…going on around here.

I had to gut the beginning of my WIP and start over. This was hard and I’ve spent precious days at the same word count because I’m deleting as much as I’m writing. This sucks, frankly. It’s frustrating and makes me anxious because I have A LOT to get done NOW, and making progress that doesn’t increase my page count isn’t really making progress.

I’ve found myself stuck wanting to write a story with romantic elements, rather than writing a romance. Since this is the second story I’ve worked on (the other is a partial from last year) where this has happened, I’m thinking it’s a sign. Not that I want to quit writing romance, because I won’t ever do that, but that I need to have an outlet for stories that have romantic elements rather than being labeled romances.

Anyway, I’ll have more on this later. It’s late and I have to get up with my kids soon.

NIGHT RISING
by Chris Marie Green
Ace, February 6, 2007
0-441-01467-4

Welcome to Hollywood—after dark…

Stuntwoman Dawn Madison is a girl with attitude—and a lot of issues, mostly about living up to the legacy of her mother, a world famous movie star whose untimely death left Dawn to be raised by her dad Frank, nobody’s notion of single-father-of-the-year. Now that she’s grown up, she and Frank aren’t on the best of terms, to say the least.

Still, he is her dad, and when he vanishes while investigating the bizarre sighting—caught on film—of a supposedly long-dead child star, she comes home to Tinseltown to join the search for him. Working with his colleagues—a psychic short in stature but big in dreams, a beautiful Latina techno-geek, and the P. I. firm’s never-seen boss—she discovers an erotic and bloody underground society made up of creatures she thought existed only on screen.

They are devious. They are deadly. And some of them are dangerously attractive…

Book teaser link: Vampire Babylon Trailer

Read an Excerpt!

ABOUT CHRIS MARIE GREEN

Chris Marie Green also writes as Crystal Green for Silhouette Bombshell and Special Edition, plus Harlequin Blaze. Her first vampire book, THE HUNTRESS, allowed her to indulge in her love of horror movies and novels. NIGHT RISING is book one of the Vampire Babylon trilogy.

REVIEWS

Night Rising – Vampire Babylon is the first book in a new trilogy set in the exciting world of paranormal Hollywood…. Described as a noir-mystery-fantasy series, it is dark, erotic and compelling reading – Amanda at Lovevampires.Com

Green’s storytelling prowess is hitting on all cylinders in Night Rising: a brilliantly developed plotline; compelling, realistically drawn characters; and enough ghoulish antagonists, horrific murders and erotic encounters to satisfy fans of all genres. Regardless of categorization, Green’s latest is pure, unadulterated storytelling gold. Highly recommended. – Paul Goat Allen, Barnes and Noble

Chris Marie Green does a wonderful job of bringing this gritty, dark novel to life…. If this is the first installment of the VAMPIRE BABYLON series, I can’t wait to see where [the author] takes the rest of the books. – The Best Reviews

Website: www.vampirebabylon.com | www.crystal-green.com | www.myspace.com/vampirebabylon

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January 22 #2:

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT by Suzanne Forster, Thea Devine, Lori Foster & Shannon McKenna

February 5 #3: THE ART OF SEDUCTION by Katherine O’Neal

I became accustomed to staying up late during the long winter break at my kids’ school and now I’m finding myself really dragging-tired in the mornings. *ugh*

In funner news, ARCs for Pleasures of the Night arrived yesterday. They’re unlike any other ARCs I’ve ever had before. My previous ARCs have been covered in a thick newsprint-type generic cover with basic sales information on the front (title, my name, ISBN, price) and nothing on the back.

My PotN ARCs are a bright Chinese red (maybe because they’re “Avon Red”s?). The covers are thick and glossy with a blurb of the story on the back, as well as quotes from Susan Grant and Booklist, plus my website and MySpace addys. Verra nice.

I also got coverflats for Passion for the Game and Perfect Kisses. They are also verra nice. *g*

I’m presently “binge” writing, which basically means I’m typing as fast as I can and not reading backwards. I have to do this occasionally when I fall into a 2-3 page a day rut. It’s been fun so far. Hope to finish soon and then spend time tweaking/fixing.

It’s Friday! Yay! I look forward to the weekends. Don’t we all? Do you have any plans?

Thirteen Websites I Visit with Anything Even Hinting at Regularity
(in no particular order)

1.) My bank’s website (gotta know how much money I have *g*)

2.) Romancing the Blog (not daily, but every few days or so)

3.) Publisher’s Marketplace (One stop stat viewing)

4.) M-W.com (a dictionary and thesaurus are necessities for a writer)

5.) Thursday Thirteen (gotta check out other TT’s)

6.) PayPal (to pay for all my promo. Sadly, I visit PayPal far too often.)

7.) YouTube (for obscure music videos when I’m in the mood for a song I either don’t own or don’t have handy)

8.) BravaAuthors.com

9.) AvonAuthors.com

10.) AllureAuthors.com

11.) PassionateInk.org

12.) MySpace

13.) Etymonline.com (I always like to check and see if a word was actually in common use during the time period I plan to use it in.)

That’s really about it. There are a few of my friend’s sites that I visit sporadically, but not many and not very often. I usually keep in touch with them through email or IM, so no need to visit their websites.

As some of you might know, we have a pet hen. She’s a cute chicken, with a distinctive personality. We named her Pollo Asado. (not sure why. I wasn’t involved in that decision) She’s madly in love with my husband and follows him around whenever she can. We have a toy poodle, too, and the chicken is bigger than him.

Like most chickens, she’s up at dawn. Some days she has illusions of grandeur and she’ll cluck loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. Since we don’t live in the sticks, I’m surprised one of my neighbors hasn’t shot her yet or thrown a shoe at her. Our next door neighbors recently sold and we got new neighbors. The hubby (not mine) peeked over the fence and said, “OMG! You do have a chicken! I heard her the other morning and looked at my wife and said, ‘There can’t be a chicken around here. We’re in the city.’”

Surprise, surprise. *g*

A week or so ago (maybe two weeks ago now?), we had a frost warning here in So. California. Below freezing temperatures. For us, that’s barely below freezing — around 30 degrees, give or take a few degrees. I told hubby we’d have to bring the chicken in for the night. She has a coop outside, but without anyone to share it with, I thought it’d be too cold. (My hubby said, “What? No pollo pops?”) No.

So we took the large box that recently carried my hubby’s new 27 inch tv for his garage “den” (pool table, bookcases, couch, etc.) and lined it with straw and brought the chicken in. The first couple days, hubby was able to pluck her out of the box in the mornings, set her on the kitchen floor, and out the back door she’d go. By Day 3, she felt the icy blast when the door was opened, ruffled her feathers while looking aghast at my hubby, and said, “Hell no” quite succinctly by walking in the other direction. By Day 5, she could be found pacing outside the kitchen door when it got dark instead of asleep in her hen house. Tonight, I opened the back door to let the dog in and Pollo walked in after him, bold as you please.

Nuts, I tell you.

I’m so excited! I’ve been dying to have a novel of mine selected for a book club, and it happened!!

Pleasures of the Night has been selected as a Featured Alternate in both the Doubleday and Rhapsody Book Clubs, and will also be available to the Science Fiction Book Club! Yay!