Caridad Pineiro® Romance Author
NY Times & USA Today Bestselling Romance Author
After spending a night watching some football, I decided to share with you this Monday’s Guilty Pleasure – Mark Sanchez from the New York Jets. Mark was the quarterback at USC and now is the starting quarterback for the Jets. He was born and raised in Southern California and was picked as the 2009 Rose Bowl MVP. I root for both the Jets and Giants and hope they have a nice season!
Are you a football fan? Who do you root for?
The last day of DragonCon is daunting. Only the strong have managed to make it this far after all the days of running around heading to panels and enjoying the various parties for the attendees.
I’ve been busy at the booth in between walkarounds to check out all the costumes. The last day was mostly in the booth besides a nice panel with some science fiction writers. We talked about staying afloat in publishing and it was an interesting discussion.
Afterward, back to the booth to knock it down and give away all the last of the goodies. We even signed and gave away all the banners and posters we had.
Today it’s just a few hours of resting and checking e-mails before heading back home and to work tomorrow.
Sharing the last few photos with you. As you can gather, not as many since many people were leaving and I was busy at the booth. But the fun part of the day was getting to meet Dave Tango from Ghosthunters. He was really nice and we had a talk about some “spirit orbs” I’ll show you on another day!
Today’s Guilty Pleasure Monday is an unknown DragonCon attendee who was kind enough to pose for me. There was nothing fake about all those abs and arms!
We’re starting to wind down here, but there are still lots of interesting costumes to see. There are some who really went out of their way to do different things and you’ll see them in this album – a lady from The Birds movie, two young black and white ladies from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a Terminator that was absolutely amazing.
You can follow this link to the next album for DragonCon 2009:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033093&id=1130005412&l=53730d32f6
You can also watch the last half of the DragonCon parade with these videos.
Heaven. . . I’m in heaven . . .
‘Cuz were out together dancing geek to geek.
Okay – I’m out of the closet and proclaiming my inner geekdom. It’s always been there, but now I’m out! Of course, I think you kind of knew I was that way when I told you I was a science major in college.
The conference is totally amazing! I am so impressed by the costumes people have put together and the way some of these people just slip in and out of character. Awesome.
Steampunk seems to be all the rage this year. Lots of people dressed up in Victorian-style clothing with all the alternate weaponry/technology attached.
Some interesting Celtic, Alternative and Goth bands playing music in the common areas.
And total fan girl moment — I saw James Marsters (formerly Spike on Buffy) on his way into the elevator! Couldn’t move fast enough to snap his picture, but boy, was he handsome!!! 😯
I’ve got a mess of pictures for you. You can watch this slideshow or use this link to visit the album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032752&id=1130005412&l=ec573e286a
Arrived yesterday and was busy running around gathering everything to set up the booth and during down time, working on the next book in the SINS book – STRONGER THAN SIN. Got a lot done and then everyone started arriving at the hotel. By 7 pm we were down in our booth area, starting to set up for today when the exhibits open at 1.
Here’s step 1 of our booth – # 707 in case you’re down in Atlanta!
We have a beautiful poster for our booth – Surrender to the Night is our theme.
Meet my booth buddies: Joy Nash, me, Susan Sizemore and Raz Steele!
The view from our hotel room!
Last night was a blast, but tiring. We didn’t get to the restaurant for dinner until nearly 9:30 because we were setting up the booth and getting organized. The restaurant was close to the bar and what a sight! Dozens of people in costumes. Storm troopers, Star Trek officers, a zombie Elvis serenading people. Lots and lots of men in kilts and let me tell you – whoa, very sexy.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the camera then (will learn to always keep it with me!), so I hope to have more pictures for you either later today or tomorrow.
Stay tuned!
You can see all of the photos here as well: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032752&id=1130005412&l=ec573e286a
This week’s Wicked Wednesday brings you another installment of my urban fantasy involving a twist to the werewolf mythology, battles with vampires and a struggle for control in a werewolf pack. I hope you like this next free chapter that I’m offering you.
In the prior chapter, Catalina’s father goes to visit her before she goes out to hunt vampires. Because of her unusual state, Catalina is stronger than the other wolves in her pack in human form, but cannot control herself when she shapeshifts into the wolf. Because of that, she hunts throughout the month, except for the days in around the full moon when she loses control. In this chapter, Catalina is out on the hunt.
For those of you who may have missed the first chapters, you can read them here:
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She barely got her sword up to block the downward swing of the nail-studded bat. Reaching behind her, dazed from an earlier shot to her head by the vamp she had just dusted, she couldn’t quite get her hand on the grip of the crossbow.
The vampire raised the bat again, but she knew better than to continue kneeling there. Her awkward position made it difficult to effectively ward off another swing. Feinting to the left, she drew the vampire’s attention and he shifted the direction of his attack.
The bat impacted against the concrete of the street as she rapidly rolled to the right and came to her feet. Dropping her sword, she reached up behind her shoulder and this time, got a solid grip on the crossbow. Whipping it over her head, she fired as the vampire came at her.
He froze in place a few feet away, a stunned look on his face before he glanced down at the arrow protruding from his heart. The bat slipped from his hand and he scrabbled for a solid grip on the shaft of the arrow with his long, nearly skeletal fingers.
For good measure, Catalina notched another and fired again. Her aim true as the first. With a satisfying thud, the second arrow buried itself deep in the vamp’s heart. He finally crumpled to his knees, and then fell face forward toward her.
Catalina took a deep breath, tossed the crossbow back over her shoulder and picked up her sword. Glancing around, just to make sure there wasn’t another vampire beyond the two that had already attacked her, she approached the body. Turning him over, she realized he still wasn’t dead. He must be one of the old ones to be able to withstand two direct hits to the heart and the arrows driven deeper into his body by his fall.
He snarled at her, long fangs crimson with the blood of an earlier kill, and feebly reached for the arrows once more.
She didn’t hesitate a second longer. Raising her sword, she finished him off, severing his head from his shoulders. The surprising thing was, his hands continued to pluck at the arrows for long moments after. He definitely had been one of the old ones, which made her wonder why an elder was out hunting. Vampire elders usually forced the younger ones to bring them food, so one being out tonight hunting was unusual. As was having one attack her outright.
She walked over to the vampire she had killed earlier in the fight. What was left of him sat up against the edge of the building. Or at least part of him did. The lower half of him sprawled flat on the ground, legs splayed at an awkward angle.
Kneeling beside the upper half of his torso, she glanced into his sightless eyes and held her hand up over the middle of his chest. Nothing left of his power. He had clearly been a young vamp. Maybe even younger than the one who had attacked her a few nights ago. So beyond newly turned.
But even with that lack of age, he had managed to get in a good shot, she thought, rubbing at the knot on the back of her head where he had connected with the quarterstaff he had carried. As she bowed there, a prickling sensation sprang up between her shoulder blades.
Another one of the undead. Nearby.
I’m off to Dragon*Con on Thursday! Dragon*Con is an immense pop culture convention which focuses on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the United States. I’ll be a Dragon*Con virgin, but will be with friends who will hopefully help me survive.
I also hope to be bringing you daily updates of what’s happening, since I hear this is an amazing convention!
In preparation, I’ve been putting together a number of goodies which are beneficial to have for conferences or conventions.
Many of the promotional materials that are going out are directed at the science fiction and fantasy crowd at Dragon*Con because of SINS OF THE FLESH is really a hybrid of romance, science fiction and suspense. Some have called SINS OF THE FLESH a science thriller, others paranormal romantic suspense. But regardless of what you call SINS, it clearly falls within the science fiction/fantasy realm thanks to the genetic engineering aspect in the book which leads to the romantic suspense.
Because of that, the bookmarks and postcards for Dragon*Con stress all those elements of the novel. If you’re in need of either bookmarks or postcards, there are a couple of good places that I’ve used and have been happy with — overnightprints.com and nextdayflyers.com.
If money is tight, there is Vistaprint where you can layout some smaller sized bookmarks using their postcard template. Use the free postcard option and you can make 200 bookmarks for the cost of the shipping. Take the postcards to a local printer and they can cut them down for you if you don’t want to do it yourself, but for greater volumes, try the other two companies. The stock is of heavier quality and glossy on both sides.
**Note on Vistaprint – make sure you know what you are signing up for when you click on any third party specials or to get any rewards. Some of them do involve fees.
What else will I be taking? Some t-shirts of course. Those are always popular. For low volume color t-shirts, again try Vistaprint when they are running a 50% special. For THE CALLING t-shirts, I used Creative Solutions, a local NJ company that did a beautiful job with them, especially since I got several hundred at a shot.
Buttons, buttons, buttons. People love to collect buttons. Purebuttons.com did the trick for me!
Pens. What kind of writer doesn’t like pens? National Pen and 4Imprint (who did a marvelous job on the lunch bags) are ones to check out.
Cover Flats are always a good thing to have. Fans love to have autographed cover flats in their collections. Your publisher should be able to provide you with a supply of these when it is closer to the release date of your novel.
For reader/writer based conferences — if you can get ARCs to distribute that’s a good thing. Be sure to ask those that get ARCs to offer reviews on the various online bookstores. If you can’t get ARCs, prepare excerpts for people to take home and read.
Finally – there will be professionals at these conferences, in particular, press people. Make sure to prepare a press kit to be placed in the press area and also have one or two with you at your booth/signing area to distribute. Also make sure to have a good supply of business cards. Vistaprint is a great source for inexpensive business cards.
I hope today’s Tuesday Tip will be of assistance when prepping goodies for your own conferences. Also, although I’ve used the above-mentioned companies and have had positive results, it’s possible that your experience might be different. So please do not hold that against me and be sure to check out any and all companies before entering into any legally binding contract or offer.