Taking suggestions!

ETA: (1/4/2012) This post is now closed for suggestions. Thank you to everyone who commented for your wonderful suggestions! I’m letting it all percolate and I’ll let you know soon.

Hey all! Remember the short story I wrote with the characters and world of In for a Penny, based on an idea by a reader? It’s Lily‘s turn!

Comment with an idea (or multiple ideas, you can suggest as many as you want) and I’ll write a story based on my favorite suggestion. Anything goes! And feel free to comment on and riff off of each other’s ideas (always in a positive and friendly manner, obviously).

My current plan is to take suggestions until New Year’s. I don’t know exactly when the story will go up, it depends on a lot of things, but I promise it will be up by May 1st at the very latest.

I’ll take suggestions of any kind, in any format, as detailed or vague as you like. What ifs, alternate universes (Serena runs a luxury space station, anyone?), deleted scenes, backstory, and future scenes are all fair game. I want to hear your ideas no matter what they are or what form they’re in! That said, from experience and knowledge of my own writing, if you provide even a little bit of detail about your idea and why it interests you, I’m more likely to connect with something about it. Feel free to treat your comment like a mini-brainstorming session if you want!

The person whose idea I choose will receive a signed presentation hard-copy of the story. I am not the most artistic person in the world, but I will do my best to make it pretty, or at least fun. Collaging and/or photoshop may be involved. (I did do one of these for Jenni for the Penny story! I have the scans around somewhere and will be posting them in the near future.)

Legal stuff: by submitting a comment on this post, you permit Rose Lerner to develop your story idea without any expectation of financial compensation or remuneration beyond the outlines of the rules above. Your work will be used only for the purpose of this challenge and the resulting story will be available to readers free of charge.

New contest: The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne

ETA: This contest is now closed. The winner is Elaine Carlini-Davis. Congratulations!

This month I’m giving away a signed copy of Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady!

It’s the first book in her amazing Spymaster series, not to mention the first appearance of Adrian “my boyfriend” Hawker. I cannot possibly do the brilliance of Bourne’s prose justice, but here’s the gushing Smart Bitches review, which is how I first heard about the book when it came out.

Just comment on this post to enter, and make sure you enter your e-mail address–it shouldn’t show up to other commenters, but I’ll get it and then I can easily notify you of your win. As always, if you want to be alerted when a new contest goes up, I recommend signing up for my newsletter.

Oh, and something I wanted to clarify from last time–this is a copy I got signed at the RWA National Conference. Ms. Bourne isn’t involved in the giveaway and the book isn’t personalized. So if you want to tell her how much you loved her book, this isn’t the place. That would be her website. (But this IS the place to tell ME how much you loved it!)

In which I am at all the best parties! Don't worry, on the internet we always have a +∞

I’m over at the Book Smugglers’ today talking about some of my favorite historical romances of 2011 (and two of my favorite TV romances!), and some that I’m looking forward to for next year. Narrowing this list down was PAINFUL, this has been a really wonderful year for romance. Come on by and tell me about your own favorites!

AND I have some very exciting news! I’ve been asked to join the History Hoydens!! It’s one of my favorite historical research blogs so I’m thrilled and honored to be invited. I almost feel bad linking to this post because the only content is Isobel Carr being incredibly nice about me, but come on over and say hi, and if you haven’t checked out the blog before, have a look around. You won’t regret it! I’ll be posting every third Monday, either starting the 12th or January 2nd depending.