Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

By Cheryl Brooks This will be my last post on the Casablanca Authors blog for a while, perhaps forever. My Sourcebooks editor passed on my current work in progress, although she says she still wants to publish me again. All I need to do is write another Cat Star book. I'll probably do that eventually, and although fans of the series might be pleased, people change. Authors change. Unfortunately, many readers don't want their favorite authors to take a new direction. For that reason (and others), authors keep churning out the same type of books. Eventually, writing becomes a chore, and they end up spitting out the same story with different characters. Maybe not even different characters. Maybe only the names have been changed. I never wanted to be pegged as someone who did that. To that end, I wrote a paranormal romantic suspense trilogy that is unlike anything I've ever written before. My Sourcebooks editor said it was difficult to pitch because the plot was too comp...

I had a fabulous time at the RWA National Conference in San Antonio, and though it was super hot there (99 or 100 every day), it's still a very beautiful city. I wish I'd taken more pictures! The Riverwalk... Visiting the Alamo  Signing Rebel and Wildcat at the Readers For Life Literacy signing.  Hanging out with my buddies Sara Humphreys and Carolyn Brown. Riding home from the Sourcebooks dinner in Cinderella's pumpkin with Terry Spear and Mia Marlowe.  Tying for second place in the Prism Awards Futuristic category with Wildcat!  But now it's time to share the goodies with those of you who weren't there.  Since I have two tote bags, there will be two winners, so post a comment or use the Rafflecopter for your chance to win! Contest limited to USA residents.  Winners to be announced on Saturday, August 16th. Please include your email address in your comment so I can contact the winners. ...

By Cheryl Brooks There was a time when saying the "B word" would get me yelled at by my fellow nurses. But I'm not working in a hospital anymore, so perhaps it's safe to say it now. I'm bored.  This condition is undoubtedly due to Seasonal Affective Disorder. I get it every year, but all the freakin' (feel free to substitute a different spelling of that word) snow and ice this winter has compounded the problem with worry about my youngest son as he drives back and forth to work and unholy levels of cabin fever to the point that I, like so many others, am about to lose what's left of my mind. Not that I don't have books to write, but there are only so many hours I can spend at my desk without freezing solidly into that position. Season 3 of Sherlock was MUCH too brief and even Downton Abbey is finished for another year. The Olympics provided a momentary respite, but except for the occasional bobsledder in a skin-tight suit or a graceful lady...

I had to laugh when I saw that lovely picture of a treadmill desk on Jade Lee's post yesterday. I, too, had great expectations when I bought my own treadmill, but after seeking help from my chiropractor as to why my feet hurt so much, he hesitated a moment, cleared his throat and said, "I hate to say it, but your treadmill is the most likely cause of your problem." Alas, in the days and months since then (it may even have been a year!), my treadmill has become the repository for shoes (some of them are at least new), conference-issue tote bags, and a waste basket. My Mr. Spock mousepad sits forlorn, promising me that if I will only climb aboard, I will surely live long and prosper. Lately, the desire to live long and prosper has been outweighed by the need for feet that don't make me want to scream. The treadmill gets dusted regularly, and I do vacuum around it. I even drag it out of the way to clean underneath it from time to time. But I don't use it. ...

Oh, wow... summer's just about gone. The kids are back in school and some leaves are already starting to fall. Book ten of my Cat Star Chronicle series, Rebel , won't be out until next July, and though I'm still getting reviews of book nine, Wildcat , which was released this past February, that's a long, long time between books. Not that I haven't been busy this summer. I self-published a four-book contemporary erotic romance series called Unlikely Lovers , and I've done some traveling, including attendance at a few writer's conferences. As a result of those conferences, I'm suffering from goodie bag overload. I've already given away two of them, but I have one left, so flex your fingers and get ready to post a comment for your chance to win! I put the bags together from the stuff you see here, and I included two of my Cat Star Chronicles books in each bag. This bag filled with predominately contemporary books has yet to be won, so here are...

What is there to say on this last day of May? Perhaps a quick ode ere the month slips away. As I sit here writing, my roses have bloomed. The lilies will dazzle, but could use lots more room! I've been on vacation; I even went twice. The Keys had their charm, Myrtle Beach was quite nice! But the Derby is over, And the Preakness was won. The Belmont at Elmont is yet to be run. The Indy 500 was a fabulous race, And when Tony won, he poured milk on his face.  But alas, like the month, my post is now done. For tomorrow brings June with its heat and its fun. Next summer's vacation? I haven't a clue. But for some unknown reason, Only Scotland will do! Come on, now. You knew I'd get the hunk in there somewhere.

April has been an interesting month for me. To start off, I made an unscheduled trip to the Florida Keys with my pal Suzie. She goes camping at the Bahia Honda State Park every year, but this year, she didn't have any takers to go with her. Since she's been recently diagnosed and started treatment for a rather nasty autoimmune disease, she didn't know until the last minute whether her doctor would let her make the trip, and I wasn't about to let her go by herself. I'd never made the Florida trip with her before, mainly because she's usually gone for more than two weeks and I don't like leaving my guys for that long. Needless to say, they didn't like it, either! But Suzie and I had a great time, despite the fact that the Internet hotspot on my handy-dandy new smartphone didn't work out there in the boonies where I had a minimal signal. I wound up posting to my blog from the McDonald's in Marathon. Now, if you've ever visited my blog, Cheryl ...

Seems like a lot of us have been writing about Spring here on the Casablanca blog, but I'm beginning to think we aren't going to have one, mainly because we had Spring last Fall. Remember when the rains finally came and the weather stayed warm into December, and then suddenly, it was winter? That's my prediction for this Spring/Summer season. One day, we'll be wearing our winter coats, and the next, we'll be in shorts. It all evens out eventually. Maybe not the way we want it to, but then, we've never had much control over Mother Nature, unless you want to count global warming, which is more pervasive than the day to day stuff. I've already had my book release for the year, so I don't have anything to pimp, but I'm still getting reviews of Wildcat , most of which have been favorable. Next up is a self-pubbed contemporary erotic romance trilogy, and I hope to have the first one up by the end of April. I know a lot of people who've been able to...

by Cheryl Brooks Whenever I'm asked how long it takes me to write a book, I usually give a very vague reply. I can tell you when the manuscript was due to my editor, but the moment of conception is more difficult to determine. Such is not the case with Wildcat. The first mention of the then untitled Cat Star Chronicles #9 here on Casablanca Authors was on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 . I hadn't started writing it yet, but the timing of that post illustrates just how long it takes for a book to go from conception to release date. All I had back then were these pictures... The man. The horse.   The cat.   The setting. ...and an idea from a song about helping another person to love again. Sara and Jerden's story was complicated by the fact that love had wounded them both, and they each had to heal the other before they could ever fall in love. This plot was at odds with the "first kiss on page 50, fir...

By Cheryl Brooks Apparently even Mother Nature follows Captain Picard's orders. I wrote the original version of this post at about 9PM on Christmas Day, mainly because I wasn't sure we'd have power or Internet much longer. Euclid hit us pretty hard with lots of wind and snow. This picture was taken at 11:00 on Wednesday morning. We've probably gotten this much snow before, but it's been a while. I had to get my DH to help me close the back door to the barn because the snow was blowing in on my hay--and wet hay is a bad thing! I hadn't closed that door in years--I had to dig it out at the bottom and my DH put it back on the overhead track. Clearly, I should've done that sooner, but snow usually doesn't blow in from the east! When did they start naming winter storms anyway? Is it because the meteorologists know they're going to get worse due to global warming? The last storm that rolled through here looked like a hurricane, and so did ...

By Cheryl Brooks Here we are in that transition period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, wondering whether to go shopping, continue giving thanks, or start working on Christmas cards. Funny, even though I'm now essentially writing full time and not working as a nurse anymore, I can't get over viewing the holiday season with some trepidation. I still have to do all of the same tasks, and theoretically have more time in which to accomplish them, but the same vague sense of panic remains. The first Christmas card I receive always cranks the tension up a notch. Is it time to send mine out, or is it still too early? Should I spend a day updating my list to include all of the people I no longer work with? Trust me, there are a lot of them and the postage alone will probably mean less candy in the stockings of my two sons. Not that any of us really need candy, but that candy is part of our tradition. When counting my blessings this Thanksgiving, first and foremost was the added...