I actually received this from Emily Guido a couple weeks ago, but we all know I’m slow about posting…

willowdot21 AKA Shaun has started a new award, and  here is what Shaun had to say.

“This is an award for everyone who is part of the “Word Press Family” I start this award on the basis that the WordPress family has taken me in, and showed me love and a caring side only WordPress can. The way people take a second to be nice, to answer a question and not make things a competition amazes me here. I know I have been given many awards, but I wanted to leave my own legacy on here by creating my own award, as many have done before. This represents “Family” we never meet, but are there for us as family. It is my honour to start this award”

Rules:

1. Display the award logo on your blog.
2. Link back to the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate 10 others you see as having an impact on your WordPress experience and family.
4. Let your 10 Family members know you have awarded them.
5. That is it. Just please pick 10 people that have taken you as  a friend, and spread the love.

I started on WordPress in 2010 because though I was blogging on MySpace, I noticed that most of my readers didn’t comment, or seem interested in, post that had to do with my books or with writing/publishing. I also needed an author only blog that had real RSS capabilities, so I could stream it to Amazon, LinkedIn and all those other places. My  first post had one comment on it, and that was from a friend who, alas, never came back and it was a long time before I consistently got comments on WordPress. There was a point where I almost abandoned my blog here – but the RSS capabilities and easy post composition and theme editing kept me hanging around and I’m glad it did as I have met some great people! So thanks so much to everyone who has stopped in, commented, given me encouragement and written their own fantastic blogs! You’re all my WordPress family, but alas I can only pick ten, so…..

• Juli Hoffman
• Susan Koenig
• Ruth Nordin
• DM Yates
• Barbara Tarn
• Roger Lawrence
• David Knight
• Janet Coulter
• Steve Evans
• Alannah Murphy

Roger Lawrence, the author of Three Hoodies Save the World and Kongomato, has been kind enough to host an interview with me. He had some great questions such as “Are there any other completed novels which you have considered too bad to publish, and would you consider resurrecting them?”

Can you guess what my answer was?

Check it out on:

blogspot: http://threehoodies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/an-interview-with-joleene-naylor.html

or

wordpress: http://rogeey.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/an-interwiew-with-joleene-naylor/

A big thanks for the feedback – and now I have updated the Meet the Characters section accordingly. Take a spin through it and let me know what you think. The odd difference in image sizes is part of the gallery settings and there’s nothing I can do about that. I had to use a funky gallery to keep the captions from showing up under the thumbnails  (which looked bad, trust me).

Check it out.

I suspect this does not count as a picture of me…..

I want to apologize to everyone for being gone. We had a death in the family, followed by a round of horrific stomach flu. Hopefully that’s it and life can get on with gettin’ on.

No, this is not the smack I am talking about.

The smack came from Emily Guido, author of the Light Bearer series where angels and vampires run amok. If you’ve never checked her out you should. She is such a sweet person.

On to the tag.

I know a lot of you don’t like AWARDS… but this isn’t an award. You haven’t won anything. You’re not getting this because you did something excellent. You got it because I feel like giving it to you, so there!

here are the rules:

The Rules:

1. Post these rules.
2. Post a photo of yourself and eleven random facts about you.
3. Answer the questions given to you in the tagger’s post.
4. Create eleven new questions and tag new people to answer them.
5. Go to their blog/twitter and let them know they have been tagged.

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Who’s up? You-all have been TAGGED! SMACK, YOU’RE IT!! (see end of post for your questions)

1. Donna Yates
2. Roger Lawrence
3. Tricia Drammeh
4. Sassy Sue
5. Stephannie Beaman
6. Juli Hoffman
7. Janet Coulter
8. Lyndsey Parsons
9. Paige Adams
10. Vicki Hudson

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I doubt this image from the Terrible Turtle Conspiracy counts either…

Now it’s time for Emily’s 11 questions:

1. What is your favourite genre of literature?

Fantasy and romance. If you put them together I am in Joey heaven.

2. What is your favourite genre of film?

Fantasy, Sci-fi… giant robots, aliens, elves, hobbits, Vulcans, Stormtroopers, things like that.  I LOVE 3D and good CGI will make me salivate.

3. Do you read in bed? How? Book? Kindle? Both? Does Mommy sit by your bed and read to you? Sigh.

Very rarely. The last books I read in bed were the last two Hunger Games books because I stayed up to read them when I was supposed to be sleeping.

4. How do you take your coffee in the morning? If you don’t drink coffee, how do you survive your day?

 Though I love coffee I don’t drink it because I don’t own a coffee pot. I also don’t own a microwave (though the neighbors do and I use theirs from time to time). When I do drink coffee it is with LOTS of cream and sugar.

5. Do you consider yourself fashionable?

I wish. But, sadly, to quote Emily “I have no grace or beauty. I would have been better off born as a line-backer…”  If I’d been given naturally thin genetics, or even semi-thin with work genetics, and the right face, and the right hair I’d dress like either Galadriel or Morticia Adams. Alas instead I wear t-shirts and jeans.

6. If you could live anywhere on earth, where would it be?

By the ocean, preferably on the East Coast. however that’s not meant to be in this lifetime. Afraid I’m a midwest girl, but maybe in the next round.

7. Have you retained any evil habits? If not, with what will you bargain when you’re marooned at sea in a lifeboat?

To quote Emily “I don’t… smoke or do drugs. So if marooned at sea, I would die of starvation. What a shame… I would finally be able to fit into a model’s size!!! Haha!” I do however have a glass of something alcoholic now and then and once or twice a year I do have a cigarette, usually while drinking that alcoholic beverage.

8. What is the worst TV show that you love anyway?

We’re watching the animated X-men on netflix right now. it’s cheesy but fun. I love cheesy.

9. When you vacation, do you want to be in an urban or rural environment?

 Rural. As much as I wanted to be a city girl, I’m not.

10. Where did you go on your all-time favorite vacation?

Virginia Beach, Va. My brother and I spent all day at “the big beach” and a good portion of it just sitting on a bench watching the waves. the sky was cloudy, it was October so it was nice and cool, not too crowded. It was awesome.

11. Are you a morning person? Has anyone ever punched you for being cheerful before coffee?

My morning is at 2 in the afternoon, so it is easier to take. If someone wakes me up, then not so much, but if I get to wake other people up that makes me cheerful. “Up, up, up!”

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Oh fine. here’s the real Jo – but she refuses to update her online pictures because she likes the black hair in this one. Sad.

Factoids about me:

1. I love pink sparkly things.

2. I am studying to get a ham radio license.

3. I wrote my first sex scene when I was twelve in a book called The Devil’s Niece. I later threw it away.

4. I make more money from books covers than from writing books. Sad but true.

5. I believe in wearing clothing (see the above question about being not graceful etc.). As such my husband calls me a prude.

6. All of my pets are rescues. We just keep finding strays, lol!

7. I am fascinated with the Titanic. I think I must have drown there in a previous life.

8. I like rocks. I have them stacked randomly all over my house.

9. I love the jelly Lychee juice, though it is hard to find.

10. I don’t like my food touching unless it’s Mexican or Asian. I don’t even like my garlic bread to sit on the spaghetti.

11. I could have graduated high school at semester but chose to stay through to the end of the year.

.

And now my 11 questions for those I tagged:

1. Mountains or ocean?
2. Are you anything like your astrological sign?
3. What is one thing you wish you had/hadn’t done?
4. Have you ever broken a bone?
5. What’s your favorite book of all time?
6. If you could write anything, even things you’re not normally good at, what would it be?
7. What was your best Halloween costume?
8. Have you ever done anything weird to your hair?
9. If you were stranded on a desert island, how many packets of crackers would you take?
10. What is your ereader of choice, or do you still like paper books best?
11. If you were to wish on a star right now, what would the wish be? (since you’re not really doing it, you can tell us.  )

As part of read an ebook week – and because I will soon be releasing Heart of the Raven – the previous books are on special through Smashwords!

When you check out at Smashwords use the code:

REW50

and get

• Shades of Gray – FREE
• Legacy of Ghosts – $1.50
• Ties of Blood – $1.50
• Ashes of Deceit – $1.50
• Vampire Morsels – Free

This promo is only good March 3 – 9, 2013.

Emily Guido, the author of the Light Bearer series, was kind enough to award me with the Shine On Award. If you haven’t checked out her blog or her books, you should. I have the first two on my kindle right now. There are no rules for this award, so I am going to copy Emily and do a self interview… well, sort of. Actually, I’m going to let a few of my characters ask me a question. (Yes, more of that crazy author talking-to-myself)

Torina: You have the weirdest character names. I don’t even know how to pronounce some of them. How do YOU say them?

Me: They aren’t weird. they’re cool. But, here is a short list of some of the “oddballs”:

• Katelina – Kate-lean-a
• Jorick – Jour-ick (this is incorrect as it is really Joe-rick, but I don’t care)
• Kateesha – Kuh-teesh-uh
• Torina – Tore-ee-na
• Velnya – Veln-yuh
• Verchiel – Ver-chee-el (This may also be wrong but I don’t care)
• Traven – Tray-ven
• Jorge – Hor-hay – I believe this is the correct pronunciation, ala the old Chicken plant
• Sorino – Sor -ree-no
• Kai - rhymes with “eye”
• Eileifr – This is an authentic name, so I don’t know. I sort of stab at it: Ee-ill-if-er. I’m sure this is wrong.
• Celedine – another authentic name; Kel-a-dine or Sell-a-dine, depending on my mood
• Sadihra – Suh-dear-a

Oren: You love fantasy/sci-fi but write vampires. How does that impact our story? Are you taking out some sort of dissatisfaction on us?

Me: I’ve been rewatching the old X-men cartoons lately and the X-men remind me of my vampires; they’re like this group of superheros with all these bizarre abilities and none of them really get along. They drift in and out, so you can get different characters back stories and such. As for the fantasy aspect, to start with there are a LOT of characters. I try to kill some off to keep the numbers down, but it’s hard. Though I could choose any weapons, I usually pick bladed ones – my brother is the one who pokes his nose in and demands guns all the time, which is good because that gives it the action feel it needs. Also the characters are always on a “quest” to defeat the “villain” – there’s generally a new villain in every book – and to do this  usually involves lots of traveling. Instead of trooping through the wild lands running into orcs they tend to stay at motels and get attacked by vampires, but it’s the same kind of thing with, essentially, the same pacing. Maybe that’s why the series appeals to lots of non-vampire fans? Because it’s really a superhero/fantasy series pretending to be paranormal?

And no. I just like to torture you.

Verchiel: Hello great, lovely author! When am I going to get my spin off series?

Me: Sorry. It’s not on my project list. Though I’m considering some Executioner short stories.

Micah: Do you actually do any research, or do you just make this crap up?

Me: Yes, I do research. Mostly it’s online. My search history is insane. I like youtube videos of things (like for Heart of the Raven I watched a video of riding on a helicopter, private planes landing, a grenade launcher firing, etc.) but I’ll take text if that’s all I can get. I usually just make locations up, but for Heart of the Raven I needed some real-ish ones, so I used google maps zoom in/street view function and also flickr photos among others. Offline I’ve used info from the Backwoodsmen magazine, Popular Mechanics, Mythbusters, Deadliest Warrior and a rather awesome documentary on Japan, just to name a few. I also ask a lot of people. My brother is my weapons expert, for instance, and in this book since they go overseas I happened to have some friends who have also gone to those places, so I collected data from them. I think this is the book I’ve done the most research on.

Katelina: Since I never get to eat real food, shouldn’t I lose weight?

Me: Pfffft. Have you SEEN the calorie count on twinkies? Besides, you’re eating regularly most of the time now.

Loren: Speaking of twinkies, they’re, like, gone. Are you gonna take that reference out of the first book coz it kinda dates it, you know?

Me: I’m not planning on it. I have faith Twinkies will return! Besides, I kind of fell like once it’s published, it’s published (short of typos or mistakes) and rather than rework old material I’d rather write new stuff.

And that’s enough from the peanut gallery. If you have a question, leave it in the comments section.

In the meantime, go check out the blogs of these lovely bloggers who I am sharing this awesome award with!

• D.M. Yates
• Barbara Tarn
• March House Books
• Janet Lee Coulter
• David Knight