Anya Bast

In which I talk mostly about creating book videos, (and I don’t even go off on tangents very often), and say “like” way too often. Oh, and in which I am very dorky (nothing out of the ordinary there).

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No. No. No. NO!

Kay, I’m all about ‘to each their own,’ but the injection or insertion of any foreign element or object into my person squicks me hard. This includes boob implants (sorry). It’s not about the boob implants, themselves, it’s about having a foreign thing placed inside your body. (Pacemakers squick me too.) Everyone has their ick buttons and this is one of mine. So having collagen voluntarily injected into your *erp* hoo hoo…gah…into your g-spot, no less, just about makes me hurl up my cereal and soy milk. Blaaaarg. Here’s Margaret Cho’s very amusing recount of her experience with something called “G-Shot”. It made me simultaneously giggle and erp. Now that takes talent.

I had no idea that there were surgical procedures to enhance a woman’s sensitivity. I understand that some women have a harder time than others in this area, so I can see where there might a market for this. But…wow, maybe try sex toys first?

The winner, by random drawing, of the Fab Four Contest is Larena W. Congratulations! Please drop me an email via the contact form, Larena. If in a week I still have no response, I’ll have to pick another winner.

Erin McCarthy, Tate Hallaway, Michele Bardsley and I have joined in a blogathon of contesty goodness! Travel to each of our blogs and read the questions posed to each other and our answers. Leave a comment and be entered in a contest to win four different prizes (check each blog to see what the particular prize is).

Michele Bardsley
Tate Hallaway
Erin McCarthy

Here’s my question and all the answers:

You have a couple weeks and unlimited funds and can take one of your characters anywhere in the world on vacation. Which character do you take, where, and why?

Erin — Corbin Atelier from BLED DRY to Paris. He is a French vampire stuck in Vegas and if he could get back to France, he would be a fantastique tour guide, ma cherie.

Michele — Um. Hmm. Oh, what the hell! I’d take the triplets with me, the lycanthrope princes Damian, Darrius, and Drake. Then I would have hot men waiting on me hand and foot … and you know, other places. I’m not sure it would matter where we went because who needs scenery when you have them? Heh. No, really. Someplace tropical. Then they could wander around mostly naked.

Tate — I would take William to Tibet to see the Dali Lama. For people unfamiliar with my books, William works with Garnet (my witch heroine) in an occult bookstore in Madison, Wisconsin. At least once — sometimes twice — every novel, he changes his religious persuasion. I think he’d love seeing the Dali Lama, plus he seems like the kind of guy who would be fun to travel with as long as you were willing to go off on tangents and not be very rigid about scheduling, you know?

Anya — I would take Thomas Monahan from Witch Blood to tour Europe with me. He would enjoy visiting all the museums and would love to try all the different foods and wines of each country. We’d wander the Cinque Terre in Italy, visit the chateaux in France’s Loire Valley, and round out the trip with a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Thomas would be an interesting companion and the guy needs a vacation in the worst way. I probably wouldn’t be able to get him to loosen up until we got around to visiting the South of France, though (the wine would do it).

So, dear readers, if you had couple weeks and unlimited funds and could take any characters from any books anywhere in the world on vacation. Which character would you take, where, and why?

My prize is a $10 GC to Borders Books & Music plus a signed copy of Magical Seduction or What Happens in Vegas, winner’s choice. Worth playing for? (I don’t EVER watch Survivor, swear!) Then leave a comment today or tomorrow for a chance to win. Don’t forget to visit Erin, Tate and Michele’s blogs for more shots at great prizes.

The winner of an autographed copy of What Happens in Vegas… is LindaH!

Congrats, Linda!!

Today is the official release day for What Happens in Vegas… *butt wiggle* I hope you all enjoy this fun, sexy anthology!

How cool is this??!! Fellow Bradford Bunch authors Cynthia Eden and Ann Aguirre are both holding contests for copies of Vegas! Aren’t they awesome? Go on over and enter!

I’ll be doing my drawing tomorrow morning!

In other news, I freaking lost my voice! I sound like a telephone sex worker on the tail end of a bender. I was going to do a video blog today, but nobody wants that.

I have a Writerspace chat scheduled for Wednesday 4/30 at 9pm ET. Lauren Dane will be there and maybe Jodi Lynn Copeland too! I hope to see you there. It should be fun.

If you haven’t entered the contest for the copy of Vegas, scroll down and enter. I’ll be choosing a winner by random drawing very soon.

Why am I displaying my bad reviews from Amazon.com in this blog? Well, it started over here where John Scalzi posts snippets of his one star reviews from Amazon, then issues a challenge to other authors to do the same. Rachel Caine took it up. See? So, I thought, HEY!, all the cool kids are doing it and it’s not like I don’t have some one star reviews to choose from. Heh.

Bad reviews are part of the writing life. It’s not like I expect everyone who picks up my books to like them. People come to their reading with different perspectives, different life experiences. All that stuff colors their reading of the book. Reviews are opinions, nothing more and nothing less. Everyone is entitled to theirs.

I’m very self-critical, (I’m MUCH harder on myself than anyone else is), so if a negative review is well thought out I almost always find a place to agree with the reviewer. I try to learn from those particular negative reviews and make my next book free of the errors the reviewer has said I’ve made. (However, being human, I probably just make different errors.) A good review will make me smile broadly for two hours. A bad review will make me depressed for two days, but I try to use them as a learning tool.

In the end, bad reviews make the good ones all the sweeter. And luckily I have far more good reviews than bad.

So, with no further ado, here are some of my all time greatest hits from Amazon.com. I didn’t have a whole lot of one star reviews, so I took the two stars too.

Witch Fire

One star — “Not romance, not erotica, basically porn – what little plot there is exists to connect the sex scenes, note I didn’t say love making scenes. Altogether distasteful and I won’t waste money on this author again.”

Two star — “The writing was rather…Blah. Not awful, but sort of boring.”

Two star — “I was disappointed in this novel. I found it difficult to get into and kept putting it down.”

And Lady Makes Three

One star: “I was gullible enough to follow an Amazon recommendation on this one; it turned out to be on of my biggest mistakes. I wish I could give less than a star.”

Blood of the Raven

Two stars — “I would have given this book a 1 except it did have a plot. I like my books a little “steamy” but this is a little hard core for me.”

Seasons of Pleasure: Summer and Autumn

Two stars — “I am a big fan of fantasy and romance. My favorite thing about both these genres is the nice escape from everyday life they usually provide. This book did more to annoy me than relax me. The prose style is belabored and switches between “fantasy” and modern style intermittently. Characters are hollow despite the repetition of supposedly meaningful backstory. The author uses the same expressions over and over again, especially during sex scenes. Dialogue feels inauthentic and is ultimately unconvincing. A very unsatisfying read.”

Seasons of Pleasure: Winter & Spring

One Star — Style hasn’t improved from the first in the series. “I am a big fan of fantasy and romance. My favorite thing about both these genres is the nice escape from everyday life they usually provide. This book did more to annoy me than relax me. The prose style is belabored and switches between “fantasy” and modern style intermittently. Characters are hollow despite the repetition of supposedly meaningful backstory. The author uses the same expressions over and over again, especially during sex scenes. Dialogue feels inauthentic and is ultimately unconvincing. A very unsatisfying read.”

Anya says — same reviewer as the one above it, obviously. She read the books in the wrong order.

I own these bad reviews. I revel in them. If I could I would turn them into sudsy soap bubbles and take a bath in them. (Er? Did I just say that out loud?) Point is they are part of the glorious trip of being a writer. If you can’t suck it up and accept your bad reviews as part of your journey, then you should get out of this business.

Okay, I’m challenging authors too. Bring out the baddies! Let your Bad Flag fly! I want to see all your one/two star reviews. Own them, babies. Embrace the failure and make it yours.

…just because her friends did.

The other two Mavericks have been doing video blogs and I decided to try my hand at it too. Next time I’ll make sure I’m not sick, there’s less negative space above my head, and the lighting and acoustics are better. For now, here you go, my first attempt. I talk (a little) about RT and pimp two of my new releases.

Contests! I have one going on here at my blog, just scroll down for details. The Good, the Bad and the Unread is also running a contest for an autographed copy and they have excerpts up of The Deal (my story) and Stripped, by Lauren Dane.

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