Inside the World of Vampires

I am delighted to announce that Inside the World of Vampires is available for online purchase.

Edward Cullen. Bill Compton. Stefan Salvatore. These vampires make women weak-kneed. Inside the World of Vampires dissects the vampire world and what makes vampires so popular. Inside you’ll discover what the vampire world entails, from why vampires are so alluring to how vampires live and love, and how vamps have evolved over time. You’ll peer into vampires’ intimate relationships, their homes, and their jobs. You’ll discover how they struggle with religion and you’ll investigate vampire powers and the secrets of vampire slayers. Featuring interviews with top vampire experts and multiple New York Times Best Selling vampire novelists, Inside the World of Vampires will even show you exactly what goes into creating a fictional vampire world of your own. The book features film, TV and book vampires, as well as some historical folktales. This book will appeal not only to fans of Twilight, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but also to those simply fascinated with vampires and those writers and world creators who want to create the ultimate vampire tales themselves.

You can download this book athttp://www.amazon.com/Inside-World-Vampires-ebook/dp/B003TLMX8E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1277472740&sr=1-1 for your kindle or find it on Smashwords in other formats. That's here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17304

New Cover!

Thrilled to present my cover for Baby in the Boardroom, my Feb. 2010 release.

First Comes Baby…
After her latest boyfriend breaks things off, Kristi Jensen can’t help but wonder
what’s wrong with her. As if that isn’t bad enough, her parents are pressuring
her to find a husband. So the unluckyin-love executive does the next best thing:
she asks Mitch Robbins, her tall, dark, traffic-stoppingly gorgeous personal assistant,
for a kiss.

But She Gets More Than She Bargained For.…
Corporate Rule #1: Never date your boss. Too late. Ever since they spent the night together, Mitch is more in love with Kristi than ever. And when she suggests they start dating to
thwart her matchmaking father, he’s only too happy to oblige.
That’s before he learns he’s going to be a father.… With his new family’s future at stake, can he forgive Kristi’s deception?

And will Kristi realize in time that Mitch is the man she’s been waiting for all along?

News!

I'm delighted to announce that I've been tagged to write The Complete Idiot's Guide to The World of Vampires. Look for it in July 2010.

What works for me

What works for me…

Might not work for you. It’s a concept I’ve been mulling lately as I get ready to teach another year of school, where I have to individualize learning to best reach all my students. I was thinking about this concept as I read an article in a writing magazine that said, “write every day, even if it’s for 20 minutes” and also gave other such advice as “keep a journal”.

It’s great advice, sure. But I don’t do either and I’m a published author of 21 novels. I write in big spurts, and then will go weeks and sometimes months without writing a thing. That “20 minutes” the author advises is spent doing all those things I didn’t do during that intense focus on writing.

But that’s me. My big on and off spurts are how I balance and prioritize my time, and that’s what I’ve learned works best for my life. During the school year my priority is on my family and my teaching job. Writing is third. Over the summer, I can easily make writing number two and devote 40+ hours a week to my craft.

To me, writing is like dieting. For some, Jenny Craig works. For others, it’s South Beach. For someone else it’s Weight Watchers. Others are naturally skinny and don’t need to do a darn thing. The same holds true for writing. There are plotsters, pantsters, and there are those who create scrapbooks, those who make scrapbooks, those who interview their characters, those who enter contests, those who sell the first time…the list goes on. Everyone is different, which is logical. As each writer should have a unique, individual voice, each writer will have his or her own individual writing style and system, that, through trial and error works for him or her.

This system, or process, is personal. I see too many writers get bogged down in the “how” they should be writing and trying to follow some system or formula and thus they lose the actual writing. If something isn’t working after a few tries, perhaps it isn’t for you. Just because it works for NYT best selling author or your critique partner doesn’t mean that the approach is perfect for everyone. I know writers who get up at 4 AM to create before their family wakes. I’d die if I had to get up at 4 AM. When my alarm goes off at 5:25 for work, it’s too soon. I know writers who run every chapter by a critique partner, and there are many writers like me who do that only on rare occasions.

Don’t be afraid to do some personal assessing and figure out what works best for you. Try new things and techniques, but don’t lose faith in your abilities or talent if they fail to work. Remember, what works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. So reassess and find something new. Writing should be a happy time—a creative and pleasurable escape into your mind. So just like trusting your own inner voice with your story, don’t be afraid to take advice, but don’t be afraid to trust your gut if it tells you that advice isn’t for you. After all, just as it’s your story, it’s your process. There is no one writing process answer for everyone except for passion, persistence and putting your fingers to the keys.

Bachelor CEO Review--Genre Go Round

http://genregoroundreviews.blogspot.com/2009/06/bachelor-ceo-michele-dunaway.html

Bachelor CEO
Michele Dunaway
Harlequin American Romance, Jul 2009, $4.99
ISBN: 9780373752690

In Chenille, Iowa, Chase McDaniel is the only one of his siblings who loves working at the family firm, McDaniel Manufacturing. He knows his grandfather will retire soon and expects to be named the next CEO; as he has earned it. Instead his grandfather orders him to take a year long leave of absence to determine whether this is what he wants.

While on his enforced vacation that is more of a prison sentence Miranda Craig of Chicago replaces Chase at the company. He is attracted to her from the moment he saw her bent over with a flat tire, but is also angry with her for taking his indispensable place. When his grandfather becomes ill, Chase returns home to take charge of the company, but Miranda battles with him every step of the way including falling in love.

BACHELOR CEO is an amusing family drama starring a matchmaking grandfather who worries that his “heir” to the business has no life so he decides to make his grandson find one. The romance between the two wannabe CEOs is jocular as they follow the classic path of meet, fight, detest and love. Although neither Chase nor Miranda is very deep beyond the job competition, fans will enjoy their gender war wondering who will be on top in the boardroom and the bedroom.

Harriet Klausner

Bachelor CEO Review--Rebecca Savage

Bachelor CEO
Reviewed by Rebecca Savage

Pure satisfaction. When the last two words of a book can make you grin like a fool, you know the book brought emotion to the table and carried it all the way through from start to finish. The emotions weren’t always pleasant. Not all things in life are pleasant, and happily ever after isn’t always achieved with ease, but the hardships make the sweetness all the better after the turmoil.

Such is the case with Bachelor CEO by Michele Dunaway.

The woman knows how to pen a novel that grips you from start to finish. Chase McDaniel is one heck of a guy, an alpha male who knows what he wants and hot fight for it. Not that he doesn’t get a bit lost along the way. All men do. And women, too. But he knows how to win in business and in life, and he refuses to quit.

Miranda Craig has no idea what’s about to hit her when she runs into the brick in the form of Chase McDaniel. She’s feisty, and she’s been trained to handle every situation in a company, but dealing with a man like Chase is a tough job. But someone has to do it, and she finds being with him more stimulating than anything or anyone she’s ever dealt with.

But can they work together and figure out who’s boss? And someone does have to be in charge…right?

Don’t miss Michele’s latest release, or any future releases, or anything you can dig up from her past publications. Check out her work. You won’t be sorry.

Facebook part 2

I said I'd given an update on Facebook, once I was on it for a while. I've discovered that unlike Twitter, which I remember to do about once a day, if that, I really enjoy Facebook. I'm on it two ways. One is my personal page, and the other is a page where anyone can be my fan, which is at this URL: http://tinyurl.com/r8hkd7

On my fan page I've got pictures of my book covers from other countries and a bunch of pictures not on my website. I talk about my books. On my personal page, I don't have that many pics and mostly I keep up with people and post stuff that might be relevant or interesting.

I'm having tons of fun with Facebook. Remember that statement that being friends with your exes is a bit strange? Well, I'm friends with my high school boyfriend and my first college boyfriend, and it's been cool to catch up with what's going on in their lives. I've found most of my college pals from UMSL.

Mostly, it's been a great way for me to keep track of my former students, a bunch of romance writer friends from all over the country and my journalism buddies. I'm up to date with all my best friends from high school. I'm up over 110 friends and if I added everyone I knew, I'd probably go insane, even though I have my feeds set up on lists. But I like to read everything. While I don't play mafia wards, do pillow fights, or take half those quizzes, it is rather fun to read everyone else's results. I'm enjoying viewing pics of my former student Ryan and his wife's trip to Alaska. I keep track of Peter, who is serving in Iraq.

The only downside is that Facebook is such a time suck. Being home for the summer, I check it several times a day for someone is always posting something and often chats pop up from people I haven't talked to in years, and we gab for a few minutes.

But what's been really fun is that I just wrote my first Facebook chat into Under Doctor's Orders, my latest Harlequin American Romance. Chandy talks to her brother Chase (hero in Bachelor CEO, coming in July) and then when he types something she doesn't like, she says she has to go and disconnects. I loved it. Texting and Facebook will play a role in this story, for that's the reality of how people communicate these days.

For example, I haven't talked to my best friend Susan, who only lives here in town, since she got back Friday night from her week-long adventure being at mom and me boy scout camp. But from Facebook I know she survived the bugs, the extreme heat, the torrential downpours, life in a tent and is now at home--which is quiet since her husband gave her a break and took her boys to his mother's for the weekend. I'll call her later in the week--and let her enjoy the silence and a nap in her own bed.

Facebook & Twitter

Feel free to be my fan on Facebook at www.tinyurl.com/r8hkd7 and at Twitter at www.twitter.com/micheledunaway