Eve Gaddy: Pinterest Fun

Since it’s the day after Christmas I thought I’d talk about fun things. Pinterest is ridiculously addicting. I use it for my books and I use it because I like to pin all kinds of things. I try not to go there unless I’m looking for something specific for a book. Even then, I start looking and the next thing I know, it’s three hours later and I haven’t yet looked at whatever I went to Pinterest for in the first place.

Case in point, I went to Pinterest to see what kind of boards I have so I could write this blog. And there was a picture of Karl Urban on my home page. Of course, I had to pin it because, well, Karl Urban. I’m following a Karl Urban board that has 1.5K pictures of Karl Urban. No, I haven’t looked at all of them. Yet.

I have a board for each book. I usually keep it secret until the book is close to being finished. Besides hero and heroine inspiration, I pin their clothes, houses, and usually something to do with their work. Anything I might find useful for that book. Horses, dogs, ranches, barns, offices all have a place on my book boards. For one of my Whiskey River boards I pinned a pool table that is in the Kelly Brothers ranch house. This one gets re-pinned a lot. It really helps me to describe something if I have a picture to look at. Before Pinterest I cut them out of magazines, but Pinterest is easier and there’s so much to look at. 

I have boards named Cool Things, Cool Places, Funny stuff, Lions and Tigers and Dogs and . . . , Space, and Skies. And an Inspiration board--Did I mention Karl Urban? Aka Nick from Last Shot. And Joe Manganiello, who is definitely hero material. He’s inspiration for a future book with a hero named Gabe.

Karl Urban (Nick)

Joe Manganiello (Gabe)

Here’s, Dylan, the hero for my current book. 

And here’s his horse named Trouble.

Some pictures I pick because they’re so pretty. Like these

However, the pin of mine that’s been re-pinned the most often is this one. It’s from Katherine Garbera’s and my Whiskey River Texas Heirs board-- https://www.pinterest.com/evegaddy/whiskey-river-texas-heirs/

How about you? Do you use Pinterest? If you do, what kinds of things do you like to pin?

If you’d like to read more about my books you can go to my website evegaddy.net or sign up for my newsletter and receive a free book! http://www.eepurl.com/boxz6f

Happy Holidays!

Eve Gaddy: Grist For the Mill

Where do you get your ideas? If you're a writer you've heard this question many times. My answer is "everywhere." But if that's all I can say this blog will be very short. So, a few specifics.

TV shows and movies. No, I don't use entire plots. But sometimes a situation or plot element in a TV show or a movie will really strike me. But instead of writing about how the character on the show handled, say, a secret baby, I apply the question to my particular character, or characters. And since my characters are different people, they will react differently. Partly because the situations that people accept in a TV show, particularly a soap opera, don't really work in a book. For instance, none of my characters have been married or involved 150 times. That is common in a soap opera. Three or four marriages the reader can accept. More becomes iffy in a book. Although, my dad knew someone who had been married eight times. Yes, really. But do you think my readers would buy that? I don't. Except, dang it, now I'm thinking about a character who's been married eight times. What would cause you to keep marrying? Why would a person even want to get married eight times? I'm not sure I see the appeal.

News items often spark ideas. And I love the weird things that show up when I read my Facebook feed. "Twelve celebrities with the worst plastic surgery," or "What is the cast of Gilligan's Island doing now?", or one I've been seeing a lot lately, Victorian pictures of dead people in family photos. The last might be good for a paranormal book.

Today, among other things, I found an article with pictures of a wild bear and wolf who are friends. Great pictures, and yay, they were all on one page. This is the only one I saw today that I thought I might somehow put in a book.

I hate the ones where you have to punch next (or wait for the slide show to change) for every single picture. A lot of the time I get caught up and go through the whole thing laboriously. Cursing the whole way.:)

I also found "Celebs we feel sorry for," "Rare historical photos", "animal hybrids" and "enormous dogs". I might be able to work in enormous dogs. Or animal hybrids.

Oddly named towns or streets can be interesting. I once set a book, Cowboy Come Home, in Happy, Texas because I thought the name was so great. 

We have an Easy Street where I live and I'm considering putting that in a book. Did you know there's a town in Texas called Big Stinking Creek? 

What a great name!

Yesterday I had to go to sleep clinic to find out if I needed to have a sleep study done. This was a brand new to me doctor and specialty. So I was sitting in the exam room after talking to the doctor and began thinking about how I could use this experience in a book. Since I write romance and romantic suspense I thought of several scenarios involving the doctors, nurses, techs, and patients. I even had a few ideas for a romantic suspense, involving dead bodies, naturally. "Murder at the Sleep Clinic." Or "Death Comes to the Sleep Clinic." Anyway, it would be fun to play with.

The point is, there are stories everywhere. These are just a few that have occurred to me. I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Anne Lamott.

 “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better.” – Anne Lamott

Try the newest Whiskey River novella at  your favorite digital outlet

Or try the first Whiskey River novella free at your favorite digital outlet.

Find me on the web at www.evegaddy.net, @evegaddy on Twitter and www.facebook.com/EveGaddyAuthor.

Katherine Garbera: The Valentine Gamble

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays.  I mean who doesn't love a day that celebrates love.  From my earliest memories my Mom always made the holiday about love not about dates or having a date so I've never been upset if I didn't have a date on Valentine's Day.  She used to leave notes and presents on our beds (I have two sisters) and then we'd make a special dinner together to celebrate.

Not everyone thinks of Valentine's Day the same way.  But I have a calorie free treat for you this Valentine's Day.

The Valentine Gamble co-written with my good buddy Eve Gaddy.

Here's the blurb:

Johnny Gamble isn’t afraid of anything.  Except Fiona Lannigan’s effect on him.  It’s not just that she sees through his love ‘em and leave ‘em ways, she’s also his partner in Whiskey River’s most prestigious law firm.  He believes she deserves better than him until they “matched” at the annual Valentine’s Day dance and the night turns into one of the most romantic of his life.  Convincing him that he’s found a woman he doesn’t want to leave.

Fiona is all for a good time with Johnny.  There have been sparks between them from the beginning, but more than one night between the sheets isn’t in the cards. Or so she thinks, until Johnny turns on the romance.

Can Johnny convince Fiona that this is one Valentine’s Gamble worth taking?

Tell me your favorite thing about love to be entered to win a Cheryl's Cookie Card and e-book of The Valentine Gamble.  I'll announce the winner on next month's blog.

Kathy :)

Eve Gaddy: Confessions of an Office Supply Junkie

There. I've admitted it. I love office supplies. I've written more than one blog about them because, well, it's an addiction.:) I was going to the office supply store the other day to buy mailing envelopes for a weekly giveaway on my Facebook page-- www.facebook.com/evegaddyauthor --Marvelous Mondays, if you're interested. Anyway, I needed size #2 bubble mailing envelopes. That. Is. All. I. Needed.

The first temptation, other than computers, of course, were the jump drives of various cartoon figures. Loony Toons, Superheroes, dinosaurs, turtles, penguins, you name it, there's probably a jump drive shaped like it. I have approximately 437 jump drives. I like to keep separate ones for each book, for other business related stuff, for old projects in case I need them. But my drives are not by any means full.

Sometimes I have a reason for choosing which drive goes with which book. Often I do not, or at least, not one I know of. 

For the Billionaire's Charade, Amalfi Night Billionaires Book 5, which just came out, I used the little spaceman. I don't know why. Perhaps because it's set on an exotic island?

For several of the Whiskey River books I used the fish. I have no idea why. Because I liked it?

And for Cry Love, my interracial, reincarnation, romantic suspense book, I used Bugs Bunny. Since it deals with heavy topics I must have thought I needed some levity. I love Bugs. He makes me laugh. But back to the store, I managed to avoid putting any jump drives in my basket, even though they had some new-to-me ones that were only $9.99!  Then I went down the notebook aisle.

These are just a sampling of my hundreds of notebooks. Some are pristine, having never been used. Some have very few pages because I try to rip out the old, unnecessary pages. Some are important. They are not organized by book, though I try. But again, I do not need notebooks. Of any size. Yet I had to drag myself away from the notebook aisle.

After swinging back by the jump drives and resisting temptation again, I narrowly avoided the pens and calendars. I looked at the doo-dads for the office, organizer files, pen holders, and the like. I looked at the office furniture, and no, I don't need that either. Eventually I made it out of the store with a box of the envelopes I went to buy and a three-tier small desk organizer to use for the SWAG I send with my weekly giveaways. Yes, I actually needed what I bought. But I felt like I'd run a marathon. I was totally exhausted from forcing myself to be practical! Next time I'm buying something I want that I don't need.

I have just discovered that there are writers out there who DO NOT have an addiction to office supplies. I didn't think such a thing was possible. But one of my friends, a wonderful writer, said that office supplies are necessary but why would I be addicted to them?

To say I was shocked is putting it mildly. I don't know whether to pity her because she'll never know the joy of having 8,000 pens, 427 jump drives, 952 notebooks, countless labels, sticky notes, stickers and other various and sundry items, or to ask her what her secret is.

How about you? Are you a "I can take them or leave them" or someone who likes nothing better than to browse office supply stores and lust over the goodies inside?

One lucky commenter will win one of my giveaway packages. A signed copy of Cry Love, a Tule Book Girls book bag, and lots of SWAG. Visit Eve at her newly revamped website www.evegaddy.net, @evegaddy on Twitter or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/EveGaddyAuthor.

Eve Gaddy: The Allure of Notes

I have an endless fascination with notes. I write them. Everywhere. On stickies, in notebooks, on magazines and random pieces of paper. On napkins, paper towels and tissues. I even use the notes in my phone sometimes, or the note function on my computer.

I write notes about my books. Notes out the ying-yang. I have attempted (note the word attempted) to organize my note taking by buying several hundred different notebooks. Okay, that's an exaggeration... Maybe. But I do have a lot. I try to have one for each book or series I'm working on or will be working on. I have one for songs because I have a song of the day I put on social media, as well as a playlist for every book. I have one labeled Miscellaneous. I have another labeled social media, computer stuff and Scrivener.

You know what they have in common? They could all be labeled miscellaneous. The song notebook comes closest to have nothing but songs in it. But even that one has some random notes about something completely unrelated to music. Just a few pages, though.

The problem is that I never seem to have the correct notebook when I need it. And if I can't find the notebook immediately, I grab the nearest one. Or the nearest available writing surface. Consequently, when I go looking for notes say, on my newest Whiskey River book, One Night With The Bad Boy:

I have to look through nearly every one of my notebooks to find what I'm looking for. Not to mention, the loose pieces of paper with notes on them. Often, when and if I do find what I'm looking for, I can't read my handwriting. It's very frustrating. Every few weeks (months?) I go through and try to reorganize my notes. That lasts for a day or two.

Some of you might say, "Eve, why don't you look for the correct notebook until you find it and then write down whatever you need to?" That's a great idea. Unfortunately, I've learned from experience that if I wait, even long enough to find the proper notebook, I risk losing the thought completely. And that's even worse than finding a note about One Night With the Bad Boy in the notebook about The Billionaire's Charade:

Do you do what I do? Or are you far more organized? And if you are, can you help me?

The Billionaire's Charade will be available September 21. Look for all the Amalfi Nights Billionaire's Books:

Amalfi Night Billionaires Series
Book 1: The Billionaire's Temptation by Katherine Garbera out now!
Book 2: The Billionaire's Deception by Mimi Wells out now!
Book 3: The Billionaire's Betrayal by Nancy Robards Thompson 8/31
Book 4: The Billionaire's Secret by Kathleen O'Brien 9/14
Book 5: The Billionaire's Charade by Eve Gaddy 9/21

One Night With The Bad Boy is available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Ibooks and Google Play.

Eve Gaddy: Research Fun

Researching for all the Whiskey River books has been a lot of fun. Trey Kelly's book, One Night With the Cowboy, has been really interesting. I learned about a lot of things I knew nothing, or very little, about.

First, I had to look through pictures of good-looking guys. I found a couple I really liked. (Okay, more than a couple, but what's a girl to do? I had to narrow it down.)

I had two men I couldn't decide between, so I put their pictures on my Facebook author page and asked which one I should pick for my cowboy. It was really close! And they looked alike. Which gave me a brilliant idea for my next book in the series. One of them could be Trey and the other Xander!

Ryan Paevy from General Hospital is the one I decided looked like Trey Kelly. Here's one of my faves.

Here's David Gandy. He's my idea of Xander Blue.

You can see lots of pictures on our Whiskey River website- www.whiskeyrivertexas.net and on several of my Pinterest boards.  www.pinterest.com/EveGaddy . Not only pictures of guys but all sorts of other pictures relating to books. Among things I just like to pin, of course.:)

Another fun thing to research was the horses. You see, Trey is the owner of Kelly's Champs, the champion cutting horses he breeds, trains, and sells. Now the best picture of his first stallion is here:

His real name is Rocky Steeldust, 2007 AQHA smoky grullo Foundation Stallion. His color is called smoky grullo. I confess, I fell in love. I found all sorts of fun pictures of horses. Here's another horse, who I decided is Trey's second stallion:

I couldn't find his real name. I love him too.

I researched pool tables, houses, and lavender. I wanted the flashiest pool table I could find. I think I succeeded, don't you?:) I also had fun looking at houses. It's really fun coming up with a ranch house/mansion. Aside from pictures of lavender I also researched a little about the process of making lavender based products. I am not an expert, alas.

 Photo credit: Leslie Veen / Foter / CC BY-SA

   Photo credit: Martin Pettitt / Foter / CC BY

I researched stables. That was great fun. I found an absolutely perfect one until my friend Kathy Cowan said, "That's not a western barn, it's an English barn." Hmph. Reality intrudes.

I researched all kinds of things, which means I now have lots of beautiful pictures and a lot of information about pool tables, lavender, distilling lavender oil, how one breeds for a smoky grullo . . . You get the idea. The Internet, including Pinterest, of course, is both a blessing and a curse. Pictures really do help me visualize people and things in my books, but sometimes I find I'm looking for pictures when I really need to be writing. Which is what I'm off to do right now. Promise.:)

Eve Gaddy: Music for Writers

I have used music to help me write and get me in the mood to write for a long time now. Almost from my very first book. I still can't write while music plays in the background. I'm highly distractable and if I hear the music I tend to sing along with it, or hum if it's instrumental. I do neither of those things well but I like doing them.

Since I can't block it out to write, I listen to music at other times. Driving in the car, before I write, while I'm in the shower. Katherine Garbera and I have a new series just out, the Whiskey River series we're very excited about. With the first two books for the series, Where There's a Will, out now, and my upcoming one, One Night With the Cowboy, coming June 3, I found what I call a trigger song.

A trigger song is a bit different from a playlist. My playlist for a book usually has a number of songs on it. I'll listen to the whole playlist a lot, but there is often one song that puts me in the mood, one song that drops me right into the story. Sometimes it changes mid-book. Now, when I have found my trigger song, I play it constantly right before I start writing. I like to play it on repeat while I'm taking a shower and then go immediately to write.

Sometimes the lyrics to the trigger song relate to the story. In fact, most of them do. But sometimes they don’t. My trigger song for Where There's A Will was Milky Chance's Stolen Dance http://bit.ly/1pYbtN5 . I'm not sure why because I don’t think the lyrics really relate, but the song dropped me directly into the story. Believe me, that's a tremendous help when you're writing.

My trigger song for One Night With The Cowboy was Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio's Longer http://bit.ly/1IDRdvA. Again, I'm not quite sure why this song spoke to me so strongly but it's a great song.

Katherine Garbera and I have, or will have, playlists for all the different books in the Whiskey River series. We share them on our Whiskey River website, www.whiskeyrivertexas.net . We're adding more songs as we write more books for the series.

Another of my favorite things to do is take a drive on a familiar route and put the CD of my playlist on and listen to it while I'm driving. This also works for walking, except I have my phone or an Ipod instead of my CD player. Unfortunately, sometimes, especially when driving, I get so involved in the music and thinking about the book I forget where I'm going and end up in a completely different place from the one I intended.:)

I love SiriusXM radio and listen to it often while driving, especially when I'm looking for new music and music to add to my playlists. Right now I'm working on my next book in the Whiskey River series, One Night With the Bad Boy. But I need songs badly. Which gives me a very good reason to check out Youtube and Spotify. Spending hours on those sites is work, I promise!