by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on May.19.2011
Wowza – it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve posted anything here? Time to remedy that with this week’s Thursday 13. Here’s 13 things I’ve been up to:
- Took a 2-day business trip for work
- Working on transferring my responsibilities from my old job
- Getting started on some training for my new job
- Revising one of the books I have in progress
- Writing the first draft of another book I have in progress
- Exercising 5 days a week (treadmill, dancing, elliptical, Pilates, weights & resistance training)
- In the Emergency Room for dang near a full day (severe heart pain, possibly due to trying too hard on #7?)
- Playing puzzle adventure game Portal 2 (liked it so much, I blogged about it on Fly Girl Gamers)
- Working with my husband on blog/website designs for new clients
- Seducing my husband
- Read and provided feedback / advice on an aspiring writer-friend’s manuscript
- Watching the television show Bones (started with season 1 in February, just got caught up to the 6th season finale)
- Growing our first ever vegetable garden
With all of that going on, something had to give. Looks like this poor blog got neglected as a result. 
Tagged as:
Thursday Thirteen
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on May.2.2011
The Good:
- I’ve got a new job! After weeks of painful weighing of pros and cons, I chose to take the new opportunity. It’s at the same parent company but a different segment. New team, new role, new office, new projects and new technology. I’m excited, and can’t wait to start.
The Bad:
- Transitioning my current role responsibilities will be a bit tedious. There’s a lot of information I will need to pass onto my peers, and it’ll be a bit sad as I’ll be leaving the friends I’ve made, and a good boss, behind.
- Family Drama. *sighs* I’ll spare the details and just say that you know how it goes sometimes. At least the drama is with the extended family and not in my house.
The Cool:
- My parents celebrated 32 years of marriage this weekend, proving that with work, love and patience, marriage can work. Love you mom and dad!
The Work In Progress:
My work in progress, HEATED EXCHANGE, is slow coming. I’ve got a few hundred words written, but sadly, that is all. Hopefully this week will be much more productive on the fiction-side of things. I’m feeling optimistic about that though because I think I’m finally understanding why I’m in a slump – I’m being overly critical of myself and fear that what I’m writing these days is crap. I’ve rejected pretty much every page I’ve written since I finished writing WAY OUT OF CONTROL, and I’ve got to stop doing that. It’s better to have less than perfect words on a page than no words. A crappy story can be improved – there’s no fixing blank pages.
At least that’s what I’m about to start telling myself.
So here’s to this week looking up! *raises my mug of coffee*
Tagged as:
Weekly Update,
work
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on April.25.2011
The Good:
- My Easter weekend was wonderful! Great food, good company (family and friends) and good fun.
The Bad:
- The weekend went by way too fast. I wasn’t nearly as productive as I would have like to have been.
The Cool:
I teamed up with a friend to help launch a new blog dedicated to video gaming gals like ourselves.
Fly Girl Gamers at WordPress.com just went up last week. If you like games or are curious about them, come on and join us! I have a
post up on the blog today (I am DragonPixie over there).
The Work In Progress:
Stay tuned for more on my upcoming release, WAY OUT OF CONTROL … cover art and excerpt coming very soon!
Tagged as:
Fly Girl Gamers,
games
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on April.14.2011
Got guilty pleasures? I sure do:
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream
- Disney movies
- Naughty stories (in written, audio or visual format – doesn’t matter, it’s all good)
- Catching up on TV shows I missed
- Talking to my mother
- Being a tease
- Playing a video game that has strong romantic elements
- Singing while I’m alone in the car (if you ever heard me sing, you’d understand why I feel guilty about this)
- Vibrating toys
- Watching romantic comedies
- Spicy hot food
- Dancing in my underwear
- New technology and other gadgets
These are just some of mine. What are yours?
Tagged as:
Thursday Thirteen
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on April.11.2011
The Good:
- I thoroughly enjoyed my time off the week before last. Seriously – I feel like someone hit my reboot button. Highlights included visiting a museum, taking the kids to an indoor amusement park, spending time with visiting family and friends, and getting a lot of relaxation in.
- Watched the first 3 seasons of Bones – cool show! Makes we wonder what else I’m missing due to my lack of TV surfing. But thanks to Netflix, Hulu.com and DVDs, I’ll eventually get to check out all the good ones at my own time and pace. Scheduled TV is for suckers.
The Bad:
- Came back to work with a shipload of stuff to do and a few fires to put out. (But that’s not too bad – I much prefer work to be hella busy than hella boring)
- Watching my younger brother suffer with trying to find a job. It’s still rough out there and the competition can be fierce – I wish him luck in finding something soon, as he has several young children to take care of.
The Cool:
The Work In Progress:
I’ve tentatively titled the novella I’m currently working on HEATED EXCHANGE, and it is a paranormal romance which tackles the battle of the sexes in a magical, funny, sensual way.
So far I’m finding it a great outlet to express my thoughts on the problems with relationships between men and women while being entertaining (instead of complaining or preaching).
This story has some elements that make it a little more challenging (and interesting!) to write than anything I’ve tackled before, but I don’t want to give away more details just yet. So stay tuned for more info!
Tagged as:
Heated Exchange,
The Summoning,
Weekly Update
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on March.29.2011
The Bad:
- Last week was a rough one. Migraines every day, from the moment I opened my eyes in the mornings until I managed to fall asleep each night. Not sure if it was from the lack of good sleep, mental exhaustion, something else or all of the above, but it wasn’t pretty. A vacation is very much needed.
The Good:
- I’m on vacation this week!
(NOTE: I’m a low maintenance kind of gal. I define “vacation” as not working the 8 to 5 and getting to read, write, play games and watch movies all day, and catching up on some much needed shopping and cleaning. Actually going somewhere is considered an unnecessary bonus.)
The Cool:
- Sizzling Hot Books wrote up a nice review for THE SUMMONING.
- Almost forgot – for those of you who already read THE SUMMONING, there’s an open discussion thread on the LSB forums (don’t click if you haven’t read the book – there are spoilers!). ** Thanks CCDreams for *initiating the discussion!*
The Work In Progress:
I’m in the early stages of a paranormal story which is still unnamed. It’s nothing like the other 2 stories I recently pushed aside – this one has a totally different atmosphere and a contemporary, albeit somewhat fantastical, setting and plot. What I’m liking most about this project is the outlet it provides for me to illuminate some serious concerns I’ve been harboring about male/female relationships in an amusing way. Will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Tagged as:
Weekly Update
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on March.22.2011
Woops, so I’m a little late in doing a weekly update. Let’s consider this a 2-week and a day late update then, shall we?
The Good:
- Work has kept me crazy busy. Now, normally I wouldn’t necessarily call this a good thing, but I’m recognizing that it indeed is. 1) It means that I’m obviously of value at work, heh. And 2) I haven’t had much time or energy to sulk over my slowed writing progress, which I’ll discuss later.
- Taxes are done, filed, accepted and processed. Refunds have even been received. May not sound like much to get worked up about to you, but when your taxes start looking as messy as ours do, you’d do a big whoop when they’re all finished, too.
- Remember how much I loved the first Dragon Age? We bought the special collector’s edition of Dragon Age II! I’m very excited – I hope I find it as entertaining as I did the first one.
The Bad:
- … I won’t be able to play any games any time soon. Like – probably not until mid-April at the earliest. I really want to finish up a couple of projects I’m working on before I let myself get sucked into a 40+ hour game. Plus it’s a single player game, and the husband is hogging it up anyway.
- I still haven’t won the lottery or figured out how to travel back in time. *sighs* Yet, somehow I still manage.
The Funny:
Our 6 year-old son loves babies. Last week he was asking if he could ever get his own baby some day.
His father tells him, “Sure. If you meet a girl you like, fall in love and marry her, then maybe you can have a baby together some day.”
Our son’s face wrinkles with worry at this news, and he says “But what if I can’t get a girl to love me back? I really, really smell horrible when I poop and I don’t know if any girls would like that.”
While my husband cracks up at this, I say to the poor boy “You smell as bad as your daddy?”
The boy shakes his head. “I smell really horrible, but not quite as horrible as daddy.”
I nod. “Exactly. And see – I sill love your daddy, anyways. So I’m sure someday you’ll find a special girl who will love you too.”
He said okay, but I got the feeling he was only halfway convinced.
*laughs* If women really held to such high olfactory standards when looking for a mate, there would hardly be a married man on the planet. Heh.
The Work In Progress:
Book cover design ideas for my next upcoming title, WAY OUT OF CONTROL, have been sent to the Art Director. Now I just wait to see what they come up with based on my ideas. So far I have been far from disappointed, and so I have high hopes that it will be lovely.
I now have abandoned (or at least temporarily separated from) not 1, but 2 writing projects. Weeks have gone by now since I’ve made progress on either story. Sure I could try to blame part of this on how mentally drained I’ve been lately, but I’m not accepting that as a valid excuse. If I was truly vibing with either story right now, I know I’d make the time.
So I’m putting both manuscripts aside for now and am starting on a brand new one that is yet to be named. Once I’ve fleshed out the idea a little more, I’ll talk more about it. Hopefully I won’t change my mind and switch stories again by next week’s update.
Tagged as:
Weekly Update
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on March.7.2011
The Good:
- Last week my second published work THE SUMMONING was released, check it out if you haven’t yet. Here’s a big ** THANK YOU** to those of you who already grabbed it! I’d love to hear what you think of it.
- I signed a new publishing contract for my sci-fi novella WAY OUT OF CONTROL.
The Bad:
- It snowed over the weekend. The kind that sticks. *sniffs* I’m tired of winter and am looking for spring to get here already.
- The time machine hasn’t been invented yet. At this point, it doesn’t even need to travel back in time – I’ll settle for one that just pauses it.
The Funny (well, kind of …):
Went in for my annual checkup, and the first thing the nurse does is weight me. She jots down the number on her clipboard, shaking her head slightly as we go into the exam room. As I roll up my sleeve she grabs the extra-large blood pressure band without really looking at me. When she tries to wrap it around my arm she quickly notices that it is way, way too big for my puny bicep and looks puzzled as she switches to the normal band. I laugh at her and say, “Confusing, I know. The majority of that weight is all right here,” while slapping my ass.
She laughs and nods her head because, well, my ass
is rather obvious. *sighs* But I’m working on it.
The Cool:
Received an especially nice fan letter last week. That I even have a fan in the first place is amazing enough in itself, but this particular exchange was especially cool. She wrote not only to tell me that she enjoys my work, but to ask if I would mind if she drew a picture depicting one of my scenes. She drew the goblin from SAY MY NAME in livestream channel, which I joined for a bit.
What a feeling to know that my work inspired someone in that way!
The Work In Progress:
I abandoned (at least for now) the project I was working on: ABDUCTED. I was seriously blocked on that story and just wasn’t making a lot of progress.
Instead, I pulled out the draft of a sci-fi / space romance I started a year called PURSUED, dusted it off and began revising it. I’m about a quarter of the way done with it and hope to finish it by the end of the week.
Tagged as:
Way Out Of Control,
Weekly Update
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on March.2.2011
**dances**
I just received a third publishing contract! This one is for WAY OUT OF CONTROL, a titillating, “light-sci-fi” romance.
Here’s a teaser blurb:
A doctor must help seek a cure for a man transformed into an uncontrollable monstrosity due to scientific meddling with his DNA.
But in order to help him, she must get close enough to him to risk her very life … and more.
Liquid Silver Books is the publisher, and I look forward to having another release with them. Stay tuned for more info!
Tagged as:
contract,
Liquid Silver Books,
My books,
novellas,
Way Out Of Control
by ** Tatiana Caldwell ** on February.27.2011
It’s time, folks! My paranormal novella THE SUMMONING releases in just hours. On Monday, February 28, 2011 at 7/6 pm Central the book will be on sale at Liquid Silver Books.
Blurb for THE SUMMONING by Tatiana Caldwell. Coming on the evening of 2.28.2011 at Liquid Silver Books.
Everything comes with a price …
Gailyn Bridges is a psychic who is ready to end her troublesome career as a private investigator. For the last time, she summons a powerful spirit to help her close a final case.
However, the mysterious entity who answers, Malak, is no ordinary spirit. He’s more than willing to help Gailyn save the would-be victim of a violent crime.
But who’s going to save Gailyn when Malak returns to collect payment for lending her his power?
Read a free excerpt here.
Buy the book here.
Tagged as:
Liquid Silver Books,
release date,
Release Day,
The Summoning
