Thursday Thirteen -- Waiting for the Big One

Waiting for the Big One was released this week as an audio book. In honor of that I thought I'd post 13 lesser known facts about this book.

1. This is the third release this book has had. Twice as an ebook (the first publisher sadly is no more) and now as an audio book. Besides being my first audio-book it was also my first erotic romance book and my first contemporary (non-paranormal) romance. Should that be four things?

2. I remember the exact moment the idea for that first scene came to me. It was a Sunday morning. In LA. I was driving somewhere. Shocking, isn't it?

3. The story actually started out as a very long poem. I believe I still have a copy of it. I might conceivably be pestered into posting that somewhere, sometime...but probably not here or today.

4. It was originally written for submission to Liquid Silver's zodiac series--hence the whole astrology thing, which actually annoyed several early reviewers. Notably, Mrs. Giggles. It was also my first Mrs. Giggles review--and the only negative one. Actually, I think it was also my first negative review ever. Hmm. LOT of firsts.

5. In the spirit of making lemonade out of life's little lemons (I prefer Meyers, if anyone was curious) I actually used that Astro-aversion to my advantage by purposely including astrology-references in every promo I did for the book from that point forward. Never let it be said that we Pisces don't know how to make a point. (see? there's another one.)

6. My critique partners ganged up on me and basically dared me to write this book because it was specifically for the Pisces book in the series and, hey, I'm a Pisces. And also because I'm the one they went to for Astrology help when they were writing their books for the zodiac series. Theirs all made it into the series, btw. Mine didn't. Sad, I know.

7. This is still the shortest book I've ever written. 18,000 words. I don't see that record being threatened any time soon. It's also the fastest book I've ever written. I wrote everything but the last love-scene in one month. That last scene took almost another month, however. It was all the sex that slowed things down. Whoever said sex with Pisces was easy, hadn't met my heroine. Just sayin.

8. The apartment Gabby lives in is almost identical to the apartment my husband and I lived in when we first moved to LA.

9. In the apartment downstairs from us lived an actress who was one of the main characters in the last season of Dynasty. I modeled Gabby in part on her. She was very upset when her show was cancelled, btw. Very loudly upset.

10. Oh, yeah. Not only am I a Pisces like my heroine, my husband is a Scorpio like my hero. And, yes, I did that just to tease him. Oh, and our son--who was born while we lived in said apartment--is also a Pisces. I wrote a poem about that too.


11. I once applied for a job as a dog walker--similar to Gabby's day-job. I didn't get the job. This was also very sad.

12. I was initially asked to change this story from first person POV to third person POV but I declined. I fell in love with Gabby's "voice" in my head and really didn't think the story would be the same without that.

13. After Liquid Silver Books rejected the story, I sold it to Venus Press. After they went belly-up I resubmitted it to LSB--where it was accepted. The acquiring editor who first accepted the book at Venus Press was Tracey West...who is currently in charge of acquisitions at LSB. Small world, isn't it? Or, as Gabby probably would say: It's kismet.


To learn more about the audio-book, go HERE

To listen to the first chapter, go HERE

To learn more about the ebook, go HERE