Tapped by Liz Crowe (VNBtM, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY) ADULT title GFT

I have the pleasure of sharing a post from the delightfully frank Liz Crowe...




Cheetos Dust & Beer Burps…or The Liz Writing Process


by Liz Crowe


It has been said by more than one wise person that being an author (or artist or musician) is one of the toughest jobs around. There are all sorts of quote-ables to support this assertion:


Write Drunk. Edit Sober.—Papa Hemingway (one of my favorites.)

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you—Maya Angelou

Every writer I know has trouble writing—Joseph Heller

A person is a fool to become a writer. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.—Roald Dahl

If I waited for perfection, I’d never write a word.—Margaret Atwood (my personal hero)

Easy reading is damn hard writing.—Nathaniel Hawthorne

This is how you do it. You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy. And that hard.—Neil Gaiman


You get the idea.

Writing a book is done alone, many times in the dark early morning or late night hours. It is an agonizing process by which you simply give messy birth to a bunch of humans and an entire story, then toss them into the universe to be judged.

It makes you fat—or at least it did me, until I realized that all those empty cheez-it bags and beer bottles littering the table around my laptop had been made that way by me and I barely recalled consuming any of them.

It gives you headaches—both literal and figurative.

It turns you into a zombie—or at least that’s what happens to me because I write in the unhealthiest way possible. I circle the laptop as I gather the threads of a story in my brain. When my eyes glaze over and my fingers start itching to begin tapping, I open said laptop and disappear into it, only to emerge, blinking like a vole in the flashlight when dragged out. But it’s my method and it’s worked so far so I’m sticking with it.

It does turn me into a blinking, headache-y zombie with orange cheese dust on my fingertips and a bad case of the beer burps.

But you know, it’s all worth it in the end, right? The kudos! The instant, deafening roar of reader adulation! The thousands of reviews! The national magazines (oh, and Dancing With the Stars) clamoring for “more from Liz!” The boredom of yet ANOTHER book topping the New York Times Bestseller list! The movie options! The…

….Oh, right.

More like begging for reviews. Scheduling and paying for the blog tours. Taking the Bookbub rejection (again). Setting up and chattering like a goofball in all the facebook parties and twitter take-overs. All the stuff that feels more and more like the proverbial “falling tree—empty forest—who cares—no one, that’s who” conundrum with every book I write (read: Birth, painfully and with lots of blood and cheese dust). While all the OTHER authors, of course, are doing all that stuff in the paragraph up there instead of me.

Depressing AF, as my teenager would say.

I read recently (and this is in NO WAY meant to reflect actual numbers but I know they’re right so just go with me, ok?) that there were over 1,000,000 (that’s a million) non-traditionally published books (“indie” to me and thee) released in a recent year. Do the math. That is a staggering 2,738.72603 books release PER DAY. Do what you will with those decimal point books but the point is that there is a metric ton of books dumped on the reading public every single day and you know there are only so many hours in said day and only so much disposable income per said reader.

Ergo: Book Release Fatigue.

I get it. I feel it sometimes with books from my go-to authors. Crank out another one seems to be the method du jour and I’ve experienced disappointment with some those go-to authors with books that feel, well, “cranked out.”

But, honestly, all that really ought not to apply to me. I am a special snowflake and all MY efforts must be much more earnest than the other 2,737 books that got released on MY release day.

Nope. I am not. And my book, as wonderful and perfect and awe-inspiring, genre-bending, genius-plotted and carefully-edited as it is, is but one of many.

Heavy sighs and hand me the liquor bottle.

The thing is, once we all grasp the reality that “consistent, ongoing, never-give-up, hard work” is probably NOT going to yield the majority of us that NYT BSA/movie option celebration thing, we are really better off.

It’s distracting to obsess and/or stalk those who are wildly more successful that you are in your chosen genre. You should be writing, instead. Why?

Because you love to write.

Trust me, these are words I share with you, grasshopper, because I have to say them to myself daily.

Ask yourself why you write. If you are like most of us, it’s because you WANT to. So don’t stop. But don’t distract yourself with pointless imaginings. Write the next book. Make it better than the last book. Don’t skip the editing. Release. Repeat. Enjoy.

I’ll be over here enjoying my nightcap: equal parts Valium, 12-year-old Scotch and binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy.


Cheers y’all,

Liz

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Tapped

by Liz Crowe

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GENRE:   Contemporary Erotic Romance

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BLURB:

When wealthy brewery owner Austin Fitzgerald meets sexy saleswoman Evelyn Benedict, angry sparks fly. They seem destined to clash, until a hot hookup in a cold beer cooler changes everything.

For Austin, it's a life-altering moment that sets him on a path away from his birthright, while Evelyn must face her fears about committing to a man considered the playboy of the micro-brewing world.

The power of preconceived notions nearly tears them apart—until they meet up with brew master Ross, who opens their eyes to a deeper, even more erotic connection. But three strong personalities don’t always make for the best emotional mix and when a simple misunderstanding causes chaos, it’s up to Ross to repair the tattered shreds of their relationship.

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EXCERPT

Sensing the heat of Evelyn’s fury as he finalized another large order, he excused himself and made his way toward the restroom. The tuning-fork sensation had morphed into a dull ache centered in his gut, which steadily made its way down to his balls.

When he emerged—after splashing water on his face enough times to calm the hardening in his jeans—he almost plowed straight into her. He gripped her arms to keep her from falling and the impulses that had bounced around in his brain since the morning nearly brought him to his knees. He dropped his hands and looked away, swallowing back the urge to say something, anything, to convince her he wasn’t such a bad guy.

“Sorry.”

Her voice was flat. He took a step back, stopped only when his butt hit the wall. The space between them filled with near-visible silence, but he didn’t move.

“I don’t know how I’m doing it, but the longer we work together, the more sales I make, and the more you hate me. Clue me in here, Benedict. I thought sales were the goal of the day.” He crossed his arms, holding them close to his chest so she couldn’t gauge how shaky his hands had gotten.

She swallowed, and he watched the exquisite warm peach hue of her skin redden. Admiring the line of her neck, her jaw, the plump fullness of her lower lip as she bit it, a nervous tic he’d love to come to love, if she’d let him, Austin sensed himself falling deeper into a very scary hole. Her ongoing silence took on a life of its own.

“Well? I left my secret-sales-goal decoder ring at home. You obviously have a different agenda for today. I get it. ‘Prove to the rich boy he doesn’t have what it takes’ is fine, but we could have saved some time if you’d just told me first.”

She opened her lips, then pressed them together and shouldered past him. He watched, fascinated, as his hand reached out of its own accord and snagged her arm. She stopped, stared at it, then up at him. When he realized the blue of her eyes was brighter because of tears, he hesitated. Female tears always unnerved him, but his chest tightened in a thoroughly alarming way at the thought of having caused her unhappiness.

He let go. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

In a split second, her beautiful face was within inches of his. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just pissed off. You’ve had that effect on me since I first laid eyes on you, so yeah, I guess I set you up. But apparently, all your country-club, private-school time has been worth it. Bullshitting comes naturally to you. And that’s all this job is. A whole barrel of bullshit.”

 She stomped away before he could speak or, even better, grab her and kiss her. The space she vacated quivered with anger. But her crisp perfume stayed in his nose and he had to clench his hands into fists to keep from shoving her up against the wall and kissing her until she saw it his way.

Amazon

Publisher

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Amazon best-selling author, mom of three, Realtor, beer blogger, brewery marketing expert, and soccer fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the University of Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse.

Her early forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” which has gained thousands of fans and followers interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”). More recently she is garnering even more fans across genres with her latest novels, which are more character-driven fiction, while remaining very much “real life.”

With stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the imagination long after the book is finished.

Don’t ever ask her for anything “like a Budweiser” or risk bodily injury.

Website

Facebook Fan Page

Facebook Chat Group

Facebook Profile

Twitter Feed

Amazon Author Page

Goodreads Page

Sign Up for Liz Newz

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GIVEAWAY



a Rafflecopter giveaway


The tour dates can be found here

Good Faith by Liz Crowe (book blast, excerpt and GIVEAWAY, GFT)

                                      
                                           

BLURB

please note this is NOT a romance or a NA romance.

Strong personalities—volatile marriages—stressful careers—conflicting goals—difficult children. 

Contemporary challenges facing close-knit families form the crucible that forges a new generation.

Brandis, Gabriel, Blair and Lillian emerge from the entanglement of their parents’ longstanding emotional connections, but one’s star will burn brighter – and hotter – than the others.

With a personality that consumes everyone and everything in its path, Brandis Gordon struggles to maintain control as he ricochets between wild success and miserable failure. His life proves how even the strongest relationships can be strangled by the ties that bind.

Brandis and Gabe Frietag are as close as any brothers, bound by both loyalty and fierce rivalry. The strength of their ultimate alliance is tested time and again by Brandis’ choices.

Companions from birth, Blair Frietag and Lillian Robinson share loner tendencies, but come to rely on each other through adolescence. As they mature, both are forced to confront their feelings for the men they knew as boys.

Somewhere between the tangle of good memories and bad, independence and addiction, optimism and despair, the intertwined destinies of the new generation finally collide, leaving some stronger, others broken, but none unscathed.

As a chronicle of three families navigating the minefields of teen years into the turbulence of young adulthood, Good Faith holds up a literary mirror to contemporary life with joys and temptations unflinchingly reflected. Its fresh, real-life voice portrays the sheer volatility of human nature, complete with the hopes, dreams, and unexpected setbacks of marriage, parenthood and “coming of age.”

Excerpt:

Blair dropped back on the bed and shut her eyes forcing herself to recall happier moments, better times. “You’re so laid back,” her father used to say to her when she still paid attention. “So relaxed.” He would smile as she worked alongside him in their kitchen. While the restaurant irritated her, she used to adore cooking with him, just to the two of them, and baking made her the happiest. “I wish I were more like you.” He’d flick flour from his fingers at her making her giggle and flush with happiness at his attention.
Later, he would accuse her of being “detached” and not willing to have any kind of confrontation even to defend herself. But who cared what he thought? She rolled to her side, picking up her phone as it buzzed with a text.

Hey loser, Brandis had sent. She frowned at the tingle that shot down her spine. She deleted it, determined to ignore him. About ten minutes later, he sent another one. You there?

She sighed and opened her laptop, thinking she’d do some English homework. Her cat jumped into her lap, its usual spot whenever she sat at the desk. The long Saturday stretched out in front of her, endless, boring, and useless. Typically she didn’t mind being alone, treasured her privacy and the time to read or take long walks. But the last few months had been different, frustrating beyond belief as she couldn’t seem to settle or relax, to enjoy herself like she used to.

Stupid adults. Stupid fathers and their stupid marriage-busting assistants. Stupid mothers and their mealy mouthed blindness to the whole thing. The phone kept buzzing with messages. And she kept ignoring it, something in her holding back, preserving herself from the sucking vortex of Brandis Gordon. She didn’t like texting him. It made her feel awkward, forcing conversation via a few tapped out words on the phone.

Finally, the phone rang. She sighed and answered it. “What?” she said, her hands shaking with the effort not to launch into a conversation with him. Flirting simply did not come naturally to her. She had no idea how to handle herself around boys, much less the huge, giant, hulking presence of Brandis—football quarterback, high school super stud, and one-time friend. Other than to settle herself with memories of him, of them, as kids, when things were simple.

His seeming addiction to their strange, late night conversations had confused and thrilled her in equal measure. And she missed them. A lot.

“You are one hard girl to get hold of,” he said, softly.

“What do you want, Brandis?”

“I thought we were gonna stay friends. I mean, we talked about it, after….”

She winced, wishing she had her brother’s willpower when it came to Brandis’ all-encompassing, some would say, suffocating, personality. “He’s a goddamned drain, an energy suck, a…shithead,” Gabe had said to her, a few days after their huge fight. He’d been sporting a black eye and a split lip from the altercation. A terrible, embarrassing moment for everyone concerned—one that signaled the end of her childhood, best she could tell.

“Why? What did he say to you?” Blair had begged her brother to tell her. They were close, and she had no qualms asking him. But he’d pressed his lips together, and threatened her with all sorts of dire, brother-inflicted consequences if she even talked to the guy again. So, she never knew.

Brandis had been on the phone to her within hours, pleading with her to intervene for him, to talk to Gabe, to get him on the phone. She’d enjoyed that moment—when Brandis needed something from her. But it faded, as did his efforts to try to make up with her brother. She’d heard a lot about him lately—drinking, smoking pot, hard partying on every level while still remaining quarterback, and in top, nearly model-perfect physical shape. And of course, all the girls, many of them older, who flocked to him.

“Blair?” he asked, interrupting her aggravation at the thought of all the females he must have screwed. She knew about the “college girls weekend.” Gabe and Brandis had laughed and joked about it enough in front of her. It made her nauseated with jealous fury and headache-y with embarrassment at her own virginal self.

“What?” she said again, getting up to pace. “Why do you keep trying to talk to me? We have…nothing in common anymore. You have plenty of girls to talk to. Leave me alone.” She slid down the wall next to her door, her knees weak, like they always got, at the sound of his deep, rumbly voice.

He’d been a fixture in her life, on vacations, at holidays, camping and fishing in the summer with their dads, going to baseball and football games, just…her friend. The kid with the funny laugh, shock of jet-black hair, and snapping blue eyes who attracted trouble and deflected it with equal equanimity. She had no idea when she’d become aware of him as a compelling member of the opposite sex.

He’d changed almost overnight, developing a sarcastic streak, a bit of meanness with his endless practical jokes one of which ended with his own sister’s broken wrist. During those strange years, she would catch him staring at her, his eyes dark, puzzled, confused. And when she’d smile and try to draw him out of it he’d blush, run or bike away, usually yelling something about “stupid girls.” And almost always with her brother Gabe in his wake. Anger lit her brain. “Seriously, Brandis, what do you want from me?”

“I want to be your friend still. That’s all. I…miss you guys.”

“Well then I guess you shouldn’t have said whatever you said that day.” She looked up at the ceiling, willing him not to give up, to stay on the line.

“I know,” he said, then got quiet. “How is he,” he asked after about thirty seconds.

“Fine. Busy, working at The Local, playing soccer, hanging with Lillian.”

“Wow, Lilly-G?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Blair stretched out on her soft rug, propped her feet on the wall, and settled into the conversation. “My mom’s been going out on dates. It’s stupid.”

“Well, your dad did….”

“I know, I know.”

She heard a shuffling sound as if Brandis were getting comfortable on his end. “And you? How many boyfriends for you now, Miss B?”

“Please.” She blushed. “Boys don’t notice me. I’m a sophomore. I don’t play sports or do anything cool really.”

“You play a mean game of Scrabble. I miss that. And I have yet to find a Euchre partner as good as you.”

She bit down on the urge to invite him over, to eat popcorn, watch a movie cuddled up on the couch like they used to do. But she knew things were altered. Now that “Brandis, the super stud,” had emerged he would never be “Brandis, Blair and Gabe’s friend” ever again.

“It’s a good thing you aren’t dating,” he declared out of the blue, making her blush again. “That way I don’t have to beat up any punks, you know, who think they can get anywhere with you.”

“And what makes you think my dating anyone means anything else is happening, hmm?”

“My sweet and innocent Blair, boys want one thing on a date. And it is not the concept of a good movie or a nice meal. Don’t ever forget that.” His voice lowered a bit, making her shiver.

“I guess you would know, eh stud?”

“I, um…I don’t know. Sometimes I wish….” He trailed off.

“What? That you could walk around town without bumping into some girl you’d ‘dated’? That you didn’t have so many pissed off ex-girlfriends floating around? That you would occasionally go a weekend without getting drunk and screwing your way through a party?”

The silence spilled into her ear like smoke. “Sorry,” she muttered, meaning it.

“No, it’s okay. I won’t deny it.” A bit of a swagger had snuck into his voice. “Popularity is my middle name.”

“I thought it was Robert. You know, after my dad? Same as Gabe’s?”

“Oh, right. Got me there. Listen, Blair, I gotta go. I just…wanted to hear your voice.”

Aggravation gripped her and held tight. “Why, Brandis? I don’t party. I don’t know how to kiss boys or…anything else. I’m a bookworm, a geek, a science nerd. I like to be by myself, and I don’t run in a pack of popular girls. Hardly worth your time I’d say.” Her face flushed, and she had to put her feet back on the floor to keep her knees from knocking together.

“Guess that’s why I love you,” he said with a voice so soft she thought he might be talking to himself.

 “Spare me,” she scoffed, suddenly needing to be off the phone. Something about him felt suffocating and needy. While she figured herself for a caretaker, a conflict avoider, someone who liked keeping things simple but wanted the people around her to be happy, suddenly she sensed danger in letting Brandis worm his way any farther into her heart. “Bye.” She hung up, quickly and sat for nearly an hour clutching her phone and calming her racing pulse.
 

Amazon link

AUTHOR INFORMATION:


Amazon best-selling author, beer blogger and beer marketing expert, mom of three, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the great Midwest, in a major college town.  She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse. While working as a successful Realtor, Liz made the leap into writing novels about the same time she agreed to take on marketing and sales for the Wolverine State Brewing Company.  

Most days find her sweating inventory and sales figures for the brewery, unless she’s writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for her latest publications. 

Her early forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” which has gained thousands of fans and followers interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”).  More recently she is garnering even more fans across genres with her latest novels, which are more character-driven fiction, while remaining very much “real life.”

With stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in successful real estate offices and many times in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate, and linger in the imagination long after the book is finished.

If you are in the Ann Arbor area, be sure and stop into the Wolverine State Brewing Co. Tap Room—but don’t ask her for anything “like” a Bud Light, or risk serious injury.

author website
www.brewingpassion.com
www.a2beerwench.com
Facebook
Twitter
www.facebook.com/groups/lizcrowefans


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GIVEAWAY

One randomly drawn winner will win an ebook or print copy of Good Faith, one randomly drawn winner gets an ebook or print copy (where available) of their choice of a Liz Crowe (Tri Destiny) backlist book and one grand prize winner will receive the ENTIRE Stewart Realty series in ebook OR print.  Please leave a comment (with a valid e-mail address) with your favorite drink at this time of year!