Lisa Hendrix

Spring may have sprung, but my world is as hectic as ever. So we’ll start with a moment of zen…

That bit of loveliness comes from the yard across the street from us, which is a big patch of naturalized daffodils studded with hyacinths and cherry trees. As the daffodils fade over the next week or so, hundreds of tulips will break into bloom.  If you want to see the full yard, I just posted a shot over on my Facebook Page. Pop over for a look, and please hit the Like button to join the fun while you’re there.

Now for some of the other stuff:

Nachtkrieger: Unsterbliche Liebe has launched. That’s the German language edition of Immortal Warrior (the title translates as Nightwarrior: Immortal Love), and it’s doing very well on amazon.de.  My German publisher, Droemer Knaur has done a fabulous professional book video for the book. That’s also up on my Facebook Page. I’ll post it here tomorrow, along with a sneak peak at the cover of the second book in German.

RT Booklovers Convention ramps up this week and I’m heading down with a van-load of friends to join the fun. This will be my first time at RT, but I’ve been listening to people talk about it for years, and I know how intense it’s going to be. I mean, really, a hotel full of rabid romance fans and authors? Not a recipe for sleep.

Anyway, I’m going loaded with stuff to give away: Romance Trading Cards, giveaways from other writers, and even books. Every day, I’ll have a batch of swag in my giant brown bag, ready to hand out to lucky readers and bloggers, so be sure to say hi when you spot me. No telling what you’ll get.

And if you’re not attending RT, but you live in the Los Angeles area, be sure to drive into town for the Giant Book Fair, taking place Saturday, April 9, 2011, from 11am to 2pm. You’ll have the chance to meet 400 authors (including yours truly) and you can bring your favorite keeper books to get them signed, all for just $5.  This is one of the most popular events at RT, so I suggest you arrive at the Westin Bonaventure early to buy your tickets, so you can enjoy the entire bookfair.

So…That’s my week. I’m off to pack now. If you’re going to be at RT, either the whole con or the book fair, please give me a shout out below and I’ll keep an eye out for you.

It’s World Book Day 2011 —  Take a book to lunch and read. Visit your local independent bookseller to find the perfect gift for a friend. Prowl that antiquarian bookstore you’ve been meaning to visit. Read to your child (or at the very least, let them watch these terrific storybook readings on the World Book Day site). Explore books re-envisioned as art by Brian Detmer.

Celebrate all things book!

(Why…You could even buy a copy of Immortal Champion in paper or Kindle and celebrate with a hunky Viking warrior!)

I’m over at Author Sound Relations today, blogging about one of the founding tropes of romance, the naïve virgin heroine—and whether or not it’s accurate in historical settings.  Come join the fun and comment on your own favorite or least favorite romance trope to be eligible to win one of my backlist books and an official Immortal Brotherhood mug like the one to the left.

The Historical Romance Writer’s Virgin Hussy

I bombed down Interstate 5 today, making something around 700 miles before my butt gave out. Now I’m ensconced in a decent motel with a giant cup of tea, having done the now-obligatory bedbug check (my dad used to do bedbug and cleanliness checks, back in the day, so I was taught by a master). Tomorrow I’ll wend my way through the maze that is the LA freeway system, headed for Oceanside, where I have the first of several San Diego area signings Friday evening, 6-8pm, at the B&N Oceanside

Anyway, while I was contemplating life, the universe and everything in the car, I realized I should be blogging this little adventure, so here I am.

Images from the road:

Great Egret

Egrets, stately and milky white, standing by the side of the road with heads cocked, listening for their next meal to crawl by. Seemed to be one every two miles or so, all the way down.

Ominous looking banks of fog that turned out to be thin and light once I was inside them. (knock on wood they stay that way)

Oil refineries lit up like casinos southwest of Bakersfield. They may be dangerous and stinky, but they’re sure lovely off in the distance at night.

Straightest stretch of highway outside the North Dakota-Texas belt. Seriously, like a ruler.

First big traffic jam, on the Grapevine. Four lanes of cars and (mostly) trucks, backed up probably 15 miles. Not on my side of the road, thank Cthulhu.

All accompanied by an ever-changing stream of public radio stations, except in the Central Valley where for a time I couldn’t locate one and resorted to listening to Korean and Portuguese radio. (Apparently, there are 400,000 Portuguese in northern and central California. Who knew?) Of the two, the Portuguese station was by far the best: the announcer had a resonating bass voice, like Lt. Worf from Star Trek, and the music was lovely.

Today’s the official release day for IMMORTAL CHAMPION, and it’s a sign of how hectic it’s been aroundhere that I didn’t even get a post up. Bad Lisa. Bad.

And it’s still hectic, which means I’m not going to beat around the bush. Gunnar is one sexy Viking, and you need to get acquainted. CLICK HERE for an excerpt and a list of just a few of the places you can meet him.

Perhaps you’re wondering why I’m so crazed that I’m barely even up to blogging about my own book on release day. Well, it has a lot to do with working on the next one (Immortal Defender, due to my editor in February) and packing for an extended book tour.

BOOK TOUR. Those two words conjur a mix of excitement and dread in most authors, including yours truly. We are retiring, solitary types, we writers; if we weren’t, we’d be actors or rockstars.

But like those less shy types, we go on tour anyway. If we’re lucky, we get to go with someone.
(I’m lucky, btw. I get to go with Delilah Marvelle, who is the exception that proves the rule about retiring writers and who tends to bring out a less, ahem, shy side of me.

Which is the source of the the warning: WILD WOMEN ON TOUR.

If you live on the West Coast between San Diego (where I will sign at the American Library Association Winter Conference, among other places) and Portland, OR (where we will sign at Jan’s Paperbacks in Beaverton/Aloha), we may be signing near you. To find out, check out the official tour schedule on the Meet Lisa page.

It’s an incomplete schedule: We’ll be filling in gaps with tons of impromptu stock signings, where we find a nearby store and run in to schmooze the booksellers and sign stock on hand. If you can’t attend one of the formal events, follow one or both of us on Twitter to find out if we’re headed your way for a “drive-by” signing…And to offer your suggestions for good stores to visit along the way. (For that matter, if you know of a good romance-friendly bookstore along the I-5 corridor in California or Oregon, tell me below in comments and I’ll add it to our list.) (Booksellers can request a stop, too!)

We hope you’ll turn out to visit, perhaps buy a book, and have a good time. (I don’t want to start any rumors, but there may be a few prizes involved…)

See you along the road.

Lisa

PS: That’s Jan’s in the photo, and if you look closely, you can see Immortal Champion posters in the windows.

I was going to run a little contest for you all, with a prize to the first person to send me a picture of IMMORTAL CHAMPION on the shelves, but someone beat us to it. (Oh, darn.) A twitter buddy posted this shot on TwitPic just a few minutes ago:

(found in BooksAMillion, Rocky Mount, NC)

Now begins the craziness…

My new bookmarks just arrived, hot off the presses! Check them out, there on the left (click on image to see full size).

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Didn’t my designer do a terrific job? I’ll be mailing these out to the folks who have been waiting so patiently in the next 24 hours.

If you want on of these to fondle for yourself, just send a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope to me at PO Box 8092, Medford OR 97501. If you would like more than one so you can share with friends, or if you’d like to also receive one or more signed bookplates to put in your books, be sure to tell me (and please say how many of each!). If you want multiples of each, be sure to include extra postage.

Booksellers/Readers Groups and others who need larger quantities, please let me know using the Contact form.

If you’re too impatient to wait for mail, or if you’re just the DIY type, you can print your own bookmarks. Just click on the image to the right

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to get to a full-sized pdf file that you can print directly or save to print out later. Four different bookmarks will print on a single 8.5 x 11″ sheet of paper. For best results, use white coverstock or cardstock and a color printer—but if you don’t have either of those and still want bookmarks, go for it with what you have.  Nobody said they had to be perfect.

To clarify: I do not have the bookmarks shown on the right in the set of 4 together and cannot send those to you, no matter how nicely you ask. Those are a pdf that you print for yourself (just click on the image). The red Immortal Champion bookmarks on the left, above, are the professionally printed ones that I can send you with an SASE.

NaNoWriMo, for those who don’t know, is National Novel Writing Month,  a period of insanity when writers all over the world commit to producing a completed novel of 50,000 words in 30 days (1667 words/day). NaNo has been going on every November since 1999, when only 21 writers participated. This year, over 130,000 writers have signed up.

I’m one of them.

But I’m not exactly playing by the rules. See, you’re supposed to start a new book, from scratch, at the beginning of NaNo. The idea is that if you don’t have anything on paper already, you’re free to let yourself go, tap new depths, reach new levels of writerly freedom. Or something like that.

But to start an entirely new piece, I’d have to stop working on Immortal Defender for a month, and  I don’t want to leave Torvald hanging that long. Besides, I’m on deadline and I simply can’t. Can. Not. So I’m going to use NaNo for my own purposes. My goal is to finish Immortal Defender during the next 30 days, leaving myself the whole month of December to edit and (here’s a concept) enjoy Christmas. I’m not writing a new book, but I will be doing the 50,000 words, at least, so I’m still meeting that part of the challenge.

I’ll be posting a NaNoWriMo widget in the sidebar that will reflect only the words I write during November, so  you and I can both keep track of my progress. I’m using the new NaNo version of Scrivener to do the drafting, and that counts daily words to keep me honest.

If any of you want to join in, it’s not too late. You can sign up on the NaNoWriMo site and jump in any time. You may have to do a little catching up next weekend, but that’s okay. I’d love it if you’d post your commitment below (I’d tell you to make me a Buddy on  the NaNo site, but I won’t be there except to log words).

If you’ve ever told yourself “Someday, I’m going to write a novel,” this is the time. Maybe it won’t be that lyrical bestseller that you dream of, but you will prove something to yourself: that you can finish a book. And that, my friends, is half the battle.

Okay, perhaps not lifeblood, but certainly the stuff that give my blood life and fuels hours of writing. I think I have now tried coffee from every joint in town. I have places for my cheap cup, my best cup (always Melello’s—that’s a cup in the photo), my fast cup, my midnight cup. I have staked out the best places to write and drink (Good Beans or Melello’s or Shari’s at midnight, but *never* Starbucks which is always too noisy and too cold).

Why am I telling you this? Because…

Today is National Coffee Day. I shall celebrate the wet, warm brew that inspires, just as I do every day, by going out in search of a great cuppa joe and a congenial table. Would that M. Balzac could join me. We would understand each other.

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“Coffee falls into the stomach … ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop … the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink …” -Honoré de Balzac

Hello?  <jumps at echo> Anyone here? <looks around>

Well, I understand if you wandered off. After all, I haven’t shown up here since, well, since forever.

But that’s because I have been showing up where it really counts—at my desk. I’ve been writing like a madwoman and (ta-dah!) IMMORTAL CHAMPION is  finished. Yep, Gunnar has his story at last — thanks to four all-nighters in the last 9 days of work, two of them *during* the RWA National Conference. (And I’ll take this opportunity to apologize again to Barb Samuels for dozing off during her workshop…)

But the work paid off, my editor loves it (says the characters are “fabulous” and “so romantic”), the book is in production, and I’ve now recovered enough to start the next book (Torvald’s story, if you’re curious).

Oh, and I got the cover.  Oh my, the cover. It’s…amazing. In the same vein as the others, but a little different. A little sharper. A lot hotter. I keep hoping somehow it will come out in full 3D so Gunnar will be touchable.

Come back tomorrow for a teaser.  In fact, I’ll let you choose…

Do you want the curve of brawny arm and shoulder, a glimpse of his incredibly intense stare, or a snip above his belt, where his hipbone meets his six-pack in an enchanting little Y of rippling muscle? (Answer in Comments)