Sunday 22 June 2014

Six Days of Memories



Today I'm delighted to welcome Stacy Eaton just before the launch of her new book Six Days of Memories.

Marie – Thank you so much for having me here today! It’s been a whirlwind this month with my birthday, the release of Distorted Loyalty and now Six Days of Memories coming out in a few days! I’m so glad I could be here to entertain your readers for the day!

 

















Before we tell you more about Six Days of Memories- lets have a good old fashioned Q&A session.


You seem to be writing one story after another – Do you have lots of ideas for books or do they come to you as you finish one and where do they come from?

 

Funny thing is I have all these ideas, but not enough time to work on them all. Right now, I believe I have 3 plot lines that I have only written general notes on. I have 6 other books that I currently have started. What I write and when I write it depends on the character voices and who feels like coming out to play.

 

Three days after I published Second Shield last November, the plotline for Distorted Loyalty came to me. It had a very intense need to write – and the story was written in 28 days. The same thing happened with Six Days of Memories. No sooner did I finish writing Distorted Loyalty, the plot started twisting. When I finished Six Days, a new plot line started boiling and now I am working on a book called One Every Thirty-Six.

 
 Does anything you plan ever change as you’re writing it?

 Holy cow! Yes!  I can sit down with clear plans on where I want the scene to go, but no! The characters will have minds of their own and before I know it, I’m sitting back going where the heck did that even come from! I love that though. I have to give the characters some control of the story, or they would drive me crazy!

 
What made you decide to write?

 
Lol…. I have no idea. I came up with an idea and said, “Hey, I’m going to write a book.” My husband thought I was crazy – of course now that I am releasing books 7 and 8 he doesn’t think I’m crazy for writing, he just wonders what really goes on inside my mind.

 

Do you use it to escape from a hard day at work?

 
Absolutely! Being a detective full time is very stressful. I deal with so much drama every day, that sometimes the only way to deal with it is to lose myself in a story with my characters.

 
There must be bits of you in your main female characters – do you want to tell us what they are or would that be telling?

 
All of my female characters are pieces of me. In the My Blood Runs Blue books, Kristin doesn’t like for people to take her choices away, neither do I. In Whether I’ll Live or Die, Nichole is a survivor, so am I. Corey deals with moral issues in Garda ~Welcome to the Realm, and as a police officer I deal with those issues quite often. Jacquelyn in Liveon~No Evil fought to keep her emotions out of her job and in Second Shield, Mack was intense and focused, yet still a woman with feelings and needs.

 
I have to put pieces of me into my characters. I’m a very strong person and I want my characters to carry those same qualities. In Distorted Loyalty, which was published June 13th, Rachel has to deal with emotional issues while still focusing on her job and doing the best she can. And in Six Days of Memories, Natasha thinks outside the box on how to deal with the situations.

 You bend some aspects of law enforcement to fit into your stories. Do you ever wish anything you’ve altered was reality?

 
Lol… I love this question! If you ever really knew what I deal with in my job as a police officer, you would know that life is really altered all the time.  Sometime reality is stranger than fiction.

 
 
 

Some of the scenes you write are very emotional – I’m thinking in particular of the funeral scene in Garda – Welcome to the Realm – Do you get upset writing them?

 Oh boy! In one word, Yes. There are times I have written an emotional scene and had to walk away when I was done. My heart would be thudding and I’d have tears on my face. What I love to hear is that when readers read those scenes, they get the same feelings. I love hearing that a reader was so touched they cried while reading the book or could so relate to the character that they were laughing along.

 
When I wrote Whether I’ll Live or Die, I had a really rough time with some of the scenes. There were many times I had to force myself to get through a scene because of the intensity of it. The emotions came from a personal knowledge and it was like I was reliving many of the scenes. I did a lot of cleaning when I wrote that book, lol…
 
 

 
 
In Liveon No Evil the story line has them turning Garda – Welcome to the Realm into a film. Is that something you would like? Have you actors already picked out for the roles?
 
I would love to see one of my books turned into a movie. That would be the ultimate! I was half way through writing Liveon when I figured out I needed to give the movie a name that Ryan was filming. I chuckled when I added Garda to it. I thought it was funny and even gave myself a little cameo appearance!  As for characters, no. I have never really thought about it. That’s not my job, my job is to write the story, someone else can put the faces to the characters.
 
In Six Days of Memories you describe a car crash. Is that something you’ve had to deal with and, if so, did it make it hard to write that scene?
 I can’t tell you how many accidents I have handled in my fourteen years on the force. I have dealt with minor fender benders, more DUI accidents then I care to think about and even some serious fatal accidents. When police do our jobs, we tend to push our emotions to the side. Sometimes we seem cold when we deal with serious incidents, but that is just our defence mechanisms kicking in.  The fact that I have investigated so many crashes just makes it easier to write about.

 
Six Days of Memories has an interesting fact item in it; a tattoo.  If you could have any tattoo, size, colour, pain notwithstanding, what would it be?
I have two of them – and I plan to get more. Right now I have a few symbols on my ankle that stated “Gemini Justice” and I have a wolf on my back. I am thinking real hard about what I want to get now, but it will either be other words, a ribbon for domestic violence or another wolf. We shall see!
Six Days of Memories is out on June 30th – tell us about it.
 
First let me tell you that I loved writing this story! Natasha and Jay are awesome characters! And I fell in love with both of them! I hope readers do too! Here’s the blurb!
Detective Natasha Foster will put her job on the line to prove her gut feeling is dead on.
 When Detective Foster responds to the scene of a crash, she finds the female passenger dead, a bag full of money in the back seat and a body in the trunk.  It is only when the driver, whom she nicknames Jay, wakes up with no memory that she must go with her instincts and continue the investigation in a way that was never taught.
 Jay finds himself lost, but drawn to the beautiful detective who steps above and beyond the call of duty. His need to know if he was a victim or the criminal pushes him to try and recall what happened and who he is. With the pull of a trigger, Jay’s memory will suddenly return and with it, the terrible truth.
 
Thank you so much for joining me here today Stacy - and good luck with Six Days of Memories.
Thank you Marie for allowing me to visit and share so much about myself and my books! I look forward to hearing any comments from your readers!
 To find out more about Stacy visit one of the links below
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Stacy-Eaton/e/B005KQIJY8/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Keep an eye on her Amazon page and don't forget 30th June is the day you will be able to get Six Days of Memories.

Thank you readers for taking the time to sit with me again. I hope you enjoyed hearing about Stacy and her books. I'm sure she'd love it if you left her a comment.

Marie
www.mariegodley.moonfruit.com


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

Sunday 8 June 2014

Inspiration


A few months ago I had an idea for a story. It isn't perfectly formed yet - in fact I probably only have half of it - undeterred I'm slowly writing it at the train station. For those of you who have read my earlier blogs you know why I write at the train station - for those that haven't catch up here Time to Write .

I had some things that I knew I wanted in it and whilst I'm happy to picture them in my head it's better when you can find the things you want. And here I have been lucky.

 
I found this on a day out with my family.
 
 My story is going to have a special pendant in it. Then I remembered I had these - they're actually earrings but I think it makes a great necklace and it is the right colour and texture.
 


For Christmas, my daughter bought me this angel pin. I love it and put it in the story.

 
With these constant reminders it makes writing the story more fun. So I'm back to editing but when I find a spare few minutes I will be continuing this story - especially as my son is waiting for the next chapter and I won't tell him what it's about!
 
Thanks for reading.
 
Marie
 
I want to thank my son Jordan for taking the photos of my jewellery - you did a great job x
 

Monday 2 June 2014

Melissa J Rutter


My guest post today is from Melissa J Rutter.


     I am from the seaside resort town of Bournemouth in the UK and now live in Poole with my husband and two children. I lived and worked in New Hampshire as a nanny for a while, I studied at the Institute of Art while there and met my husband when I returned to the UK just to visit. I have been published since July 2012 and currently have seven books out. I also love to read and enjoy movies.

     This weekend I released Lunar Ryce, Soul Searcher, Book 2 of the Sheol Legacies.
 

Book Blurb:

She knows the rules, she knows she can't fall in love, and she certainly can't fall in love with a Hunter, but she has and after his rejection, the only thing she could do was leave.

Sheol is under siege, held captive by Xavier and his demons. She has to collect a thousand souls to help strengthen the veil between worlds so that the demons will have no choice but to leave. But with Elias Reid, the Hunter, in her heart, missing everyone she has ever known, on top of being exhausted, how can that be her only priority?

Scott, Xavier's son, is trying everything he can to win her back, but her heart belongs to someone else, he had his chance and he blew it. This causes him to take drastic measures with unprecedented consequences. The ransom is high and guess who has to pay it.

     Weeks before Lunar’s seventeenth birthday her guardian and grandmother Delilah (Delly) died. Leaving her to be cared for by her sister Mika, as Mika is in school a long lost cousin is drafted in to care for her, Syrus. Soon she discovers that nothing about her life has been the truth and that she has been left the last Soul Collector in her family. In book 1, we followed her training and her first collections. Sheol was captured by demons and she managed to escape with Elias, a Hunter sworn to protect her. The book ended when she admitted she had a crush on him and he her, though, forbidden to love, they couldn’t do anything about it. She left him behind to hut for the souls to help free her friends.

     As she travels collecting souls she has so much to deal with, the infatuation her best friend Jaxon has with her, the fact that Syrus and everyone in Sheol is being held prisoner by her ex-boyfriend Scott’s father, a ruthless demon, Xavier. On top of all of that, she is in love with Elias. Time is running out and she will have to make a choice, one which would be hard to live with no matter what she decides.

 

Where to get the book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/B00KOG2XVO/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link
 
To find out more about Melissa: http://melissajrutterauthor.webs.com/

Twitter handle @melissajrutter

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/14474720-melissa-rutter

and she is on Linkedin  MelissaJRutter


Melissa, thank you for telling us about yourself and your new book. I wish you the best of luck with it.

Thank you - as usual to all my wonderful readers - you rock.

Marie.

www.mariegodley.moonfruit.com