you take joy with you today.

    ___________

    Check out \”Taking a Chance\”, part of the Charity Sips 2012 to benefit NOH8, available from Torquere Books.
    Check out EMERALD FIRE, available from Torquere Books.
    My links: Blog | Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | LinkedIn | Pandora
    Knoontime Knitting: Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Ravelry
    Noon and Wilder links: Blog | Website | Facebook
    Team Blogs: Nightlight | The Writers Retreat Blog | Beyond the Veil | LGBT Fantasy Fans and Writers

  • A Crazy Little Thing Called NaNo…

    It\’s that time of year again.  November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short.  All over the world, writers of all ages and genres participate in a mad dash to the finish line.  The objective?  Write 50,000 words, or more, on a novel draft.  It\’s that simple.  It\’s like a marathon, really.  After all, what\’s a marathon but running a bloody long way without stopping?  Same idea.  (Same bloody, too.)

    I write my NaNo words on my laptop or my AlphaSmart 2000.  I have two of the latter, having worn one out.  I prefer my first one, actually, since the space bar on my second one is a little jellied.  We\’ll see if we can fix that.  I haven\’t downloaded my words from Thursday and Friday yet, but I wrote a bunch yesterday so I counted that.  It\’s funny, though, NaNo will only let you count the days you enter words, so my count looks like this:

    That\’s okay, though.  The point is to accumulate words, not please widgets.

    We also have word wars.  I\’m part of ChiWriMo, or the Chicagoland Region.  (Don\’t bother looking on a map for the \”Chicagoland,\” it\’s what locals call the metro area that includes the city of Chicago but also the collar communities.  Some include four counties, some seven.  We\’re an inclusive people, we Chicagoans.)  Our official word war is with Glasgow, Scotland.  The Glaswegians think they\’ll win this year, but I have my doubts.  ~throws down imaginary gauntlet in Scotland\’s general direction, ignoring the fact that there\’s about 1,500 miles of land and an ocean between us – writers are, as all readers know, imaginative beasts~

    What do you have to lose?  Only your skepticism and blank paper.  Why not consider joining the fun?  Already part of the fun?  Tell me your username in the comments and we can link up as NaNo buddies and maybe even have a word war.

    Write early, write often!