Dear readers,
Perhaps you are wondering: WHERE the heck is the Wild & Steamy Anthology? The supposed Steampunk and Supernatural trio of novellas that a certain trio of supposed authors has been crowing about all these months? Wasn’t the release date supposed to be JULY 25th???

Yet it doesn’t seem to be on Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords, or All Romance Ebooks or Apple or anywhere!! How can it be??

*shamefaces*

It’s not ready!!! We are sorry.

We’re editing, revising, proofing and formatting like crazy. We so badly want it to be perfect and awesome, and we underestimated the time we’d need. We really do apologize for putting an overly ambitious date up there. We’re soooo close to done, we nearly made it, but we don’t want to just slap it up there to make this deadline.

We need…an extension.

When will Wild & Steamy be released? We are sure we can comfortably have it out by August 3rd, 11:59 CST. Probably sooner, but August 3rd is just to be safe.

Which brings us to the contest!

Guess the date contest!

All we know is that Wild & Steamy will go up for sale between now and August 3rd, 11:59 CST–as soon as we have it right, we’re putting it up. But when? Take your best guess. We’re giving away FIVE copies of the book to the FIVE readers who make the closest guess of when it will finally go up for sale out there!

Rules:

1. GO TO JILL’S SITE and guess the day and the time (CST) you believe the elusive Wild & Steamy will finally go up for sale. (example: July 28, 3:15 pm) in the comments.

2. Make your guesses AT JILL’S SITE – guesses on facebook, google, and other blogs don’t count. One guess per person.

3. Make sure we can get your email address by clicking on your name, or else put your email addy with the guess you make.

4. Winners will get to pick the format and so forth. If you don’t have an ereader, you can choose a pdf if you like, and read it on a computer or tablet. The winners will be announced when it goes up!!

Again, our apologies. Please know that we’re hoping to make it worth the wait.

So much this. From one of my favorite bloggers:

I realize, as I put this down, that my message is really for young women who want to write. I remember when I was just like you. And as surely as Naipaul etc. piss you off, I used to get sick reading The New Republic. Put it out of your mind. Write, write, write and write. And then write so more. Don’t get mad. Go kick his ass.

ETA: Also, this — different, but related: Top Ten Clichés About Romance Novels (and Romance Readers) I Never Want to Hear Again at AAR’s blog.

Okay, DABWAHA was fun, but I’m sliding the blog back under the radar until this summer. I’ll be at Odd Shots every Thursday, of course, and you can always contact me using this link.

If you received my DorkPower newsletter, then you know that Operation DorkPower continues. I’ll be sending out the first letter at the end of April, so if you read any amazing books between now and then, and you want everyone who subscribes to the newsletter to know about that book, don’t forget to fill out this form here.

Have a great spring!
Meljean

So, it’s out!

“With The Iron Duke, Meljean Brook has brilliantly defined the new genre of Steampunk Romance.
I loved it!” —Jayne Ann Krentz

In the comments of the last post, Vi wrote:

One of these days when you are not so busy, I would love to read about what an author goes through on book release day, besides eating Tums and googling. I hope you get some sleep tonight.

So this is my plan for the day.

Sleeping kind-of happened around 4 until 6, when my alarm went off. Now it’ll be:

1. Checking Amazon for ranking and reviews.
2. Checking e-mails and making sure I haven’t forgotten anything (I did forget something, because I’m an idiot, and realized something else didn’t go properly, because my computer’s an idiot, too). Skim the blog, social networking, and news feeds.
3. Stumble into the bathroom/kitchen/wherever I need to go first.
4. Check Amazon for ranking and reviews.
5. Get kid up and off to school.
6. Stop by Starbucks and get a coffee (but not a Pumpkin Spice one)
7. Use phone while standing in line to check Amazon for ranking and reviews.
8. Go home and check Amazon for ranking and reviews work.
9. Check Amazon for ranking and reviews.
10. Pick up kid and take her to the dentist.
11. Use phone while sitting in examination room to check Amazon for ranking and reviews, but pretend that Mommy is just taking pictures of her brave girl to show Daddy later.
12. Take her back to school and sit in the parking lot, using phone to check Amazon for ranking and reviews, plus an extra few minutes for B&N, Twitter, and Goodreads, too.
13. Go to the local B&N, Borders, Powell’s, the other B&N and the other Borders to sign stock.
14. Cry if it’s not on the shelves yet.
15. Wipe my tears with my phone as I’m checking my rankings and reviews.
16. Pick up kid and husband from school/work.
17. Go home. Check e-mails. Check blogs. Check Amazon, and pretend it’s the first time. Congratulate myself for my self-restraint. Eat chocolate. Tell the husband that we’re ordering in/eating out tonight.
18. Work until I’m ready to fall asleep.
19. Check Amazon in my sleep.

And that will be my day.

It’s not a romance, I don’t think, because the couple isn’t about to kiss — they’re dead and frozen in ice. So it’s just suspense, which works for me.

But I also loved the USA Today quote. I’m not sure if that makes it the awesomest book ever, or potentially the biggest trainwreck ever. But I was walking past the display at my local B&N (which had tons of copies of Burning Up, whee! and still tons of copies of Demon Blood, which isn’t as whee, but it’s okay. They sold one! And God knows I’ll end up buying the rest at some point. That B&N probably thinks I have a ton of fans, but really…I just have a lot of contests) and couldn’t resist.

Anyway. Also got: The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (and created the Longest Title Ever) and The Science of Leonardo. Yay, research. Kind of. I liked the covers of these, too.

Almost a year ago, I drove up to Seattle to tape an interview for Project Paranormal. Though I rehearsed my Guardian spiel all the way up I-5, as soon as the camera turned on I became a blithering idiot. (True story. I’m sure you’ll see the evidence of it soon.)

And driving all the way down, I obsessed over my idiocy, and all of the things I said that were dumb — but most of all, over the one thing I forgot to say.

One of the interview questions was something like: What would be the most difficult superpower for a character to have? and I said, Having the ability to read lies and truth. Because it would be very, very difficult to go through life always knowing the truth about how people feel about you, or how they genuinely thought, because we all have ugly thoughts, we all have ugly feelings — and most of us try not to inflict them on other people. But what if you always knew, anyway? I think that it’d be so painful, you’d have to erect impenetrable emotional shields just to get through the day.

And even though I was babbling on, I forgot to add this: But I also think that’s what romance is all about. It’s about finding that someone who you can be absolutely honest with, about finding that person who will accept everything about you, and who doesn’t need to lie, because they’ve taken both the good and the bad, and they love you for both. It’s about being honest, and about trusting that they won’t hurt you, even though they have the power to do so.

So when the interview finally came out, I was going to say all of this on my blog — a clarification of sorts. But today, Ilona Andrews said the same thing over at Odd Shots, only she said it better (and coming from an amazing writer … okay, I teared up. She blindsided me, and the shields weren’t up. Damn her.)

And I have to say, that is exactly what I’m striving for with every single romance I write. Honesty, acceptance, trust…which are often much, much harder to come by than love.

(via Dear Author)

id_ballstothewall_v1.doc

It’s really strange the stuff that reinvigorates me/lets me focus when I’m writing. Sometimes, it’s changing the font or switching from double-spaced-indented-first-line to 12pt-after-the-paragraph-no-indent formats. This time, it’s being reminded of how I’m approaching this series every time I look at the task bar or open the file. Other times, it’s just a matter of getting my ass out of my chair and making another pot of coffee.

A fun link: Map of London 1868. The detail is freaking amazing. I’ve changed a bunch of stuff for my series, but for quick reference, it’s been one of my most-visited sites of the past year or so.

…is up at Odd Shots.

Also, don’t forget that today is the last day to enter to win Carolyn Jewel’s INDISCREET. Her interview (and those amazing pictures of a certain vampire) will always be up, but the opportunity to win the free book won’t.

It’s also the last day to win a copy of DEMON FORGED by commenting on my interview at Carolyn’s blog.

If you don’t get it, lurk. Either you’ll get it eventually, or you’ll realize it isn’t for you.