"When I'm not writing..." with Theresa Meyers + giveaway!

We have a returning visitor for this week's "When I'm not writing" post: Theresa Meyers. She's joined us before but this is the first time she's stopped by for this feature. I'm sure you're curious to see what Theresa does when she's not writing her steampunk romance series, the Legend Chronicles, so get ready to find out! And make sure you enter the giveaway to win one of several amazing prizes!

When I’m not writing I’m mostly working. Not to say I don’t work when I write. I do! But when I’m not writing, I’m doing other kinds of work—like being a taxi driver.

Now before you laugh yourself silly thinking of me behind the wheel of a yellow and black checkered cab, let me remind you that I live out in a rural area in Washington state. We don’t have those kind of taxis. And most of my fares these days are directly related to hauling around two teens and their friends. I think I make on average about three trips a day either to the junior high or high school for their schedule. Things like football, marching band, dance team, basketball, tennis, the school play. And then there’s the dentist appointments and…oh goody, orthodontics to consider. This of course does not include picking up and dropping off friends, going to friends' houses to play MineCraft or stay the night, or go to a birthday party. Sincerely, I think I need another job just to pay for the gas my kids consuming having me taxi them around!

I end up spending a lot of time in the car. Which gives me time to think (when the radio isn’t blaring and I find myself singing along to Ke$ha or Fun! or Mackelmoore). I think about my characters and their motivations – the why behind what they do. I think about the different layers in the stories and how they intersect. I listen to the characters argue in my head.

Sometimes I’ll take notes at a stoplight or while I’m waiting to pick one or the other of the kids up. I always keep a simple spiral notebook with me for such occasions as the sticky notes in my purse method didn’t work out so well.

I also work part-time as the front desk secretary at my children’s junior high. It’s a very high-energy environment and there’s always so much to do that the time flies by.

And when I’m not behind the wheel, or at my day job, or doing laundry and cooking for the family, I like to watch movies, catch up on The Vampire Diaries, Once Upon a Time, Grimm and Supernatural when I can, drink tea with stevia and half-and-half, an on occasion sew myself a new steampunk costume. I also enjoy my garden, and dislike having to brush my fluffy cat whose long calico coat get tangles if I don’t.

So that’s the kind of thing I do when I’m not writing. How about you?

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Thanks for visiting us on your blog tour, Theresa! So happy to have you back. :D

For more information about Theresa and her books, check out her website or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

To see the rest of the stops on Theresa's tour, click on the button below:

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Here's the scoop on THE CHOSEN:

The Chosen: a prophecy older than dirt and more dangerous than death. Even as they perfected steam-powered gadgetry and rounded up varmints from Hell, the Jackson brothers didn't believe in it. But when the chips are down, three brothers named for weapons aren't going out without a fight…

A Walk On The Wild Side

Attorney by day, demon-hunter by night, Remington Jackson is used to being on the sunny side of the law, even in the Wild West. But it's showdown time, and Remy and his brothers are getting desperate. They don't have the relic they need to slam the door shut on evil—so Remy is going to have to find and steal part of it.

Enter China McGee, shapeshifter, thief, beauty, and current prisoner. When Remy offers her freedom in exchange for a little light-fingered help, she's pretty sure she's going to end the association with a good old-fashioned seductive double cross. But there's something about fighting through a jungle full of Mayan ruins that makes you want to settle down together. China could change. Remy might be special. But none of that matters if the devil takes them all…

Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository

And here are the two other books in the series:

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There are some very nice giveaways as part of Theresa's tour. Up for grabs in this tour-wide giveaway:

a $50 Amazon gift card
2 signed sets of The Legend Chronicles (3 books each to 2 winners) US Shipping
10 Signed copies of The Chosen (US Shipping)

To enter the giveaway, obey the Rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Do you guys have suggestions for who you’d like to see featured on the blog? If so, you can make your suggestions on this page. No guarantees that your favorite authors will be able to participate but we’ll try!

Authors, would you like to visit and share with us? Please email me at jennblogs (at) gmail (dot) com and we’ll set it up!

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by jenn at Tuesday, March 12, 2013

 giveaway, Kensington, Theresa Meyers, When I'm not writing  10 People left their mark

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PAF: Story by Theresa Meyers + giveaway!

Our guest today is the talented Theresa Meyers, author of the steampunk series the Legend Chronicles and other delightful reads. She's here to share a story of a real-life prank from her childhood.

Don't forget to stick around for the giveaway -- we have a copy of THE SLAYER for one lucky reader!

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The Prank That Changed My World

There are times when pranks are silly. Time when pranks are fun. But sometimes, not often, a prank changes your entire world.

That happened to me.

My mother was a fanciful and artistic sort. She always used to read aloud to us as children. One night, when I was six or seven, she read the shoemaker and the elves to us. I listened intently as they talked about all the work that needed to be done, and how they diligently helped the shoemaker, who rewarded them with little shoes and clothes of their own once he discovered them. I was utterly fascinated.

My mother closed the cover of the book and as she put it away on my bookshelf, looked around my room. “You know you’ll have to clean your room tomorrow.”

I nodded solemnly. If there was one thing I truly detested doing, it was cleaning my room.

Suddenly her brows went up and she put her finger to her lips making the universal “shh” motion then pointed at my window as she crept back on tiptoe toward my bed. “Do you hear that?”

I sat up and strained to hear. Little tiny voices were giggling and talking right outside my bedroom window! “It sounds like elves!” she whispered. And she was so excited that I got excited.

The little elves were chattering about the story and how fun it was to help people. “Do you think they’ll clean my room tonight?” I asked my mother.

“They might.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Maybe they live out in the big tree stump in the back yard. Elves like tree stumps. We’d better turn out your lights and get you to sleep before they go away.”

I snuggled down into my bed and she shut out the light. I think I may have squinted between my eyelids, hoping to get a glance at them before I drifted off but never saw anything.

The next morning I woke to a perfectly clean room. Everything was spotless. It had worked! We had room-cleaning elves! I ran to tell my mother and she was so thrilled. “Well you know, now we have to make them something as a thank you, just like the cobbler did.”

We spent the afternoon making cookies and hand-sewing little clothes and looking for a thimble from the sewing box that we could put cream into for the elves. I set it all out on the big stump in the backyard and the next day it was all gone.

For years I thought those elves were real. It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s that I discovered my mother had hid a tape recorder beneath my bedroom window and recorded her own falsetto voice after a big long stretch of silence on the tape so it would strategically start playing after she’d read me the story.

That one prank turned me into a believer of the unknown, of realizing that paranormal, is really just a different level of awareness in many cases. So can a prank change your world? Absolutely.

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Here's the scoop on THE SLAYER, Theresa's brand new release:

Brothers Winchester, Remington, and Colt know the legends—they were trained from childhood to destroy demon predators, wielding the latest steam-powered gadgetry. It's a devil of a job. But sometimes your fate chooses you...

Chasing Trouble

Winn Jackson isn't interested in hunting nightmares across the Wild West—even if it's the family business. Unlike his rakehell brothers, Winn believes in rules. As sheriff of Bodie, California, he only shoots actual law breakers. That's what he's doing when he rescues the Contessa Drossenburg, Alexandra Porter, a lady with all the elegance of the Old World—grace, beauty and class. And then he sees her fangs.

Alexandra isn't just some bloodsucking damsel in distress, though. She's on a mission to save her people—and she's dead certain that Winn's family legacy is the only way. Luckily, aside from grace and class, she also has a stubborn streak a mile wide. So like it or not, Winn is going to come back with her to the mountains of Transylvania, and while he's at it, change his opinions about vampires, demon-hunting, and who exactly deserves shooting. And if she has her way, he's going to do his darnedest to save the world. . .

Read an excerpt (scroll down)

Pre-order: Amazon | Book Depository

Click on the cover to learn more about the first book, THE HUNTER:

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Kensington is graciously offering one (1) copy of THE SLAYER to a lucky reader!

To enter the giveaway, fill out the Rafflecopter form below.

US only

Ends Sunday, April 15, 2012
(like all of our Paranormal April Fools’ giveaways)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Theresa Meyers is the author of The Legend Chronicles, a wild west steampunk trilogy that debuted to great reviews with THE HUNTER. Publishers Weekly praised it in a starred review, saying "Meyers’s steampunk western packs a sizzling demonic romance into a fast-paced quest through tiny frontier towns…a well-crafted, eminently enjoyable story that will leave readers wanting more time with the Jackson brothers." THE SLAYER, Book II in The Legend Chronicles, comes out in April 2012.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

 

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by jenn at Friday, April 06, 2012

 giveaway, Guest Post, Kensington, Paranormal April Fools', steampunk, Theresa Meyers  29 People left their mark

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A Christmas With…. Theresa Meyers

Theresa Meyers released the first book in her new The Legend Chronicles series, The Hunter, just last month and she generously accepted to stop by and tell us more about it!

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1- In The Hunter, the three brothers are called Winchester, Remington and Colt, which I think is sheer genius. How did you come up with that idea?

Wow, thanks! Actually, that's just how the idea came to me. I knew they were three brothers, with an infamous outlaw father, and they were named after their father's favorite guns. I knew they were in the old west and that their last name was Jackson, because their father had chosen it when he came to America and wanted a new identity and was literally "Jack's son". There's actually a lot more to the family over in Europe that we may or may not get to at some point.

2- The Hunter is the first book in a new series, how hard is it for you that create a whole new world?

Creating a new world is the fun part for me. It takes time to keep track of it all, knowing what supernatural creatures have which abilities and weaknesses, or what ammo a Hunter needs to kill them, but I really enjoy world building. It where my imagination gets to come out and play. And since the book kind of unfolds like a movie in my head while I'm writing, I like to get very detailed in how I describe a new world so the reader can experience it in the same way I do.

3- If you had to pick a theme song for the book, what would it be?

Funny you should ask, for each book I create a playlist I use while I'm writing on the book. For The Hunter the first song on the playlist (which was kind of the anthem) was TNT by AC/DC. I mean, really, how can you pass up a song that starts out "See me ride out of the sunset on your color TV screen. Out for all that I can get, if you know what I mean. Women to the left of me. Women to the right. Ain't got no gun. Ain't got no knife. Don't you start no fight. Cause I'm TNT. I'm dynamite. TNT. And I'll win that fight." It was just so Colt.

4- How many books are planned in the series, and when can we expect the next one?

Right now there are just the three brothers books that are for certain. But I have ideas for several more depending on what happens with the first three. The oldest brother, Winchester, will be the next book out, The Slayer, in April 2012. Remington's book is scheduled for early 2013 release and there's a good chance in between I'll work on a novella for their inventor friend Marley Turlock.

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by Tynga at Wednesday, December 07, 2011

 A Christmas With, giveaway, Kensington, Theresa Meyers  22 People left their mark

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