award | Tonya Cannariato

Lovely Blog Award

Posted by tmycann on Feb 11th, 2015 in indie | 1 comment

My author friend Jane Isaac nominated me for a Lovely Blog Award earlier this week. Since I need a writing exercise that keeps my keyboard fingers limber, I figure seven facts you (may or may not) know about me should constitute a simple challenge in my brain-dead state. (The rules indicate listing 7 facts and then tagging some fellow bloggers to ask them to do the same, so watch for the baton passing at the end.)

I was born at the Ohio State University hospital, making me a Buckeye… but in name only, since we moved away before I was one year old.
I first learned German when I was learning to speak–after we moved from Columbus to Kiel. I had this idea as a young girl, then, that I could speak German–which made for a rude awakening when we moved to Berlin when I was in 4th grade, and I was placed in a remedial German class.
I made up for having forgotten so much by moving up to an intermediate German class halfway through 4th grade.
I was in the double mother-tongue track by the time I was in 7th grade, meaning half my classes were taught in German–including French.
I’m still fluent in French and German. And I have some rudimentary Russian, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish skills.
Because of my language abilities and international background I never expected to marry an American.
Hubs (who was born and raised in the American heartland) and I celebrated our 17th anniversary Monday with a silly faces contest he documented in a series of selfies and made into a sweet (or goofy, depending on your point of view) movie.

Now for the taggees (if you’ll forgive the coinage): Rebecca Clare Smith (as if she hadn’t already answered enough questions), AK Anderson (because I may have wimped out on the Quest, but think her thoughts are worth soliciting), and Dionne Lister (since I haven’t asked her enough intrusive questions this week).

Blog of the Year 2012 Award

Posted by tmycann on Jan 1st, 2013 in indie | 4 comments

Blog of the Year Award 1 star jpeg Thanks to the fun, lovely author Sabrina Garie, I’ve been nominated for a 2012 Blog of the Year award…

The “Blog of the Year” award is a little different from some other awards, because you accumulate stars.

Here are the ‘rules’ for this award:

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.

3 Please include a link back to this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award – http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/our-awards/blog-of-the-year-2012-award/ and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)

4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them.

5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience.

6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…

stars

For more information check the FAQ on The Thought Palette.

My time, over the course of the past year, has slowly whittled down to minimal for the random surfing that used to lead me to new sites and useful information. Now I rely on my writer friends for their perspective and help as I navigate the … interesting … waters of promoting my books, and the much greater fun of exploring new fictional realms. For anyone who’s looking for an intelligent, interesting, engaged set of people who are fun, friendly, and worth reading, here’s my non-comprehensive list:

That wraps up my looking back (thanks, guys, for everything!). Here’s to moving forward with great new worlds in 2013–and enjoying the road we’re walking as we create them.

Happy New Year!

🙂

Sunshine Award

Posted by tmycann on Oct 24th, 2012 in indie, writing | 1 comment

I’m not sure how I either missed or forgot this, but two months back Kathleen Doyle tagged me for a sunshine award. Likely I just got mind-wiped by my first semester of grad school, but now’s the time to catch up on all my obligations.

🙂

I’m supposed link back, answer some questions about myself, and then tag more people.

1. What is your favorite Christmas/festive movie?

It’s a Wonderful Life

2. What is your favorite flower?

One favorite…? hrmmmm… I like Snapdragons and Tigerlillies and Foxgloves… There seems to be a pattern to these names… 😉

3. What is your favorite non-alcoholic beverage?

There’s a blood orange soda from Trader Joe’s that is just sweet and just tart enough to make my taste buds happy.

4. What is your passion?

Reading. I’m not going to be doing much fiction reading over the next few years as I finish my degree, but I’m sure I’ll find ways to sneak a good book in here or there.

5. What is your favorite time of year?

Fall. I love the cool weather and beautiful leaf colors.

6. What is your favorite time of day?

I’m a complete night owl. About the time 10pm rolls around, I’m getting my second wind, and am happy to stay up reading or writing.

7. What is your favorite physical activity?

Walking or hiking. There are some beautiful nature trails nearby, and we all come home rejuvenated after a brisk walk.

8. What is your favorite vacation?

A staycation. I love my home, and I love the gift of time with my husband and dogs. There’s no stress of travel and my bed is comfy and won’t give me nightmares.

And now my ~~victims~~ taggees, lovely ladies I met through the Orangeberry book tours, and featured with me at the “Make Mine an Orangeberry” interview series:

U Got the Look: Sneak Peek at Encounters

Posted by tmycann on Oct 3rd, 2012 in indie, writing | 1 comment

Fellow author Justin Bog tagged me earlier today in a writing prompt kind of game. As he describes it:

The Look is a writing prompt, a game, another tagging event. This is how U Got “The Look” works: you take your current manuscript, search for the word “look”, and post the surrounding paragraphs. Lastly, you tag 5 blogging authors who you think will be a good choice for the game.

We’re both in the upcoming anthology from Katarr Kanticles Press, Encounters, and starting to consider what it will take to promote this latest effort. So where he quotes from his story, I’ll quote from mine:

Adam stepped closer to the bed again and pulled back the blanket from her face. The illusion of her death was complete. The gray pallor was not consistent with a living person. He wasn’t sure why it had been necessary to display her naked, like some life-sized trophy, but his concern for her modesty had been overridden in the drive to finally trip up Anson and wrap up his insidious campaign. Thinking of it like that made it sound inappropriately patriotic. There were no redeeming features to this case. The women were all college seniors, nearly finished with science-related degrees at any one of the local colleges offering that education. They were on their way to serious and important work for the betterment of their fellow beings. The profiler they’d brought in after the fourth body speculated the perp had an inferiority complex and was working on a misogynistic plan to eliminate his competition in the fiercely competitive bioscience arena. Which made him well-educated enough to carry out his crimes with cold-blooded efficiency, leaving behind very little in the way of trace evidence.

Even finding out that much had been the work of months. At first, the proximity of the bodies to elements of Adam’s undercover work had led his superiors to believe the perp had had mob ties. The first bodies had been so badly decomposed and dismembered the force hadn’t even known when to peg the beginning of the timeline. As soon as Adam had received word on the similar backgrounds and looks of the victims, he’d reached out to Angelica to warn her. In each succeeding case, the girl had had the same long, brown locks and athletic frame.

Their father may have been a philandering fool who couldn’t keep it in his pants long enough to save himself four bastards and a failed marriage with its own kids as collateral damage, but at least their mothers had banded together in mutual support (probably driven by Angelica’s mother’s New Age inclination toward communal living), so all the kids were well-taken-care-of. And close. Angelica was the one nearest him in age, and even though they were only six months apart, he’d always reveled in taking care of his baby sister. In fact, it’s what had driven him to join the force rather than complete a four-year degree right away—after all, he had two other little sisters to watch out for too.

Angelica had laughed at his concern, but been prudent enough to enroll in a self-defense class. In the end, even that preparation and fore-knowledge hadn’t saved her the indignity first of being stalked, and then of the multiple rapes. Anson had turned out to be more warped than the profiler had anticipated, acting as if he were in a consensual relationship and coming back for more. At least Angelica had brought her brother all the evidence right away, so their files were now bulging with details on what else to look for in the past cases.

This story is way outside my comfort zone, but was inspired by the old news out of Egypt that that country planned to introduce legislation regarding Relations with dead wives… So far the feedback has all been good, so I’m glad for the opportunity to have stretched my writing muscles. Though I’m still writing in the Urban Fantasy genre–which means you get a picture of Kyra, whom too many casual visitors have seen as a WOLF!

😉

As for my taggees… I know of quite a few people who are in the middle of working on their next books/releases. Ladies, here’s your excuse to share some of your words with the people who are holding their breath, waiting for them:

Enjoy their words! 🙂

UPDATE: Angel Mine is now published as a stand-alone short story.

The Next Big Thing: Blood to Fire

Posted by tmycann on Aug 29th, 2012 in indie, writing | 3 comments

Justin Bog, a good friend from Twitter, is passing out tags these days: This one is to hear about upcoming work to be released… soon. Appropriately, it’s called The Next Big Thing.

🙂

According to Justin, his new book Wake Me Up “is a psychological family drama that centers on a crime and the fallout afterwards in Missoula, Montana. It needs one more copyedit and it will be ready to publish.” His blog is worth checking out and following for anyone interested in music, words, and travel.

Here are the rules:

Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress)

Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them, and link back to the person who nominated you.

1. What is the working title of your book?

Blood to Fire (Red Slaves #2)

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

It expands on the scene from the dream that kicked off Dust to Blood.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

It’s back to the paranormal adventure/romance genre for this one.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

This was a new question for me, so I scrambled through IMDB.com and had some fun imagining actors I enjoy in current shows and movies playing these characters’ roles.

For Anne, I think Stana Katic has the serious demeanor and unselfconscious beauty to carry the character through her trials. I love the complexity she brings to Detective Beckett in Castle. For her love interest, Alexander Skarsgård (if he just dyes his hair black!) has already proven he can carry the intense charisma of a supernatural being in HBO’s True Blood.

Willie Garson’s work in White Collar is what made me think he has the ability to play a member of the Russian intelligentsia as Igor.

Teri Polo showed the quirky, smart sense of humor in her role in Meet the Parents that makes her beauty match Olga’s. Tim Guinee has had a number of guest roles, but it was his work as Major Allen in the Iron Man movies that made me think he has the right stuff to play a Russian pilot/soldier who sparks off of Olga.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Anne has to learn how to deal with the changes in her life that were brought about by her participation in the research about dragons from the first book in the series.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It will be published by Katarr Kanticles Press, a small, indie publisher.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

This is the first manuscript I’ve written outside of the NaNoWriMo framework, and I’m finding it a greater challenge than expected to continue producing words without the widget and deadline to spur my progress. So far I’ve been writing it on and off for about 3 weeks (starting in June, when I failed Camp NaNoWriMo).

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

This story has elements of the fish-out-of-water heroine in Doppelgangster, and another book whose title I have blanked out (the series frustrated me) that had the only other dragon-who-had-a-human-form character I’ve read. It follows in the footsteps of Katherine Kurtz’s The Adept and its follow-on series: It’s set in a world we fully recognize for its historical fact (setting, politics, etc.), but includes mystical elements that are wholly drawn from fantasy.

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I lived in Communist countries from 1978-84, so I dream about those circumstances periodically. I’ve always wondered what would make a population tolerate a totalitarian regime, so my dream mind solved the question with the stories in this series.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

This book continues the alternate history perspective I kicked off with the first book, that speculates that the reason the Communists maintained power for so long was that they were draining the mystical elements of their region and channeling them into something nefarious. In this case, it was dragons trapped in human form, and the journey of the first book was to help them regain their power. The second book is a natural follow-on, pushing them to use their power to fight fire with fire (if you’ll excuse the cliche).

For my five tags… rubs hands together… I’ve already been warned off by one author, so I have an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other, debating whether to include her.

😉

We’ll see how far we get before she gets added despite her protest. The author’s name links to their blogs and I’m including links to recent books after them, following Justin’s pattern:

1. Liana Brooks – Even Villains Fall in Love and Fey Lights. I met Liana through Twitter, and thoroughly enjoy how she weaves science and logic into her story lines.

2. Kait Nolan: Red and Forsaken by Shadow. Kait is another Twitter buddy, and I have to give her props for creating ROW80, which is the only thing poking me in the back to keep adding words to my own manuscript.

3. Jane Isaac: An Unfamiliar Murder. She’s currently editing her sophomore novel, so I’m looking forward to reading more great stories from her in the future.

4. Dionne Lister: Shadows of the Realm and Dark Spaces. I can’t not include my editor. She’s become such an integral part of my process I look forward to every hour I get to chat with her about progress and process.

5. Jennifer James: Love Kinection and Long Time Coming. I also can’t not include the leader of my crit group. She’s another fun, interesting person, aside from the attention and focus she brings to her writing. I’m glad to have her feedback.

And look at that… I’ve run out of spots. Justin, this was a lot of fun, but now my evening has ended without me adding words to my WIP.

😀

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