Hello Hero

What you get when you Google image search "hockey hero"

Q: Well Mel, yesterday’s post was kinda whiny. So today, let’s talk about something more exciting—sex! Tell us about the hero of Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part One, Phil Davidson.

A: If you like guys who are tall, dark and good-looking with great bodies, you might find Phil attractive. Also, he has a soft side: he’s into music and likes to play guitar. And he's definitely vulnerable when it comes to anything around our lovely heroine, so awwww. Phil is packing heat, if that matters to you. But most importantly for Kelly, he’s athletic and good at hockey. They do all kinds of outdoor things together: hiking, kayaking, mountain biking, and swimming. 

It’s a match made in Vancouver. Really, around here all anyone wants to know on Monday is whether you went to Whistler in the winter or the beach in the summer.

Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part One is about first love. Phil and Kelly have known each other since they were ten years old and they’ve always been good friends. As Phil has, er, matured, he’s become interested in Kelly in a whole new way. Apparently that’s a whole romance genre: the friends-into-lovers thing. But really, it makes a lot of sense, a person that you know and feel comfortable with is a good candidate for a relationship. Or maybe they set the bar for what your ideal may be.

I’ll let Phil explain it himself. When Phil was sixteen, he started looking at Kelly differently. Here’s an excerpt from the book, from Phil’s POV:

I could also pinpoint the day I started liking Kelly for real. 

It was a few months ago. For a while, I’d been noticing that she was developing physically, and I was changing too. 

One day, we went for a long kayak ride. It started raining on the way back, and we were getting chilled. After we put the kayak away, we ran up to the deck, and jumped in our hot tub to warm up. She didn’t have her bathing suit, so she stripped down to her sports tank and borrowed a pair of running shorts from me. 

“Holy doodle, this feels great.” Kelly sunk down into the water. “Really, it’s like everything good at once, we’re getting warm and the jets are massaging us.” 

She fully immersed herself for a moment. Then she brought her head up and made this noise, almost a moan, and I got a hard-on. 

Her eyes were closed, and I really looked at her.Lots of half-Asian girls are cute, but Kelly was all bright and energetic. When she talked, her whole face lit up. But now, when she was completely relaxed, she looked beautiful. Her face was kind of heart-shaped, with tanned skin, a few freckles, long eyelashes, and really full lips. And her body was hot, too. Kelly was strong; she went to the gym a lot, so she had great definition in her arms and legs. But she also had a tiny waist and this incredible ass. 

She opened her eyes and smiled at me. Luckily she had no clue what I was thinking, which was mainly how I’d like to jump her, right there and then. 

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post. And remember, Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part One will be available for download on July 21st.

Party Girl

If nobody comes to my party, I'll eat these all by myself.

Today our Q & A is less breathless. There’s only one question: What kind of expectations do you have for Hockey Is My Boyfriend?

A: Augh. Such a tough question.

Each time you write a book, it’s like throwing a party. You do all the preparation: cleaning your place, buying drinks and food, cooking, decorating, etc. Then there’s this one moment before the party starts that you think, “Is anybody going to come?” Right now is that moment.

I feel pretty blessed with the sales of my first long novel, How The Cookie Crumbles. I knew very little about book marketing or promotion, so basically I put the book out there and crossed my fingers. Lots of great people found the book and let me know how much they enjoyed it. I took it for granted that many indie authors had good sales, but since then I’ve learnt that many sell less than a dozen books to non-family member.

As I’ve written before, I think my success is partly due to the fact that romance readers are avid readers who are able to size up books from the sample and don’t need a ton of hype. In addition, lots of readers—me included—just like hockey books.

Having said that, I don’t think that my books are typical. They are usually longer than most novels, and mix up humour, drama, and sex in a way that makes them a little harder to classify.

Hockey Is My Boyfriend is different in a few ways. In the first chapter, the heroine is only fifteen years old! I’m pretty sure that will turn off some readers right there. But it’s about first love, so I wanted to start at the beginning. Don’t worry, nothing statutory happens, and I fast-forward two years soon afterwards. 

The other way that HIMB is different is that it’s divided into three parts. Part One takes place in high school. Part Two takes place during Kelly’s third year at university. Part Three is when she graduates and starts working. So it’s a long story—surprise, surprise, I know.

So, while I’m extremely excited about the book (after all the rewriting and editing I’ve done, I should be!) I’m still getting the pre-party jitters. I worry that people sampling the beginning will write it off as some lame young adult novel. And I’m worried that people who think it’s a YA novels are going to freak out when they get to the sex scenes. 

But why worry? This book is for smart readers who are interested in relationships. And hockey. And I’m sure those people will find it.

A Week of Awesome

Only one week to the July 21st launch of Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part One! So, leading up to the big day, I will post daily questions about my latest masterpiece. And then I will answer them! A circle of self-indulgence, really. But hopefully the Q & A will tantalize you enough to want to read the book.

Q: So Mel, what’s the new book about?

A: Well Mel, the new book is about Kelly Tanaka. Our heroine is a little hockey-obsessed, she plays hockey and loves to watch hockey and discuss hockey.

Q: Hmmm, a hockey-obsessed woman? This is sounding a little familiar….

A: I can’t skate. So, not that similar at all.

Q: Are there any attractive guys in the book?
A: Yes. At least two. And so romance as well as hockey. Therefore, a hockey romance!

Q: Why is it called Part One? Is this like Star Wars, where there are all those stupid prequels and sequels? That irritating Jar Jar Binks isn’t involved is he?

A: No irritating characters here, except maybe Ada in Chapters 37 & 38. Hockey Is My Boyfriend is a trilogy. The completed adventures of Kelly Tanaka currently sit at 300K words—so rather than creating the proofreading job from H-E-double hockey sticks, I divided the narrative into three parts. Parts One and Two are both the size of a normal novel at 70,000 words—well, actually 69K *snicker snicker*—and Part Three is 160K. And I haven’t yet edited Parts Two and Three. When I edit, sometimes things get longer…

Q: Is there a happy ending?

A: Well, you know, it depends what you mean by a happy ending. Some people might consider the personal growth and independence of the heroine as a happy ending. Others might see the evolution and hardiness of the human spirit as a good note to end upon.

Q: So, no.

A: No. Not until Part Three.

Q: Is there a cat?

A: Of course, there’s always a cat. This one is named Gino. Yes, after that Gino.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's awesome questions and so-so answers!
A: I think you've got that reversed.

Happy Days!

Today is Canada Day and the perfect day to announce that my very Canadian heroine, Kelly Tanaka, will have her book launched this month. Maybe her name doesn't sound Canadian, but she is. She loves hockey! She's multicultural! She's sexually backward. These are all proud Canadian traditions.

The book is written, edited and finalized. Formatting is in progress, and I have a new cover. I did keep the results of the cover vote in mind, but I also went back to my original design brief of quirky minimalism and tweaked a whole bunch of stuff. And when I say "design brief," I mean that I brief myself and then tell myself how I've done. A weird process, but then I also pay myself $10,000 for the great cover. Don't tell the tax department.

Without further fanfare, here's all the news: Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part One, will launch on July 21st, which is coincidentally Kelly Tanaka's birthday. Yay, cake all around!

When Hockey Dreams Meet Reality

With the NHL Draft coming up tomorrow, there’s a ton of focus on the top picks. Teams and fans are salivating over the prospect of adding defenceman Aaron Ekblad, or centres Sam Bennet and Sam Reinhart to their roster. The sports radio station in Vancouver has been hypothesizing all the ways that the Canucks can trade to get the first pick. But I suspect that sports pundits in every NHL city but Miami are hypothesizing the same thing.

Lots of crazed fans even watch the draft—not me of course(cough, cough). Most only pay attention to the first round. What about the later rounds?

I recently flew to Montréal and one of my entertainment options was a National Film Board feature on junior hockey. Naturally, I chose that. As an aside, what could be more Canadian than flying Air Canada and watching an NFB film on hockey? Oh, it was bilingual too. The film is called Junior and it follows a Quebec junior team called Drakkar Baie Comeau for one season. The focus is mainly on a couple of players who are in their draft year and working hard to get noticed. It begins at with the first win of the season and concludes at the draft where only one of the players is selected—in the last round. If you’d like to watch this movie, which is mainly en français, you can see it online here.

While watching, I thought it was a fictional movie where they combine real footage with filmed segments—in part because there was so much emotion and the central player was quite good-looking. But it turned out to be a documentary, and all the emotion was completely real. The players, who range in age from 16 to 20, have the bodies of men, but the minds of young boys. There was a lot of crying, not only about losing games, but about getting traded, not playing enough, or even being lonely. The players are all under a ton of  pressure, and they are far from home and without family support. They have to perform for the team, their agents, and for the NHL scouts. Sometimes those goals are in conflict. But the main goal is always the same: getting drafted.

Superfans  analyze past drafts and moan about the players their team shoulda, coulda, woulda taken. But in reality not everyone in the first round even makes the NHL, and if you’re drafted in the later rounds, it’s a complete crapshoot.

This movie allowed me to see the pain of being an extremely talented player who was used to being the best, made tons of sacrifices and then had his dreams shattered in one day. If you’ve always believed you’d play pro hockey, what happens when that dream is exploded? It’s this human drama that always inspires me, both to watch sports and to write about sports.

  

Of course, you can keep hoping. As the hero of my upcoming book says, “And there was one guy who went to our school, he got taken in the last round of the draft and he still made it to the NHL. You couldn’t ever give up.” He is referring to the real-life David Jones of North Vancouver, who was the last pick of the Colorado Avalanche and still made it to the NHL. He is currently playing for the Calgary Flames. But he never played Major Junior, he stayed at home and played Junior A, went on to an Ivy League college, and then made the NHL. He obviously didn't count on playing in the NHL. 

Maybe the better message is to keep those dreams, but have a backup plan. If you watch the draft, spare a thought for those lower round guys out sweating it out in the stands. 

Introducing Melanie Ting, Book Reviewer

Like most writers, I love to read as well. My reading habits are pretty diverse, but when I first got my Kindle I made the mistake of getting a bunch of free romances. That was a trip to the intersection of Credulity Crescent and Predictability Place. I understand that some readers like to escape the real world, but I think you can escape without completely breaking the gravitational pull of common sense. However I may be wrong, which happened once in 2010.

So when it comes to romance, I stick to ones about hockey. At least if it’s bad, I still get to read about hockey. Sadly though, certain hockey romances seem to have been written by people who don’t know anything about hockey. This is something that mystifies me. Why on earth would you write about something you didn’t have a real enthusiasm for?

Anyway, I’m the world’s pickiest reader when it comes to hockey romances. And I can’t even vent, since reviewing hockey romances would be a conflict of interest for me. Not to mention the possible retaliation. “Oh, so Melanie Ting hated my realistic novel about an orphan from Africa who made his way up to the top line in the NHL and won the love of a beauty queen/sports reporter/trial lawyer/animal rights activist? Well, let me trash her stupid book about…cookies? What the heck?”

Meanwhile, Ali Crean offered to review my book for her fabulous book blog, All the Things Inbetween. And by offered, I mean she put a call out for indie books to review and I applied. She scheduled a review of my book for April, but then she got so sick that she completely stopped posting and reviewing. Desperate, she sent out a message asking if anyone would like to help her out by providing blog content. 

SuperMel to the rescue. I offered to write a couple of book reviews and author interviews. But because I’m lazy busy, I reviewed two books I had already loved and interviewed two authors I already knew. I figured I could kill a whole flock of birds with one stone (with that analogy, I’m clearly not an animal rights activist heroine) by helping out Ali, promoting two authors I admire, and also getting my name out there. And now maybe when Ali finally reads my book, she’ll think, “Well, that Cookie book’s okay, but Mel did me a solid by doing those reviews, so 5 stars!” I know, Machiavelli has nothing on my twisted mind.

My interviews and reviews have already started running. This week I interviewed Kate Willoughby and reviewed her book, On the Surface, is today. Next week, I interview Jaymee Jacobs, and review Play the Man. And do check out the rest of Ali's book blog. Her review style is like a literary cat on crack. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Having no experience at all in book reviewing, I went for the humour, and both Kate and Jaymee were totally hilarious in their interviews. Check them out and see for yourself.

Links:
Interview with Kate Willoughby where we play Marry, Date or Dump with members of the Los Angeles Kings. Woot!

Review of Kate Willoughby's hockey romance, On The Surface.

Review of Jaymee Jacob's hockey romance, Play The Man.

Interview with Jaymee Jacobs, where she explains how to tell if you're talking to a puck bunny or a hockey fan. In case you didn't know. Also you can play the Love Triangle Game, invented by me!

Behind The Covers

Love triangles can only end badly.

Last post, I unveiled my new covers. But more importantly, what lies behind those flowery covers? Flowery prose?

Nope. Hockey Is My Boyfriend presents one fantastical question. What if, when you were ready to settle down, you got to choose between the only two guys in your life you had loved?

As a reader, I hated those books that had two guys fighting for the heart of a heroine, but one was all rich and smarmy while the other was all handsome and virtuous. Because then it’s not really a choice is it? Every reader is yelling at the heroine to pick the good guy, and then she does. It’s not really a choice and it’s kind of boring.

So, when I wrote this story, I created two characters that were equally good matches for our spirited heroine. I’m not going to say anything about these guys right now, you can discover them for yourself and make your own choice. All in good time, my little pumpkins.

I am clearly someone who writes long. How the Cookie Crumbles was 147K words, to the delight of some readers and the consternation of others. And right now, Hockey Is My Boyfriend is weighing in at a scale-tipping 290K words! Phew.

So faced with the option of editing out half the book or dividing it up, I choose division. Hockey Is My Boyfriend is the story of Kelly Tanaka. She’s a regular person, but she does love hockey. She plays hockey, watches hockey, and fantasizes about hockey. (She fantasizes about playing high level hockey, not whatever you might have been thinking!) Not surprisingly, she ends up dating hockey players. Even though romance has never been her priority, she seems to end up with some pretty interesting guys. And they’re hot, if that sort of thing matters to you.

And it’s a long story because it spans a long period of time, from her first kiss to her last. Well, not her last kiss in that she dies or anything, just when she decides that this is the guy she’d like to kiss for the rest of her life. The series is divided into three individual stories, each of which has an ending, but not necessarily a happy one. Part One is the story of Kelly and her first love, Phil Davidson. Part Two is the story of Kelly and her second love, James Friesen. Part Three is about Kelly and her career. Oh, and also that little choice I mentioned.

I have finished my seventh millionth rewrite of Part One, and it’s now in the hands of my editor. After that, polishing, formatting, and publishing will follow in short order.

By the way, only the lovely Myan commented on those covers in the last post. So after taking her comments into consideration, I have redone the first cover. See how much power commenters have around here? You could have suggested I add sparkly rainbow unicorns and I would have redone the covers! Anyhoo, you can choose your favourite in the poll. (Apologies to everyone who tried to vote before, the Blogger polls are apparently not working right now. I added a new poll now.)

I still kinda like the new one, but the new "old" one looks good too. I could be swayed by a majority of readers. Or Myan voting multiple times for her choice. Like EA Sports and the cover of NHL15, whatever the results I maintain the final say. But, I'm listening to you. Really I am.

Option A

Option B