Feature Fridays: Epic hair disasters and other pre-wedding annoyances

Today has been an excellent writing day for me, which is especially significant because my morning got off to a rough start. Just as I was thinking I should go back to bed and hide, I checked to see how things were going on Amazon and found two amazing reviews of Phoning It In.

I'm sure it goes without saying that reviews are a source of anxiety for most writers--and I salute those who don't get nervous about them. Negative reviews aren't easy to read, but can be a good source for learning how to improve my writing, which is something I never want to stop doing.

Good reviews, though, they can make your day. There's no better feeling than finding out that your book has touched a reader in some way, that the reader gets your book on a deeply personal level. I was so thrilled with these reviews that I teared up. I write for two reasons: for the sheer love and passion I feel for writing and because I want my writing to connect with readers. When those two things come together, well, that's my definition of perfection.

So thank you to those of you who take the time to write reviews for my books, whether you loved them or weren't very fond of them. Most of all, thank you for reading!

The first four episodes of Committed are just about finished, and I'm planning on releasing episode one on Thursday, February 28th. On Monday, February 18th, I'll do a cover reveal. I can hardly wait to share the series! In fact, I'm so anxious to share it, I'm just going to go ahead and leave an excerpt here, picking up from where I left off last week. I hope you enjoy it!

*****

“Can I get some help over here?” Layla shouted, her words jolting the stunned stylists into action.

Three women hurried over to them and, judging from the looks on their faces, Ella knew the news was not good.

Working faster than Ella would have thought possible, Layla and the stylists pulled the remaining foil strips from Ella’s hair. Ella watched with a sense of detached incredulity as tears filled the large, green eyes of her stylist, Crystal. Fat drops fell and spattered Crystal’s smock.

I’m getting married in one week, and I’m going to be bald, Ella thought. A laugh bubbled in her throat, and she kept her mouth clamped closed, afraid she’d cackle like a crazy person if she opened it.

“Oh, God, Ella. Oh my God. Oh, no. I don’t… How could this… Oh, God!” Crystal shouted the last word, and the salon owner ran over, flicking a nervous glance from side to side, surveying the crowd of women who seemed to have forgotten all about their highlights and their mani/pedis. By the time the salon owner reached Ella, she was in full damage-control mode.

“Let me see,” she said in a firm voice, pushing Layla and the stylists aside. Ella’s eyes fell to the floor, where she saw lots and lots of her hair laying on the ground. She stared at it, feeling as if she were staring at someone else’s hair. This could not possibly be happening, not now. Not one week before her wedding.

The other woman’s face grew increasingly grim as she examined Ella’s hair. “Come with me, sweetheart,” she said, taking Ella’s hand and leading her over to the sinks. Ella almost tripped over her own feet, she was still struck so dumb by what was happening.

Her sense of unreality was broken by warm water coursing over her scalp, and she closed her eyes. She thought she liked it better when she was too stunned to process what was happening.

The salon owner took great care as she shampooed and conditioned Ella’s hair. It might all have seemed normal, were it not for Layla and the stylists hovering over her, hands pressed to their mouths. Ella heard a dim hum in the room, and she realized it was the other salon patrons whispering about what they’d seen. As Ella sat up and the salon owner toweled her hair, Ella saw her swallow, hard. A woman sitting under the dryers gasped, then turned beet red and looked everywhere but at Ella’s face.

“Sweetheart, I’m going to make this right, I promise,” the owner said, her voice far too calm to be of any comfort to Ella.

“How bad is it?” Ella croaked, though she didn’t really need to ask. Judging by the amount of foil-wrapped hair scattered on the floor, she knew bad was far too mild a word. Catastrophic might be better. “Let me see it.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’ll take you out and trim it, and then—”

“I want to see it!” Ella repeated, and the salon owner closed her mouth with an almost audible snap, biting her lower lip.

“Are you sure?”

Ella’s glare must have assured the woman of her sincerity, because the owner took a deep breath and held a mirror out to Ella. The mirror trembled as Ella took it, then shook violently as she raised it to eye level. For a second, as she saw the ruin of her hair, she thought she might pass out. The room spun a bit and the edges of her vision went dark.

“Breathe,” Layla commanded, as she shoved Ella’s head between her knees. “Breathe, Ella. It’s going to be okay.”

Woo hoo Wednesday: I'm in the home stretch!

Welcome to another weekly installment of Woo Hoo Wednesday.  Honestly, I love doing this.  I have a tendency to be something of a stress bunny, so it's a fantastic idea for me to stop and take a minute to think about all the good things in my life.

The biggest woo hoo is that the end is in sight for Phoning It In!  And by end, I mean the end of writing the manuscript.  I'll still have edits ahead of me (and some parts of the manuscript are going to need a lot of overhauling), but it feels really, really good to be on the verge of getting another manuscript under my belt.  I'm also very excited to send this one out into the world and see how it does.

Another woo hoo goes out to NaNoWriMo 2012.  I'm really looking forward to working on the next book in the Fairytale Collection, and I'm just looking forward to NaNo in general.  While I've been extremely fortunate to have found some great sources for networking with other authors, there's just something extra special about NaNoWriMo.  I love feeling like I'm a part of something so big, and I love the kinship I feel with other participants.  Writing can sometimes be a very solitary pursuit, so it rocks to have a whole month where I'm cheering on other authors, who are also cheering me on.  I've got a few writing buddies already lined up, and I'm always on the lookout for more, so if you're participating and want someone to cheer you on, feel free to look me up.  My username on the NaNoWriMo site is NCiacchella.

And now, a food related woo hoo.  I did some shopping at Trader Joe's today and bought a box of their Pumpkin Pancake and Waffle mix.  If you've never tried it, you should.  It makes some crazy good pancakes.  I was tempted to grab the box and hug it, but I thought that might make the other shoppers think I was kind of weird.  I love the pumpkin time of year.  Pumpkin ravioli, pumpkin pie, pumpkin spice lattes...  I tell you, I cannot get enough of these things.

I also want to give a woo hoo to a couple of game-related Kickstarter projects.

The first is SHAKER: an RPG by Brenda Brathwaite & Tom Hall.  Here's a synopsis of the project, from their Kickstarter page:

Shaker: An Old School RPG is a first-person perspective, fantasy/sci-fi game set in a Bridge world between the future and the very distant medieval past. Taking the role of operative James Connelly (you may also customize your lead character), an employee of Shaker Corporation, you are called upon to set right a deadly chain of events that began millennia ago. You and your crew of 3 operatives will be deployed to Antera, a medieval, fantasy world in the distant past. There, under a feudal guise, you must unearth the very beginning of a horrible chain of events and avert it, or the universe we know today will cease to exist in a mere 100 years.

I know, right?  How cool does that sound?  And one of the things I really like about it is that the company working on the project, Loot Drop, is dedicated to remaining an indie company.  Needless to say, I love indies.  The project is about 21% funded as of this posting, and I hope more people will back it.

The other is Project Eternity by Obsidian Entertainment.  Here's a description of that project, from the Kickstarter site:

Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

Combat uses a tactical real-time with pause system - positioning your party and coordinating attacks and abilities is one of the keys to success. The world map is dotted with unique locations and wilderness ripe for exploration and questing. You’ll create your own character and collect companions along the way – taking him or her not just through this story, but, with your continued support, through future adventures. You will engage in dialogues that are deep, and offer many choices to determine the fate of you and your party. …and you'll experience a story that explores mature themes and presents you with complex, difficult choices to shape how your story plays out.

We are excited at this chance to create something new, yet reminiscent of those great games and we want you to be a part of it as well.

My husband, Jürgen, and I have been receiving e-mail updates about this game and they have some really ambitious ideas that I'm really excited to see implemented.

So why did he and I choose to back these?  Well, what excites me about them is that they promise to be quite different from anything currently on the market.  I'm an avid, lifelong gamer, and I've been really dismayed by how disappointing a lot of the recent RPGs have been.  I wholeheartedly support indies who want to take risks and try making games that will elevate gaming.  A really well-done RPG can make you feel like you've stepped right into the pages of the book, and it's tough for me to think of something I enjoy more than that.

Last, but certainly not least, an absolutely ginormous WOO HOO for this review of The Eye of the Beholder that Leonor posted on her blog.  It is really exciting for me to get feedback from my readers, and nothing feels better than when a reader really connects with something I've written.  I was seriously thrilled to see this, and I walked around on a cloud for the rest of the day.

That's it from me this week.  Hopefully you're all having a fabulous week!