Welcome to author Morgan Emerson's home away from home. Here we'll talk about life, love, BOOKS, and whatever other nonsense we can think of! Be warned, there maybe dorkiness involved!
My debut novella releases on December 8th! Btw, when did December get here?! Here is the cover and blurb:
A woman who is scared to trust, and a man who thought he’d never love again.
A weekend in Cabo brings them together, but Miles
wakes to an empty bed when Kat starts to feel things she shouldn’t.
When they meet again at a charity fundraiser six months later, how can
Miles convince Kat that she can trust him with her heart?
As an awesome bonus this release will be free! That's right! FREE! This is the first release in my Moonlit Nights series. Sunrise is a contemporary erotic romance, and the rest of the series will be New Adult.
My publisher is offering a $10 gift certificate to their digital store to celebrate my release!
Is everyone ready for Halloween? It's in just a few days. When did that happen? I've got a few costume tweeks to make for the kiddies costumes and some touch ups for my own. And since I know you were all wondering, yes I am wearing my Wonder Woman cosplay from SDCC. So I'll be sure to post photos.
Now onto exciting news! I've finished some edits on my upcoming free read, Sunrise. It'll be up on my publishers site for free! That's right F-R-E-E! It'll be a nice little segue into my Moonlit Nights series. I think I'll post a little teaser next week and will give you release details as I get them.
Speaking of release my fellow BDP author, Elise Marion, has a new release today! The Groom is the sequel to My Ex Wife's Wedding. I read the first book and am excited to read the second! Oh and Elise is super cool so you should check her out. Pick up that title for free, that's right another F-R-E-E read, at our publishers site Bottom Drawer Publications. If you dig her free read, be sure to grab The Groom from the same site. All formats are available from the publishers site.
Also in the news, it seems I'll be attempting NaNoWriMo next month. For those of you that are unfamiliar with that it's National Novel Writing Month. Basically a bunch of us people who like to write try to write as fast as possible in one month when we don't usually work that fast any other time. At least that's me. So yeah. I'll be posting more regular updates and using a word counter and all that awesome stuff. If you're interested you should check out the NaNoWriMo site. They have some cool sponsors and you get a few cool tools to help you write. There are forums, coaches and the whole program is full of really awesome cheerleaders. If you sign up let me know and we can be buddies.
As always stay connected with me on Twitter, Faceback and here on my blog, links are on the right.
Last weekend I had a little chat with my publisher about my upcoming series. Have I mentioned that? If not let me get you up to speed since we've made a few more decisions as of late. And if so... well keep reading anyway!
So I have a 3 book series soon to be published by Bottom Drawer Publishing. It's called The Moonlit Nights Series.
Book one is titled Talk to the Moon with Kyle Chase and Sadie Long as star crossed lovers. High school sweethearts who find each other again. But can all be forgiven?
Book two is titled Moon Over the Bay, starring Nathan Chase, Kyle's best friend, and Jess Dempsey, Sadie's best friend. He doesn't want to be some rich girl's boy toy and she doesn't want to be anyone's sugar mama. Sometimes lust has a mind of it's own.
Book three is titled Secrets of the Moon, with Olivia Niccoli and Evan Stephens. When a one night stand becomes something much more significant. Can two strangers handle it?
Recently I completed a short story, 1.5 if you will, to accompany the series as a free read titled Rising of the Sun. Here we meet a parent from other characters. Miles Chase, Kyle's dad, and Katherine Niccoli, Olivia's mother, have a chance meeting when Kyle calls in a favor with his dad to attend a work event with his coworker, Katherine. Little did they know that Miles and Katherine had met before during a weekend of vacation. Do the flames still burn like they did during that hot weekend in Mexico
Rising of the Sun is in my editors hands as we speak and she'll be whipping her red pen of pain, as I call it, all over it to make it awesome. I've completed the first round edits on book one in the series, and have already submitted the second book. My publisher and I had a really great conversation and decided to make the series New Adult. Initially the plan was for Miles and Kat to be book three, but when the pub asked about New Adult I couldn't get the idea out of my head. I had already had a little side story idea for Kat's daughter so we worked it out and I came up with shifting the daughter to book three and making the mature couple the free read.
The plan is to release the series 6 to 8 weeks apart. I'm pretty excited about that. Hopefully I'll have some more solid details soon like a release date and some covers! Not gonna lie, I'm giddy to see the covers! As is gets closer to release I'll post about the inspirations for each book and the play lists also. Music is important as one song was the brain child for book one. =)
In the meantime, check out my Pinterest for a peek at what I envision my characters.
Also, my publisher Bottom Drawer Publishing is having a birthday party on their site! Discounted books and giveaways! Check them out and some of the free reads and awesome authors they have over there.
O.M.G. Let's just get that out there. O.M.F.G. Let me start from the beginning and then I will get to the best part of my weekend. I'll keep it short. Ok, that's highly unlikely but I'll do a highlights list at the bottom.
The trip to the promise land started very early on Thursday morning, 4am to be exact. I live in the middle of the desert. Really. My semi small town can be found by driving about 30 minutes south of the Phoenix burbs. So that meant a trip out through the dark and creepy desert was required. We, my best friend and I, headed out on this two lane highway that was like a mini roller-coaster.
The drive was pretty uneventful until we crossed into California and then a nightmare inducing incident happened. Seemed a bird decided it didn't want to live anymore and dove into our windshield, causing me to stop for a change of drawers. Of course the poor thing had to leave a giant skid mark on the window so we could relive the horror of the impact for miles to come. Yeah. The rest of the drive was lovely and uneventful and the gerbils that were running the motor probably died the minute we stopped from climbing the mountains but all was well.
Day One: So we've arrived to the wonderful, beautiful, insanely busy San Diego Comic Con. We both tossed on our costumes and headed in. I was unaware that wearing a corset in humidity was possibly the worst idea I would ever have, so I strutted my boobs that were nearing popping out up and over the huge pedestrian bridge and enter the magical world of SDCC.
We spent Thursday walking the exhibit floor which did my ADD no good. It was a constant, 'OMG look at that!, WOW look at this!' kind of thing and by that point my face and costume were LITERALLY melting off me. The tiara thing I made was actually becoming unglued and getting gross and I'm pretty sure I had one of my false lashes hanging off my eye. Yeah, so not sexy. So I changed ( in the car! ) and started again. This is me sans costume on Thursday and yes I was THAT excited!
At the end of Thursday we managed to get into the Dexter panel. My BFF is a huge fan and it was really cool to see it as my very first panel. It took place in the what would soon become my second home, the meager chamber we call, Hall H. We only waited about an hour before piling into a dark room. Afterwards we grabbed the car and checked into our hotel and ordered a pizza. Having a game plan for the next day we crashed.
Day Two: It will forever be known as the day Hall H beat our asses. This is me before the hell started:
Of course plans are typically shot to shit when you over sleep. So after we hurry and rush out at 530am for day two we line up about 2 freaking miles from the illusive Hall H doors. And no I am not kidding. Ok it was a mile. See:
Of course keep in mind we were left off about a a quarter mile up on the top right by the ball park from our shuttle. So yeah. 6am and here we are waiting. And we waited. And waited. And then we started walking. And come time for the first panel of the day we didn't get in the room. -_- Yeah. We were told twice we were around the 4k people mark for a room that held 6500. You do the math. Knowing we REALLY wanted to see the Sony panel, which would have The Amazing Spiderman 2 preview and cast we stayed in line until it was time for it to start. By some small miracle we made it into the panel!! 10 1/2 hours of swamp tits later and I was in an air conditioned, dark room with 6498 other strangers. But I have to admit seeing the footage and the cast was worth it. Andrew Garfield came out AS FUCKING SPIDERMAN!! Then proceeded to stay in character and his interaction with Jamie Foxx was awesome. Then Spidey left and out came Andrew in his adorable English accent and sweet charm. It was just so awesome and different then our previous panel with the Dexter group. We also got to see Samuel L Jackson and Joel Kinnamen for the new Robocop movie. I am excited for that.
As the panel was ending and we were about to see Metallica talk about their new Documentary we decided we wanted to see the panels in the same room the next day more than them. I know I know, don't shot me! But my BFF's and I entire goal for this whole 4 day trip was to get into the Marvel Panel and see the Captain America 2 preview & cast and the Thor 2 preview and cast *coughLokicough* so we decided to bail out on the megastars as Metallica and camp outside for the night. Yeah, crazy I know. So a trip to Target and dinner later, my BFF decided to sacrifice his night and stayed out there, letting me go back to the hotel for a couple hours of sleep. He offered because not only is he awesome, but he was in the military and had slept in worst conditions than a camping chair.
Day Three: It will forever be known as the most epic day ever!
I was up at 4am and in line by 5. This is THE day we had been waiting for since we got our badges. Thankfully we were better prepared for the wait so the almost 5 hours I waited and the 12 hours my BFF waited weren't at terrible. It also helped that this was all morning waiting and not so swampy as previously. About 10am we were finally let into the magical kingdom. We ended up about half way up and to the right. Not terrible but should have been WAY better for 12 hours of waiting! I figured out that the problem is one or 2 people wait all night and 2-4 people show up later and join in. So if 1k people wait but then they let in 3 other people that just fucks my chances at a better seat. We were guilty of this so I can't say anything other than that's why we didn't get into Hall H the day before and why we weren't closer. Oh well.
WE MADE IT IN THE FUCKING ROOM! This felt like a huge triumph after the shenanigans the previous day.
I won't go into detail about the panels all day, I'll just bullet off what I saw. And I doubt this is in order.
Seventh Son preview & cast- Jeff Bridges was awesome & Kit Harrington was there too. Missed him previous day.
Godzilla preview & cast- Looks really cool and Bryan Cranston is fucking hilarious! When the director asked if we wanted to see Godzilla, Bryan stood up to unzip his pants! OMG.
The Lego Movie trailer and creators- This was fun, I think my kids will want to go. The creators were fun.
300: Rise of an Empire preview & cast- Looks as cool as the first one.
Sneak peek of the Warcraft movie. I thought it looked like Matthew McConaughey but maybe not.
Gravity preview & cast- Sandra effing Bullock! Wow! I was soo not expecting to see her! She's lovely.
Edge of Tomorrow preview & cast- Dude.. Tom Cruise! He came out and fucking sang a little with the moderator Chris Hardwick! Craziness.
Zack Snyder, director of Man of Steel had a cast member read a quote for "The Dark Knight Returns" book and then revealed the Superman/Batman as follows:
I KNOW RIGHT??
The energy in the room was off the charts. It was better then a rock concert and I've been to a lot. The fanboys were screaming like high school girls. It was adorable. Of course I was losing my mind too but still. That was the end of the first panel. We were all hyperventilating after that. Next was:
I, Frankenstein preview & cast- It's made by the people responsible for Underworld and you can tell. It's got fighting gargoyles and demons with Franky in the middle. Looks interesting.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire preview & cast- Preview looks fantastic and I'm super excited. Jennifer Lawerence was as funny as always.
This panel was fairly uneventful and boring compared to the last I thought. Next came EW's Women Who Kick Ass panel and OMG that was awful. It was an obvious time for food and potty break since one actress decided to turn it into a soap box hour. The energy took an immediate turn during this and the long hours of waiting caught up with some of us. Next came 20th Century Fox panel and the buzz began again.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes trailer and cast- They didn't do a sit down panel like they previous ones. Andy Serkis gets a huge pop and the trailer looks really intriguing. I liked the previous one so I'll check this one out too.
Wolverine trailer & HUGH JACKMAN- Yeah that's all you need to know really. The Wolverine seems to be balls out action and Hugh is seriously fucking sexy, even from across the room. He's pretty damn big too. I can't wait for this!
X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer and cast- THE FUCKING WHOLE CAST, past and present! Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Ian Mckellan, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender ( FASSY! ), Jennifer Lawerence, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Evan Peters and of course director Bryan Singer. Yes. They were all there. In the room that I was in. At the same time! Speechless!
And then this shit happened:
My view!
There is another video but it's edited and missing the "Seems I have an army" at the end which I proudly subscribe too.
Yeah. I have no words. I was screaming and jumping around like a 15yo at a Beiber concert and I am not ashamed to admit it.
To see one of your favorite actors come out is just awesome, but to see that person come out AS THE CHARACTER that is also your favorite ( did you see my day three garb? ) was just.... I honestly don't have a large enough vocabulary to describe what I felt. I wanted to cry, I may have peed a little, I was shaking. It was quite ridiculous but when my BFF and I decided to go to this mecca for nerds, I never in my wildest dreams expected to experience this. Am I being over dramatic? Probably. Do I think my emotions were magnified because of the amount of time and energy it took to get into the room? Sure. Do I think my response had anything to do with my boring life as a stay at home mom? Most definitely.
But for me, that might have been a once in a lifetime thing that happened. How often does someone get to fangirl as hard as I did over the character and actor they love so much? Not very fucking often. So yeah. The guys behind me, whom I spent 11 hours with at that point, put their hands on my shoulders to try to calm me. It was sweet.
So after an EPIC preview of Thor 2, in which Loki is on full display and integral to the story ( OMFG! ) the crowd was worked into a further tizzy by the Captain America 2 cast and crew who brought a clip from the movie which is still filming.
The scene was pretty awesome. Showing a very nice looking, spry Cap kicking ass inside an elevator in which he says "Before we begin gentleman, does anyone want to get out?" So awesome. This also got the fan boys yelling, including my BFF.
Up next is Guardians of the Galaxy. This is highly anticipated and I admit not not knowing a lot about it.
Of course nothing ( ok, maybe ) when Joss Whedon came out. Just when we couldn't have got any more excited, he grabs a mic and says he didn't have anything to add, just something to share and up comes the teaser for Avengers 2, The Age of Ultron.
BOOM. Done! What a fucking emotional roller coaster that day was!
Day Four was a much more subdued day than the previous. Plan was to pick up the goodies that Fox gave us in the special "pick up goodies here" room then to head over to the Marvel Booth. As we walk up, guess who just so happens to be having a signing? The man himself, Tom Hiddleston! ( I know I am losing some of you with my fangirling, so go ahead and skip to the high light and low lights! ) Holy sweet baby geebus is that man lovely! I was about 20 feet away from him and he's just so freaking swoonworthy!
By the luck of the gods and my new best friend whom I met in line the previous day, we scored tickets to a small, less than 300 people panel with the lovely Tom Hiddleston! Zachary Levi, who also co-stars in Thor 2, runs Nerd HQ that takes place over at Petco Park and raises money for Operation Smile by selling seats to a more private affair. Best $22 I ever spent! Yes, that's a baseball field behind him.
After that, we left San Diego in our rear-view. I don't think I personally I could have had a better Comic Con. OK , I lie. IF I had made it into Hall H for all the panels on Friday like I wanted, THEN it would've been perfect. But as much as I saw my Hiddles, it made up for all the aches and pains and crankiness that was dealt out during those 4 days.
Highlights and Lowlights of SDCC:
High-
The people! I met some fucking awesome people while there. And spent many hours with others and the overall comradery was really something to behold. It really helped keep my anxiety of being around large groups to a minimum.
Chris Hardwick-I am in love with this big nerd. He made Hall H pretty fucking awesome. He now has a minion.
During the Nerd HQ panel, when Tom said Zach Levi swung in like Errol Flynn onto the set of Thor 2, I had to pipe in " Flynn Rider?" and after a reaction from the crowd Zach replies to me, "Don't think you're the first person to think of that." Hehe.
The people who asked questions. Sometimes more entertaining than the actual panels ( like I, Frankenstein ). One kid had a shirt that said " He's gay" with an arrow pointing to the side. Another, which recieved the loudest pop because it's the gods honest truth-
Low
The people. Not that there were any douchey people, only a few line cutters on Friday, but the fact that there are SOOO many people leaving you with no personal space and no private conversations. Unless of course you text one another. While sitting next to one another.
The Lines. There has GOT to be a better way to deal with Hall H line. GOT to be.
Too much good stuff and not enough time.
Leaving AZ with fat girl calves and coming home with She-Hulk calves.
If you are interested in more detailed info on the panels I talked about or anything else super duper awesome from the weekend check out Nerd Bastards or the uber helpful SDCCBlog.com.
OK. There it is. I think it FINALLY got it all out. Phew.
Umm. Yeah. So I think I might be stretching myself too thin this month of July.
Other than the obvious upcoming 4th of July and the fact is summer break and I have three kids at home, I of course have the San Diego Comic Con. Mind you that is 4 days only BUT the amount of time I am spending on my costume, it adds up.
And let's not forget the ever important writing of books!
This brings me to the part I am a little stressed about. I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo starting the 1st! For those of you that don't know November is National Novel Writing Month. There is a site where you can go and join for free and basically join a group to help with support and tracking and just plan help getting your ass in gear. I had planned on being involved in November but found out about camp and thought it was a good time to finish up book three in my upcoming series. My goal is only 20,000 words in 30 days. No big deal right?
Yeah. We'll see about that!
I recently finished my first edits on book one in the series so logically I'll be working on a second round of edits AND promotion of course. Of course because I didn't have enough to do I started another short story that has a deadline of July 15th. I know, I'm a goob.
I've been so out of it I feel asleep so early on the couch last night that nothing got done. I missed my Friday night facial ( not that you pervs! ) which I am doing now as I write. I didn't work in my short story all week and I didn't work on my costume! Gah!! Did I mention I am lazy? Yeah cause I am. I hate housework. No joke.
However tonight I finished my head peice except adding the elastic to make it wearable. I'm really pleased with how the tiara/head thing came out. It's very steampunk I think because it looks like beat up old metal. And as of right now my wrist guards are 40% done.
So anywoo... If you see me rocking in a corner sobbing you'll know why...
I'll keep you posted!
Last week I finished the first round of edits for my first novella, Talk to the Moon. When I first started the editing it was really overwhelming but I just dug deep and kept going. I ended up tightening the plot while cutting 1600 words but adding another 5000. I'm very happy with how it turned out! As soon as I have some other info, like a cover or a release date I'll let you know. In the mean time let's review what I started doing as a reward for my efforts. Pffft who am I kidding? I was going to do this anyway! =P
Many of you might not know this, but I am a big dork. Or a geek. Or a nerd, hell I don't know. Anywoo, my best friend, Tommy, and I are headed to San Diego in July for the world famous Comic Con! I'm beyond excited for several reasons. One it's just fucking awesome. Two, I might not have read a ton of comic books, but I know a lot of the story lines and LOVE the movies. Three, I'm kind of a Loki fangirl. I admit to being in his army ( don't ask ) and I am a HUGE fan of the actor who plays him ( we call ourselves Hiddlestoners ). But lastly because it's a mini vacay for me. I'm a stay at home mom for three hooligans and this will be my first time away from them. I might be too excited for that and not at all feeling guilty.
So, point is my BFF and I decided a week ago to make costumes. Why you ask? The better question is why not? My other bestie, Timo, her boyfriend actually came up with the idea of me being Wonder Woman since I have black hair. When I started looking around I found a few things and I was like, I might be able to do this. Then I started searching more and came across this:
Mind you I am not this thin, not even close. But for me I thought this version of Wonder Woman was more likely for me to pull off. I mean, let's be honest no one wants to see my big ol butt in some spangly bottoms. Upon further looking at this version I figured black skinny jeans, a red corset and a black cardigan for the base. I have a perfect little cardigan so I felt confident about the rest. But I worried about the other accessories. So I started searching and since this is considered "cosplay" I went to cosplay.com and started looking around. I found some AMAZING stuff on there. Seriously, makes what I am thinking look like a $5 halloween costume. But nevertheless, found something about craft foam and it snowballed from there. I found a stellar tutorial on how to make armor out of kids craft foam. This shit is genius! So with that I decided to make my wrist guard/bracers, headband/tiara, the mini chest plate/WW emblem, the belt and some shoulder pads type things.
Of course we decided to do this a MONTH before. Sigh. Luckily I found a corset ( EBAY ) and some red satin gloves and I've now ordered two different black pants for the costume so all that is left is the crafty part. I stayed up all night one night and drew out all of templates I needed except the belt. That I rough drafted because I didn't have all the pieces needed to get the right fit.
Here is my completed shoulder pads. I think I will velcro them onto my cardigan so I can wear it again. I think they look awesome and a little like leather!
And the choker-not 100% on this one yet but we'll see:
I am almost done with the WW emblem but have to wait for a shipment of foam to come in the mail. I hadn't realized when I began that there was different thickness of foams. Trial and error of course. So I'll keep you posted.
Oh and Tommy decided to dress as the dude from Assassin's Creed III. He lucked out and ordered an AWESOME jacket in Red and Black and then was able to buy the extra assessories to complete the look. This is what it is for those of you that don't know:
I'm also making Loki jewelry for SDCC but I'll save that for a different post. ;-)
Opinions? Thoughts? Suggestions?
Dude, it's February?! When the hell did that happen?
Despite my obvious lack of attention to time flying, I thought I'd talk about books from 2012. I managed to read 134 per my tracking on Goodreads. That's a super low number for me, but I did manage to write a couple of my own books and other various short stories. In 2011 I read a little over 200 books and the year before I read over 250. And yes, my house was a wreck.
Back to 2012, let's talk about the highlights. Though I am a writer of smexy I am a reader and fan first. Always.
Fav new to me authors and their series:
Jenn LeBlanc- The Rake and the Recluse, six part serial novel. Great stuff, and it has photos! Seriously.
Samantha Kane- Brother in Arms series. It's all M/M/F and historical. Yes please!
Victoria Vane- The Devil DeVere series. Super hot historical erotica. Yum!
Cherise Sinclair- The Masters of the Shadowlands- HEAVY BDSM, not really my thing but great anyway.
Pamela Clare- MacKinnon's Rangers series- Historical French Indian war, great writing & characters.
Suzanne Collins- The Hunger Games. Yes I caved and read them. And am glad I did. So heavy!
Fav authors and new to me series:
Sylvia Day- The Crossfire Series. If you don't know what this is, well that's sad. AH MAY ZING!
Shayla Black- Doomsday Brothern series. Finally read this and loved them! Ohhh Shock!
Lauren Dane- Brown Siblings series. Love this family. Emotional and not to heavy.
Olivia Cunning- One Night with Sole Regret series- Holy raunchy and awesomeness!
Fav authors and continuing series:
Larissa Ione- The Lords of Deliverance series. Seriously, this author can do NO wrong with me. EVER.
Maya Banks- KGI series. Love love love. Though Shades of Grey was really hard to get through.
Heather Rainier- The Divine Creek Series. Still hot, still loving and still interesting.
Kate Pearce-House of Pleasure series. I still love this series. So effin dirty! LOVE!
Sophie Oak- Nights in Bliss series. I still want to live here. Love the humor and drama.
Shannon K. Butcher- Sentinel Wars series. Fabulous series that it very UF.
Elisabeth Naughton- The Eternal Warriors series- Adore the Greek mythology entwined here
Bella Andre- The Sullivans series. I effin love this family and it's pretty hot for non Erotic Rom.
Lara Adrian- Midnight Breed Series. Still love this series. Sterling was great.
J.R. Ward- BDB series. Nuff said.
Honorable mentions:
Becca Fitzpatrick- Hush, Hush series. Not sure why I read it, but it was okay I guess.
Kris Cook- Secret Diary series & Cupid's Arrow. I really liked these titles.
Jennifer August- Keys to Submission. Sexy historical that was witty and well written.
P.C. Cast- House of Night series. Yes I read it. No I don't know why. Still.
Chloe Neill-Chicagoland Vampires series. Love Ethan. Threw my Kindle after previous book. I know.
Shelley Laurenston-Pride series. Um, duh.
Jaci Burton- Play by Play series. Have you SEEN the covers? Yeah, I have those in paperback.
I read other books of course but I am a series whore. No, really. You couldn't tell could you.
Anyway, here is my Goodreads for you to look at. I'm pretty pleased with my 2013 books so far.
I'm sure you didn't know this, but 13 really is my lucky number. It's typically unlucky for most but I'm a little out there so it works for me. Oh yeah....
Happy New Year!!!!!
Did everyone kiss 2012 away and embrace 2013 like I did? I was so excited for the new year that I stayed up until 6am!
2013 is going to be a big year for me. I feel it deep in my soul. What about you? Never one to make resolutions per say, I have decided to take better care of myself. With all the big plans I have I thought being better conditioned would be beneficial.
Oh oh, did I mention that I am going to San Diego Comic Con!?!?!?! Because my best friend and I are going! Can you tell I am excited?!?!?! Cause I AM!
