Category Archives: This and That

New Year, Fresh Start

Did you hear cheers and hollers on December 28? That wasn’t New Year’s celebrations starting early. That was Lisa and I celebrating sending our book off to our editor. After many delays–all our fault–we finally finished our book, and what a relief it was. We were able to celebrate the New Year in style, knowing that come 2009 we were going to be starting a brand-new project.

I love those words. Brand-new project. They encompass so many possibilities. There’s a certain amount of freedom–and yes, fear–in staring at the blank page, wondering what words are going to fill it. We have so many ideas, so much we want to write. This year we hope to increase our production. We don’t want to be one-book-a-year authors, and we’re hoping to remedy that. We’re going to try things a little different and see if it increases our production. We’re going to work on multiple projects at once. I know that works for a lot of people, and it worked for us in the past when we first started writing, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it works for us again.

So this week we’ve begun fleshing out the outlines, character sketches, etc., for three projects: Eternal Talisman–which we started writing years ago, and now we’re looking at it with fresh eyes and deciding what to keep and what to rewrite; the next novel in our Hollywood Heat series, and a novella we’re submitting for an anthology project. Three completely different stories with vibrant casts of characters that I’m excited to spend more time with.

Hopefully this time next year we’ll be celebrating the completion and publication of all of the above. Wish us luck!

A week of highs

The last week has been absolutely amazing on so many levels. For those of you who’ve been following Lisa and I on Twitter, you’ve had a sneak peek of what’s happened, who we got to meet at Comic Con, and some of the awesome events that have transpired. Lisa and I plan on talking in more detail about all this wonderful goodness on our website over the next week or so. Lisa’s hard at work organizing all the photos we took at Comic Con, and sizing them for the website. Pics of John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Corey Feldman, Neil Patrick Harris and many others. Make sure you keep checking back here. We’ll get the photos up soon.

In the meantime, we have some fantastic news to share. Driven to Distraction, which just came out in paperback earlier this month, has gotten a 4 1/2 star review from Romantic Times magazine. We’ve been really blessed with the reviews we’ve gotten for this book, but I have to admit I’ve been nervous for months waiting to see what RT would say.

4 1/2 stars! “Raine creates a fast-paced tale with lots of action and extremely hot sex. Blaina acts on one speed — and that’s full speed ahead. Jay is a man any woman would want. Raine will make you laugh and cry and touch all of your emotions. Once you start, you won’t want to put this book down.”

Thank you to Jill Brager for the fantastic review!

I celebrated the review by going to my local Barnes & Noble and signing the copies of Driven to Distraction they had on the shelves, then I went and got a scoop of chocolate peanut butter ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Yum!

Don’t forget to enter our contest to win Comic Con goodies. The contest ends Thursday night. We picked up a lot of stuff at Comic Con–I have four bags of stuff sitting in the middle of my office floor–and I’ll be sending a bunch of stuff to whoever wins.

Keep checking www.ashleighraine.com the rest of the week. We’ll be updating often with our Comic Con photos and memories.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Growing up, I remember being told of the Friday the 13th superstitions. My mom would kiss me before I left for school and tell me to take extra special care that day. I recall it being a big deal among my elementary school friends, and we’d dare each other to do silly things on Friday the 13th, things to tempt the fates into smiting us down for thumbing our noses at whatever might befall us on such an unlucky day.

As I got older, I took delight in being different (yeah, not much of a surprise there), so I decided that Friday the 13th was going to be my lucky day. Only good things would happen to me. Whether my beliefs were just that strong, or this was a self-fulfilling prophecy, throughout the years Friday the 13th is always the day wonderful things happen.

It started small. I got high grades on tests I took on Friday the 13th. Since I was normally a good student, it wasn’t really a leap that I’d get good grades on tests taken that day. But I chalked it up to my personal good luck day. I found $20 on the ground one Friday the 13th. Good luck for me, not so much for the poor sap who lost it. I’ve won contests on Friday the 13th. I’ve found items I’ve wanted on sale for practically nothing, again on Friday the 13th.

On a Friday the 13th a couple years ago Ashleigh Raine signed with our first agent. Coincidence? Nope, I believe in my personal Friday the 13th good luck fairy. She hasn’t let me down yet.

So what am I doing this Friday the 13th? I’m starting my vacation. When I began making my vacation plans a year ago, I looked at the calendar and knew I had to start my vacation full of good luck, so what better day than my favorite day? I’ll be spending the day driving up the California Coast, then spending the night exploring the haunts of the Winchester Mystery House, on one of their special Friday the 13th tours.

And I think I’ll buy a lottery ticket too. 🙂

So what are you doing to celebrate Friday the 13th/good luck day?