Violets & Vetiver

I have always been interested in Aromatherapy--making my own bath products and such. I've written two diffrent books on the subject for two different marketing cmpanies and also, under my pseudonym "Delia Fontana," I've written a longish paranormal suspense story about a modern-day apothecary called Vetiver Quinn. (It's called The Fourth Sense and I had a lot of fun writing it.) I decided to create a logo for my character's shop, Violets & Vetiver, and I'm also creating a new blog where I'll be writing about aromatherapy and sharing lore and interesting tidbits and reviewing books about fragrance and perfume and the like. I'll be using this cool logo on the products i make for myself and my friends.
Every girl needs a hobby.

Shameless Self-Promotion Saturday

This is the summer I finally get all the bits and pieces of writing up and out there. Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services has created a great new cover for me as I collect all the L.A. Nocturne stories and add them to new ones as a "teaser" for my Misbegotten novel. (Urban Fantasy, set in L.A. There are vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters but no chicks with swords or tramp stamps.)

Tanith Lee 1947-2015

One of the people reviewing my book Bride of the Midnight King compared my prose to Tanith Lee's. I could not have asked for higher praise. I discovered her through the Science Fiction/Fantasy book club, picking up the two novella book--Sabella, or the Blood Stone and Companions on the Road as one of my freebie choices.
I LOVED her writing.
So I immediately went in search f other books she'd written. Even then, she had a slew of titles in her backlist and by the time I'd gone through them, she'd written about ten more. (With Stephen King and Tanith Lee on my list of go-to authors, I never had to worry about not having anything to read.)
Except, now she's dead at 67 and there won't ever be any more of her gorgeous dark fantasies, the words piled up on each other like oil pigments, so thick and luscious it was a multi-sensual experience reading her books.
RIP Tanith.

Introducing: Mickey Cozart--cozy sleuth

One of the reasons I moved from L.A. is that I wanted more time to write. Now that I've been herein Bellingham six months, I've been able to go through my pending projects and start getting them into shape. Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services  has been helping me with that--providing covers and formatting and other assistance. Check out Indie Author Services here.
I've been writing a lot of fantasy lately, which is fun, but my heart will always belong to mysteries. This is the first of what I envision as a three-book series about Mickey Cozart, a woman of a certain age whose best friend is an actress making the awkward transition from leading lady to character actress. (She keeps losing parts to Glenn Close.) She has a daughter whose best friend is a gay man who works as a production designer on a "pretty people" show on the CW. Mickey--which was my mother's nickname--is a no-nonsense type who was widowed early. She met her husband when she was waitressing at a pie place near JPL where he worked. He was 20 years older. He died when she was 37 and she still misses him, even though she has a full life. But there's this cop...
I have been working on this book on and off for a few years. Some of it even got written longhand during the hours I was sitting at the eye clinic waiting for the monthly shots of Lucentis to wear off. (And wasn't it a treat tramscribing those scribbles?) Unlike a LOT of the stuff I write, this is a book I think my mother would have enjoyed. I hope so anyway. It'll be out this summer. Finally.

Huzzah! the Third Summer of Shakespeare is coming!!

All Shakespeare.
All Summer.
Because it is all about the Bard!

Masterclass with James Patterson

As you know, I habitually cruise Craigslist looking for jobs and gigs. I'm on there enough that I've seen the same scams posted over and over ("Quick, fast writing gig") and noted the emergence of the phony Yelp rating business and marveled at the unbelievable gall of people who are trolling for people to exploit. But I've also made about 50 percent of my income from CL ads in the last eight years and among the gigs I scored was one beta-testing this MASTERCLASS WITH JAMES PATTERSON.

Yes, I was paid to take a class (complete iwth workbooks and assignments) that is being offered to the public for $90.  the "lessons" are edited from a series of interviews and in them Patterson takes his "students" through his process--from getting ideas (one of the lessons I found most engaging) to marketing. Along the way he tells some engaging stories.

You might want to check it out.  Here's more information on the people behind the Masterclass concept.

Blood Ties by Nicholas Gjuild

My review of Nicholas Guild's Blood Ties is live over at Criminal Element. In it I ponder sexism in crime fiction and note that in a book written by a guy, the women are strong and dimensional. And just saying that seems sexist to me. But I have gotten awfully tired of seeing women crime writers ignored or shuffled to the side or marginalized or dismissed or ignored. But I'm repeating myself. I enjoyed Blood Ties and wouldn't mind seeing more in the series.