Big Bone Lick Pack Blog Tour with Giveaway!

Hey everyone, we have three great authors visiting us today… er two, Kendall McKenna’s been laid low by an evil flu bug but she sends her love. So lets see how Big Bone Lick Pack came to be and how Jambrea, Cherie and Kendall brainstormed this versatile pack…. oh and click on the Rafflecopter link to win a Big Bone Lick Pack T-shirt. 😉 Oh and a huge shout out to Madison Parker who snuck some pic’s of the crew from MLR Press at GLR ~Pixie~

We’re touring in support of the Big Bone Lick Pack, an anthology which came out January 24 from MLR Press. http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=ANTHBBLS

It features stories written by Kendall McKenna (www.kendallmckenna.com ), Jambrea Jo Jones (www.jambrea.com ) and Cherie Noel (http://talesfromthewritingcave.blogspot.com/p/my-books.html ).

BIG BONE LICK PACK (ANTHOLOGY)

Bad Wolf & Devil Dog by Kendall McKenna

Big, Bad Bear by Jambrea Jo Jones

Shifty Fox Shenanigans by Cherie Noel

Blurb:

Welcome to the Big Bone Lick Pack: A more friendly and hospitable group of werewolves you’ll never meet! Visit with; ‘Devil Dog & Bad Wolf’, a ‘Big Bad Bear’ and enjoy some ‘Shifty Fox Shenanigans’. Watch yourself, ’round the state park, ’cause we had a grizzly on the loose, just a bit ago. Our brave men and woman of the Boone County Sheriff’s Department have everything under control. (Except maybe their own love lives!) But if you find yourself needing a doctor, head on down to Rabbit Hash clinic, or St. Elizabeth’s Hospital is just up the road a piece. We hope you enjoy your stay.

Brainstorming:

Jambrea: We’ve talked about the fun multi colored google doc. I think we’ve even talked about the back and forth on Facebook, but—there was more! What could it possibly be you might ask? Well… Picture this. It’s Oct. and GRL (Gayromlit) time. Guess who is going to be there? ALL THREE of us.

Those of you who have not been might not understand how hard it is to carve out time to just sit and talk. You’re on the go all the time and this year I had a couple author things scheduled that freaked me out because I’ve never done anything like it before. I mean… I did a reading. Of my story. In front of PEOPLE! Lol

We texted back and forth a couple times and finally got together on the last day. I was standing in the lobby looking for Cherie and Kendall. I couldn’t find them for the longest time until I spotted Kendall sitting down at a table. At this point I had maybe a paragraph done of my story. Um—it was due Nov. 15^th. Yes, I was cutting it close, but everyone by now should know that none of us turned the story in on time. Lol I was a couple days late.

So finally, GRL is winding down. People are leaving and I’ve got Kendall sitting with me. Cherie—I think she was outside. Or upstairs. I don’t know. She didn’t answer my text. Lol Kendall and I started to talk a bit about our characters. I mean—one of mine was going to attack hers. The talk was too short, but Cherie did join us after a bit. I had my notebook where I’d written a page at the airport going to GRL and I wrote a few notes. I need to know about Park Rangers and how they would be added. A bit about the sheriff’s office because Kane was going to work for Asa.

It wasn’t until after we got home, maybe a week or so later when Kendall sent us the first bit of her story. And I needed that because my story was going to jump off from her story and we share a scene. We did some more back and forth, but it was fun to sit down with the two people you are writing with and hash a few things out. It was one of the highlights of the project. Well—that and Kris’ reminder that we only had 3 weeks left to write the thing. I’m pretty sure that came up a bunch at GRL.

Cherie: GRL is definitely madness, mayhem, and delightful foolishness. So yes indeed it is extremely difficult to carve out time to see everyone. I had only seen Kendall a little bit over the four days we’d been there, and Jambrea a touch more. Mama Kris was absolutely breathing down our necks to get ourselves all in one spot and hash out details. Kendall and Jambrea were calmly sitting in the lobby, sipping their coffees and discussing the starting points of their respective stories. And me? I was AWOL.

Here’s a secret most don’t know about me. As much as I LOVE going to GRL, as much as I LOVE seeing everyone face to face, the big events with tons of folk around scare the pants off me. I know it doesn’t look like that on the surface, because my go-to defense mechanism is to morph into a social butterfly. Which works okay to keep me from having panic attacks, but plays merry hell on trying to get actual work done.

While Jambrea and Kendall were getting down to brass tacks and moving fictional mountains out of the way, I was outside on the smoking patio, trying to hold onto my cool. Thank goodness those two were so rock steady. In the two or three fly by sneak planning attacks I managed in the time they were sitting together in the lobby, Jambie and Kendall gave me all the information I needed to get my story rolling. I say again, I could not have done it without them. And next time we’re all in one place (GRL2014?) I’m hoping to schedule a dinner or lunch out with just the two of them and Mama Kris. Because the only way I’ll manage to get there and sit there and actually stay in one place for more than two minutes is if they take me away from all the whoopla and nail my flitterty-gibbet wings to the chair I’m sitting in.

Even so, with me doing the fly-by method of contact, just being able to see their facial expressions, hear the tone of their voices as we discussed details… well, it made all the difference for me. I left Atlanta with a firm grounding in the essence of the world we were building—not to say I didn’t stray from the clearly marked paths and have to be reined in by Kris, Jambie, and Kendall at differing times—but I recognized the paths when the three of them had to spin me around and point me ever so gently back in the right direction. I agree with Jambrea that you really can’t beat having some face time to get that extra level of comfort and trust built. It makes the project easier to accomplish.