shoes

Hello and Happy Monday - the Altamonte Springs booksigning was really really fun. I bought the best new shoes and they turned out to be Lucky - I sold all the books they gave me to sell, and had a great time, too.

My husband (a patient, long-suffering man who understands that his wife has quite a few screws loose) said that nobody would even notice my feet - he wanted to know WHY I couldn't wear my flip flops!!! Well, as we walked out of the store and down the mall, we heard all kinds of women go "great shoes" and one woman walked into a wall trying to get a better look.

I so won that round.

Greg and I have been having a blast going to local booksignings. It seems that we are both working so hard that the three hours each way driving somewhere is a chance to catch up on what is going on in each other's world. If anybody wants to come and meet my driver, lol, or maybe pick up a book signed by moi, then come and see us November 15th at the Miami Bookfair. Or December 7th at Starbucks. I'll be giving out my 2009 schedule soon!! I hope everyone had a great Samhain, Halloween, or All Saints Day. Say a blessing or prayer for Loren.

One year, and the loss is still great.

xoxoxoxo

Traci

ps - if you'd like, head over to www.tracihall.com Greg has re-designed by very boring website. I'd love to hear your feedback

contest over at myspace....

Hi everyone!
It has been a whirlwind of a few weeks - but I am hangin' in. What else is there? lol. This is Halloween week - my favorite week of the year! Scary movies, skulls, ghosts, and goblins abound. Tonight I watched one of the cheesiest movies ever - Frogs - from forty years ago, staring Sam Elliot and Joan Van Ark.
I know.
It was worse than you can imagine! And yet fascinating...filmed in Florida, the frogs were actually toads the size of dinner plates and Sam Elliot had brown hair. Joan needed a decent meal because her knees were the biggest part of her entire body, and in the end, the frogs took over the swamp and ate the old man who had been polluting the water.
I am one happy camper :) We watched Dead and Breakfast, and The Omen. We ate Halloween candy and drank hot chai tea. Yum. Almost as yummy as a young, buff Sam Elliot, lolololol.

Hey -tomorrow I am posting over at enchanting reviews - www.myspace.com/enchantingya and I am giving away book marks and a book or two - come chat with me!

Traci

back from San Fran, and booksignings and - well, I'm back

With the help of copious amounts of SLEEP I am finally recovered enough from the past two months to post pictures of San Francisco. And the WEAM (erotica museum in Miami) field trip - and - well, that's all for now.

First off, I had the BEST time in San Francisco. But a few days before that, I had a really great time in Orlando at the booksigning with Linnea Sinclair, Dara Edmondson, and Catherine Kean - talk about wonderful ladies! Professional writers who were more than kind about sharing their expertise - and lunch was fun!

I actually had a lady who bought my book email me to tell me that after the first chapters, she was hooked - yeah!! But those first few chapters were dicey, lol.

So. San Francisco. Another Sin City (why are those my favorite kind???) and so much fun. I didn't get to see enough of my friends, but I did network and do everything I had on my agenda. Because as much fun as I had, this was still a business trip!

Most of my meetings revolved around food. Or drink. Or the smoking section, and I don't even smoke. And if I did smoke, and I lived in San Fran, where it was a nippy 52 degrees, I'd freaking quit all over again.

I loved Annabelle's - Kathleen Pickering and I had a wonderful dinner there, after a serendipitous meet and greet at a speak easy, lol, (thanks to Toni Andrews!) and the next day I had a great lunch with Cherry Adair, Heather Graham. Alex Sokolof, Rosemary from Australia!! And another fabulous lady, Joanne, from Australia - and a funny woman from Texas.

I gave my very first alone workshop to strangers - and it was FABULOUS, lol. Despite everything going wrong, it turned out wonderfully right. My room mate extraordinaire, Mary Stella, helped bail me out by ironing my pants. AND I got to meet my super cute editor, Lindsey from Samhain. AND I danced, and met new friends as well as cemented old friendships AND I went to about five workshops - okay! Hubby just came home and he wants to go out to dinner! So a few quick pics, and I'll do more later -I have gossip! Industry news! Blackmail worthy photos, lololol

thanks for reading,

Traci

Traci, Linnea, Dara and Catherine in Orlando!

Hi all!! Anybody in the Orlando area??? Come and visit us at the Millenia Mall -4200 Conroy Road, Orlando 32839. Easy to find - right off I-4. Store phone: (407) 345-2282.
I will have chocolate, in addition to books! These ladies are incredible authors and I'm thrilled to be signing my first book with them - come check us out, in between 1 and 3!

Hope to see you there!

Traci

kiss me, slap me - the world of publishing

My friend Rhonda calls the ups and downs of publishing "Kiss me, slap me" - which is true. I am not normally one to go for violent relationships, and yet here I am, stuck in an abusive one!
And there is no way I'm walking away.
Insights thanks to copious amounts of white zinfandel, and sort of meditating (zoning while watching Raymond reruns) have led me to believe that I am, on a very passive-aggressive level, no quitter.
Which basically means that even though my career path looks like a derailed roller coaster, I'm in til the end of the ride.
I've always written. I had a plan. After winning a People's Choice Award in 1996 (count em - twelve - TWELVE - years ago) I knew that writing would be so overwhelming that I wouldn't be able to put my all into raising my kids. Writing went on the back burner, and I took classes and wrote short stories, but basically put kids and family first.
Until 2001, when my kids could feed themselves without burning the house down, and my fab hubby told me "it was time" - stop whining about writing, and to get to it. He threatened me with duct tape.
So, blah blah blah, I wrote, and wrote, and scored well in the Golden Heart - 2 out of 3 scores, anyway. The third score knocked me out of the running. Whatever. I found a critique group, became active in my local RWA chapter (FRW rocks!) and blazed my way through conference after conference and agent and editor appointments galore.
I sold one book in 2005, sold more in 2006, only to close a line in 2006 and have all of my books returned to me. I've had two bad agents, one book with an editor I love for a year, and a great support group.
In between closing other lines, I've sold six books in the past year - one ebook YA - one print historical romance that is ON the shelves!! I threw myself into advertising and marketing and got a job to pay for it all - cause writing doesn't. Not yet. I set up booksignings, did panels and promoted the hell out of myself.
I got Books A Million to let me sign - and the day before all of my friends and family were coming to support me at my local Jupiter Chasewood Plaza location - the lovely Linda calls to say that my books are MIA.
It's a glitch, she tells me, which means ***T Happens.
Yes, I have books on the shelves - just not at Books A Million, lol. We are going to reschedule, but in the meantime, I have to call all my friends, family and places I'd advertised to tell them "Don't Come".
More than one person commented on the fact that my writing career seemed to have more than the average bumps in the road.
And did I cry? No. Did I want to curl into a ball and pout? No.
My answer is that for all the really crappy lows - and there have been many - I will get some terrific highs. I don't know if that is why I stick around. Maybe I just don't know better? I have a feeling that it's because being a writer is who I am. Telling stories is what I do. And even though I cannot stand roller coasters, I'm trying to enjoy the ride.

No time to stop!

These past few weeks have been insane, but since I'm fond of mild craziness, I'm adapting. I went to my first official in a book store booksigning with some terrific writers. We did a romance panel at Books and Books, which is a FABULOUS independent book store in Miami.

I have pictures of us all - here is the entire panel. Cynthia Thomason, Linda Conrad, me, Lyn Armstrong and Patrice Wilton. The next picture is of me and Patrice - who also signed her first book, Replacing Barney! We've been CP's for (gulp) over four years. Seeing Love's Magic behind the counter was impossibly cool

The people there were so helpful and it was a kick to sign books. We talked about romance, and how romance as a genre has evolved. Kristen Wallace was there, and Joanne Straatsma, but none of it could have come together without Isabel Barney!

We Florida Romance Writers are tackling the Erotica Museam in Miami next - come visit us, and hear our panel discuss S E X (what else would we talk about at an erotica museum??) lol

Event: FLORIDA ROMANCE WRITERS AT WORLD EROTIC ART MUSEUM in SOUTH BEACH -Museum Tour, Panel Discussion, Book signing: Authors Lyn Armstrong, Linda Conrad, Traci E Hall, Allison Chase/Lisa Manuel, Zelda Benjamin, Jianne Carlo and Mary Ricksen will be discussing sensuality in romance novels.Date: July 12, 2008 - 11 AM Location: 1205 Washington Ave - Miami Beach, FL 33139

Come visit us! We are a lot of fun - and I'll post more pictures - there should be some great ones!

crap...I keep forgetting to breathe

So. I knew on some level that my life was going to go from zero to sixty in a nano second, but quite honestly, I haven't even had time to realize that June is almost over. I've spent over a year waiting for JUNE to come and now - woooooooosh. Here comes July. Which is even more jam-packed with fun. Fun, with a sort of tongue in cheek eye-roll thing.
I've finished the non-fiction I was working on with Rhon, and I've just finished writing my workshop course for San Fran and the Beau Monde, and now I'm starting a research book on Nefertiti - because my next project is due by July 15th.

I'm working 20 hours a week at Starbucks and it's actually been good for me because I don't have time to think about me, my books, my career, my need for a runaway bestseller so that I can be rich, when I'm ringing up customers or making cappucinos. It's me and the milk steamer, baby, and that's it. I think writers (me, me, me!) can be very introverted, so getting out into the world is painful but important.

Yesterday I got my first peek at the cover for Beauty's Curse - and I swear to God I almost cried like a girl. It's beautiful...and it's mine. I am almost done with Pump Up Your Book Promotion. Dorothy is a brave and busy soul for taking this biz on, but she was wonderful to work with and I'll definitely sign on for another round, probably in December when Her Wiccan, Wiccan Ways is out in print.

Thanks for checking in!!!

Traci