All Miranda Thibodeaux really wants to do is survive corporate hell and be left alone. But as the daughter of the Incubi king, being left alone isn't on her schedule. And as an avatar to a goddess with multiple personality issues, taking things in stride isn't either. Daniel looks like an ordinary surfer boy--T. T. B.--Tall, Tanned, and Blond. Hot he may be, but ordinary he's not. Beneath the pretty packaging lies a ruthless warrior, a servant to the Vampire Council. His mission is to find Miranda and present her to the council, then get the hell out of Dodge before he loses his focus. The last thing he needs is the distraction of the testy female. When circumstances force Miranda to turn to T.T.B. for help, they both end up with more than they bargained for. And that normal human life she wanted? Not really doable when everyone wants a piece of her...

Welcome back to my good friend Jennifer James. We’re celebrating the release of her much anticipated release of Hunger Embraced, the first in an Urban Fantasy series! She’s here today to talk about what it’s like being a writer and offering up some tips and advice she’s learned so far!

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So you want to be a writer. Are you crazy?

Thanks so much to Buffy for having me on her blog today. I’ve been her guest a few times, and I’m always honored to be here. She’s a great gal and an aspiring author herself. So I thought I’d talk a little about what it takes to be a writer. I’m new to the biz myself, I haven’t been at this for even a year. But I can share some of the tips and tricks I’ve learned with anyone out there who wants to take the publishing world by storm.

1) Stock up on alcohol and coffee. Not only are you going to go through crazy lows and highs—“ZOMG I got a contract!” and “They hate my book, it’s never going to sell. *cry*” and “Wow, this reviewer really got my work and wrote me the nicest review.” and “I’m never reading another review ever again! This person is so mean!”

You’re also going to spend nights where you’re editing or writing into the wee hours and continually falling asleep on your desk or keyboard, only to wake up to see a huge series of stuff that looks like this:
alksndfioefaoifnv9v0t583q4=itjgva.
Then you have to get up in the morning and run around on three hours of sleep….

2) FB and Twitter and all that other social media stuff will suck your life away. No, seriously. It will. You will get on the internet with the best of intentions to simply do some research, or post very quickly about some promo, and then its three hours later. You made some new friends, you chatted with authors you admire after you realized that they’re really nice and helpful, you looked at videos of cats, downloaded free Kindle books, mucked around with your website because “oh man, it’s such a mess right now!”…and all your writing time is gone. *POOF!*

3) You have to write, constantly. If it’s not a book, it’s a blog post, or a guest post, or an email….You’ll miss the days before you were published, because then all you had to do was write books. After you get a contract, you have to promote the books. And that takes tons of time.

4) Your manuscript is a boomerang. Even after you write your book and then polish it up as best you can, you can count on going through it at least five more times. Let’s just say that you send your book to your crit partners, and they think it’s perfect. (snicker…yeah right) So you send it out and it gets picked up by a publisher. (Or you self-pub, whichever. Let’s just assume you’re going to work with an editor.)

So, the content editor will go through your book and you’ll work together. Now, as a beginning author, you’ll probably have more revising to do than a more established author. So, you and the content editor will probably go through the book three times. Then, it goes to the copy editor who checks it for mistakes in grammar and whatnot. If it passes muster there, and there are no issues (HA!), it goes to the proofreader. And you’ll get it back again for final read throughs. And then it goes to a senior editor and if she’s not happy, back it comes. Again.

5) Publication dates, editing deadlines, cover art…none of that is decided by you. That’s all up to the publisher and their schedule. How much do you love that book? Cause you’re going to be busting your butt on it, on someone else’s schedule. Now, you work with the publisher on all of this because they’re going to lend you their expertise with markets, formatting, and editing. But essentially you’ve sold your art work to someone who sees the art as a commodity, as a product. And that can be hard to swallow, because your ideas about how the books should be represented might differ from the publisher’s. So make sure you do your homework and research, research, research or you’ll be stuck in a contract with buyer’s remorse.

Got your alcohol stocked up yet? *grin*

In the end, you’ll have a gorgeous book you’re proud of and can’t wait to see making its way into the world. But the road there is a tough one. Put on your big girl panties.