Author Jennifer Rardin Guest Blogs! Contest Included ;)

This week author Jennifer Rardin is my guest on Amberkatze's Book Blog! Her series featuring Jaz Parks is gearing up for it's sixth installment, Bite Marks, in Autumn but right now the first three books just came out in mass market form in the US! The new release of the third book in the series, Biting The Bullet, even has a never before published story called "Golem Hunt" inside! Which means it would be really cool to win a signed copy? Wouldn't it? ;)

Check out the guest blog and then enter the contest!


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Jaz Origins

I guess you could say she’s been a nagging voice in the back of my head for years. And if you know anything about Jaz, you’ll understand why I finally had to let her have her say. It wasn’t easy to give her a Voice, though. When I began writing my first vampire novel, Once Bitten, Twice Shy, I figured it would be about, you know, vampires. But that’s only part of the equation. The bigger factor is a sassy redhead who happens to assassinate enemies of the State for a living. Well, nobody’s perfect. And that’s why we love her.

Jaz began to take form in 2003. I’d just finished my third novel and was considering what to write next. My husband convinced me to stop worrying about what would sell, what other people might want to read, and just write something I loved. Vamp lit. was (and is) a passion of mine, so I caved and decided, just this once, to take the selfish route. I was working part-time as a grant-writer, so the only time I had to put the story together was at night, before I went to sleep. Since the PCs were downstairs and I didn’t own a laptop and the time, I ended up writing the whole book in longhand on three spiral notebooks. Two years and approximately ten revisions later I’d come to the point where I couldn’t think of one more way to make the story better. So I began pitching the book to agents. Another year passed and finally a Californian named Laurie McNeal called me one gorgeous spring afternoon to let me know she loved the manuscript and to ask me how serious I was about writing. Was I dabbling or did I want to make a career of it? She understood when I told her I’d been working toward this goal my entire adult life and couldn’t stop writing even if I tried. Less than four months later she’d sold the book to a new Sci-Fi/Fantasy imprint of Hachette Book Group called Orbit.

And that was when the real work began. My editor took me through probably ten more revisions before we were both happy with the result. And then she asked for book two—in four months! She explained that if Orbit could release the first three books in three successive months it would help build readership much faster. Because often when people read a book and like it, they go right back to the store for the sequel. So I wrote it. I worked pretty much constantly, and thank God my family supported me through that time or I never could have made it. Taking breaks only for meals and necessary chores, writing nights and weekends, I put together Another One Bites the Dust and Biting the Bullet in record time. My proudest moment was when my editor told me she had so few changes to recommend on book three that she was considering sending it straight to the proofreader.

However this is not a pace I’d suggest anyone try for long. I began to burn out, as evidenced by the fact that Bitten to Death was incredibly tough to write. I had to drag myself to the laptop. Writing didn’t appeal. I wasn’t quite as interested in what my characters were up to. This was also the time when my daughter had moved to college, and we were both having a tough time adjusting to the change. Luckily we both turned out to be resilient girls, much like Jaz, and as I began to recover from the overload, the joy returned. Every book I write now feels like the best one yet.

But I’m still learning all the time how to be a better writer. Every story I read or watch on the big/small screen teaches me something about plot, characterization, and scene setting. And I listen closely to my editor’s suggestions. Not just because she’s a good reader, but because she’s an excellent teacher, and I believe one day she will put me in the right place to be a bestselling author. Of course, to do that, I’m going to have to write kickass stories. I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Especially when I have Jaz around to do the kicking!

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Contest Time!

Jennifer has kindly said she will send TWO winners a signed copy of her book 'Biting the Bullet'!

All of Jennifer's books have the word Bite (in one form or another) in them! So all you have to do to enter this weeks contest is to come up with a good title for a vamp book! If you give your title a BITE (in any form) I will give you an extra entry!

No book title = No entry!

The usual rules apply!

Earn another entry for each place you link this contest on the net. Make sure you add links here for me to confirm your entries!

You can also earn extra entries by emailing your friends about the contest. Just make sure you send a copy of your email or receipt to me at Amberkatzes_book_blog at gmx dot net.

I will offer more prizes if my Amazon Associates account gets more money!! So please make sure you order at Amazon.com through the links around the site and help keep the contest coming!



The contest will stay open until Sunday 6th of September 2009 4pm CET and the winner will be picked by a randomizer. Entrants should check back to see if they have won. I do not hunt down winners and will pick new winners for any prizes not claimed within 7 days.

If you are claiming a prize, have emailed me and have not heard back before the 7 day limit is up then post a comment here on the blog. Your email may get sucked into my spam filter.