Hungry for Something Different?

The following is my speech from Romance in Bonham. I'm sure it reads much better than my speech..ugh...how I hate to speak in public! After reading, let me know your favorite genres and why.



I’m an avid reader and enjoy reading all kinds of books. My wide taste of genres extends into my writing where I write not only historical novels but paranormal and fantasy novels as well. For me, it’s no different than the wide variety of taste in the foods I eat. One night I may crave Mexican food and the next, Italian. The next week I may have to drive half way across town to my favorite Turkish deli for their amazing dolmas and Turkish coffee. So, you get my drift. It just depends on my mood. I’m sure some of you are the same way but if you’re not…if you’re strictly a meat and potatoes kind of girl. Oh, sure..you might go to the fancy Italian place on your anniversary but most weeks, you and your crock pot are working overtime…stop and think to yourself. Hey…I’m sick of hamburgers…I’m sick of meatloaf….I want something exotic. And I’m not talking about spinach enchiladas, either, ladies. We live close enough to Mexico. Mexican food is about as down home as steaks are here in the Lone Star state. I’m talking Greek food, Indian food, Vietnamese food or Japanese sushi. Don’t be afraid. You may like a taste for something new. You may love it. You may shock yourself.

Growing up, I loved reading Judith McNaught historical romance novels. I even wrote her once. I think I was like 16 years old or so. I just had to tell her that there was no other human on the planet who understood love like she did. I still love her books to this day but I read little else other than the searing love trials of the London Ton. I dreamed of marrying a duke or an earl after working as a maid in his giant mansion and he one day notices me and is struck by my pure beauty and just HAS TO HAVE ME…despite the fact that I have no dowry and my father is a shoemaker. He has even heard me sing as I cook in the kitchen and my voice touches him in places that he never…well…nevermind….you know what I’m getting at. We all have our favorite genres and historical romance was mine for a very long time. Then I decided I wanted to taste something new. I started reading contemporary romance and devoured everything Nora Roberts and Sandra Brown and Danielle Steele wrote. I fell in love with this genre and just couldn’t get enough of it. As I read, I dreamed of being a high power corporate attorney in six inch heels, owner of an advertising agency who worried more about her lingerie than her business suits and a spunky private eye forced to work with a cop who irritates me to no end…particularly because he’s the biggest male chauvinist pig I’ve ever met but he’s also the sexiest man alive.

For a long time, I stuck to those two very strong, very comfortable genres. I was a traditional romance reader….my favorite authors sent me back in time to London or to present day New York…almost every time. I was a meat and potatoes kind of girl. Don’t get me wrong. Meat and potatoes are GOOD! Those books are the bread and butter of our industry and just like mac and cheese….they are comfort food for our souls. We know what to expect. We know we’ll be satisfied and highly entertained along the way.

One day I decided I was sick of the same old meatloaf. Oh…I knew I’d be hungry for mom’s cooking again but I wanted to venture out. I wanted to try something new. Maybe it was my mood. Maybe it was a wild streak I had. I couldn’t be sure. I was at the mall and stopped by the book store, as I always did. I found myself in the suspense section and saw a book with a wolf on the cover and a full moon. I read the back cover and did a double take. Did it really say what I thought it said? Did I misunderstand? I checked the aisle to make sure I wasn’t in the horror section. I am NOT a horror girl. Sure enough….I was in romantic suspense…where some of Sandra Brown’s books were located. She was safe enough. I read the name of the author. I’d never heard of her. Rebecca York. I looked at her picture. She looked like my sweet grandma. Did this lady really write a book about a werewolf? And this is a love story? This was the first time I’d ever even seen such a thing. Other than Beauty and the Beast, I’d never heard of a furry guy falling in love. And this wasn’t a comedy either. I checked the aisle heading to make sure again. Nope. This was not a romantic comedy. Back then, Ms. York’s book was labeled as romantic suspense. The paranormal genre was on the cusp of breaking out and had yet to form a strong audience….but boy…when it did break….that audience was salivating wanting more..and I was part of that audience. I devoured Rebecca York’s Killing Moon and begged for more. Overnight I tossed out my meat loaf, emptied my fridge of the cold leftovers and dove into the most exotic food I’d ever tasted. Today the market is saturated with tales of vampires, werewolves and witches. This has even bled into the young adult market. I had to smile when I saw my teenage nieces reading Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight series. I’ve taken my own 13 year old daughter to see the movies and who knew? Girls can fall in love with vampires….werewolves too? Charlaine Harris’s popular Sookie Stackhouse mysteries were turned into the HBO series, True Blood. Now we have the amazing Sherrilyn Kenyon and J.R. Ward to read over and over. My taste buds are happy campers now. The paranormal genre exploded as readers gobbled up tales of dark, brooding heroes, in search of love…and blood….or heroes fighting to protect their wolf packs from man, all the while falling in love with human females.

As a writer, in a paranormal world, there are less rules and more freedom to create. This is why I particularly love this genre. I think it’s pretty cool when my hero can’t meet up with my heroine for her big art debut because the dang thing fell on a full moon. And my heroine just doesn’t understand why the only thing in her lover’s freezer is stacks and stacks of steaks. And the fridge? Nothing. Not even condiments. These are the things that keep me up at night. The real challenge is keeping it real and believable in a very magical world. I want my paranormals to read like a contemporary does. I strive to make the odd seem natural. Otherwise it’s just silly. Some readers will never take a romance writer, especially a paranormal author seriously but dang it if I’m not going to die trying.

Have you ever met those folks that say, “I read only Non-Fiction.” Don’t you feel like saying, “Why? Do you like being depressed?” These readers will never care. They will never take us seriously. My happiest days are the days I receive a letter or an email from a reader and she tells me she just finished my book and she fell in love with the hero and oh how she wished she met a man like him….uh…and the man is half wolf. That is success to me!

After tasting paranormal, I dove into fantasy and time travel and found another genre I enjoyed and loved. I have to confess that I don’t love it quite as much as paranormal but I love it enough to write in this genre as well. I was lucky enough to be selected for a fantasy anthology with eight other authors. We were all assigned a Greek muse. In my story, A Love Beyond Time, my heroine is Clio, Muse of History. I was so excited because I adore history. My heroine traveled back in time to the Salem witch trials and the Italian Renaissance before going to Hades to save the soul of her love. This is a huge stretch from where I began as a reader yet it was really a blending of genres…historical and fantasy. And so much fun to write.

And still I love to write historicals, especially 20th century historicals because editors and agents have told me that there is no market for them. I grew up listening to stories about WWII and The Great Depression from my grandparents. I receive more letters about my historical romance, The Wooden Nickel, than any of my other books. And I think this is because more people can identify with it. People actually lived through this. The 30s and 40s are a fascinating time in World history. It’s also a time of great heartbreak. And it wasn’t that long ago. That’s why I must write about it. We can never forget the Holocaust. There are still people living today who experienced Hell on earth. Writing about this time period is my way of honoring the people who survived, the people who died and reminds me of how very lucky I am. It’s an important time. A time we shouldn’t forget but I’m not like those readers who boast they only read non-fiction. There’s nothing wrong with sprinkling romance into real life events. People fell in love in terrible times. We can learn and have a beautiful romance all in one sitting. These are the books I love to read too. Those that teach me about life in another time with romance sprinkled between the pages.

So, really…what I’m trying to say is dive out of your comfort zone once in a while. Pick up your favorite genre but pick up something new too. You may find a world you never knew existed.

Happy Reading and Writing!
~Alisha Paige

Extreme Snow and a Snowy Excerpt

Lately it seems like records have been broken everywhere and I'm not talking about the Olympics eithers. I live in Dallas, Texas and we had snow on Christmas Eve, leaving us with snow on Christmas Day..something we have not seen in these here parts for quite some time. A White Christmas was something even my great great grandparents had not seen. It hasn't happened since the 1800s! Usually the sun is shining and it's fairly warm on Christmas Day here. It's even been in the 70's before. That's more like a Texas Christmas.

And now...we just had what the weather folks call "the once in a lifetime" snow fall!! It snowed quite a bit in the 70's when I was a kid but usually five inches max. It snowed 12 1/2 inches here last week!!! We made two snowmen..well...two snow ladies and one was a snow witch, complete with a Halloween wig and green nose, broomstick and pet frog. We made tons of snow ice cream and snow cones. My two year old just loved to eat the snow plain in a giant plastic bowl as he watched his cartoons. Normally, if we get snow at all, it's not fit to eat, not clean enough..dirty and icy. This was pure champagne snow, powder fresh and white, white, white. It was so yummy! I watched the news and saw how officials in Canada were trucking snow in for the Olympics. Hey, come down here and get some! We have PLENTY!

Well, now most of the snow has thawed. Our snow ladies are two mushy piles in the yard but we'll never forget the record snowfall of 2010! We were snapping pictures of the kids in front of the snowman. I had a flashback to the 70's when I sat on my dad's knee next to our snowman. And now my babies are on my knee. It was cool to finally get the snow back from our childhoods and THEN SOME!!!!

I thought it fitting that I'm writing a novel set in Alaska when we receive record snow!!! Here's a teaser from my novel set in Circle City, near the Yukon Flats.



Except

Zoe stacked frozen venison steaks into the oversized freezer on the back porch while the puppy relieved himself near a frozen boulder. She heard a twig snap then the sound of crunching snow. The puppy didn’t weigh enough to crunch snow and wasn’t near the woods. She felt someone watching her and reached for her rifle leaning against the cabin. A gray blur flew past her and she raised her rifle. She blinked. And then the puppy was yelping, held in the jaws of an enormous gray wolf. Zoe took a step forward, cocked the rifle. The wolf growled, baring his fangs while the puppy dangled helplessly, kicking like a frenzied jack rabbit. She took a step forward and from out of the woods and the sides of her cabin, a circle of wolves emerged, all of them growling, approaching with canines flashing. Huge wolves. Like the one she’d killed by the creek. Like Jack’s mother.
She blinked and realized in a split second that she’d never kill them all. She took a step backward onto the porch, reaching blindly for the door behind her while she struggled to hold the rifle up with one arm. And then one of them from the left pounced on her. She screamed and fought as the wolf snapped at her throat, spilling blood, nicking her with one sharp canine. Her world swam before her. The panic and fear was all too much. She knew she would soon die and though it would end her pain, she realized in that final moment of consciousness that she wanted to live. More than anything. Jacob’s face flitted through her mind and she felt the sensation of her husband holding her close, breathing into her ear.
Another wolf bounded into the cabin and changed into a man when his feet hit the worn wooden floors. He grabbed the wolf by the neck and slammed him against a wall. “I want her alive!”
Lord of the Wolfen turned and growled at the lesser wolf now shaking his head in the corner. “Take her to the caverns,” he ordered.
The wolf nodded in answer and was changed in two steps, now a bulky man with black, spiky hair. He grabbed a quilt off the bed and wrapped the woman carefully. Blood oozed from her neck. He licked it clean and then hauled her over one shoulder. When the three stepped outside, the wolves were now all changed. All of them were men except for the young woman that carried the whining puppy.
Dacien withdrew a wooden flute from his coat pocket and blew three silent notes. From both sides of the cabin came four dog sleds, led by a fleet of rambunctious, glorious, white Alaskan huskies, blue eyed smiling creatures of servitude. Kory took the puppy in his hands and held him to him, breathing in his scent. “We’re going home, grandson.”
The Wolfen boarded elaborate sleds with red velvet covered seats and fastened fur lined hats over their heads. This part of the woods was secluded with only a few homes between Zoe’s cabin and the caverns, but they could not risk being seen as wolves, particularly during hunting season. The few times they’d actually come across people, Kory used his Russian accent and had said they were vacationing in the area. He’d remembered to erase the person’s memory on all but one occasion. And it had been a grave error. The local sheriff had stopped them, looking for some hunters who had reportedly killed two polar bears. And it had been true. Lord of the Wolfen had killed two of the creatures for the waxing ceremony. They’d feast with the young males coming of age in the clan. The sheriff had let Kory go, bidding him a safe trip but the wolf had smelled the man’s disbelief, a scent akin to dry earth. The Wolfen were now being watched and Kory continued to curse himself for failing to hypnotize the man and erase his memory when he’d had the chance.
A fierce north wind blew the snow into their faces, but the dogs knew the way. Night had fallen when they reached the caverns. Dacien leapt from his sled, turning into a wolf in mid air, springing into the cave and down the narrow, freezing pathway that led to the secret snow covered entrance. Upon arrival, he changed back, reached into his coat pocket and unlocked the circular roof, allowing the clan passage into their home underground. The caverns of the Wolfen were 1500 years old. A mansion beneath the earth with two dozen rooms, housing Lord of the Wolfen, his family, his brothers and their families. It was their loyalty to one another that had kept them alive and thriving for so long.
Tisa’s banishment had been hard on all of them and now her death had plunged them all into darkest mourning. But there was much to celebrate tonight. One of the pups had survived. The woman’s sacrifice to the Holy Trinity would at least now be delayed. She would not die for killing Tisa. Not tonight. Kory would allow his grandson the grand honor, but first he had to grow into a man. A Wolfen man. The Kontar and Ivan would be dealt with soon. And Kory knew just how to punish them all for his daughter’s death.

Happy Reading and Happy Writing!
~Alisha Paige

Romance in Bonham, Texas and The Jack Ass Award!

I'm very excited to speak at Romance in Bonham this Saturday, Feb. 13th with ten other authors. We'll be speaking about our careers, the publishing industry, what inspires us, our travels, our books and writing in general. Afterwards we'll be signing our books. I'll personally be signing three of my books; Canyon Wolf Bride, The Wooden Nickel and Nocturnally Vexed. I look forward to meeting new readers and hanging out with ten very talented, inspiring ladies.

Romance In Bonham on the News

Changing the subject, I would like to personally thank all the wonderful authors who have nurtured and mentored me as my career buds. Sometimes we run into other authors who for some unknown reason, like to humiliate and hurt others. I came across this kind of ugliness this week when I found out a dear author friend of mine was doing a blog tour. Another author commented on the fact that her prize was not large enough. I was stunned. First of all, let me say that this lady is guilty mostly of having "foot in mouth disease" and while I don't believe she truly meant to be rude to my author friend, she didn't think before she wrote what she wrote on a very public blog. I think she meant to study what works and what doesn't work in blogs and marketing but she certainly wasn't delicate about the matter.

Let me be the first to say that we're all in a recession. Any prize given out is a valid prize to me. Even if it was a buck. This happened to be a gift certificate for ten bucks. (Did this lady know we're talking about U.S. Dollars here and not Pounds?)Heck, yeah...I'll take it! We all know that authors struggle for years before seeing a real profit from their books. It takes years to build an audience. And in those years, marketing may be slim but at least this author tries and has a growing audience. She inspires me. Stephen King was excited when he received an advance in the mail and he could buy the pink stuff for his sick daughter...not kidding...his own words in his book. Now I can't remember for sure if it was an advance he received or if it was when he sold the rights to Carrie for $400,000.00 but he couldn't afford fricking penicillin for his daughter. Authors are real people with kids, husbands, wives, struggles, strifes. For this other author to ask if the ten bucks could even buy anything decent and pay the shipping....WRONG!!! RUDE!!! Even if she didn't intend it, she could have wondered out loud and discussed marketing strategies, what works, what doesn't, author contests, etc. without giving us her opinion on "such a small prize amount". She should apologize. I'd feel like an idiot. In fact, I feel so embarrassed for her, I'll apologize on her behalf. I'm sorry for the inconsiderate author who thought it was okay to make fun of another author's prize and label her observation as "snarky". Here's my label. Well...I've got two labels. TACKY. SHAMEFUL. This author gets the JACK ASS REWARD. Feel free to upload it on your blog, Ms. Tacky-Shameful.



Okay...done with that negativity but it had to be said. Think before you write, ladies. And yes, I thought it out before I wrote this blog. Again, it had to be said. Now, you know who you are. Go pull the foot out of your mouth or at least off of your damn hand to keep yourself from typing rude..oh yeah..your word...snarky comments....snarky is too nice a word...HATEFUL. That's the word. I thought I was done with this...ugh....okay..now I am.

Happy Reading and Writing!
~Alisha

Blah!

Right now our family is fighting the flu. I pitched my children's book to an agent this week. This book is for middle school age kids.

Here's the pitch and what the agent said:

Tusk

Two Ice Age kids are orphaned and left to survive alone in the wild after their parents are killed in a bear attack. Tusk and his sister, Flint, discover ancient cave paintings with a secret warning and how to survive the deadly meteor. Tusk is a natural born leader and believes only he can warn others and lead the clans to the land bridge and the new world. Flint has secrets of her own and a plan to unite with the animal kingdom and save them all from extinction.

AGENT - I'm just not in love with the pre-historical fiction ideas. They're not right for me. Thanks though!

So...I'll pitch elsewhere and look elsewhere. I have another young adult novel as well...a fantasy for middle school kids. I actually sold that book but had to pull it from publication due to "creative differences" with my editor.

Hmm...I'm thinking maybe I should stick to writing adult fiction? But what if I can do both? I'm always reaching for more.

Ah well...I'm going to go have some more chicken soup and ponder my future before I suffer the same fate as the poor sad snowman. I think I'll go outside and talk him out of it. Maybe I'll go write a hot love scene instead.

What's going on in your little neck of the woods?

~Hugs!
Alisha