The Readers' Crown & the Life of a Story

Woot! Woot! So I just found out that A TALE OF TWO DJINNS won the 2013 Readers Crown for Best Paranormal Romance. Oh yeah, happy dancing over the moon here :)

What I'm stoked about is this is a reader-judged contest and 6 readers who didn't even know I exist read Shay and Maya's story and loved it enough to help it win (I haven't seen the scores yet...dying to!).  While I respect and appreciate all opinions, when it comes to stories readers rule. Why? Because stories are written not for the editors, agents etc., but for the readers.

A story is born as a spark of an idea in the author's imagination. It comes into form when the author actually sits down and puts it into word. It grows with every word written, every chapter added, through cycles of edits and revisions. (Lol, yes parenting a story is almost as hard as parenting human kids)

However, it doesn't truly exist until the moment a reader picks up the story and reads it, connects with it. That connection is the breath of life. And as longs as a story keeps getting read by different readers it thrives and stays alive. This fact was brought home to me as I watched librarians at my favorite library removing books from the shelves because they hadn't been checked out in a long, long time. And it saddened me. When a story is forgotten, not read by new eyes, it dies.

So yes, readers rule and I'm so glad six wonderful readers read and connected with my story. Thank you from the depths of my heart.

Life Lesson: Stop and Admire the Turtles

School's out for the summer and the kids are home, which means my writing schedule is almost non-existent. Well, my preferred hours, the routine I'm used to, changed and that has my insides all twisted in knots. Not good.

So today I came up with a brilliant plan. I decided to take the kids to the City Pool at 9 a.m. in the morning. We'd beat the crowds and Texas heat, the kids would be ecstatic and I could hunker down at a poolside table and get some writing done. Not ideal conditions, but workable. NOT.

Got there and found out the pool didn't open until noon. Since it was a nice morning, we decided to take a walk by the river and park located nearby instead. We stopped and smelled the rosemary, admired the blooming waterlilies, watched a blue heron fly.  (Okay, MOM also got to admire a young man and his dog...both were cute!)

However, my favorite moment was catching sight of this group of turtles sunning themselves. The moment, and now this picture, made me smile. They look like they could be in an important turtle meeting. But I prefer to think they are just hanging out and taking a moment to chill out.

So that's what I did for the rest of the morning. Just hung out with my babies and enjoyed nature. Sometimes life gives you not what you want, but what you need.

Djinns For the Love of Mytholgy

***WINNERS!!!***

Sorry, I was out of town attending my first Boas & Tiaras in the DFW area. It's a fabulously fun event. And author Nalini Singh was the keynote! SQUEE! Anyhoo, that's why the winner announcement is a wee bit late  and I'm sorry for that. To make it up to you, I picked TWO winners instead of one:

Vanessa N. & Kamla L.

Also, the winner of the grand prize I donated for the blog hop is RACHEL!!!

WooHoo! Congrats! Thanks to everyone who hopped along & left comments!

So I saw the theme and the amazing art work for this blog hop and it was love at first meet. I write about dark and dangerous djinns (often called "genies") and so it seemed perfect to jump on board the 

Love of Mythology Giveaway Hop. 

My djinn stories are inspired by childhood tales of djinns based on Asian and Middle Eastern mythology. In those stories, djinns are not demons but beings similar to humans, except they are made from smokeless fire and are prone to stronger emotions and have power to grant wishes, change forms and create havoc (that's the dangerous part.)

They live in a parallel dimension and have their own cities, politics and culture. The only time you'll find them in a lamp or bottle (or other inanimate objects) is when they have been trapped there. So in my stories I like to explore the djinn world and pit djinn against djinn, and sometimes throw in a human as well. But yes, they also fall in love because, to me, that's what makes life worth living.

When you say genie, most people imagine

or

The djinn of my imaginations looks more like Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan

Thanks so much for joining me on the blog hop! Leave a comment and your email address to win a signed copy of A TALE OF TWO DJINNS and genie lamp key chain! 

Make sure to check out the different posts on the hop. There's lots of giveaways as well as a rafflecopter entry.

This giveaway hop is running from June 1st to 8th .
The Grand Prize Consists of the following:

$45 Amazon GC or $45 worth of books at TBD.

ebooks from Patricia Bates

a prize from Lisa Beth Darling 

an ecopy of Sunburn by Rosanna Leo

an ecopy of Ain't No Bull by Danica Avet

an ecopy of Remedy Maker by Sheri Fredricks

a Rafflecopter giveaway