I’m blogging about holiday stress and the writer on Over Coffee today. Stop by for some tips on how to de-stress.
home bookshelf bio blog events contact
Over Coffee
December 14th, 2009Gina’s Romance In The Backseat video
December 11th, 2009Holiday Shopping Safety
December 10th, 2009I’m guest blogging on Romance in the Backseat today about holiday shopping safety. Stop on by and see what safety tips Reilly, the heroine of Spy Games has for you. And feel free to comment and leave a tip of your own.
My Entire List at Borders!
December 2nd, 2009I’m so excited! Borders is carrying my entire list–frontlist and backlist. Okay, so it’s only two books. It’s still fun. Big name authors’ books aside, most mass market paperbacks only have about a ninety-day shelf life. Bookstores routinely send old releases back to make shelf space for new releases. If they didn’t, they’d be overrun with books. That my first book, which is a year old, is still on the shelves, right next to Nora Roberts even, is amazing to me. Thank you Borders!
Holiday Stress and Humor
December 2nd, 2009I’m guest blogging at Romcon today on how to handle holiday stress with humor. Stop by and comment and you might win an autographed copy of my first novel, Spy Candy.
Happy Release Day, Spy Games!
December 1st, 2009My second novel, Spy Games, officially releases today! Release day is an exciting day for authors and the beginning of the roller coaster of sales, reviews, and rankings that make up the publishing game.
You can read a great article on Spy Games in The Big Thrill, the International Thriller Writers’ e-zine. If you like, you can subscribe to The Big Thrill for free and be automatically entered to win the monthly prize package of recent releases. Spy Games will be one of the giveaways in January.
Win a copy of Spy Games
November 3rd, 2009Enter to win a copy of my December 1st release Spy Games on Goodreads.
The drawing ends on December 14th so don’t delay!
Writer’s Intuition: From the Desk of a Positive Person
October 27th, 2009When I was in college, my roommate came back from summer break with a stack of notepads that she handed out to friends. I don’t remember where she got them, probably from a Dunder Mifflin type salesman looking to dump his samples. Each pad had a person’s name and a positive reinforcement at the top of each sheet. The pad she gave me said, “From the Desk of a Positive Person–Emmett Nelson.” I have no idea who Emmett Nelson is, or if he’s even real, but by the time I used that scratch pad up, I felt a kinship with old Emmett. And yes, I felt pretty positive, too.
I recently started a new proposal that I’m optimistic and excited about. When I was searching around for a name for an important secondary character, the name Emmett Nelson just popped in there. The name seemed to fit my character who is a mature, important, and distinguished man. So I named my guy Emmett Nelson and didn’t think much more about it. A few days later, I was writing the first scene where Emmett appears. As I wrote, I realized the name has a fun and unexpected nuance to it that I’d never thought of consciously. It is the perfect name for my character. How did this happen? Did my subconscious know what my conscious mind couldn’t see? Did my subconscious build on what my conscious mind had chosen? However it happens, I love it when it does. I call this writer’s or creative intuition. I wish I could bottle it up for those days when I don’t have a creative thought in my body, but it doesn’t seem to work that way.
From the Desk of a Positive Person–Gina Robinson
Baskets and Other Joys of Writers’ Conferences
October 18th, 2009Last weekend I had the great pleasure to attend and speak at the Emerald City Writers’ Conference, something I look forward to every year. This year’s conference committee did their usual stellar job. The conference was a blast. Oh, and informative, too.
There are few things more fun than a writers’ conference. Old friends, new friends, fans, publishing professionals, and writers galore, all of whom can talk books until their voices give out. For a lifelong book lover like me, what’s not to love?
Last year my husband gave me a camera so I could capture my writers’ conference memories. I find that I tend to get a lot of pictures of me eating with my friends and fellow attendees. Here’s a typical example.
While I love these pictures, I wish I would have taken a few photos of some of the things people may not expect at conferences, like the always fun and fabulous basket raffle the Emerald City holds. Part of the proceeds go to support a local shelter for victims of domestic violence. This year people donated over sixty baskets. The tables holding them spanned the entire length of the banquet hall. Wouldn’t that have been a fun picture?
Here are a few photos I do have. The first one is a picture of the basket my critique partners and I donated. Besides having some great books, it also had a $50 gift card to a local spa and a $50 gift card to a national movie theater chain.
Girls' Night Out Basket Donated by my critique group
And lucky me! I won this law enforcement basket donated by Julia Hunter. It was full of research books, many I’d had my eye on, including Forensics by D.P. Lyle, which was on my “to buy” list. Now no one will believe me when I tell them I never win anything.
Law Enforcement Basket I won, donated by Julia Hunter
Another thing many people may not realize–at least at romance conferences, speakers often get gifts. Here’s this year’s speaker gift basket, put together by Laron Glover at the wonderful and creative Ninth Moon. If you need a gift for a writer, or you’re a writer looking for promo items, check Ninth Moon out.
ECWC 2009 Speaker Gift
The Beauty of Flight
October 7th, 2009Last night, I got to tour the Boeing Customer Experience Center in Seattle, WA, something usually reserved for airlines and associated aviation groups. The center is high tech, beautiful, and filled with the wonders of modern flight. I wish I could adequately describe all the wonders of the center–globes lit with the current weather across the planet, ceilings that look like skies with planes flying overhead, electronic maps of all the flights currently in progress, and so much more. As part of the tour, we got to see the mock-ups for all of Boeing’s current planes, including the new 787. Talk about a simply gorgeous interior. And we got to fly the flight simulator. All I can say about how well I did in the simulator is–don’t look for me to be your pilot any time soon.
How does this apply to writing? As writers we’re always looking for new experiences. I also think it sparks the creative mind to see innovation and creativity in different venues.
Thank you, Boeing!
