Friday Hodgepodge

This post may be a bit all over the place. It's been a long week. Consider yourself warned.

I'd thought about trying to do a live Facebook Mentions video tonight to talk about all this stuff. Turns out you have to be verified to do that, and my author page isn't verified yet. Working on it though! I watched Rachel Hollis do her chat last night, and so wanted to get in on it. The only reason I didn't attempt last night? I'd already taken my bra off and nobody wants to see that pop up on their computer screen (shudder).

So for today... a birthday!

One year ago today, Jump, Jive, and Wail went live. Hard to believe that it's been a year! I've been a bit distracted and didn't realize the birthday was coming up, otherwise I would have put it on sale!

But, I do have exciting news for Jump, Jive, and Wail though ... coming soon: AUDIO BOOK. That's right, I've just approved the first 15 minutes (estimated length is about 9 hours), so look for Jump, Jive, and Wail to be available on Audible and iTunes Audio this spring.

While we're on the audio kick: Killing Me Softly is also in production for AUDIO. If you'd rather listen than read, sit tight, and you'll have two more audio books to choose from. I'm Still Here and Hold Her Down are already available on Audible and iTunes. If you can't wait that long, Killing Me Softly is on sale for $0.99 this week.

I'm in the almost final editing stage on Live For This, with an expected publication date of March 8, 2016. It's available for pre-order on Amazon, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords, so order yours today! Here's my video teaser for Live For This:

As I promised a reader on my FB author page, here's a little (unedited) excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE: SAMIRAH You would think waking up in a pool of your own vomit would mean you've hit rock bottom. For me, it's just Saturday. At least, I think it's Saturday. My brain is fuzzy. Definitely not firing on all pistons. Slowly sitting up and wiping my mouth on the back of my hand sucks my remaining energy. I'm tempted to lay right back down and hopefully wake up ... never.It's not that I want to die. I don't. I just don't want to live my life. To me, my life is just a show. A facade I don like a thick layer of make-up. I exist. And I don't know how to change it. On paper, my life is not so bad. That's what I tell people at least. Not everyone can be a hostess at one of the most exclusive restaurants in New York City. My roommate and I dominate the social scene. It's not a party until we arrive. We hob knob with the elite. We are the beautiful people. We are important. Again, that's what I tell myself.
"Sam, are you alive?""Barely," I sigh, "Give me a sec."Meadow is not great at waiting. She's a neat freak and the mess I've made in here will not be tolerated. The ever-present anti-bacterial wipes assist me in returning the toilet and surrounding floor to its status quo pristine condition. Too bad the rest of the apartment is a shit hole.She apparently can wait no longer as the bathroom door flies open. Lucky for me, my reflexes are intact enough to allow me to jump out of the way before the corner of the door slams into my head. The bathroom is tight quarters for one person, let alone two. Ahh, the joys of city living."Were you in here all night?" Meadow pushes past, not even waiting for me to leave before she pulls her g-string down and plops on the toilet. Meadow's wearing only a short t-shirt on top. With a body like hers, she can afford to walk around half-naked. I work hard to look like Meadow, but the results are never quite good enough. Meadow doesn't appear to have any modesty around me. Not like I haven't seen it before, but it still makes me uncomfortable. I guess when you're a model, it's nothing to strip down in front of people. I'm not a model. Meadow pushes me to be more open, more "free" as she likes to call it. Certainly more liberal than anything I'd grown up with or been exposed to before I moved here.  "Last night was so off the hook!" Meadow continues talking while wiping and flushing. It doesn't seem bother her that I'm in here, and she never even waits to hear if I'm okay."Was it?" No matter how vigorously I scrub my teeth, I can't seem to get the foul acid taste out of my mouth."Tell me you don't remember again?" Meadow nudges me out of the way to wash her hands, and is moving on to examining her flawless face in the mirror. The night of hard partying doesn't show on her face. It's not fair.
I spit one last time and look at our reflections in the mirror. Meadow is tall and lanky, with unnaturally blond hair and breasts provided by a former boyfriend. My 5'6" frame appears short and wide compared to my friend, but I've always liked my curves. Not so much when I'm next to her. Meadow has convinced me to lighten my naturally dark hair to an ash blond. I'm not sure it does anything for me. Her skin is golden brown where mine is more on the pale side, with just a hint of olive. On my own, back home, a lifetime ago, I was considered pretty. Beautiful. Exotic even. Standing next to Meadow, I feel wrong. All wrong. I don't need to be beside her to feel wrong, either.My mother was British-Persian, and my hair and features come from her. My father, the bastard, gave me my most striking feature—gray-blue eyes that have been passed down through generation after generation of strong Norse peoples. Every time I look at my eyes, I see him, and hate myself.
I wish I could figure out how to be comfortable in my own skin like Meadow is in hers. I pretend I am, but it's simply an act. And although I would never consider myself a good actress, no one seems to notice. People see what they want to see. Even Meadow. 

I hope that's enough to get you interested!

And in other news, my next project is going to be a bit of a departure. I'm co-writing a book with Becky Monson. All I can say is that it's romantic comedy, and we expect to release in May or June. Well, I expect to release then. You all can start putting pressure on Becky to pick up the pace. :-)

The other excitement in the Biel household is that my daughter "adopted" two crayfish from school today. Woo hoo. I'd said no. My husband (middle name "Sucker") signed the permission slip. Those suckers are a lot bigger than I'd expected and rather ugly. Words like etouffee and jambalaya keep floating through my mind.

The last bit of randomness for tonight is that I've been seeing a lot of bald eagles lately. As a kid, they were an endangered species, and not even that common in a zoo. I see one pretty regularly, but I can never stop to get his picture. When I saw this one on Tuesday, I was able to pull over. He saw me, let me get a few pics, and then took off. So cool!

I think I've got all the randomness covered. Happy weekend!