Shelley Munro Blog

Mr. Munro and I have just returned home from a family dinner - a birthday celebration for my mother-in-law. Now that the family is getting larger it’s difficult to organize everyone, so we were slightly depleted in number, although we managed four generations of family. We’re also expecting two babies in the family - the first to arrive should make an appearance in just over a week. Everyone is excited because it’s a girl after several boys. Anyway, Mr. Munro and I had to go for a walk when we arrived home to shake down our dinners. My eyes were WAY too big.

The form for volunteers at the RWA conference went online today. I decided I’d volunteer and chose the agent/editor appointments plus a few hours on the registration desk. I’m a bit shy, so it’s good for me. That’s what I keep telling myself…

I thought I’d mention the Erotic Romance Blog. Both the blog and the website are full of great information on e-publishing and erotic romance plus the latest market news. I always find the posts interesting and have them on my blog feed.

And finally writer Josh Lanyon has a how-to book available on writing m/m romances. It’s called Man-oh-Man, Writing M-M for Cash and Kinks. It’s definitely worth checking out and is available in e-format from Fictionwise. I recently read my first book by Josh Lanyon called The Dark Horse and enjoyed it very much. He’s a very good writer - lots of emotion and well-rounded characters. He has several books available at Fictionwise and some at Loose ID.

Since I’m attending the conference in San Francisco I’ve been thinking about promo. Last time I went to the RWA conference I distributed bookmarks and business cards via the goodie room and thought I’d do something similar this year. Then last week, thanks to the Marketing for Romance Writers loop, I had another idea. Book thongs.

Hubby and I discussed the idea and I googled for instructions on how to construct a book thong. We decided that the only downside to a book thong would be the lack of connection to my name, but we’ve come up with a cunning plan to combat this disadvantage. Each book thong will have a little label attached and will also be placed inside a ziplock bag, along with an excerpt. We’re also going for a special New Zealand flavor, which unfortunately for all of you is top secret. In other words, I’m not gonna tell.

For those who don’t know what a book thong is, here’s a link to instructions on how to make one plus a photo. Here’s another link to JM Snyder’s instructions so you have two sets of different instructions to compare.

We’d already decided to go for a drive to buy compost and potting mix so added bead shopping to our list. In the past I’ve done several handicrafts including knitting, tapestry, cross stitch and sewing, but I’ve never done beadwork. We walked into a craft shop and had great fun studying all the beads and deciding which ones to buy. I settled for a green theme since that’s what I have on my website. We also purchased dark cord. On arrival home we discovered our cord was a little thick for the beads. Mr. Munro stalked out to the garage and returned with his drill. He had his serious face on so I left him to it. He loves projects and thrives on challenges of all kinds. About half an hour later he’d made three book thongs. I was very impressed.

I’m not spending a fortune and don’t intend to make hundreds of thongs, but a few lucky people will go home with New Zealand book thongs.

This morning I received another good review for Fancy Free. In fact I’m thrilled with the reviews I’ve received so far. Kate Garrabrant from JERR says, “I had some good laughs while reading Fancy Free and Shelley Munro truly writes exceptional sex scenes with two great characters. I would recommend you check a great story by an exceptional author!”

This story hit the news in New Zealand yesterday. An Auckland primary school has decided to adhere strictly to the new national healthy eating guidelines and will ban birthday cakes from the school.

My initial reaction was WHAT???? How can they take this polictical correctness and adherence to stupid rules so far? What harm does a slice of birthday cake do to a kid? Frankly, I was horrified.

I happened to catch an interview with the school principal on the news last night. Yes, it’s true. They are banning birthday cakes from the school and part of the reason is because they believe in the healthy eating guidelines. However, the main reason is the entire birthday cake thing has turned into an expensive competition between parents. Evidently the kids prefer expensive cakes purchased from a bakery and when the cake needs to be big enough to feed 30 children, that means serious money. Some parents couldn’t afford to pay for a cake and others, with busy lives, didn’t have time to bake a cake. The school took the decision to ban all cakes and remove the extra expensive from the parents’ budget, because after all, educating a child these days is expensive enough without adding extras.

The owner of the local bakery was also interviewed. Won’t it cut into profits? the reporter asked. No, not really. Parents still purchased cakes from her bakery but the cakes were shared after school with close friends and family. Wasn’t that what birthdays were about? No, the bakery owner wasn’t concerned in the slightest.

After hearing all this, I was much happier, but I notice that most of the media still chose to highlight the healthy food guidelines rather than the commonsense rationale behind the decision.

You can read the story here.

We never had birthday cake at school. We had after-school parties where we invited our friends. What do you do with regard to birthday cakes?

I was really thrilled to receive a recommended read for Fancy Free from Joyfully Reviewed. Jambrea said, “Fancy Free has it all: laughter, fear, heartbreak, and steamy hot sex. Ms. Munro wrote a wonderful story and that is why I am Joyfully Recommending Fancy Free.” Here’s the rest of the review here.

You’ve probably already guessed I love to travel, and India is one of my favorite destinations. For sheer variety you can’t beat India. It has it all: history, palaces, temples, pomp and ceremony, wild life, gorgeous beaches, fun shopping, tasty food. People either love India or hate it. There are no half measures. It’s vibrant and in-your-face, and one day I hope to return. I’ve traveled to India twice and taken my travel experiences, combined them with teenage memories of Agatha Christie mysteries and come up with a book called Wanderlust. Anna is the tour leader for overland tour OE68. It’s a tale full of love and murder…

Below are thirteen destinations included in Wanderlust.

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My special guest today is Christina Phillips. I’ve stolen Christina’s bio directly from her website because it made me smile, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Here it is:

CONTEST: See details below. I’ll get Christina to draw a winner for me on the day following her post, so make sure you check back to see if you’re the winner.

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A kakapo is a New Zealand flightless parrot. It’s an endangered species because of its vulnerability to predators and of course, the inroads made by man into the parrots’ natural habitat. Until this week there were only 86 living kakapo but after a bumper breeding season five chicks have hatched on Codfish Island (a sanctuary for the birds). Kakapo need special conditions to breed and plentiful food, which means that not every year is great for breeding. The last good year was 2005. Here’s the story here plus a photo of a kakapo.

In a small promo, I included the kakapo in my very first book, Aislyn. The baddies were conducting a scavenger hunt and one of the items they needed to collect was a rare kakapo egg.

In writing news I wrote the last words on my first draft of another Middlemarch story. It’s tentatively called Cat Burglar. I’m going to let it sit for a couple of weeks and start yet another Middlemarch tale - this time it’s Leticia’s story, a character from Stray Cat Strut. I’m really thrilled with my progress, because after stopping the Sven challenge and taking almost a week off writing, I’ve still managed to write 50,000 words.

Tomorrow Christina Phillips is my guest blogger and we’re giving away a prize. I hope you’ll pop back to say hello.