Florida Romance Writers are having it’s very first online workshop starting with our fabulous Traci Hall. She will be presenting an awesome workshop on:
Shining in a Shrinking Market
Dates: May 15 – 22, 2010
Fees: $10 FRW member & $15 Non-FRW member
Payment due by May 10th, 2010
To register go to FRW website: http://www.frwriters.org/workshops.html.
We hope to see you all there. Yah, Traci!
Shining in a Shrinking Market a Shrinking Market is geared toward writers of all levels. It takes a motivational look at the market, playing off the four C’s of diamond terminology. Carat, cut, and clarity become career, critique, concentration and category. This interactive online workshop focuses on goal making and how to be pro-active despite the many obstacles in publishing.
Traci Hall has always loved a good story. As a kid, she practiced her fledgling story-telling skills on her little brother and younger cousins as they camped out, in the dark, at night, in the back yard. The thrill of having them all hang on her every word as she alternately scared them or grossed them out was habit forming.
Writing YA paranormals is always fun, but by shamelessly eavesdropping on her teen’s conversations, she is able to keep her dialogue fresh and authentic for angst-ridden, coming-of- age characters too. She finds writing for adults a little more challenging, but thankfully they like ghosts and things that go bump in the night as well. With a July 2008 release for Love’s Magic, a Medieval paranormal, Traci hopes to gain a following of those that like Scottish curses, ancestral ghosts and a love story that transcends time.
Traci is a member of Florida Romance Writers, and credits volunteering and networking for getting her where she needs to be. That and her ruthless critique/blog group, www.babesinbookland.com — who together has enough power to rule the world and decorate it, too.
Traci is a full time writer, living in Southern Florida with her husband and two teens, well, two that she can claim on her tax return, three dogs, and two cats. You can find Traci at www.traciehall.com.
Welcome to the Easter Egg Blog Hop which starts at Chista Paige. You’ll find a lot of eye candy on the tour, as well as a basket full of ebooks.
Enjoy browsing my site, where I’m featuring my erotic Celtic series.
THE LAST CELTIC WITCH. Hunted for her powers, outcast witch, Adela MacAye is the last of her kind. To preserve her enchanted heritage, she must win the love of a highland chieftain bewitched by an evil sorceress.
You should have come from Morgan Q O’Reilly and J. Morgan’s blog, and once you find the Easter egg on my site, (CLUE BELOW) it will take you to the next one in line.
The entry form to win the Easter Basket of goodies is at the end of the tour.
We’ll be running the hop all weekend, so if you have to take a break from all of these hotties, just bookmark the page, and return to the tour at your convenience.
Winners will be chosen Easter Sunday 4/4/10 at 7pm EST, and announced at the Liquid Silver Books forum
Now for the eye candy:
Here’s a clue to find the easter egg on my site….
“The magick of an easter egg is the warm, chocolatey heart.”
Happy hunting, and good luck!
I will be taking the last of the Celtic series books to a booksigning this Saturday. So this is your last chance to buy the erotic Celtic series at 20% discount.
These books have been selling real fast, so the only titles that are available are:
The Celtic Witch & the Sorcerer
Heart of a Warlock
Lady of the Mountain
Each purchase comes with an autographed book and a Celtic goodie bag. This is the only sale I’ll have with the Celtic series and it ends in two days.
Last weekend I attended Sleuthfest Conference at Deerfield Beach, Florida. Sponsored by Mystery Writers of America, the conference was perfectly executed…pun intended. LOL
I have helped organized three conferences and have attended too many to count, but Sleuthfest really stood out as an amazing conference. With top speakers, NY editors and agents, and incredible screenwriters, I learned so much from the industry. Of course, I cannot forget to mention the lovely and talented ladies of Florida Romance Writers were there.
I always have a fab time around these vivacious party animals. We certainly dominated the bar with laughter and fun.
All in all, I had a great time and would certainly attend Sleuthfest again. I only wish I had gone the previous years. Awesome job, Mystery Writers of America.
Below are some pictures of the Florida Romance Authors at Sleuthfest.
I will be signing my Celtic series at a booth across from Barnes and Noble
between 12-2pm on Saturday March 20, 2010. There will be giveaways and a gaming wheel for those who feel lucky. ;0)
Sponsored by Florida Romance Writers & Mystery Writers of America.
Thanks FRW and MWA!
Address: “THE WALK” IS LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF UNIVERSITY DRIVE IN CORAL SPRINGS BETWEEN 26 th ST. and 29 th ST.
For more info and directions visit: http://www.csfoa.com/intro.htm
For those of you who have followed the Hearts of Fire Blog Tour, congrats for making it this far. If anyone wants to start at the beginning of the blog tour and get a chance to win fabulous prizes click on this link: http://booknibbles.com/blogtour
Note: the blog tour starts on Friday night at midnight and goes through to Sunday night.
So allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lyn Armstrong and I write historical erotic romance. I have five books in the Celtic Witch series.
In a superstitious time where witches are prosecuted and magick considered the devil’s work. A Scottish clan filled with secret Celtic powers must fight an evil darkness that threatens to destroy everyone they love.
Since I write about bad boys and wicked ladies, I thought I would do up a top five list of pick-up lines for each sex. If you are easily offended, you may want to skip the list. ;0)
For the ladies:
1) You’ve been a bad, bad boy, go to my room!
2) Sex is evil; Evil is sin; Sin is forgiven; so let’s begin.
3) Are you going to kiss me or do I have to lie to my diary.
4) My name is ….., that’s so you know what to scream later on.
5) I miss my teddy bear, would you sleep with me?
For the gentlemen:
1) Lets go to my place and do the things I’ll tell everyone we did anyway. (He’ll either get slapped or get lucky – LOL)
2) Hey baby, what do you say we go behind that rock and get a little boulder?
3) Nice socks. Can I try them on after we have sex?
4) Sex is a killer…want to die happy?
5) Fuck me if I am wrong, but haven’t we met before?
I would like to know if theses lines actually work. LOL.
Anyway, please leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of the first erotic novel in the Celtic series, The Last Celtic Witch.
To check out the titles, go to www.LynArmstrong.com.
Until then, have a wicked Valentine’s Day and may all your knights be filled with passion.
Lyn Armstrong
The ship’s lack of motion actually woke me up early today. I crawled out of bed to see the high risers of Miami. Sigh. We were back home. A depressing lethargy came over me, the very same feeling you get when you know your vacation is over. Grabbing the last of my personal effects, I went to breakfast to find our FRW members already there. They wore the same glum expressions. But it wasn’t over, we were all going to meet at the News Stand Cafe at South Beach. One last hurrah before heading home.
Everyone ate a larger breakfast at the News Stand and recapped on all the shenanigans of the past four days.
I gave Adam Wilson one last tarot reading where the wind nearly blew us away along with the cards.
After eating quickly, I caught a ride to my car in Ft. Lauderdale with Kathy Pickering and Alexandra S. (Sorry, I can’t spell her last name). Needless to say, I enjoyed my ride home with the ladies as we talked about tarot cards, spirits and all things paranormal.
I hugged them goodbye and drove home where I crawled into bed and didn’t wake up till the next day. Thank God I am a writer and work from home in my own time. You gotta love that flexibility.
All in all, I had an awesome time and will cherish the fun memories of the FRW’s Writers Retreat on a cruise ship to Mexico.
Thank you all for following me on this journey. If you wish to see all the photos from the cruise, check out my website at www.LynArmstrong.com.
May you all have a magical day.
Lyn
xoxo
The lack of sleep and partying has finally caught up with me today. Think I’ll take things slow. And when I say “slow”, I mean run around like a chicken with its head cut off. LOL. I am constantly on the move at these conferences and retreats. I can rest when I get home.
An announcement came over the intercom that there was a person who needed to be air lifted from the ship. Of course, I ran to the deck the moment I heard a helicopter. It’s not every day you see a coast rescue team lift someone into the air.
They couldn’t land the copter on the ship, so it took them a while to pick up the passenger. As you can see, I was standing under the glass roof taking pictures and eating pizza. Hey, I was hungry.
I have never been so close to the bottom of a hovering helicopter. After many attempts, they lifted the passenger and everyone beneath the glass roof cheered.
That was the excitement of the day. Later on, FRW hosted a psychic night with cocktails. I was one of the tarot card readers along with Traci Hall and Toni Andrews. The readings went really well. I know many of my sitters were happy with the tarot messages.
I went to dinner while half of the group went to karaoke. At this stage, my lungs refused to sing any longer, so regretfully, I called it an early night.
Luckily, I went back to my room. The cruise porters were taking the luggage away for the next day. I just threw all my stuff into the bag and shoved it outside when the porter came with a nasty look that said I should have packed earlier. LOL. I shrugged my shoulders and yawned. Geez, I hope I left my some underwear out.
Tomorrow we make port in Miami. I’m going to miss this sweet cabin with a big bathroom. Gotta love a bathroom that doesn’t make you feel like you are stepping into a coffin just to bathe.
Time for bed…
Ah, Mexico. Here we are. I can’t help but feel the excitement of a new adventure run through my veins. I stepped off the ship and pushed my way through the throngs of photographers (no, not the paparazzi, instead it was the ship’s vultures eager to make commission on a photo op). I took a deep breath of Mexico…then coughed. Note to self: walk away from the fishy wharf before breathing again.
Yup…we were in Cozamel. One of the tourist islands off the mainland.
Many of the group chose to do different land tours. Some went to see the Mayan ruins while others wanted the excitement of the zip line through the treetops. I had already done both on a previous trip so instead, I joined six lovely ladies for a shopping adventure in downtown.
Our hard-core shopping group consisted of Kimberly Burke, Karen Kendall, Tea Majors, Rosemary Letson, Patrice Wilson and yours truly.
The sights and sounds of the markets were incredible. Mexicans would stand outside their colorful stores and say anything to drive you inside. One man said to us, “Come in, come in. Everything inside is almost free.”
I had a feisty man take my hand and offer me a free massage if I went into his store. I cleared my throat and retracted my hand. “No thanks.” Then I practically ran to catch up to the other girls.
Definitely, the best sales pitch we received was a man calling out, “Come into my store so I can try to rip you off.” LOL.
We almost bowled the man over trying to get inside his store. We thoroughly enjoyed his honesty after so many others would lie to us to get our business. After bartering all day and saying, “No gracias” over and over again to the outside sales team, we headed off to the La Mission – a Mexican restaurant with the best shrimp and avocado in town. In fact, all of the food was delicious. Kimberly was our translator, she wow’d us all with her fluent Spanish, even the Americans at the next table were impressed.
After a tasty excursion into the Mexican fare, everyone went back to the ship to relax except Kimberly and myself. We wanted to see more of the island. With the last of our cash, we haggled a price for a quirky little taxi man call Segio to show us the sights of Cozamel. However, I believe we had more fun chatting to the driver about the naughty exploits that happened in the back seat of his cab than checking out the sights. For some reason he pointed out the swingers hotel on the beach. And hinted he would like to take us out again but this time with a bigger back seat. LOL. I wonder if it was because Kimberly told him we were romance writers. Hmmm.
We eventually returned to the dock and rockin music blared from the bar, Fat Louey’s. Kim asked if I wanted to have a drink on the boardwalk or go back to the ship. I looked longingly at the ship. My feet screamed for relaxation, not dancing, but my wild side said, “Do it!”
So we went into the loud bar on the waterfront and ordered pina colada’s. Drunk women and men danced on a small stage, grinding against a pole. Gotta love blind drunkenness and lots of enthusiasm. It was infectious, but I resisted the urge. I would need at least three more cocktails. Four, if I was to grind a steal pole. LOL.
All in all, I had a great time with awesome company.
PM
I must dedicate a portion of this blog to karaoke. It’s not something I do very much but Heather’s daughter, Bryee Anne convinced me to pick a song for us to sing. It snowballed into an FRW sing-along and I must say I had a blast. By the end of the night my voice was hoarse from singing and whooping for the brave who ventured on stage. Two FRW members stood out from the rest of us. Toni Andrews had a very sultry voice that had us in awe, and the other was Kristen Wallace. Holy moly, that girl can sing. The audience was entranced with her sweet voice.
There was one person I must tell the world about. This person was new to karaoke and had the most theatrical zeal. When he sauntered across the stage with mic in hand, the whole room cheered with abandonment. Eric Raab had to be the coolest karaoke singer I had every seen. He was totally unabashed when gliding around the stage like a rock star. Gotta love his showmanship. He totally rocked the house!
Day Four
