Contest!!!

I woke up to find that Clothing Optional had climbed back to #4 for romance and hot shorts on my publishers bestsellers list. I also found out that some awesome reader from Virginia (the state, not me) had left this review on Amazon.com :

Clothing Optional is a short, hot read that pushes the boundaries of love. Virginia Nelson, best known for her Odd Stuff series, takes a break from the paranormal to share a story about three characters, who start as friends and end up lovers on a getaway weekend at a clothing optional resort.

Ms. Nelson p...resents this tale in such a way that it's believable for all three characters to fall in love with each other. Not only is it believable but she has her readers hoping for that perfect happy ending. Do they get it? Well, you'll have to read the story!

For a scintillating read, check out Clothing Optional!

So to celebrate all the love (since the book has been out quite some time, I am a happy author to wake up to this...) I figured it was time for a giveaway!!!

But I don't want to just love on Clothing Optional... I will let the winner have their choice of my backtitles (Odd Stuff, Siren's Song, or Clothing Optional) because I am just swell like that.

All you have to do to win your free choice is either message me on Facebook or comment below.

Feel free to share the contest with your friends. Best of luck!!!

Siren's Song Release and Contest!!!

Siren's Song, Book Two of the Odd Stuff Series is going to be released on Monday, August 30th, 2010. *woot*

To celebrate this excitement, I am holding a contest to give one lucky reader a copy of book one of the series, Odd Stuff.

To win no purchase is needed... all you have to do is answer one simple question :

What color are Vance, the vampire in the series, eyes?

If you haven't read the books, I will even tell you where to find the answer (it really doesn't get much easier, folks :p)

All you have to do is go to my publishers website here:
http://www.sapphirebluepublishing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=79&osCsid=4b67777e642dfca64eb4d569d339a6f0

The information you need is right in the excerpt provided.

Then email me the answer. You can email your responses to virg_nelson@yahoo.com

The contest will be left open until September 5th, so enter now...

Good luck and happy reading!!

Ringtones for a Siren

Janie is a special gal. She is a smart mouthed single mother of one kid who would do anything for her daughter... even go up against all the forces of the night and day worlds combined. Not too shabby. Aside from that, she does it with her friends. I think that is pretty cool because most super characters pick up all these super-de-uper people as they go along and Janie is still hanging with her weird (albeit witchy) best friend from highschool.

What really set Janie apart for me and made her someone I wanted to talk about, at length (come on, I wrote 90k words about her that you know about. That you don't know about is a third book and all of the back story that I had to write to create those books. Also there is a short that happened between books two and three. Not to mention blogs, etc. I have been talking about this girl since 2007.) was her sense of humor. She is the kind of girl who can date a vampire and have Bleed it Out for a ringtone
(Linkin Park is the band and the lyrics are something like this:
"Mama help me I've been cursed
Death is rolling in every verse

Candy paint on his brand new hearse
Can't contain him he knows he works

*** this hurts, I won't lie
Doesn't matter how hard I try

Half the words don't mean a thing
And I know that I wont be satisfied

So why try ignoring him
Make it a dirt dance floor again

Say your prayers and stomp it out
When they bring that chorus in

[Chorus]
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away")
And then change it to Gilligan's Island because it is, "A classic." Janie is that kind of girl.

Not that she hasn't faced personal tragedy. Her dad was murdered. Her mom is a self-centered, manipulative beastie who wants to use Janie regardless of the cost to her kid. Chance, her "soulmate," lies to her. But she just plows through it all. Wise cracking. Bull headed. Stupidly confident that at the end of the day, the good guys are going to win. Because that is how it should be. Good guys winning, bad guys losing.

I like her.

I wanna be Janie when I grow up. Even if people go buggy when I sing. Hell. They do go buggy when I sing. That is why I do karaoke at your own risk.

So, anyway, this was just a blog about Janie and why I like her. Let me know if you like her. Maybe soon I will do a blog on Vance or Chance or Mia. They are pretty cool people, too. I like my imaginary friends.

Writing and Avoiding the Hospital

Siren's Song, which by the way has been whirring along about as quickly as my fingers can type, hit a major roadblock. At first it wasn't an obvious roadblock. I wrote Chapter Five. Then I deleted it as it bogged down and didn't go where it needed to to fulfill the outline. Again I got my page count. Next day, poof.

It took me awhile to realize the stagnant pool that I was swimming in and that I was going no where with this scene.

In quiet desperation, I did what I rarely did and let the characters take over. I was surprised when a character who was not even supposed to be in this scene turned out to be pivotal. Then he took over the scene, got it going where it was supposed to go and fixed the whole muddle it was in. Staring in shock at the completed bit that was exactly on track again with the original outline, but totally shocking to me, the author and supposedly all knowing being in this world, I again was left wondering about something I have seen other writers wonder about.

When we are truly telling the story, when it truly has us as it is supposed to, are we the vehicle for our characters, the storyteller, the creator, or are we just hanging on to our seats like the reader, listening with some internal voice going, "Oh, that's what he wants to do!" And when we are listening quite quietly enough, still enough, then and only then, will the story reveal itself to us???

Or are we making it up as we go along?

Ah, sometimes it is both, isn't it?

Anyway, onto the non-fiction end of my world... I am still sick, darn it all. The mean, old doctor (My doctor is neither mean, nor old, if you want accuracy in reporting. He actually puts one in the mind of a pirate and is quite nice. However as he is the one that orders people to come at you with pokey things and other torture devices and pills and such, Mean and Old in this case were suggestive of my feelings toward medicine in general, not towards my nice, young, pirate-looking doc. Sorry, doc) requested more tests, which, by the way, are far too degrading for me to even list. As I am in very nearly excruciating pain tonight, I am sure I probably should have gotten said tests at the hospital today, as ordered. However... yeah, I didn't. Again, I reiterate, exceptionally degrading tests. Instead, I filled the prescription he gave me (only 24 hrs later than he requested) and started the meds (about 34 hrs later than he requested) and hopefully the pain will subside. (Because he is a pirate and I am sure, even without testing, the medicine I don't want to take, but have finally started taking will work.

But the kids have loved having me home. We have finished reading aloud Odd Stuff and all that I have written on Sirens and they are chomping at the bit for me to finish Sirens and Blood. However they have conceded (grudgingly) that perhaps I can only be expected to produce a chapter or so a day. Per book.

If I ever become a terribly famous writer and am given deadlines, I feel I will be prepared as no publisher or editor can compare to the kids.

Most mothers have kids who are saying things along the lines of, "Mom, is dinner done yet?"

Not mine. For mine it is, "Mom, Finish the Book!"