Research books?

So as I work on my youth series I am also reading some books for research ideas. I have "One Second After" and "Patriots" on the list but figured you guys would have some great ideas. As you guys know my series is going to take place about a generation after the apocalypse. Man made EMP which makes our response to a natural event impossible so we get hit twice. A side effect is going to be that the once hidden paranormal world gets a huge magical boost. My heroine is a cop trying to solve major issues. I may make her more an investigator or private eye. Not sure yet. So I plan to incorporate some survival stuff, paranormal stuff, crime stuff. I am totally looking for good book recommendations to read to get ideas and for research. Let me know your thoughts!!

Books on my shelf?

The book theme is all over today. Brigid, Murphy's Law, and North have all done it! I decided to follow suit. I kind of have to being the book girl. Granted my collection is not as wide ranging or as vast as some listed. I am a fiction junkie. I am also 29 and prone to moving regularly so I have to purge books a bit regularly. It makes me sad. At our last move i cried over the boxes of books I donated. *sniff sniff* I digress, my current collection has a lot of Louis L'amour. Husband is a fan but I sneak them when he isn't looking. I also love Clive Cussler and Dan Brown. The Adventure type action books. Faye and Jonathan Kellerman are great. I love paranormals so I have Laurell K Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong to name a few. Romance is also a love of course so Nora Roberts, Johanna Lindsey, Stephanie Laurens, Catherine Coulter both romance and FBI, Julie Garwood. I have a ton of favorite writers and know I am missing a bunch of them but honestly I have so many I am just listing what pops into my head. When we moved in here I had 12 boxes full. Hubby actually drove my books down himself rather than have the movers take them simply because of the weight. I have added quite a bit since then though now I have my Nook Color ereader and I try to put books on it rather than buying the bound versions in an effort to save space, hehehe. Poor husband wants to throttle me. My book cases are stacked to the gills 3 rows deep and up. Makes for heavy book cases! ;)

I am looking to now expand my collection into books we will need in a SHTF scenario. Medical info, food, living off grid, guns, things like that. If you guys know of good refrence books that I should have in a hardcopy form for a TEOTWAWKI life I would be very appreciative!

Our favorite famale survivalist has a fiction book on Amazon!!

Brawny finished her book. I have to admit to some major pride despite having done not a thing but cheer her on. I love seeing someone do something amazing and she has done that. She has done that in a much more courageous way than I. So go to Amazon and download her Kindle ebook A Measured Response (End Of Days). Survival, apocalypse, battles, danger. You know you want to!!

Yay!!! Writing is going great!

So I have now got 63,456 words edited on my book. I have 4 chapters left to go and then it is done. Yay. I put up the first 10 chapters of the new version on my website here if anyone cares to read it. Yes it is romantic suspense but I am pretty darn proud of it. I know some of you read the old version posted there. That was easily 5 years old. I think the new version shows where my writing growth has come in and where my own personal confidence is coming in as well.

Now to decide if I want to try an find an agent again as soon as this book is done or if I wait and submit after I get my other completed book finished. Or even further do I get the two books floating in my head finished as well first. I plan to do that by the end of the year, February at the latest. If I have all 4 that shows all of my genres and my writing depth to it's fullest I guess. Hmmmm...... so many decisions.

Music is my passion.... well....

Words are my passion. When they flow from me as the scene unfolds it is sheer joy. Music helps with that. Over the course of my editing my very helpful friends helped me discover a gap in the book. Mr. Bad had a missing piece. Why was he the way he was? I hinted at it but didn't explain it and other than the first chapter Mr. Bad was not to be seen again until chapter 13. Granted the first 12 Chapters covered only a few days but still. Once the gap was found I had to solve it. Obviously I knew why he was satan and why we had 12 chapters cover a week and then jumped forward a few weeks in time. The reader had no idea and we needed to cover that. So write I did. I added a nice chunk to chapter 6 from Mr. Bad that explained the questions my team raised. Then I added a chapter between 11 and 12 that answered a few more questions and helped with the leap forward. The chunk was about 900 words and it seemed to take all day to write. I wrote it on my laptop, downstairs, during all the mommy, wifey, Lila day stuff. Ugggg...... It took ages. I worried it was choppy and weird but my team loved it. Today I tackled the new chapter. They haven't read it yet since I just put it up for them but it was 1900 words and it flowed. I wrote it on my PC. My beautiful dual screen beauty with music streaming from Pandora in the background. Oh it was bliss. It was a small chapter but it did what I wanted it to do and in 2 hours the words cascaded out. I wasn't even sure when I sat down what was going to happen, just that 2 vital points needed to be addressed. Why was our hero avoiding our heroine? AND why had a talk not happened that had been alluded too all book long? Answered both. Beautifully. I think anyway, lol. The music helped with that, being in my space helped with that. I have been trying to edit with the kids around and that just ends with me feeling frustrated. This worked better. Yay!!! Lila found her groove!

Created a blog just for my writing.

I am going forward in a life with positive thinking. Kat's book will be done soon and somehow I am going to publish. I want to blog about that work and all my writing but I don't want it taking over here so i made a blog just for the writing. So if you are interested in it and in supporting it please follow that too. Trust me that it is okay if you don't want to follow it. I do write chick stuff. I am also writing more than that and with North's help am getting a world built that I think you manly men will enjoy as well. No pressure though, lol.



Lila's Books - The Blog!

I did it!!

I finally finished my re-write of chapter 1 on my first book. Uggg........ I put the new and the old up on my facebook if anyone is interested in checking it out. Add me by my email Lila at readlilawilliams dot com!! It has some cussing and a chick gets beat by her husband but she gets some good licks in too and she leaves. I like the new much better than the old but would love some thoughts!

Fiction Awesomness - True Detectives by Jonathan Kellerman

I am all about the mainstream fiction. Now don't get me wrong I can dig literature if the story is right. I can bury myself in stories with meaning and a tale to tell. However I am all about reading for fun. A good novel can take you on an adventure. You can become the hot witch, the private eye, the murder cop, the deep in love English lady, the down on your luck mom. You can become anything that your imagination allows and I love that. It is a huge part of why I write.

Anyway one of my favorite authors is Jonathan Kellerman. He writes crime books of the fictional variety. I adore him!!!! So this week I picked up one of his books that doesn't focus on his usual main crime fighter Alex Delaware but instead dealt with two brothers. One a homicide cop and the other a private eye. Both very diffrent. They share a mother but they have different fathers. Each was a cop. One died in the line while the other drank himself to death. This made for some interesting dynamic between the brothers. They each were working a case of a missing college girl that lead to a Hollywood double murder. The story had everything I love about Kellerman. The psychology side of crime as well as the mystery and suspense he is so good at. The story was quick. I read it in 2 days. I am a very fast reader though, lol. I wholeheartedly recommend this book!!!

So my secret should be revealed!

I write. HAHA! More than this blog actually. I write romantic suspense books. None published yet since I teamed up with a do-nothing agent who refused to do the work he was supposed to. Anyway I am working on my website and when it is done I would love input from everyone. Besides my family and loved ones writing is my passion. I chose romantic suspense for a couple reasons. 1- I love a good love story. 2- Suspense lets me kill people on paper that drive me insane thus relieving stress and helping me to not want to really hurt them, lol. Like an ex sister in law who shall remain nameless. So I look forward to sharing another big part of me with all of you!