Category: Writing

Posted in Audio, Movies, My Books, Newsletter, Sen, Southern Crime Family series, Writing

Newsletter: Author Carla Swafford – Short One

Posted on by Carla Swafford, Author

I’ve decided I need a friend called Sam. They’re loyal. They’ll follow you into danger and protect your back, tell you when you’re wrong, support you when you’re right, and so much more. Why do I say that? You may have already guessed. As many of you have done, years ago, I’d watched all of the Lord of The Rings movies. Now, I’m watching the Game of Thrones series. When it was originally on, I missed numerous episodes. So I decided to watch them from beginning to end. I’ve already seen several I had missed. You may remember in the two series, they have a main character whose best friend is name Sam (or Samwell). I wouldn’t be surprised to find other series with loyal friends with the same name. There has to be a reason they’re called Sam.

Writing Tip

How often have you read about the shape of a character’s furniture or the way rain hits a puddle of water? If I kept those type of descriptions in a short sentence or two of setting, I believe most people would find the description interesting enough. Even a list of items in a room, no longer than a sentence, can be entertaining. It’s when an author types paragraphs and pages describing rooms, plant uses, or the weather (etc.) that bores me. I usually skip over it. While for other people they claim such writing gives the story layers. I guess my imagination doesn’t need all the extra words to help a story along. All of that is something to think about, heh?

Next Book

Presently, I’m working on the next book of the Southern Crime Family. It’s been a rough go, because I couldn’t get a handle on Sen (middle brother) and what his deal was. Finally, I figured it out and it’s coming together. Sorry for being vague, but I should provide excerpts before too much longer.

Here’s what the cover will look like.

Audio Coming Soon

The narration for Savage Champion should be finished in a few more weeks. I keep saying it, but I’m so excited. There are two narrators (female and male) and I think you’ll enjoy it. More details to come as soon as I’m notified they’re finished.

This is the cover for the audio. Note the narrators.

As you can tell, this is a short newsletter this time.

Take care. Read, read, read. And be sure to let people know about any books you enjoyed.

Carla

Posted in My Books, Newsletter, Savage Champion, Special Price, Writing

Newsletter: Author Carla Swafford – A Little Surprise

Posted on by Carla Swafford, Author

Hey, if you haven’t gotten a copy of Savage Champion yet, go to Smashwords.com and purchase the ebook using the following code. It’s for 75% off. The code is good until July 16, 2024.

CODE: YNC7M

From bestselling author Carla Swafford a new genre for fans of her gritty romantic suspense books. When a private investigator tracks down a client’s lost sister, he discovers she’s not lost or the client’s sister. The woman is a vampire on a campaign of vengeance. Somehow he must stop her killing spree and protect her at the same time.

Romance, suspense, and a female vampire with a hero complex.

Learned Something New

Probably everyone knew this but me. You can squeeze empty plastic bottles with the lid off, and then put the lid on. It will stay squashed. Makes sense, right? Taking up less room. Anyway, maybe one or two people on my mailing list didn’t know it and will find this helpful.

Movie/Show Reviews

As a writer, you should constantly feed your muse. For some people, it’s keeping up with current news. Me, I prefer watching new movies and series. Recently, I watched several episodes of My Lady Jane. It’s an alternate history of the nine-day queen of England, Lady Jane Grey. Similarly done like Knight’s Tale, but it includes fantasy. I enjoyed it, and hope for a second season.

Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper was different enough to hold my interest. I have noticed during the fight scenes my mind wanders. I guess you have to have a sword or lightsaber to keep my interest in those scenes nowadays.

Speaking of lightsabers, The Acolyte series on Disney started out so boring, but it improved along the way, Some good plot twists. I noticed the reviews are mixed.

Continue Working

I’m presently working on two books. One I’m co-authoring with my BFF and the second book of the Southern Crime Family trilogy (Sen). But this summer has been so busy and August will be crazy. More about that later.

Get All The News

Be sure to follow me at the following links.

BookBub

GoodReads

Amazon

Hope you’re enjoying many awesome summer reads.

Carla

Posted in Writing

Newsletter: Author Carla Swafford – Movies & Books

Posted on by Carla Swafford, Author

The other night I was looking for a good romance movie. But it was frustrating how many were rom-coms (too many) or teenage angst. Nothing against those two, I’ve enjoyed plenty of them. Beautiful Disaster for example (college students). Hey, I even own a copy of the movie.

Except for Passionflix, a streaming service for romance movies produced by the owner, Tosca Musk, (Yes. Elon’s sister) there are few and far between serious romance movies with adults out there. And no, I’m not including Fifty Shades of Grey. She was in college.

With the recent popular age-gap romance movie, The Idea of You, and millions of people buying romance books, it’s time for more adult-age, serious romance movies to be made. Goodness there are more sub-genres that can be pulled from beside rom-com. For example suspense, historical, sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, etc.

I’m not talking about a series (a la Bridgeton), but movies. Series drag out a romance and not necessarily in a good way. Too many times I’ve been disappointed by series. They have to keep pulling you in. While in a movie, it’s one and done. Ha!

What recent romance movie have you watched that you enjoyed? I need recommendations!

Book Signing & Free Book

For those who are interested in coming to my next book signing, I will be at the Decatur Public Library in Decatur, AL, for their Readers and Writers Jubilee. If you do attend, come and tell me you’re a subscriber to my newsletter and you’ll receive one of my books free (my choice). Yep. A FREE BOOK. It will be my thank you for coming by and saying hello.

Just a heads up, I’ll be at the Sumiton BookFest (Alabama) again this year. October 12, 2024. More information to come.

Quote from Jake

Yeah, baby. We’re two peas in a pod, heh? We love control. I love controlling you and you love how I do it.”

~Jake Whitfield

Keep reading. Be sure to write reviews for the books you enjoyed. Authors love hearing how much you love them.

Hugs.

Carla

Posted in Advertisement, Book Signings, Savage Champion, Sen, Special Price, Writing

Newsletter: Author Carla Swafford – On To The Next One

Posted on by Carla Swafford, Author

Presently, I’m working on the second book in the Southern Crime Family series, Sen. It’s half written and I finally have a sense of where I’m going with it. Hopefully, it’ll be finished by this fall. There is so much planned this year. Special vacations and such. That is one of the great things about being retired. You have unlimited vacation time.

By the way, be sure to buy Jake, the first book in the series. It has an excerpt from Sen’s book in the back.

Book Signings

This last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Capital City Author Event in Montgomery. So well organized. I met so many nice people. When I returned home, I had to take a nap.

This October 12, there will be another Book Fest in Sumiton, Alabama. Last year, I had a blast and it was a big success for myself and the group who put it together. I’ve been told it will bigger and better. Considering how wonderful it was at the time, that’s saying something. I hope to see you there.

Don’t forget I’m on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Writing Tidbit

I try to include a little of writing information in my newsletter, for I know there are authors or want-to-be authors who are subscribers.

For those who have Mac products, the software Vellum is worth every cent. It formats your ebooks and paperbacks quickly. A friend of mine was dreading formatting her book with Word as it took so much time. I offered to do it in Vellum to show her how efficient it was, and she was amazed. We had it done in less than twenty minutes. If I understand correctly, Atticus is similar to Vellum but for Window PCs and laptops.

Dark Romance

The other day, another author and I were talking about, “what’s dark romance?” She said it was violence done by the hero “on-screen.” Or there is the use or sale of drugs, or some type of dangerous crime performed by the hero. To me, that would only mean the book is about a criminal, not considered to be dark romance.

In a dark romance, the hero is considered to be an anti-hero. His actions are extreme, not just threats or the crime he commits against miscellaneous secondary characters, but a true danger to the heroine. The hero can actually abuse or/and wound/maim her. It’s not a taste for everyone.

My books are gritty, but rarely dark like that.

Latest Ad

Here’s the latest ad I’ve placed on social media.

Remember, if you wish for a copy of the short story, Kidnapped For A Day, just email me and let me know. Plus Savage Champion (ebook version) will be priced 99 cents until the end of May. Then it will go up to $6.99. Paperback version is $12.99.

Take care and happy reading.

Carla

Posted in Circle of Danger, Circle of Deception, Circle of Desire, Giveaways, Gmail, My Books, Newsletter, Savage Champion, Writing

Newsletter: Author Carla Swafford – Countdown Starts

Posted on by Carla Swafford, Author

T-Minus and Counting

Today, I added a countdown to my website. So 52 days and counting before Savage Champion is released into the world. As I have mentioned before, it’s a paranormal horror romance. If you have read my Circle books and enjoyed them, you won’t be bothered by the little bit of horror in my newest book. You have to remember, I am a romance writer. So most of my books (in my mind) are Romance, Suspense, and then everything else. The only books I’ve published without suspense (true suspense, not just wondering will they ever have a happy ending) are my hockey romance. That’s pure relationship. They were fun to write and very spicy.

Anyway, please pre-order Savage Champion. The price is only 99 cents. So you’re not endangering your life savings. HA! And be sure to tell your friends.

Spicy vs Erotica

Don’t read this section if naughty words bother you. Then again, why are you getting my newsletter? All of my books have these naughty words in them.

Have you ever wondered about the difference between spicy and erotica? You know that every author has their own answer, because what I think is hot and what someone else believes is hot can be totally poles apart. I’ve read adult books since I was twelve. Of course, I never understood the sex scenes until my older female cousin explained it to me at fourteen. That’s when we found “those books” beneath our fathers’ beds. (Long story for a day when I’ve had a margarita or two.) So here’s my explanation.

Spicy – A book that has sex scenes, but not necessarily many of them and not necessarily using actual body parts. Anywhere between a hard penis to a sword of manhood, you get the idea. I tell people all the time my books are spicy. They are, but I’ve never thought of them having a lot of sex scenes, though I will say my characters think about sex a lot. But don’t we all? What? You don’t. Really? *smirk*

Erotica – A book that has lots of sex scenes and mainly is about sex. Sure they can have plots, suspense, humor, true drama, but nearly every chapter they are thinking, doing, talking, or dreaming about sex (fucking, eating pussy, sucking cock, and the many ways of enhancing all of that). About the only time they will use euphemisms is in a historical setting. But it’s a romance, so it will have a happy ending with the couple (or more) together. Oddly, at least I thought it odd, HarperCollins considered my books erotica. That’s why even though the first one was published under the Impulse imprint, the other two were placed under the Red imprint. (Circle of Desire, Circle of Danger, and Circle of Deception.)

There you go. Like I said, I don’t think my books have a lot of sex scenes as one reviewer claimed. But of course, another reviewer for the same book said I had too few. People have to decide on their own.

Giveaway

Just a reminder, if you wish a copy of the short story, Kidnapped For A Day (part of The Circle series), email me at authorcarlaswafford @ gmail. com (no spaces) asking for it, and I’ll send it to you. Only for newsletter subscribers.

Be sure to tell your friends to join my newsletter if you think they will like my books, or the short story or the newsletters. I’m not picky. HA!

Have a wonderful Mardi Gra day!

Hugs.

Carla