in the e format. The print editions should be available soon!
Cover reveal for “In the Depths”
Release date is April 8.
Becca Paxton spends her days trying to cover news and write stories for a newspaper on Hawaii’s Garden Island to please her bitchy editor. She spends her nights asleep in the arms of a dream lover with sandy brown hair, turquoise eyes, and a toned surfer’s body who takes her to sexual heights she never knew existed. Problem is Ethan is a merman who knows Becca’s destiny lies with him under the sea, and she’s afraid of vast expanses of water. He’s wanted her and waited for her since he first glimpsed her in the crystals many earth years ago. Can he convince her she really is a sea form, as he is, and he is really the man of her dreams? And can she leave her life on land and the parents she loves to be with him in a strange world?
I read it in the want ads
I worked for a large daily newspaper in the days before Craigslist and match.com taking classified ads which included Companion Connection ads. We had to read all the ads back to the customers and we could hear one another reading them back. 
There were strict guidelines to what we could and could not accept. One guy wanted to say no VD ever. Not allowed. Weight in proportion to height was allowed. It was mostly young people who placed those ads. One guy wanted the first sentence to say “Let’s go to Vegas.” Not allowed.
Talking with each other on breaks, the general consensus was it was better for the woman to place the ad and pick from those who responded rather than answer an ad a guy placed and wait to be chosen, duh?
In those days before spellcheck, you had to pass a tough spelling test to get a job on what they called the adboard. Spelling came easy for me, a gift from God, a misspelled word literally jumped off the page for me, likely because I always had my nose in a book.
You also had to pass a typing test, which I passed because I had started writing a romance book and devoured Harlequins and Silhouettes voraciously when I wasn’t being mommy to my two children, a wife and part-time college student. So I learned to type fast during nap times.
I submitted romance queries and sample chapters through the U.S. mail and got enough rejections to paper one of my children’s bedrooms. I actually landed an agent, who submitted my 50K contemporary romance but got no offers. She dumped me after a year and I gave up writing romances for years. I finished my degree and quit the classifieds to cover local news as a staff writer for a weekly newspaper chain.
I covered a few murder trials, learned a lot about police work, politics and schools and watched as my daughter and son dated then married great people, in short, got some real life lessons.
Romance still called to me. I still remember the hope mixed with fear from those people putting themselves out there in the Companion Connection ads. It’s still about connections – to characters and to readers – and hopes for happily ever after.
So I tried again, joined my local chapter of Romance Writers of America, and have fun writing books with happy endings, what all those Companion Connection people were hoping for.
Finished edits for another merman story
Here is a short excerpt of “In the Depths”:
He tugged on her necklace. “I would have searched all across your land for you, swimming through the seas for the rest of my existence.” He lifted her face. “You are mine, Becca. You hold my heart. Mina is like sibling to me. She is joining with my fin mate. I wish her only well.” He kissed her gently, stroking her soft lips until she moaned and opened her mouth to deepen the kiss.
This guy (the dolphin) is a character in this story.
How I write
I am a panster, and don’t work with a dreaded outline. I fly through the mist and let the characters and story unfold. I love when things happen that surprise me. I write my first drafts on legal pads in large letters, then type it up for my second draft. The idea is that you won’t type the bad stuff – the chaff falls away.
I learned this method from Heather Sellers at the Far Field Writer’s Conference held at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, many years ago. I recycle the legal pads and drive my understanding husband crazy because I do this for at least a half hour every morning, usually in my bathrobe in my home library before I start my work day but also on vacations.
The idea is that you need to use your writing muscle every day, (use it or lose it). I know I would get distracted if I tried to do my first draft on the computer with social media or computer updates. Pen and paper are easy to grab. I do keep my iPad or cell phone handy to do quick research, or simply make an X and fill it in for the second draft. Sometimes I can’t remember a secondary character’s name and I don’t want to break my flow by going into the document in the computer.
I eat breakfast first, and read a romance or other novel while I eat my grapes and sip my coffee to inspire me. I love Lynda Chance, Tessa Bailey, Sierra Cartwright, Kresley Cole, Maya Banks, Louise Erdrich, Alice Munro, Diana Palmer, Samantha Young and Katee Robert, to name a very few. I’m also hooked on Joanna Wylde’s MC books. I also loved loved loved Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief” and Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See.”
For books on craft of writing, I love “The Writing Life,” by Annie Dillard, “Goal, Motivation & Conflict” by Debra Dixon, and “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott.
And Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way,” was invaluable when I was blocked after a health setback. You have to do the work and write pages in a journal every day, but it worked for me.
Well that’s how I do it. I’ve got eight romance novellas under contract with Black Opal Books, three of them are in print and e-books so far. But I wouldn’t be published if I hadn’t joined the Greater Detroit Romance Writers of America. Without their support, informational and inspirational speakers, it wouldn’t have happened. Fellow member and awesome writer Becca Johnson urged me to submit to her publisher when I was about to give the whole thing up.
My parents have signed copies of my books. I asked them to read the dedications but not the book, which Becca says are “sexy,” not “erotic.” My dad says that it’s not that he wouldn’t read a book with a sex scene in it, but it’s that his daughter wrote it.
Cover story
Photographer Julie Snyder, Photography by Julie, juliestevensprophoto.com, is the “Under the Riptides” cover model for “Under the Riptides.” She’s my co-worker, a wonderful photographer and gorgeous so I asked her to help me with the cover for my paranormal novella, and she said yes. Little did she know she would face the same sort of peril as my main character in the story does.
The photo was taken by Snyder’s sister when visiting family at Lake Patagonia in Patagonia, Arizona, in August 2015. She and family members, including her daughter, went out on a boat in search of a mermaid feel for the book. However, it proved a bit challenging because of the lake’s depth.
“The first spot we found I really liked because there was a huge gray crane just standing on this large rock wall. I got in the water there thinking it was shallow and I sunk like a stone,” Snyder said in an email. “They circled around in the boat to get me while I clung to the large, slippery rock wall. The crane had flown away at this point.”
The group then found a small beach. Snyder and her sister slowly got in the water and found it was shallow enough. Snyder pointed the camera to a spot where the sun was perfectly positioned and then found the spot to stand while her sister clicked away. Many shots were taken. The entire process took about two hours, and then a final picture was eventually chosen.
“Under the Riptides” brings readers into the life of Adrian, a merman and heir to the throne of Crystal City, who lives deep under the ocean riptides. He’s waited a lifetime for Mara, his destined mate. The only problem is Mara thinks she’s human and afraid of the water.
If you like sexy, fast reads, check it out and let me know what you think.
We considered this photo of Julie, wearing a bridal veil, for another novella, “Reclaiming Lexi,” but the formatting didn’t quite work.
In “Reclaiming Lexi,” Lexi McCardle still dreams about her high school crush Luke Kettering. On her wedding day, preparing to say “I do” to another man, McCardle’s fiancé calls it off just as she’s kidnapped by Kettering, taking her to a remote cabin in northern Michigan.
This is another quick, sexy read.
Happy reading!
Book signing in Cedar Park, Texas
So excited to be at Half Price Books in Cedar Park, Texas 2-4:30 March 13 signing copies of my latest romance novella, “Double Dare.”
