RT keeps rolling

A huge THANK YOU to all the wonderful booksellers and readers I've met here - I am so happy and honored to hear how much you love Atlantis Rising and are looking forward to Bastien's story in WILD THING! Here are some pics of the terrific people I've met!!

More RT

 

RT Day 1!!

Barbara Ferrer, Serena Robar the saloon wench, and Cindy Holby at the Moulin Rouge party


Cindy Holby and Liz Maverick at dinner

More pics to come - crazy busy here!! I'm having so much fun meeting all the readers!! Tonight is the Fairy Ball, so that should be great fun. Sadly, I did not bring my fairy costume this year but I'll take pics of all the other lovely fairies!

Aargh!! typos of doom!!

WILD THING isn't even officially out, and I just learned that a typo made it into the finished book. On page 331, Bastien's eyes oddly turn from black to blue in the space of two paragraphs. AARGHHHH!!!!! Bastien's eyes are blue!! I DO know what color my character's eyes are!! It's a typo that I didn't catch, the copyeditor didn't catch, and I didn't catch again in galleys. I'm so so sorry, please forgive me and insert BLUE. Just take a pen and write it in.
aargh.
hugs,
Alyssa, live at RT

The Worst Movie in the World, part 17

Combine the worst allergies in the world (hello, Virginia! hello Tree pollen! hello misery!) with chronic insomnia, [sorry, whine alert] and you get a lot of time awake at 4 a.m. When my eyes are watering too much to read, I watch TV. And let me tell you, there are a lot of candidates for Worst Movie in the World on the airwaves at 4 a.m.

Sadly, in fact hideously sadly, one of my fave delicious actors, Adrian Paul, was in one. THE BREED. It's ostensibly about a slightly-in-the-future world where everybody is trapped in the 1940s, from what I got from the awful hairstyles and shades-of-comic-book conception of a post-Nazis-winning vision of alternate reality. Oh, and there were vampires. Adrian Paul was a vampire. With a Hitler mustache. If you can possibly imagine, it got even worse from there. For all these reasons, THE BREED is my new Worst Movie in the World.

I'm busy packing for the Romantic Times convention and hope to meet some of you there!! I'll try to upload pics while I'm there. Wish me luck that Houston doesn't have tree pollen . . .

hugs,
Alyssa

An evening of glam

We dressed up and went out last night to the Dining Out for officers of the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, the ship where Judd is assigned for his disassociated sea tour. (This means instead of being in a flying squadron, his normal home, he spends a couple of years aboard a ship. Of course, he spent 5 years on submarines, but that's a different story.)

The Dining Out is a formal event with stylized rituals based on centuries-old traditions of sailors and soldiers celebrating a safe return from battle and honoring the lives of those who have fallen. Last night was no different; there was a very poignant tribute to the empty table representing those we have lost.

And there was celebrating, too - a lot of silliness blowing off steam and the tension of the month-long state of constant readiness from the training mission they'd just completed.

Oh, and drinking. Did I mention there was drinking? I, quite patriotically I believed, contributed my share:



And there were a few pranks. One of the guys at our table was a little concerned that he was supposed to drink the water glass at his place. The one with the live goldfish in it. Luckily for Nemo lovers everywhere, the fish was spared.




Sending a shout out of support to all the families of our armed forces. Whoever said being a Navy wife was the toughest job in the Navy wasn't kidding. And, just because I'm a little biased, here's the cutest Navy guy I know:



hugs,
Alyssa

Turning into Cinderella

Tonight my husband, Navy Guy, has one of the formal dress events the Navy loves. So we're going to get extremely dressed up and hopefully not eat rubber chicken. :) I'll get someone to take pics. I think I'll recycle last year's RITA awards dress to wear tonight - it will be good to at least get a second wearing out of it! In non-glam news, I'm rocking away at the deadline sitting here in my SpongeBob pants with the pugs at my feet contributing helpful snorfling snores.

Have a great weekend!
Alyssa

WONDERFUL author alert!!

Crazy day here; jazzing on the deadline and have to make TWO separate trips to the kids' school for Book Fair, grr, don't ask. Anyway, I had to pop in long enough to tell you about a wonderful author. Did I mention my chronic insomnia? I get a chance to do a LOT of reading at 4 in the morning, and let me tell you that it's the EXACT wrong time to read a book by my friend Karen Rose.

Karen is one of the nicest, most supportive people ON THE PLANET, and yet, bless her dark and twisted little heart, she writes some of the scariest thrillers I've ever read. After I finished COUNT TO TEN, it was DAYS before I could sleep with all the lights out. So if you like your thrillers dark and thrilling, check out Karen's books. But if you can't sleep or have nightmares, don't say I didn't warn you.
back to deadline!
Alyssa

I'm color-challenged

For some reason my book cover showed up as orange when it should be blue. So here (I hope) is the actual new cover of ATLANTIS AWAKENING:

We stole Plato's idea!!!!

[BREAKING NEWS FROM BLOG PATROL!!] Recently bestselling authors Gena Showalter and Alyssa Day got together for a chat over margaritas and nachos about comparisons, reviews, and whether or not Plato was considered a hottie in his day. We at Blog Patrol had our secret tape-recorder hidden behind the chipotle dip, and here's the steamy, unedited transcript:

Alyssa [ordering another round of jumbo margaritas]: Gena, I just read a review of Atlantis Rising that basically accused me of rewriting your Nymph King (and doing a crap job of it).

Gena [chokes on a chip and pounds her chest]: Sorry. What? I'm sure I misheard. 'Cause one, your book rocks and two, you totally wrote that book before mine was even published. I mean, let's backtrack a bit. Our books came out within weeks of each other. Considering the year it takes to write, edit, print and ship them -- impossible!

Alyssa: Most writers have so many thousands of ideas in our heads, it's not like we're going to waste valuable time writing somebody ELSE's book!! Why do people always want to compare our books to other people's books, anyway? Why isn't there room for more than one Atlantis, when there are so many vampire series? So many serial killer books? So many . . . um, you're snarfing the cheese dip again.

Gena: You know I can't help myself. (cough) Low blood sugar. But, uh, back to ideas. . . I wish I could say I invented Atlantis. How cool would that be? But I've heard there's no such thing as a new idea, that all ideas are simply spin-offs of another. It's the unique spin the author puts on her story that's half the fun. Oh, goodie! The drinks are here.

Alyssa: Right. If they want to accuse us of something, how about stealing Plato's idea? He's the one who first spun the tale of the lost continent. I wonder if he got crap, too. "That Plato is just such a rip off of Socrates!!!"
Have you ever encountered this kind of stuff? How do you handle it?

Gena: You mean before or after I sob like a baby and suck my thumb? Oh my god, don't look now, A, but that guy is totally checking you out! I said don't look! Now, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. How I handle the comparisons, the rejections and the bad reviews. For a while, I'm sad to say I took everything as a personal attack. Now I just try and remind myself how hard I worked, the months I slaved at the computer, the nights I didn't sleep as I plotted, and that I love writing and can't see myself doing anything else -- then I go back and read the rockin reviews. How about you?

Alyssa: I think he was looking at you, sweetie! Yes, the personal feeling of it is the tough part. I know that since we're putting our books out there, we're opening ourselves up to this. And I'm 1000% behind everyone's right to an opinion. But I wonder if sometimes people don't realize that we're just like their sisters and friends and have feelings, too? I can totally live with "wow, I hated this book." Everybody has a right to their opinions! But when it gets personal, it's hurtful. I'm like you, though - I love this job more than anything in the world. And the lovely reader letters and reviews really make up for the tough ones. I have to admit I have the nicest and kindest readers on the planet, so I consider myself to be very very very lucky!!

Gena: You know, I think it's because our books are products. In a way, that has to make us seem like products. Like a big fat piece of fruit that either goes down smooth or is rotten. Okay, now I think the drinks are going to my head. But I have to say that like you, I do feel very lucky indeed!

Alyssa: I love it!! We're writing bananas and some people just don't like bananas! No matter what! So now when I get a bad review, I will just think: "Well, another person doesn't like bananas." And be happy with the readers I have who do! Like bananas! Or my books! Or, oh, dear. I stretched the heck out of that metaphor, didn't I? Maybe we should just order another round . . . Because this? Is the greatest job in the world, and we're lucky to be able to do it! Now maybe we should talk about adding a clause to our contracts where we get to sit in on the cover shoot with the hot cover models . . .

Gena: Don't hate me, but I'm totally stealing that idea! And I'm not even going to twist it to make it my own. Me. Hot cover models. Oh, yeah!

[BLOG PATROL'S tape recorder either ran out of tape or had cheese dip dumped on it at this point, so we can't share any more of the conversation. But, to sum up: Atlantis Rocks! Plato! Showalter! Day! Read them all!]

New cover art!

And wow is it hot!! Ven's book, ATLANTIS AWAKENING, is coming out in October:

Happy birthday!

to my husband, who is gone to sea but may get a chance to see this. I'm trying to survive spring break and deadline-itis all at once. Which means I'm typing away and periodically sneezing chlorine from the pool trip this morning - it's just not pretty!

We got a rocking great review for WILD THING from the delightful folks over at Fresh Fiction. Check it out if you get a chance! I can't believe how soon May 1st is!
hugs,
Alyssa

Puppy love

Peanut in the doll carriage

I love my dogs in a huge and crazy way. Honestly, I'm a huge pet lover - all kinds of pets. Just wanted to share this pic for fun, and to make Jenny crazy since she hates it when people put pics of their dogs on their websites. heh heh. If you get a chance, tell me about your pet!
hugs,
Alyssa

Conference hangover

I'm back from New York, where I had such an incredibly fabulous time. I had my meetings at Berkley (my publisher) and it was tons of fun to see and hear about all the excitement there over the success of ATLANTIS RISING. Dinner at Un, Deux, Trois Wednesday night was much fun (and delicious!) with fab authors Marianne Mancusi, Liz Maverick, JoAnn Ross and many more!

My editor and agent and I ate lunch at a wonderful seafood restaurant, my agent and I hit Bloomies, and then the PASIC conference was superb!

I ducked out of the conference a little early for previously made plans to spend the weekend with the lovely and talented Lani Diane Rich and Jenny Crusie in an apartment in the Village and I'd tell you about all of our intense literary discussions, but you'd laugh in my face and force me to 'fess up about tons of chocolate and Cheetos (puffed, not crunchy). And the ugly dogs. And the "I'm gonna blog that, baby." I know, I know, you wish you had high-minded friends like I do.

And now I'm home and back to work (after the 8 loads of laundry the kids managed to rack up back here with their grandparents) and feeling cranky and out of sorts. It's post-conference hangover, I'm sure. All the excitement, all the fun, all the friends -- all over. But luckily the thrill of writing ATLANTIS AWAKENING is making up for it - and looking forward to WILD THING May 1st. RT BookClub just gave it a rocking great review - When top paranormal authors team up, one thing is certain: You're bound to get top-notch reading. . . . This is great stuff!