Kristi Lea

I’m over at Jennifer Jake’s blog today. Check it out and comment for a chance to win a copy of my book!

The Paris Affair is out today!

Buy direct from the publisher (they support all formats.

Head over to Mare’s Place today, December 4th, for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card from me and other great prizes.

Plus, I am sharing one of my favorite (and most requested) recipes–Chocolate Turtle Pie.

Marilyn has lined up dozen of authors, with giveaways for the entire month of December. Stop by often to check out all of the goodies!

December is full of shopping, but don’t forget to pick up something for yourself. 

• Starting December 1, find daily author giveaways at Mare’s Place. Daily prizes, including a $10 gift card from me on December 3rd!
• Comment on the Soul Mate Author Blog during November for a chance to win a prize package worth over $100. And during December we’re giving away a Kindle…
• I have a few surprises of my own to give away this month to celebrate the release of The Paris Affair, out December 14th from Soul Mate Publishing!

I am blogging over at the Soul Mate Publishing Authors blog today.  Stop by and leave a comment!

The Paris Affair by Kristi Lea

The only thing Helmut Forrester works harder at than enjoying the company of beautiful women is at his career as Chief Financial Officer of Sheffield and Fox. He has had his eye on the CEO’s office for years. When that plum job is given to a sexy blonde instead, his plan is simple: start mixing business and pleasure.

Claire Sheffield is out to prove to the board of directors that she can transform her father’s stodgy, old-school company into a modern powerhouse. Getting romantically involved with one of her employees is a risk she can’t afford to take. But Helmut offers Claire the best of both worlds: an affair with no complications.

But is it their careers they are risking, or their hearts?

Coming December 2011 from Soul Mate Publishing

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I am pleased to announce that The Paris Affair has been acquired by Soul Mate Publishing. More details will be forthcoming, including the release date and cover.

In the mean time, watch your step. I may be moving things around here a bit as I make the leap from mere writer to published author.

Do you NaNo?

This is my third year participating in the craziness that is the National Novel Writing Month.

If you’ve never done it, hop over to their website and check it out.

Need a writing buddy? I’m britelord. Feel free to add me as a buddy and keep tabs on just how much I am and am not getting done on my latest work in progress.

Happy Writing!

After a single semester of Feshman Composition in college, I avoided the English department. It took only that one taste to realize that I didn’t fit with “those people”.

You know the type: the literary snobs. The ones who sneer at paperback covers graced by Fabio or tattooed shoulders or exploding space ships or dragons. The ones who pronounce the word “genre” with a twang to the n that makes it sound like they’re discussing prison inmates or dirty diapers.

Ok, so I also passed a quick judgement against a large group of bibliophiles based on my impressions of one lone graduate student. I was seventeen, clearly knew everything about everything, and already owned a collection of over one hundred fat paperback romances. And they insulted my favorite pastime. Over and over and over.

At seventeen, I didn’t know everything. But nor did I have the self-confidence to stand my ground and defend the books I loved. It would take me another thirteen years before I attempted to put words to (eletronic) paper and begin writing something of my own.

I have known all along that there were gems hidden in the bodice rippers, the sword-and-sorcery, the chick lit. The more I write, and read about writing, and think about writing, the more I realize just how wrong all those literary snobs were. Pizza really is a health food. No, that isn’t a cut-and-paste error. I didn’t just splice a food blog post in the middle of my literary musings.

I distinctly remember a particular assignment that I did in the fifth grade. Everyone had to choose a card containing the nutrition information of various foods, and draw a graph. Each graph had a series of bars, representing the percentage of different nutrients contained in the food. Mine was pizza. Every bar on my graph was tall. Pizza was clearly a miracle food–full of calcium, vitamins A and C, B vitamins, protein. It had everything.

When the teacher asked who had chosen healthy foods, I raised my hand. And was laughed at by the entire class. Despite my towering bars of nutritional greatness, depsite the hard evidence before their eyes, the rest of the fifth grade class thought I was crazy. Pizza is junk food. End of story.

I also struggled with my weight for years. I spent my twenties about fifteen pounds overweight. Not bad by some standards, I suppose. But it ate away at my self esteem. In order to solve the problem, I had to go back to that fifth grade lesson. I had to graph and analyze what I was eating. Choose options that had tall bars and flavors that I loved. I wasn’t willing to cut dessert and pizza out of my life in order to shed a few pounds. And you know what? I didn’t have to.

Twenty something years later, I still don’t call pizza “junk food”. Any more than I call romance, or sci fi, or fantasy, or chick lit, “trash”. Making a food taste good does not diminish its nutritional value. Adding entertainment–adventure, romance, horror, suspense–to a novel does not diminish the message the author was trying to express.

“That’s a miracle pill?”
“Chocolate coating makes it go down easier” –from The Princess Bride

Healthy food doesn’t have to taste like dirt and deprivation. Thought-provoking novels can have sex and ray guns. Yes, I do believe that writing fiction had a positive impact on my weight and outlook on food, nutrition, and exercise. And realizing that I can look healthy and eat dessert has had a positive effect on my outlook on writing. I can attempt to process big, dark themes and ideas, and laugh while I write.

So please pass the parmesan. Because I’m not done with my pizza yet.

Copyright 2010 – Kristi Lea

The Appearance of Impropriety (soon to be renamed) took Second Place in the Passionate Ink’s 2010 Stroke of Midnight Contest!