Today's guest is someone fun!! And this story, rocks!! As do CJ Redwine and Sharon Gerlach. In other words, a great story about a great story! :D Come say high!
Finding Nemesis
No, this isn’t the story of a lost little clownfish, though
I love that movie.
A little over four years ago, I went to a photo shoot some
friends of mine were doing. It was all pin-up girls and biker-gangster-ish
guys—lots of tattoos—with some great shots of girls on cars and guys on or next
to motorcycles, and everyone had a gun in their hands. I’d already started
writing Nemesis—on November 15th, in fact—and was just
barely into the story. I remember the date because it was that same night I’d
realized that NaNoWriMo had already begun and I’d wanted to participate that
year, 2008, so I started a bit late. I went a little over the deadline, writing
a 91,000-word book in two and a half months. That literary baby became
gi-normous through several edits, and she cost me a lot in sacrifice—blood,
sleep, and tears, among other things. Nemesis grew to 116,000 words, namely
because CJ Redwine, in the midst
of her synopsis workshop in 2010, pointed out to me that I had a HUGE plot hole
in the story. I was able to shed over 10,000 words after a thorough edit via Sharon Gerlach.
I remember standing in the alley, the car parked at an
angle, and my friend Aleks (aka the Dirty Russian) climbing up a ladder to take
the shot of his future wife Rita lying across the top of an old car. I stood
off to Aleks’ right, near the bottom of that cover photo, and remember
thinking, “Oh my God, that shot is going to be spectacular.” And then I
thought, “I wonder if I could use it for something,” not realizing at the time
that it would end up as a book cover, and especially not realizing it would be
the cover for Nemesis.
When the time came, nearly a year and a half later, to
design the cover for Nemesis, I emailed Aleks with a
photo that I really liked but couldn’t find the original copyright owner, and
asked him if he could do something similar. We got to talking and I finally
asked him what he did with the photo of Rita on the car. He replied that he
hadn’t done anything with it other than a calendar and some prints, and asked
if I wanted to use that. After discussing price, and having Brandon do some
Photoshop work on the image, the photo was mine.
(and isn't it lovely!! ~LB)
(and isn't it lovely!! ~LB)
What I love more than anything is that not only were these
friends of mine and I attended the photo shoot, which made it so very personal
already, but that Rita didn’t have any tattoos showing on her upper body at the
time of the shoot, and Brandon not only added the tattoos, but the one on her
arm in the image you see on the cover is the exact tattoo on her arm now.
Rita came by last week to pick up three copies of Nemesis,
and it was the first time she’d seen the book cover in person. When I told her
people raved about the cover, she actually got embarrassed. Shh, don’t tell
anyone. It’d mess with her tough girl image. We hugged, said goodbye, and she
drove off on her motorcycle with a copy for herself, her husband, and Brandon
the Photoshop genius. And I went to work with a smile because, finally, they
had their copies that I’d been trying to get to them forever.
Prince Charming was a
putz.
Prince Charming
number two was even worse.
After the last prince
ran off without any notice, breaking her heart and their engagement along the
way, Nemesis Mussolini swore off men and passed the time kicking ass and
slinging drinks, something her mafia father would never approve of. But, when
her boss Clancy ups his flirtations, it's difficult to remember she's not
interested, especially when he gets that delicious evil glint in his eye that
has her melting. Just when Nemy starts to think all men might not be bad, she
hears whispers about Clancy's less than legal past, and wants to run like hell
from the idea that he could be just like her father.
Great . . . Prince
Charming number three may possibly be on FBI's Most Wanted.
While Nemy and Clancy
tumble down the romance road, hitting potholes every step of the way, Nemy
discovers how much of her heart already belongs to Clancy, and how much of a
Don's daughter she really is. But she must learn to trust again. Can Nemy
surrender in time to get her happily ever after, or is she hell-bent
on letting her past keep her from the one man who could be her true Prince
Charming?
NL “Jinxie”
Gervasio is a creator and destroyer
of worlds. She is both editor and author, and discovered she’s quite good
at the romance thing—writing it, that is—along with vampires, werewolves,
zombies, angels and demons. Jinxie is the CEO and Founder of Just Ink Press, her second publishing
company, and she also owns and operates Forever Nocturne e-zine, a bi-annual literary magazine. Jinxie reviews
books in her spare time, of which she rarely has any.
Jinxie
was born on Friday the 13th. Her dad wanted to call her Jinx. Her mom said no.
It took 34 years for her to discover the nickname, and she's grown quite
attached to it. She lives in Tempe, Arizona with Umi (her mother), whom she
cares for. She enjoys riding her beach cruiser "The Betty" around
downtown Tempe, loves a good pub crawl, and has had the pleasure and the
heartache of experiencing a love far greater than she could have ever imagined.
She welcomes you to her worlds.
Jinxie is the author of the Kick-Ass Girls Club series book NEMESIS
and the Prophecy series books THE DRACOVE and GODS & VAMPYRES.
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