Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Guest Blog & Giveaway: Midnight: Century of the Vampire by Ami Blackwelder

UFI welcomes Author Ami Blackwelder. Thanks for Joining us!!


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Ami Blackwelder is a Paranormal and SciFi author. Her stories range from Tween & YA to Adult. Growing up in Florida, she graduated UCF and in 1997 received her BA in English and additional teaching credentials. Then she packed her bags and travelled overseas to teach in Thailand, Nepal, Tibet, China and Korea. She has always loved writing and wrote poems and short stores since childhood; however, her novels began when she was in Thailand in her thirties.

Having won the Best Fiction Award from the University of Central Florida (Yes, The Blair Witch Project University), her short fiction From Joy We Come, Unto Joy We Return was published in the on campus literary magazine: Cypress Dome and remains to this day in University libraries around the USA. Later, she achieved the semi-finals in a Laurel Hemingway contest and published a few poems in the Thailand’s Expat magazine, and an article in the Thailand’s People newspaper. Additionally, she has published poetry in the Korea’s AIM magazine, the American Poetic Monthly magazine and Twisted Dreams Magazine.

Find Ami and her books
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Midnight: Century of the Vampire
Midnight #1

Available at Amazon
 The world is no longer the way we remember. Few are even still alive to recall the days when midnight didn’t mean cowered away and hidden. Out of sight became our only way to survive since the Century Vampires. If you want to live, trust no one.

By 2125 the world had been overthrown by monsters dubbed Century Vampires. Some kind of mutation in the human genome gave rise to the first ones, or so the scientists suspected. Vamps spent the first one hundred years of their existence growing in number–some born, some turned–all deadly. They wreaked havoc for the past eighty-three years.

Vampires ruled the Earth now...

Century Vampires have only one rule: There are no rules.
Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/jkvM8oa4-mk

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Guest Blog & Giveaway: Erasing: Shadows by K.D. Rose

UFI welcomes K.D. Rose Author of Erasing: Shadows. Thanks for Joining us!!

When Writing Hell Fans the Flames of Creativity by K.D. Rose
 
There's a little corner in writer hell for every author. For some it's staring at a blank page. For others it may be marketing. For other- others, it could be the difference between writing what someone wants to write versus writing what sells. The good news: whatever a particular author hell may be, escape is possible. Here is the secret. Authors are writers. Escape from author hell can be as simple as writing differently. Creatively. Whimsically. Thinking sideways. Writing with joy. It's so easy to let writing become a chore. But authors choose to write. At one time or another, writing was a passion. Writing should be a desire as hot as some of the sex scenes in romance novels. By changing the writing, even if just for a few minutes, an author's mindset can reboot.

Once freed from their cages, many writers are almost pathologically unable to stop themselves from just a bit of wordplay, witticisms, or quips. And that is a good thing. Like yoga for synapses, we get the chance to limber up, stretch, and oh my− even interact at times.

Question: What do you get when you put 400 writers together on the internet?
 
Answer: Automatic messages hawking 400 books.
 
(The above is one part of writing hell I forgot to mention.) But getting back to mind yoga...it can be a genuine experience to exercise creativity. If you find others to 'play' with, even better! Activities like this are opportunities to not just to get out of the box, but to blow the box up. As a writer, sideways thinking comes in handy. Then again, I'm the one who during the now very old Hadron Collider news (so old it's been a joke on The Big Bang Theory) could not stop myself from making as many Higgs-Boson quips as possible. I'm weird like that, but take advantage when something comes along that adds vitamin C to your own creative juices. I just happen to be a geek.

Facebook has a number of author groups that offer opportunities for writing exercises as well. There are worse things than testing uncharted writing waters among like-minded and supportive authors.

Here are examples of my sideways brain game at the time of the Hadron Collider news. I can't say that writing these made me write books any better, but I can say they gave me pure joy, forced me to think sideways, and lent a brief respite from word counts. They all concern writing hell. #Writerhell was trending on Twitter at the time and authors were having one big brain-fest. These were mine, for better and sometimes for worse. Now you know why they're all under 140 characters.
  • In writing hell you must diagram all your sentences.
  • In writing hell you are paid based on the number of people who understand your writing as you meant it.
  • In writing hell the only font available is wingdings.
  • In writing hell Gore Vidal hears The Simpsons given as the definition of wit.
  • In writing hell Kerouac is in charge of format and Cummings is punctuation editor.
  • In writing hell, you start writing a flashback and suddenly find yourself at NASCAR. You realize you're in a Burroughs cut up novel.
  • In writing hell metaphor is illegal and verbs & nouns require American Express. Adjectives are served free with cocktails.
  • In writing hell syntax is something we grape refrigerator.
  • In writing hell discovery of Higgs-Boson is explained by the national media. Or is that science hell? Streams cross. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow man goes down.
  • In writing hell dictionary.com is the etymology resource of expertise.
  • In writing hell the Algonquin Round Table is held at Amazon.com.
  • In writing hell you must fit all the creativity of the universe into a wee box called "genre".
  • In writing hell books are declared passé by 12 year olds.
  • In writing hell writers chastise other writers for writing in writing hell, then berate themselves. Presses stop. Cats twitch.
  • In writing hell "work" is actually that thing that takes you AWAY from writing. And that is why writing hell flows with ink stained tears.
I certainly got my exercise from doing time in writing hell. And while it may be hell, the witmosphere is dry− very dry.

Finally, remember: the road to writer hell is always paved with bestseller intentions. 
 
(I'll groan for you.)
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K.D. Rose is an author and poet and currently has "Heavy Bags of Soul", "Inside Sorrow" and “I AM (Poetry in Motion)” on sale at Amazon.com. Look for The Erasing Series, Book 1-“Erasing: Shadows” for Lycaon Press available on all publishing platforms. Erasing: Shadows is the first of a Seven Book Series for New Adults in the Paranormal Genre.

"K.D. Rose's writing will set your neurons on fire." – Tophat Raven Art and Literary Magazine.

K.D. Rose is now also an author with Lycaon Press. For more adult-themed books, her alter ego, H.K. Sterling is an author for Breathless Press. K.D. also continues to write poetry and recently created a new literary and art magazine with five other authors around the globe. K.D.'s poetry has been featured in a number of magazines online.

K.D. has an eclectic mind and loves language, physics, philosophy, photography, design, art, writing, symbolism, semiotics, spirituality, and Dr. Who. K.D. is an avid supporter of music, the arts, cutting edge science, technology, and creativity in all forms that encourage us to expand and explore past the artificial limits we often set for ourselves in order to see the everyday connections that exist among all things.

Find K.D. and her books
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Erasing: Shadows
Erasing #1
Amazon Lycaon Press ARe
Bookstrand Barnes and Noble

What if to save the ones you love, you had to unlock the key to a different reality?

Generations of mystery smash together when a seemingly traditional family must shatter their illusions of normality to confront themselves and their friends, leaving no possibility unexplored in order to rescue- well, who exactly? Watch the Ross family, the High Five Gang, and multiple generations dig into an innovative explosion of imagination where they must confront numerous realities, real-world danger, and worst of all—their own teenage hormones!

In a place where nothing is as it seems and shocks are around every corner, even the people you thought you knew may find themselves strangers in this moving and provocative reality-bender. With breathless pacing and psychological intrigue, Erasing: Shadows and the High Five Gang will keep you guessing until the very end.
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New Releases: 4/27-5/3


Mon April 28
 
 Angel Kin (Angel Assassins #1) by Tricia Skinner
 Creators (The Lost Souls #3) by Tiffany Truitt
 Night Child (Night #3) by Lisa Kessler 
 
Tue April 29

 Of Breakable Things by A. Lynden Rolland 
 Sleep No More by Aprilynne Pike
 The Taking (The Taking #1) by Kimberly Derting

Happy Reading!