The von Strassenberg Saga ~ Yet Another Review

From Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/173084874
"Oh my goodness. Run, do not walk, to your nearest computer/Nook/Kindle/smartphone and order this book. Filter is an absolute must-read. I am going to try very hard not to include any spoilers in this review because I can't stand having a book possibly ruined for a future reader! 

The story is so riveting that you can't stop thinking about it as you go about the rest of your daily life. There are authors who know how to end a chapter and then there is Gwenn Wright who practically drives you into the beginning of the next chapter with her skillfull weaving of just the right balance of suspense and revelation! You are simply drawn back to Wright's beautiful descriptions and the completely enthrallling characters if you are ever able to put this book down for any length of time--which I obviously was not able to do since I finished it in about 36 hours. You will laugh and cry and hurt and rage with her characters, who are so completely developed you feel they could jump of the page. Wright's physical descriptions, especially eye color, are so clever and build so much into the reader's knowledge of her characters. You want nothing more than to keep reading until suddenly the book ends and you are dying for more! I simply can't wait for the next segment of the Van Strassenberg Saga!"
Available at Amazon ($2.99 for Kindle, paperback editions will be available again in a week. Publishing a new edition with the opening chapters to book 2.)
 For Nook  (also $2.99) at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/filter-gwenn-wright/1100248778?ean=2940012882028&itm=1&usri=filter%2bgwenn%2bwright

Crisis Averted

All right kids....

Thanks to a very helpful thread on Amazon's Createspace and a guy who knew just the right thing to say, we now have page numbers! Woohoo! Page numbers have never been this exciting! Also, whilst finding the solution to our page number woes I also discovered something most of us probably don't even pause to consider: Chapters always start on the right-hand page. Never thought about it, but it's so true! So....we have page numbers and our chapters begin on the right-hand page. Folks around here will probably be a little sad that I have things figured out. I've been giving away the proofs that weren't quite right. Not that there is a hoard of people following me and demanding copies, but there are several people who have been waiting. So, cross your fingers, this may really be it! And, now at 394 pages the book will be $15.99. Maybe that sounds ridiculous but if you bought Filter at your local bookstore that would earn me $0.82. So no, I'm not trying to get rich quick! That's just what it is. If you want to save $15, you can download the ebook for $0.99! It doesn't need page numbers!

Offending the Professional

Apparently the blog entry from yesterday caught the eye of my good friend, Zach Ruble, videographer and graphic artist extraordinaire, and it offended him greatly. Since then he has worked tirelessly to produce an amazing cover for my novel Filter: Book One of the von Strassenberg Saga.

So a million kazillion thanks to Zach Ruble of Zach Ruble Productions https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zach-Ruble-Productions/147894218571929 and to Jessica (aka Jellyka Nerevan) at http://www.cuttyfruty.com/ for the fonts Zach used. You both have wicked awesome skillz.

The Final Cover Art for Book 1

As soon as I rework my summary I will upload the new version to Amazon. Filter is only available as an eBook for the time being. Give me a couple weeks and it will be out in paperback!

Waiting for Spring ~ An Author's Review

It’s one of those things you do as an independent writer. You offer to read other people’s self-published books and write a review because you need to support each other. Added to that, the author is a friend of a friend of a friend and you kind of virtually know each other, so you want to do the right thing.

So, groaning inside, I offered to read a virtual friend’s eBook. The cover art looked dull and not promising and then I remember, my cover art isn’t so hot either. Good cover art is difficult to come by when you’re an Indie. The story didn’t seem to be my normal reading…not that I have narrow tastes but this didn’t seem to be a fit.

But I’d made a promise. So I started reading.

Waiting for Spring is indeed outside my usual genres but Keller’s characters got their claws into me. They slipped off the page and burrowed into my brain as people I knew and cared about. The story itself is gritty and raw and so real I swear that Keller followed me around and implanted a recording device in my head, capturing my own thoughts and experiences as I dealt with my ex-husband and my own childhood issues.

I kept thinking, how much longer can this story go on, because it’s so real? What else could possibly happen? And it was obvious. Nothing good could happen. So, one day I avoided the book, because I didn’t want to know what bad things would happen to Tess. She had become more than a two-dimensional character. She was me. She was my best-friend in high school, the one who popped a bunch of niacin to get the crank out of her system before the impending drug test she faced. But at the end of the day Tess called to me and I had to know what happened to her. It was a story I couldn’t stay away from.

Waiting for Spring made me laugh. It made me angry. More than once it made me blush and then concede, “Yea, that’s how it is.” And more than once I cried, though I tried desperately not to. As soon as it was over I wondered what the second book would bring and nearly decided not to read it whenever it comes out because I don’t want to know when anything else bad happens to Tess.

But I will buy it because I know Tess, she is so strikingly solid, as are all of Keller’s characters, that she cannot be ignored.

Keller’s powers of observation and her ability to communicate that to the written page are stunning and unsettling. If you have lived a life of any kind of hardship you will feel as though Keller was there, hiding in the bushes, taking notes. I told my husband, “What Gabaldon does with minute, physical detail Keller does with emotional detail. And sometimes it feels a little too personal, as though she’s airing my own dirty laundry.”

But dirt and grit and all, you can’t help but love Tess.
**If peppers were indicators of how explicit a book is....1-5, 5 being the hottest...this one might have six! For Language and ....sexual encounters. 

Going to paperback...maybe....

Currently I am editing and re-formatting Filter for Amazon’s CreateSpace. But it still makes me edgy. It seems like a big commitment.

So here’s an excerpt:

Mr. Demure leaned in and kissed his daughter’s forehead and gently spread a blanket across her. “I have always warned her that her curiosity would be the death of her. That or her clumsiness.”

She heard the men laughing as they drifted out of the room.

The shadow stayed.

She wished he would go. The burning tears ached to be set free. She couldn’t restrain them much longer. With a trembling, unwilling hand she rubbed her throbbing forehead and exhaled deeply.

For a moment she believed he had left, but as she shifted away from the wall she sensed him there beside the bed. He was very close.

Wretched curiosity!

But she would fight it and not look.

“Katherine,” he whispered, his breath rolling in a warm wave across her cheek. A traitor tear spilled out, the humiliation was too much to contain. Gently, a finger dabbed the wetness from her skin. He said it again, softly, as though it pleased him just to say it,

“Katherine.”

“Viktor!” the accented voice bellowed from below. And then the shadow was gone.

Darkness overwhelmed her then and carried her away to a land of crows and mocking strangers.

.....To vote on whether or not I should go to paperback go to Filter: The Von Strassenberg Saga Book One Facebook Page

Thanks!

COUPON FOR FREE eBOOK!!!

Here's what happens.

If I get into the "premium catalog" on Smashwords and my book doesn't have a set price they will give it a predetermined price of $4.95. So I have set the price for Filter at $2.99. For now you can use this  coupon code TZ68P here http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20957 and download Filter to your nook, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android, PC, Mac, or Kindle for FREEE. Or just go to Amazon and pay $2.99! 

Sold a Copy!

Maybe it seems silly, but when someone you don't know decides to spend their money on something you worked so hard to create, it's really humbling and exciting.
So today when I discovered that someone else had bought a copy of Filter I nearly screamed into the phone (was talking to my husband).
Whoever you are, thank you. And I hope you enjoy it. And let me know if you enjoy. And if you like William or Viktor better, because I favor William. 

muse

Since middle school my writing habits have been pretty rigid. not in terms of schedule or a particular form of media. My only unbreakable habit is the need foor music, loud music. And I have to have headphones. Yes I know this is unwise, but it's the only thing that works. What's funny is after a while I don't even hear the music anymore. It keeps the world at bay and allows me to slip into my writing, into the world I've created. In high school the rules changed slightly. Not any song would do and it had to be a particular song looped over and over. When I took up writing again after years of pretending I was too practical to do such a thing, the rules had become more refined. If I don't find the absolute perfect song, writing is like slogging uphill in deep mud. Usually i could pick a song and run with it and say, "Okay this fits." Now the story seems to pick the song. I learned this when, to my horror Katherine (Filter Book One) would only flow to Katherine McPhee's "Terrified." You see I listen to christian music and had only heard this on American Idol. And then as the story intensified it switched to Airplanes by B.o.B, a song I picked up from driving with my sister. In the end, with tragedy and violence, it was Flyleaf. As I work on Book Two more surprises are hitting me. William's muse song is "What do I Know of Holy" by addison road. Not a huge surprise, and a song that makes me cry every time I sing along. But Marie's muse is a shocker, a song I haven't heard since I graduated from high school in 1997, "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin. I love that song but hadn't tried to think of it. That's what's so weird. I wanted a girl power song by Natalie Merchant, Ophelia. Marie would have nothing of it. So I downloaded Sunny and soon after had five fantastic pages of Marie done. I loved Katherine, but she is a candle beside Marie's bonfire. I'm so excited about book two now. William is a complicated young man and makes my brain hurt to follow his thoughts, but I still adore him. book one is still available at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/filterbookone for free!