NASHVILLE - MY HEART TOOK A DETOUR

Many of you know my narrator, J.D. Hart, has become my best friend. But there was a day when we first met in person. Now, this man has read my most intimate sex scenes, and lived the ups and downs of a writer who wants to become more and more successful. It's a bumpy road, and with already a lot of things on my plate, I decided to jump into the world of audio books. We started working together and I think after five or six books, I had the opportunity to come to Nashville for a conference, and meet him for the first time.

Talk about butterflies! 

I stayed at the old Union Station Hotel, right downtown. J.D. came to meet me that evening I arrived. I must have changed my clothes three times. All sorts of things went through my head, like, what if I just can't stand the guy? What if he can't stand me? How will this affect our working relationship going forward?

We met, and OMG, I was shaking like a leaf. We went on a carriage ride down Broadway, while he pointed out all the joints that were famous, listened to the music floating everywhere and had a wonderful crab dinner.

Next day he took me on a tour of places that were meaningful to him - these were all things I'd asked him to show me. We saw where he first lived when he came to town as a young songwriter, where he wrote music, where other famous stars had lived, or performed for the first time. I got to meet his lovely wife, Cherokee, and have dinner at the Grand Ole Opry We went to a Country Diner taping at Northstar Studios, where I personally met Roy Clark, Larry Gatlin and others.  

That was nearly two years ago and our friendship is stronger than ever. Our audio book production tops 24 now. He has become a character now in my books, because the books are seen through his eyes, as he tells the story according to his interpretation.

This talented actor, singer-songwriter, voice over artist and now narrator has done for me what no one else has ever done: take my stories and turn them into additional works of art.

As he told me about his many stories, I asked permission to write a story based on him as a character. So, Nashville SEAL, the novella came out last year as a Christmas present to my readers and you guys loved it. We then recorded the audio book and it was in high demand, still is. J.D. sings in this audio book some original works he performed years ago. Book 2, which is to be released tomorrow, is Nashville SEAL: Jameson. It is the ongoing story of this young CW star who marries Lizzie, and who goes on his first deployment with SEAL Team 3.

My SEALs are buying a vineyard and will be expanded into Wine Country as a theme in upcoming books. Since most SEALs don't stay in 20 years like perhaps other branches of the military, some of your favorites, like Nick, Zak, and others, will find their way to Sonoma County to get into the wine and beer business. Oh yes, they'll have Frog Piss beer, and it will be green.

More will follow in upcoming stories, but I hope you'll read along with me as we continue to tell the stories of young brave warriors who change, take different life choices, fine the women of their dreams, and still remain in a very tight community as they raise their children. I plan to have other authors write in this Wine Country world as well. More about that later!

Enjoy Nashville SEAL: Jameson!! You'll get to hear J.D. sing again...I promise you'll love it.

Join us on Monday for the big release party. We know how to party! Link here.

WRITING ROMANCE IN A SERIES - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

My long dining room table is going to be filled today.

I'm energized by a little project I'm working on this weekend, taking a writing break. I'm doing a talk at Desert Dreams on Writing Series, Making Them Sizzle. I always love these projects because although I know the points I want to make, some of the results and demonstration are going to be surprises for me.

I've got all this office supply stuff (who else but me can spend too much in the office supply store, who covets paper and pens and stickers and stuff over clothes and jewelry I used to lust over?), and will be creating a banner to demonstrate what I mean at the class. I'm going to put all my series covers side by side and then identify the characters in that book, and then show other books that they show up in.

Now, believe me or not, even I forget sometimes, so there is this very handy feature in Word that allows me to search a term, a name, to find out all the references for it in the book. Easy peasy, right? Well then I thought I'd do tape to show where they completed a string, or an arc of the story.

I think one of the things that works in a series is when you connect them, like a quilt, putting pieces from other stories together, inserting them for extra color and texture. But you don't want to disorient a new reader and you don't want to bore an old reader. There is a right tipping point of information, just the right amount and not too much. I rely on my editors for some of this, because some I clearly don't see.

Okay, I'm a collector and couldn't help myself.

So, I'm anxious to see how it turns out. My mind works, like the creative place it is, now wondering if I could do it in a real fabric quilt, using different patterns for each book, and re-using those fabrics later to make a random, patchwork art piece of my series. I love "found" things and pieces that didn't go together before that make something new and beautiful. The elixir of creative life filled with passion and purpose.

By the way, will you be in Scottsdale April 7-10? The Desert Dreams Convention still has spaces. Or, if you're a reader in the area, want to get together for a coffee or some chow? Let me know. Would love to meet you, or see you again.

J.D. Hart, my pirate storyteller, who narrates all my books.

J.D. Hart and I are also doing a class on audio book production, and then a session afterwards for those who want more in-depth brainstorming. The Pirate Prince and I would love to see you there...

SUNDAYS WITH SHARON: Honoring Those Who Serve By Living Our Lives

My heart bleeds for the families of the men lost in the recent tragedy in Tennessee. These types of things should not be happening, but, unfortunately, our world is becoming smaller every year. We are closer and closer to each other through social media. Along with this benefit, comes the unadulterated fact that we are also connected to the very worst of humanity. These cretins, as my SEALs like to say, can use our own freedoms, to take advantage and try to rob us of them.

They won't succeed.

I had a difficult time at first when I was plotting out SEAL's Promise. Oddly enough it was about a year ago now. I wanted to insert the plot line of home grown terrorists, or terrorists who come to our shores, familiar with our ways and customs, able to blend in and use that information to take advantage of us. I considered that perhaps I was going overboard, even though I knew the military had recently requested families get off social media, be very careful about who they invited into their circles, and to be watchful and observant.

I continued with that theme in SEAL My Home, using the scenario that someone from overseas would be allowed entry to the U.S. and would stalk and try to harm one of the SEAL warriors he'd encountered in Afghanistan. I used the theme of human trafficking and sexual slavery in SEAL's Code, which was a slight departure, but still focusing on a great evil in our world today. In Code, we discuss how heroism is handed down, is our birthright, and that love is always stronger than evil.

I firmly believe this.

Even if we all lived in cages, we wouldn't be safe. It is a great testament to our fighting forces that we haven't had to experience the ravages of war as some societies have. Here at home, we can't protect against every eventuality. But the steady tide, the history and the honor and love for our flag and our respective countries, fought and paid for with human life's blood, the vast freedoms we have to read what we want, speak what we want and live and do what we want, worship where we want, that overwhelms the evil little plans of the most evil amongst us.

It's hard to understand why someone would want to harm people who protect and defend our way of life. It's hard to figure out why a cause or movement that takes away more than it leaves, would be something that would be attractive to anybody. As I've said before, sometimes the cost of freedom is too great. It's not a burden shared equally. But we equally share in the benefit, whether we appreciate it or not. And just as I was blogging a year ago, the landscape of this evil has changed. Now some of us innocents, some not even wearing a uniform, will pay the ultimate price.

I am so thankful that I have a job writing heroes and happily ever afters, being able to bring fantasy to people's lives, to enrich them in some small way. Because the best way we can honor the fallen, both men and women who don a uniform and protect us, but innocents who just happen to be standing at the wrong place at the wrong time, is to go on enjoying those freedoms. The best way to honor the fallen is never to forget, always to remember, and always to live life to the fullest.

I happen to think that's what every true hero would want.

We've just wrapped up SEAL's Code on audio. Our last audio release, SEAL Brotherhood Box Set No. 2 is out on audio as of last week. You can hear a couple sample audio clips on my website, or click on the snippets I've provided you below.

Hope you'll continue the journey with my new series, Band of Bachelors, releasing in novella form, 8/4/15 in Cat Johnson's Hot SEALs Kindle World. More to come!

https://soundcloud.com/j-d-hart/seal-brotherhood-series-set-two-sample-3
https://soundcloud.com/j-d-hart/are-you-an-audio-virgin
https://soundcloud.com/j-d-hart/seals-code-danny-talking-to-grandfather

Book trailers: SEAL's Code, SEAL My Home.

Until we meet again, have a safe, and love-filled week. Don't ever stop believing we can all have our dreams become reality. Don't stop remembering love is always much stronger than hate. It's what we were made for.

SUNDAYS WITH SHARON: Worshiping At the Altar of My New Computer

WORSHIPING AT THE ALTAR OF MY NEW COMPUTER....

Cleaning up my desk is good for my muse! The clutter-free space allows the stories to flow, allows me to get into my stories. It helps that lately I've been taking naps in the afternoon, and writing at ungodly hours of the AM, and late at night. I actually prefer it when I can have total and utter silence, except for the music or things I select to alter my environment.

My computer was acting wonky. That is a technical term. And yes, it did blow up and had to have a data transfer. I'm always part of it, but this time, I think "it" was feeling "unwell." I was forced to be off most social media for 3 days. I almost went through withdrawals, but my muse was dancing a jig.

So off I went to the Apple Store, and they hooked me up. Got another iMAC with a Thunderbolt accessory screen, so I could have a larger desktop. And like I said in my title, I'm worshiping at the altar of my new stand-up adjustable desk and the beautiful MAC computer and display. I'm in Heaven. Even my sunflower outside the second story window is happy.

I read a little bit in a mental warfare book that's part of my daily devotional at sunrise, and the message for today was about being focused. How perfect.

Environment makes a big difference to me in writing stories, especially stories that have to have emotion to make them believable, and "hooky" to readers. My son has recently gotten a part time job at my favorite country inn here in Sonoma County. It was rated the best country Inn in the whole US some years ago. In my books, I call it the "Waterwheel Inn", but its real name is the Kenwood Inn. I go there sometimes to hole up and write, away from my normal life, the barking dogs, the work being done on the house, where I can order room service, sleep in a big bed like my heroes and heroines do, write by the fireplace all night or all day long.

Some of my best sexy scenes have been written here. I've spent some verra verra nice Valentine's Days here, too. Some of the upper rooms have views of the Kunde Winery across the highway (it's only 2-lane, Highway 12 that winds from Santa Rosa through Sonoma and on to Napa). The lobby is decorated with old map drawings like in my yet to be finished time travel, Be With Me. Maybe my muse is taking me on another wild ride, but I have 2 SEAL novellas to finish this month, and I'm trying to focus on those while the luscious story of this WIP calls to me, like a hunky lover in a dream. And what's so funny, is the hero in this story comes to her from a hundred and fifty years in the past the same way.

So, I'm enjoying my Sunday, reading in a new world I'll be writing in for Cat Johnson, her Hot SEALs world, finishing up that and one other committed novella before I head off to Florida for the Indie Bash in Orlando, and then a week with the grands at Disney World.

But my muse is sitting with a pitcher of Sangria, listening to the music "Lips Taste Like Sangria". And I'm really sitting on a beach near Nelson's Dockyard on Antigua and writing another story, in another place in time.

To celebrate the release of our 15th audio book, J.D. Hart and I are offering a free audio book from Sharon's backlist, including the brand new SEAL Brotherhood Box Set No. 2.  If you want to enter, leave me a PM on my Sharon Hamilton author page on Facebook. 

2013 The Year of Collaboration

When I look back on 2013, I think the most remarkable change in my writing has been the collaboration I did with other writers, and other artists. This Valentine's Day we are launching SEALed With A Kiss, an all-SEAL anthology (I believe the first of its kind) with writers Marliss Melton, Stephanie Tyler, J.M. Madden, Delilah Devlin, Elle James, Gennita Low, Teresa Reasor and myself. You can sign up for the event page here.

This came about as several of us participated in the highly acclaimed anthology, Uniform Desires, which hit the USA Today lists. Other authors participating in this anthology are: Melissa Schroeder, Elle James, Delilah Devlin, JM Madden and Cat Johnson. By the way, this anthology will not be here forever, so if
you have not purchased your copy yet, get it now before it's gone forever. We achieved our goal of hitting bestseller lists, but also of promoting our other works. Again, this was an all-military anthology, and the only one of its kind released in 2013. I think we were at the cutting edge, one of the first to do this type of boxed set.

I also participated in Dangerous Attraction, which hit the USA Today and the NYT Bestseller lists. Award-winning authors in this anthology of full length novels are: Kaylea Cross, Jill Sanders, Dana Marton, Lori Ryan, Toni Anderson, Patricia Rosemoor, Marie Aston, Rebecca York and myself. This anthology was featured in several USA Today articles and national review sites.

Many of these authors were Rita or Golden Heart winners or nominees, or had received other industry-related awards of excellence. We estimated the authors' estimated writing years to be in excess of 100, which is a lot of talent, millions of words written, with hundreds of thousands of books sold.

Early in 2013, I participated in the multi-genre anthology The Wrong Guy with talented authors Belinda Boring, Lizzy Ford, Morgan Kearns, Deena Remiel, Kris Tualla and myself. This was our first experiment with doing a collaboration with other authors, and I think worked well. Mine was the only military romance (and from the reviews, I guess the scorcher in the group). Again, we were pooling our  fan bases and cross promoting one another. Our thought was that some readers of paranormal or
historical would migrate to the other genres. And I think to a great extent, it worked.

Writers write. But they also collaborate, learn from each other, and work on their craft and learn how to market, expose themselves and get "out there." I attended ten conferences in 2013 all over the country, and plan on another 8 this year, including the Women's Fiction Festival in Italy in the fall.

People are always asking me how I have gotten so successful. Do you understand how much work it is to write over 500,000 words in one year, attend 10 conferences, maintain a social media presence, collaborate with other authors on 3 anthologies and manage to have a life? We even managed a 30 day vacation, taking a cruise from Italy to Brazil, partly to work on my next book, Cruisin' For A SEAL, which will come out in February 2014. Even that was a collaboration of sorts as I visited places I'd never been before from North Africa, to South America, and just about every island in between.

 Accidental SEAL

Also new for me was producing audio books of my SEAL Series, with the wonderful talent of J.D. Hart as my narrator. We discussed the creative process on a blog post in RB4U recently. Working with J.D. has brought an added dimension to my books, as I can hear the characters voices, not just read them or imagine them in my mind. In the above article, we discuss the fact that the narrator becomes another character in the book, which was unexpected and fascinating to discover. We have completed the first four of the SEAL Brotherhood Series and plan to do more.

Fallen SEAL Legacy

SEAL Under Covers



                        SEAL The Deal




It has been a very exciting and productive year. This next year, as I focus more on getting out more writing, expanding my genre base both in new books to add to the SEAL Brotherhood Series and the paranormal Golden Vampires of Tuscany series, I also have two time travel romances and several other projects I'm not ready to discuss. I plan to release more audio books, do more book trailers, and continue learning by attending conferences.

No writer can just go to their cave and write, any more than any artist can do their art without the collaborative works of others. I plan to explore new things to bring new ideas and stories to life. I've never worked longer hours nor worked as hard. But the fulfillment of a life-long dream of becoming a successful author who can support herself, is being realized more every day.

I have to say thank you to all these writers who have been on this journey with me, thank you to all the readers and fans who bought my books, and to my creative coaches and artists I had the privilege to work with and for over the past year. I feel like we've only just begun!

Sharon Hamilton

Life is one fool thing after another.

Love is two fool things after each other.

Author Page ** Sharon's Blog ** Sharon's Website ** Facebook**Twitter

Back Home - TALL TALES ON THE HIGH SEAS

It never ceases to amaze me how traveling far away from home changes my perspective on things here. I've met some wonderful people and those memories linger and warm my heart.

Traveling on a big cruise ship from Italy to Brazil was something we decided to do on a whim, almost. We got some great rates and decided this year, with my Dad's passing last year, and the family being scattered about, Don and I could get away and enjoy something we haven't done in years. In fact, I think it is the longest trip we've taken in 42 years. That's what kind of slaves to our businesses we've been.

Since my next book is about a cruise ship loaded with some hunky SEALs who save the passengers from a terrorist cell attack, I was literally inside my book while writing aboard. It was a working vacation for me, and I wrote in the middle of the night, or early morning, when it seemed to be the least distracting for me. Got lots of good characters and "places" for many of my scenes. Everything I observed was fodder for my story. And I got a significant part of it written, too.

With the rocking and rolling of the ship, and the randy French couple to our right, and the loud German couple to our left, sleep was a luxury. I was grateful for the days at sea when I could take a nap. I was grateful for the early mornings, watching the sunrises from the balcony on the back of the ship, where our cabin was. That is, until our mates next door started smoking after sex. Like I said in one FB post, I didn't mind the sex, it was the smoking afterwards I minded. LOL. Yes, I am a strange person, I admit.

I'll be taking the next few posts describing some of the trips and places we visited. It was a magical time. Of course, one of the highlights was finishing up the audio book of Fallen SEAL Legacy, which has been released the day after Christmas on Audible/ACX and iTunes. What a joy it was to be writing my new book, while listening to the golden voice of my spectacular narrator, J.D. Hart. I am so grateful he has agreed to collaborate with me on these projects, which I think my fans will enjoy for years to come. It helped me focus on my SEALs and all the reasons I love to write them.

I come home with a renewed spirit. The world isn't as large as I thought it was. We are more connected with other peoples from all over the world than I thought. We were the only Americans on the ship, and I hope we did our country justice.