Interview with Mayra Calvani - Latino Books Examiner

The month of October was busy, busy, busy and I forgot to post that I was featured and interviewed with Mayra Calvani of Latino Books Examiner!

ENVY & HATE

Why Do People Envy & Hate So Much?

I don’t get it?
Despite the world falling apart all around us in these difficult times with people losing their jobs, houses, cars, and credit. Should I keep going… not having money to buy food, to gas up your car, pay utilities much less health insurance. God forbid you get sick and with what money will you pay the doctor and the medicines. I’m talking about the bare essentials in order to survive here. I’m talking about what all it takes not to become neighbors with the homeless man that hangs around under the expressway begging for money for food and sharing that small space with him and making sleeping arrangements in sharing that small space under the expressway.
You did notice I didn’t mention not being able to afford going out to eat, going to the movies, going on a shopping spree and taking that weekend trip. Ay que nice! Que pretty! Verda?
Despite all of this, what I just told you… WHY, why do people envy and hate so much? The economy is going to hell and people are so ignorant and closed minded to want what the other guy has. Materialist crap!
What the idiots might not know is that maybe, the people that they envy and now hate because they went on that luxury cruise… is that they went because it had always been a dream of theirs. And now with the cancer that one of them has, they thought that they should use some of their saving money to go on this trip. So now do you envy being sick with cancer? Hell no that is not of benefit to you? Is it? Pues no!
How about a close friend of yours or a family member who just bought a huge luxury home? Oh, yeah you envy her so much. Actually you hate her all ready and she hasn’t even moved in yet! Do you envy her for having a cheating husband who beats on her too? Do you want to switch places with her now to get that huge house that you’ve always dreamed of?
Here’s another one. How about a friend who just lost lots of weight? They look so good now in anything they wear and you wish you could look just like your friend. You tried every diet there is out there and still haven’t been able to lose more than five pounds. So now you envy your friend and hate them too. But did you know that maybe your friend is as unhappy as ever. You think that she/he went on a diet to look that good but instead lost that weight from PLAIN worries, from not eating. She/he is about to lose their house because they are behind on their taxes and a few house payments. Their house that they have lived in for the pass ten years. Do you still envy and hate your friend and want to trade places so you can look good with your weight loss living with the homeless guy under the expressway because you lost your house?

So I tell you this before you go envying or hating other people.
Wake up and see what’s happening around you. Be happy with what you STILL have. Someone buys a new house or a car. Be polite and say, “Hey nice house. Nice car.” And mean it.
Someone got a promotion or a part in a movie. A once in a life time thing. Tell them, “Hey congratulations. Wish you all the best.”
Don’t envy, hate or pretend not to know by not wishing or congratulating someone! Because you don’t know the rest of the story like Paul Harvey does!

Featured at Hissip

HISSIP is one of the most popular gossip sites about Hispanic celebrities. It’s based in the capital of the Latino community.
You are probably wondering What does Hissip stand for? It is a merging of Hispanic + Gossip= HISSIP. Isn’t that clever!
AND I’m featured in their Latino Book Club!!
Come visit me there and don’t forget to leave me a comment and visit their website. They have plenty of love there for Latino celebrities. The pictures on their site are fantastic! They have Fashion & Style, Movies & TV & Music. Oh and let's not forget the Latino Book Club. Come check it out.

Featured at Latino LA

I’m featured at Latino LA in their Arts & Entertainment section!

Come visit their fantastic website filled with lots of information for and about our Latino RAZA!

Oh… and don’t forget to leave me a comment there.

Until then
Bonnie

De Colores

Map Pencils

Did you know that I’m a map pencil freak! I think… I think that I just might have over 100 colored pencils.

You ask, why so many? Well, let me explain how I came to have so many of them.

Both of my kids, Andrew and Laura Ashley attended Catholic School and those nuns… aye, ya ya. They are so good to wring money out of you.
Every year all children were sold school supplies per grade level. So when registration came up they had all of your stuff ready for you labeled with your name, waiting for you to pick it up AND of course pay for it.

Over the ten years of Catholic School, map pencils were included in the supplies. And me being raised to take care of everything you had because times were hard back when, saved every colored pencil, considering that most of them were like brand new.

So now I keep some of them at my desk and have come to love using them! I use them instead of highlighters. They come in many colors, won’t ruin your paper and don’t smell bad. I use them on bank statements, to highlight book pages, notes to myself and go crazy during IRS income tax time! Oh… may I add that I use the color green to highlight paydays on my planner!

I'm a Berry Girl!

As I sit here writing my next story Storm Love based on a large south Texas ranch—I’m eating cherries and I was thinking… how I’m a berry girl. Yes, I’m a berry girl, I love to eat cherries, strawberries, raspberries, you name it I like them all. This got me thinking about a tree I used to climb when I was a little girl. It was a Mora Tree (Black Berry Tree) that my friends had right in the front yard of their house, those friends of mine were sisters, Prissy and Sara Gonzalez and they lived right next to the school in Mirando City. We would sit on the tree branches all day long, picking and eating the berries. Forget about picking them and THEN washing them, hell no this was back in the 70’s, we would pick them and straight into our mouths they would go. After hours of eating these black berries our lips, tongues, and fingers would be stained with the color of purple. Oh and lets not forget the dripping stains of purple lines on our arms from where the juices of the moras would run. When we were all done, we’d climb on down and get a drink from the water hoes. Those were the good old days!!

I recently drove to Mirando City and saw Prissy, Sara and their parents and I asked about the Mora Tree and they said, “It’s still there and still producing sweet berries.”

Music Play List

Just added a playlist from my Romance Novel FAITH for your enjoyment! These songs are actually in the story. You must read it!!

What's new with me!!

Must be wondering where I’ve been?
Long story, but was helping my 82 year old mother. In the end I think I needed more help then she did (*-*).

ANY WAY… I’m back and I’ve pick up writing again working on a Wild West romance to die for. I haven’t been able to sleep as this is all I think of. This is what happens to me when I get a new idea for a new story. I should be working orders for my business but have put them aside to write. I become completely obsessed and could careless about anything else. And sometimes it bothers me, because I put things off that shouldn’t be. Don’t know if other writers go crazy like I do. It is just so weird as the ideas keep coming and in my mine I have written three chapters. So then I freak out and need to get the chapters written out and as I’m typing away… guess what? The story just continues in my head. Have I completely lost it?? Anyway that’s where I’m at right now!!

ALSO… I have submitted another story “A Cowgirls Divided Heart.” So let’s see how all of this goes and hope for no more interruptions as I’ve also begun my first True Crime Story. My goal for that story is to have it completed by the end of December of this year.

Now available at MobiPocket

I’m so excited to say that FAITH is now available at MobiPocket!

Listed under FAVORITE book covers!

I am featured today at Romance Writers in the Rough as FIRST choice for favorite book covers!

I was so surprised and excited to see this write up.

Author Lindsay Townsend picked the cover for FAITH as her first choice for favorite covers. She says that she loves romantic suspense as a genre and that mix of life-and-death stakes and romance! Which is so for the story of FAITH.
Visit Romance Writers in the Rough to read the write up!

FAITH IN THE SPOT LIGHT

I’m being interviewed by Iuliana Petre, features editor at the Killeen Daily Herald tomorrow January 23rd!

FAITH was featured in Laredo Morning Times on Friday, January 16th in Que Pasa!

FAITH is on page 13 in La Voz Newspaper out of Austin, Texas for the January/February issue with Alfredo Santos, Editor!

FAITH will be featured in February’s issue in La Voz of Rochester, New York with Melisa Vega, Editor.


FAITH is being reviewed by Vista Magazine Cathleen Farrell, Publisher/Editor from Miami, Florida!

FAITH is being reviewed by La Voz del Latino Joanne Webster, Publisher/Editor from Ft. Walton Beach, Florida!

FAITH is featured on the front HOME PAGE of the Bruni, Texas Website!

FAITH hits the BEST SELLERS list at Siren

FAITH is selling rapidly since it's release and is climbing the BEST SELLERS list chart at Siren Publishing!

The idea behind FAITH

The idea behind FAITH
I was watching a documentary on coffee one day while ironing when I got the idea back in 2000. Coffee documentary!! People exclaim.

Yeah, it all started while watching a program on how coffee was processed. They were interviewing the owners who were brothers. In that moment the hero, Manolo Guerra was born.

From that day the story started to build in my head and everyday it grew until one evening I stopped working and just began to type to get it out of my head. You know so I could clear it and be done with it. But guess what? It continued, as I was driving, cooking and trying to sleep I couldn’t get it out of my head as the thoughts kept coming, so I kept writing until I came to the end of their relationship.

Then the book just sat there for two years. I wanted to have somebody read it that could be honest and tell me what they thought. So one day I just happen to mention it to my friend Monica Garza. And she said sure! I immediately took it to her and then it so happened that she got very sick with the flu. She was absent from work for many days, and guess what she read the book instead of sleeping.
When she returned to work she brought in the 300 pages in the black binder wrapped with a big rubber band with her notes. She then said that she liked it, but didn’t like the ending and recommended that I change it.

I told her that I couldn’t change it, because then I’d have to retract to the middle of the book in order to change it. I was surprised that she thought it was worth trying to find someone to publish it.

Again, years passed and every time I would run into Monica or when she would send me a Christmas card she always asked, “And the book? Are you going to have it published? You should.” That was always her comments when ever she would see me. So finally in early May of 2008 I decided to do some research on how to submit a book. I re-read my book for editing and re-worked the love scenes for Siren as they expressed that the love scenes had to be written with nothing left to the imagination. I thought to myself, WOW, can I? How embarrassing! I Felt a bit uncomfortable, but thought to myself that this was my only option since I didn’t meet any of the other publishers requirements because my book did not have a happy ending that was so required in order to submit.
I said what the heck, I have nothing to lose. I really thought it was a long shot and I just wanted to get it out of my system that I had tried. I never thought that they would say YES.

When I got the news from Siren, I just happened to have missed their email by an hour and left on my camping vacation. So when I got back which was after the 4th of July I was in total shock! I read the email like four times before I realized that it was real. Yep! They said we like your book and would like to publish it. Let us know so we can send you the contract for you to sign.
During that period, my niece Krstyal was very excited for me and kept that excitement up for over two weeks. So I told myself, let me let Krystal read it and see what she thinks, since she is like a bookworm. Always, reading!! So I e-mailed the unedited manuscript. She read it over a weekend and also said for me to consider changing the ending.

Meanwhile, the manuscript was under going editing and when I got it back, the editor also suggested changing the ending.
I thought about it for three days, as I thought to myself how I could change the ending. Then I thought of how I could and did. The book NOW met any publishers’ guidelines, without the need to be so explicit on the sex scenes, but it was too late as I had already signed the contract with them.

THE BOOK COVER
The first book cover they sent I didn’t like the candles and the fact that the rosary was like pasted on the model. I picked up the phone and called my niece Krystal. Why Krystal? Well, because she does this for a living. She received her degree from Saint Mary’s, San Antonio in Marketing. Krystal works for a big marketing firm out of Houston and her client … yes, she has only one to keep her busy is McDonalds!

She said that she also didn’t like the candles and the rosary and suggested to remove the candles and have them use a crucifix in place of the T in the word faith. So then they made the changes and it changed again.

The cover changed one more time with the Siren logo when the ending changed. So then the cover came to be what it is now!

FAITH scheduled to release January 15th

The day awaited is finally here!!

Several people have pre-ordered and are anxiously waiting for Wednesday to read FAITH.

Visit the website for fun stuff where you can listen to music from the book. You will also be able to see who the hero, Manolo I wrote with in mind!

until then

Bonnie