By
Melodie Campbell (Bad Girl)
Ever
make a really bad typo? I mean really
bad.
My
worst ever professional mistake was in an Annual Report for a
one-hundred-million dollar corporation, when I was the director of marketing
and communications. Unfortunately, an
innocent little ‘t’ went missing from the word ‘assets.’ The board was not amused by “This year, we
experienced an increase in corporate asses.”
Recently,
I found out what one little vowel can do to Rowena and the Dark Lord, book 2 in
the Land’s End sexy fantasy series.
Okay,
REALLY uncool when the publicist misspells the name of your book on the launch announcements.
Rowena
and the Dark LARD is probably not the best way to get sales for a ‘Outlander
meets Sex and the City’ fantasy series.
However,
as I do write comedy, I'm thinking about a parody.
Is
it okay to write a parody of your own book?
Draft
one: ROWENA AND THE DARK LARD
Synopsis
1: Rowena moves back to Land’s End and opens up a bakery.
Synopsis
2: Cedric’s use of dark magic goes totally out of control, and so does his
appetite.
Synopsis
3: Thane and Rowena return to Land’s End and become pig farmers.
Synopsis
4: Rowena messes up another spell that causes all who look at her to turn into
donuts.
Synopsis
5: Rowena kills off Nigella Lawson in a battle with pastry rollers, and assumes
the role
of
Prime Time Network Food Goddess <sic>.
Synopsis
6: Someone takes a totally justified whack at the author. End of series.
Postscript:
Recently was quoted by someone as the author of ROWENA AND THE DORK LORD. Trial for murder is pending.
Post
postscript (where is a Latin scholar when you need one?): Another contract is out for the professional
book tour company last month, who, in all their advertising, inadvertently
switched book 3 Rowena and the Viking Warlord to… wait for it… Viking Landlord. Yup.
Obviously there will be hell to pay if you forget the rent.
Excerpt
from Rowena and the Dark Lord:
Men’s
voices again, echoing like souls lost in a fog. The mist lifted in one swift
movement to disappear into nothingness. In its place, were at least a hundred
men.
Bugger.
I messed up.
“Houston,
we have a problem,” I said out loud. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I must
have pronounced one of the spell words wrong.
“Who
is Houston?” Lars said.
“Romans!”
Gareth hissed. He drew his sword.
“Romans?”
I stared at the battle-scarred men before us. They looked exhausted. They also
looked bloody, dirty and rather short. Not to mention confused.
How
the heck could they be Romans?
Someone
yelled “Form Square!” in—yup—that was Latin.
“What
the hell?” I stared. The men came to life moving with purpose into a square.
Within seconds we were facing a shield wall bristling with spears.
The
man on horseback stared at me. No stirrups on his saddle. A helmet that was in
history books. Definitely Roman. I stared back at him.
Romans?
In this time? What the poop had I done?
“It’s
a freaking temporal rift!” My laugh was strident. “Where is Spock when you need
him?”
Amazon
link for Rowena and the Dark Lord:
