Kathleen Bradean

101 Best Sex Scenes Ever Written

2011-11-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

I bought 101 Best Sex Scenes Ever Written: An Erotic Romp Through Literature for Writers and Readers by Barnaby Conrad when I bought his other book 101 Best Beginnings Ever Written. While I liked the 101 Best Beginnings Ever Written, I have issues with Best Sex Scenes.

It started off promising. In his forward, he states

"The selections were not chosen gratuitously, not included to titillate - (sorry) - the reader. They all advanced the plot in some way of helped to characterize the protagonist of the story they came from."

He at least seems to respect that sex has a legitimate place in storytelling, if you can overlook his comment in the previous paragraph that

"Justice Stewart surely would label this book pure porn, and of course, considered out of context, many of the scenes read as though they were, indeed, porn. Yet every excerpt is from a distinguished writer, often a great one, and its source is a published and respected novel or short story."

Okay, so if you're a literary writer, you don't write porn. You write pornographic scenes, but you can be forgiven because your work is published and respected.

After the first couple chapters, it became evident that to Mr. Conrad, a great sex scene takes place off page and leaves everything to the imagination. Worse, at the end of chapter six, he states:

"But, by reading Lolita, a would-be writer can learn how to write a beautiful sex-driven novel with no gross language or uncomfortable images."

Lolita is his example of a book that doesn't contain 'uncomfortable images?' Does he think that most people are comfortable with the idea of some old geezer lusting after a twelve-year old girl? I'm not arguing the literary merit of the book, but even I have real problems with the subject matter.

If his squeamishness over the depiction of sex wasn't clear enough by then, the title of chapter thirteen drove it home: Ugh, E-e-e-uuu, and Gross.

Really, Mr. Conrad? Why on earth would you approach this subject if the best you can summon is a juvenile reaction to the subject? And why is it that that

"I shall leave the literature of same sex and kinky sex and bestiality to those who see drama or purpose or exemplary behavior therein."

So gay sex is equivalent to bestiality and not exemplary behavior and has no purpose?

Ugh. *Flings tome across the room* I suggest Mr. Conrad avoid this subject until he's mature enough to approach it as an adult.

Will She or Won't She?

2011-10-05T07:39:00.000-07:00

With the publishing world in such flux right now, I'm mulling over the idea of self-publishing The Devil's Concubine. I've already contacted Kelley from Sterling Editing about reserving a slot in her schedule, because editing is something you don't skimp on if you want your readers to have a good experience with your story. Editing is something you treat yourself to as a reward for finishing a novel. Editing is a personal masters level course in writing.

I'm reading blogs and tapping into resources to find out how to go about this. If my budget were really tight, I guess I'd try to learn as much of this as I could on my own, but I'm probably the least visual person on earth, so I don't trust my ability to do a good job on things such as the book design, which is how it looks on the inside, and the cover art. And there's formatting for the different ebook platforms and ISBNs and POD and ... so much to learn about.

I'll keep you posted.

This is How it Works

2011-10-01T18:52:00.000-07:00

I saw a recent pie chart of how readers find ebooks. I can't seem to find a link. so I can't share it, but the upshot was that people rely mostly on recommendations on groups they belong to, then recommendations by family and friends. Those slices combined were well over 50% of the chart.

In a book store (remember those?) it's called hand selling. That's when a knowledgeable clerk says "Oh, you like that book? Well, let me tell you about this one!" Even without book stores, it remains the most powerful selling tool for a writer.

This isn't self-promotion. Hey, I'm a writer, I understand letting people know that you have a book out. But it becomes just so much background noise especially to those of us with a lot of writer contacts. I don't think I've ever read self-promotion SPAM and thought, "Hmm. I must read that." However, I have on occasion said, "I will never read anything this writer ever writes because she's pissing me off with her ten posts a day about her book." I've heard that from others too. There's obviously a fine line here, and it's different for everyone, but one or two announcements are plenty. After that, you're teetering on the annoying edge.

So how do you tap into this all important 50% plus marketing vein? Well... You have to write a really good book. You have to write something that gets a reader excited enough that they talk about it. You can't force them to talk. You can't SPAM them into talking. All you can do is write such a great book that a complete stranger will tell another person, "You have to read this."

That's the big secret.

Now you know how it works.

NaNoWriMo is coming!

2011-09-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

NaNoWriMo - national novel writing month - begins November 1st.

Last October, writer Nobilis suggested trying the snowflake method of outlining as a way to prepare for the grueling month of writing ahead, so I tried it. It's an interesting exercise for a non-outliner (I could even say for someone hostile to the idea of outlining) to engage in. Would I do it again? Probably not, but I learned some useful stuff just by trying.

I tried other experiments outside my usual method of writing. Some were useful, some weren't.

While I hit the 50,000 word mark, the novel I produced wasn't useable. However, after the third rewrite, I now have The Devil's Concubine, and readers have a lot of good things to say about it.

So am I going to try again this year? No, but nothing about the experience was wasted. I learned how to write even when I didn't feel like it (here's when having an outline really helped. I didn't stare off into the distance as I tried to figure out what happened next. I'd already done that work in October). I learned how to distill my story down to one sentence. Hopefully, I learned how to write a decent synopsis. (I'll test that when I try to prep The Devil's Concubine submission package). I'd suggest it to anyone who ever wanted to try to write a novel. If anything, it teaches you to just write.

It's Been a Week

2011-09-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

and I'm still in recovery from the conference.

But, I'm hearing back from my beta readers on The Devil's Concubine, and what I'm hearing is encouraging. It's good to know that my third try at this novel was worth it. The common complaint is that the story ended. Hah! Success!

EAA Con wrap up

2011-09-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

I'm still in recovery from this weekend, but what a weekend it was!

Thanks again to D.L. King, Nan Andrews, Kate Dominic, and Jolie du Pre for their amazing hard work running this. Andrea Dale also pinch hit for us in a spectacular display of generosity.

Where do I begin? Things that went wrong. Hmm.

Well, the starting hour was way to early. Unfortunately, we we took this date, the hotel didn't mention to us that 9/10/11 was a huge day for weddings. If we'd known that "suddenly" the hours we needed the rooms that they wouldn't be available and we'd have to start at the crack of dawn to get in our programming, we would have gone a week later. Live and learn. Get the hours in a contract and fight it tooth and nail when they change it on you.

No readings opposite panels. The readings were sparsely attended, and the schedule was to blame for that.

Have more staff! We were blessed that Nan and Kate, and Andrea, were willing to be drafted. We couldn't have done it without them. But we need to recruit more people before hand. Andrea - I will never forgot that you offered to help with programs next year! NEVER! Programs were the bane of my existence. And some of the things she mentioned were so obvious in retrospect that I'd wished I'd tapped her insight beforehand.

Some panelists and class leaders weren't able to come last minute. Oh man, were they ever missed. I don't know how you work around real life emergencies, and we filled in fairly well, but some guests were really disappointed that certain people they came specifically to see weren't there. All I can do is apologize. And get viruses to obey me. And flooding rivers too. I'll work on that. Oh, and internet connectivity. It was crap in the convention center. Sorry.

I should have asked the hotel to show me their worst rooms as well as their best beforehand. I hope no one besides me ended up in one of the frankenrooms.

I'm sure that there's more that I missed. People were generous with their insights, and I hope we can address those problems next year. We will send out a questionnaire and please, tell us again, because right now, I barely remember my name.

What went right? Our amazing panelists and guests. Imagine all sorts of people you admire chatting and laughing and having a great time. Imagine people so engaged in panel discussions that they groan when the time warning goes off. Imagine for once as an erotica writer not having to self-censor an honest question about your work.

I'm thrilled that so many people came and that there was a broad spectrum of interests, writing styles, sexualities, and backgrounds represented. The generosity of everyone who came and shared blew me away. So I'm tired, but very happy.

My Bags Are Packed, I'm Ready to Go

2011-09-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

Except that I'm not leaving on a jet plane. Tomorrow morning, when I try to shove my suitcase into the car, things are going to get interesting, because my poor car is so stuffed with boxes that I may have to pack my clothes and toothbrush in a grocery bag. Climbing the Cajone Pass with that much extra weight in the car is going to be interesting too, to say the least.

One panelist fell ill and another had to cancel at the last second, leaving us a bit short on one panel and eep! one class short in a time slot. I really wanted to go to the synopsis writing class, so it was the only one I demanded free time for. Now I'm leading a class in that slot. Oy vey.

See kids, this is why you never put on a play in the old barn. You end up playing seven roles when all you wanted to do was be the prop person and enjoy the show from the wings.

Truthfully, it's not that big of a scramble to fill that slot though. D.L. King and I talked a long time ago about what we'd do if this situation came up, so I already had some notes together for a class on character development. (I'm not going to try to teach synopsis writing) So this is what I'm doing tonight - fretting over character. (I hope everyone goes to the taboos panel instead.)

That, and moving boxes around my car trunk to make sure every inch of space is filled. And wondering what else will go wrong.

Eek!

2011-09-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize that it had been so long since I'd made an entry. I blog weekly over Oh Get A Grip and that's been about all I've managed to do as D.L. King and I have worked off our butts putting together the first EAA Writer's Conference (this coming weekend in Las Vegas). It's gong to be amazingly successful. I hoped for sixty-five attendees. We just hit eighty. So that's huge, and wonderful, and scary.

I've also been writing madly to finish The Devil's Concubine. It's in the hands of a few beta readers. This is my third stab at the novel, but this one works (thank goodness!). At least it does for me. We'll see what they think.

Once the conference is over, I'll try to be much better about regular posting. I may have to give up my slot at Oh Get a Grip. It's fun, but I'm not sure if I like the amount of personal disclosure it sometimes pressures us into. This week's topic was a good example. While I'll admit that there a (very) few erotic diarists who can share interesting stories about their sexual fantasies, I'm just not into that.

Interview about the EAA Conference

2011-07-03T15:56:00.001-07:00

Sharazade was kind enough to interview me about the conference. Check it out!

It's Been a Few Years, Boys

2011-06-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hello, again.

It seems that the boys of the US Department of Justice have returned to their old habit of reading my blog and spying on everyone I have links with. I do hope it was official business and not them using government property for wank time. I mean, I expected that during the Bush administration, because the DOJ and Army Intelligence use to visit my blog All The Time back then, but during these difficult times, I expect a little more for my tax dollar. Try not to disappoint, boys. Okay?


Washington, District Of Columbia, United States Us Dept Of Justice (149.101.1.117) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visits

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Revisions

2011-05-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

I've heard of these mythical writers who, when asked to do revisions on a MS, say No and flounce off in a huff. I say mythical, because while they exist in anecdotes exchanged between publishers, editors, and writers, I have yet to see one of these divas in print. Sure, I've seen the occasional grammatically challenged anti-publisher rant on FaceBook, but if sputtering incoherence is the best a writer can do in a paragraph, I shudder to think what an entire self-published book of their work is like.

I can see opting not to revise if the publisher asks for something that would change the entire story, but that's about the only place I'd draw a line. So when a publisher recently expressed interest in my MS but said it needed revisions, my reaction wasn't "What they hell do they know?" No. See, I know that my opinion of my story isn't impartial. Theirs is. Plus, they're the professionals. They know what sells. And they know what makes a strong story. So if they're willing to guide me - which is a big investment on their part - I'm willing to do what they ask.

Someone will read this and grumble that I sold out to be published. (although that isn't a given at this stage) Sold out what? The weaknesses in my story? An underdeveloped character? Hey, some sacrifices must be made, and those are the types of sacrifices I'm more than willing to make.

Saints and Sinners

2011-05-12T06:53:00.000-07:00

Today, I head to New Orleans for the Saints and Sinner Literary Conference. As I told my boss "I really do attend the classes," but the main pull is, of course, friends. Three days of talking to other writers in person is bliss. I always come back ready to write.

Carnal Machines Blog Tour

2011-05-03T05:02:00.000-07:00

In the 1780s, Amy Lyon, who would later be better known as the notorious Lady Hamilton, worked for James Graham, a charlatan Scottish doctor who was rather infamous for his electrified bed that he claimed would help infertile couples to conceive. Oh, those naughty Victorians, juicing up their sex lives with machines and electricity. And here we sit thinking those poor Victorians were dowdy prudes! That just isn't fair. We got The Humane Society, Women's Suffrage, sanitation, and a professional police force from the Victorians. Yes, there was a downside to their mania for engineering society, but they certainly weren't afraid of change. Or, apparently, things that vibrated, hummed, or stimulated their naughty bits.

And speaking of stimulated naughty bits...

My first vision of The Lair of the Red Countess was a gentleman knocking on a door while his friends cowered around the corner, afraid that a girl (or wife) might see them. Classic blustering he-man woman haters club stuff. That's when my sinister countess stepped out of the shadows and made herself known. Stern but loving, she was the perfect woman to transform Archie (the gentleman knocking on the door) from one of the little boys into a man.

The story was partially inspired by a trip to Saint Petersberg, Russia. We toured the basement where Rasputin's comical assassination began (Well, I suppose that he wasn't laughing, but really, talk about the gang that couldn't poison, beat, stab, or shoot straight). I was surprised by our tour guide's attitude toward Rasputin. Rather than casting him as a villain or bogeyman, she seemed in awe of his legendary healing powers over the Tsaravitch's hemophilia.

While my story don't mention that the Russian Revolution had driven my countess from Russia, Queen Victoria passed away several years before the Tsaravitch was even born, so the era of this story is technically Edwardian, not Victorian. Not that a story must be set in the Victorian Era to be steampunk, but it's understood that most are. Also, as a member of the Russian aristocracy, my countess most certainly would have been a White Russian, not a red. But a Russian countess lurking in the dark in her Edwardian whites just didn't create the right mental image, so I put her in red. Besides, red has other connotations beyond political affiliation.

Niokla Tesla wrote of his Tesla Orbs in 1897. They were of no practical use, and he never sought to produce them, although after Bill Parker, a student at MIT, replaced the inert gases in Tesla's tube and changed the shape of the orb in the 1970s, he was able to commercial the orbs as a novelty product. (search for images of plasma orbs if you aren't familiar with these) So I took a leap of imagination by using the modern form of the orbs and used them to conduct small amounts of electricity through my character's fingertips to power a rather infernal carnal device.

I mention these "inconsistencies" so that purists will know that I'm aware of them and didn't write them out of ignorance. Although I'll admit that I did a bit of a happy dance when my research proved that Tesla originally invented the plasma orbs I'd envisioned on my soul machine. If it was brilliant, and used electricity, it's almost a safe bet that Tesla invented it - but it was nice to have proof.

I hope that you enjoy the story. I indulged in spanking, excruciating manners, and euphemisms like "a gentleman's vitality" with Victorian abandon. Now there's a term you don't often see, but you should. Those people were wild.

Carnal Machines Blog Tour Dates

2011-05-01T09:40:00.001-07:00

Check out these sites for the blog tour:

May 1 D. L. King http://dlkingerotica.blogspot.com
May 2 Teresa Noelle Roberts http://teresanoelleroberts.blogspot.com
May 3 Kathleen Bradean http:/kathleenbradean.blogspot.com
May 4 Jay Lawrence http://jaylawrenceerotica.blogspot.com
May 5 Kannan Feng http://kannanfeng.wordpress.com
May 6 Essemoh Teepee http://www.smotp.com/html/blog.html
May 7 Elizabeth Schechter http://easchechter.wordpress.com/blog
May 8 Delilah Devlin http://delilahdevlin.com/blog
May 9 Tracey Shellito http://traceyshellito.livejournal.com
May 10 Renee Michaels
May 11 Elias St. James http://dlkingerotica.blogspot.com
May 12 Lisabet Sarai http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com
May 13 Janine Ashbless http://janineashbless.blogspot.com

EAA Writers Conference

2011-03-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

EAA - Erotic Author's Association - was started by Marilyn Jaye Lewis about the time I started writing erotica. I was thrilled to take over as director late last year as it tied into the erotica writers conference I planned to hold this year - September 9th and 10th in Las Vegas, Nevada.

One of the joys of erotica is the very cool people I've met who write it. D.L. King, Beth Wylde, Jolie du Pre, and James Buchanan are helping out in a huge way to put this together. As word is trickling out, I'm hearing a lot of enthusiasm.

I'll post more here when we have panels set. Please feel free to give me ideas.

I Hate Winter

2011-03-01T20:45:00.000-08:00

It gets so cold by my computer that I often wear gloves to write, but that's not the reason.

I don't like driving to work in the dark and driving home in the dark, but that's not the reason.

There isn't a winter holiday, from Christmas to Valentines, that I enjoy, but that's not the reason.

It's my day job. From December until the end of April, it's non-stop intensity. The dread begins in October. By mid-December, the data requests start flowing. By mid-February, I walk into the office at 6AM, open my email, and the race is on to provide everyone with everything they need. I eat breakfast and lunch at my desk. Everything is top priority. There are a million details to track. Push, pull, in every direction at once.

Is it any wonder that I look forward to May so much? Every year, I go to the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans and immerse myself in the world of writing. I get to see friends from all over. We talk about writing and food - my other passion - and oh, just about everything else there is to talk about. I can't even begin to explain what it's like to be in a room full of GLBTQ writers. Comfortable is a good word, but even that falls short of the relief I feel knowing that I belong. As we amble around the French Quarter, we constantly run into people we know. I've never lived in New Orleans, but for those few days, it feels more like home than any other place on earth.

Winter can't be over soon enough.

It Has to Be Said

2011-01-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

There's a topic spoken of only in hushed whispers in erotica circles, and that's gender discrimination.

In science fiction, literary fiction, and -according to a recent open letter to the editor - the New Yorker, female writers are passively/aggressively discriminated against. In erotica the reverse is true. The now defunct publisher Black Lace was notorious for only publishing female writers. The excuse was that it was an important part of their marketing to assure women that their sexual fantasies weren't in the hands of icky boys who would turn it into porn. (That's not the way they put it, but that's what it meant.) Even now, Best Women's Erotica and many other erotica anthologies explicitly state that only female writers may submit.

I'm female. I benefit from this discrimination.

Or do I?

As witnessed by the huge percentage of female writers who contribute to open call anthologies, female erotica writers can compete on a level playing field with the guys. I think that this open hostility and discrimination against male writers only hurts the anthologies, and by extension, it hurts me as a writer.

So back to that idea of the marketing ploy. First off - how many readers pay that much attention to a writer's name? From a recent FaceBook discussion about author bios, I found out that few people read them, and those who do are usually other writers. So readers don't care. But that's the main argument for discrimination! Could it be that idea is antiquated at best, and probably just dead wrong? Second - who would flip pages past a story just because they don't want to read something by a writer of that gender? A reader would give a story a shot, at least a couple paragraphs. Either the story engages them, at which point they forget all about the writer, or it doesn't, in which case, they aren't gong to think "But it's by a woman, so I'm going to slog through it anyway!" No. That's not how readers behave. Third - it used to be that anthologies were produced by strict sexuality guidelines so that no reader would be exposed to something that might offend them (in erotica!) but now stories range all over the spectrum of sexuality in books aimed at heterosexual audiences and it hasn't hurt sales.

Which brings me to this point.

Years ago, when erotica was coming out from under the counters and being shelved with the rest of the real books, there might have been a reason to treat the readers with kid gloves. The seventies and eighties were laden with so many sexual minefields that everyone trod very carefully. Probably too carefully. (The whole Heterotica 6, or was it 7, kerfuffle by overly PC committee comes to mind.) But we're a bit more savvy now, or at least our audience is. Isn't it time that publishers caught up?

Readers already get it. They don't care about the contents of a writer's underwear. Only the story matters to them.

It has to be said: The story is all that matters.

Publishers, let down the drawbridge and let the male writers in. I've met many of them in person. I promise that they aren't icky. More to the point, some are amazing writers. Why in the world should readers be protected from quality?

Absinthe

2011-01-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

For the past two years, on New Year's Eve, I've been seized by a sudden urge to try absinthe. I have no idea why it only strikes on that day.

Part of the lure of absinthe has to be the ritual. If there's one thing creative types adore, it's a ritual. You don't simply pour a shot of absinthe and down it. I suppose that you could, but that reduces it to simply another flavor of alcohol.

The other part of the lure is the mystic.
Absinthe is the drink of artists. If you believe the bad press, it's a gateway to insanity. If you believe the aficionados, it's the gateway to the muse. Those aren't mutually exclusive. But like most anti-drug hysteria, I doubt most of the alarm surrounding it. It's legal to sell in the US again, I assume after a great deal of scientific evidence proving its safety. Considering how rarely the US Government lets science be heard over hysteria and religious nuttery, the case had to be compelling.

Absinthe isn't a cheap habit. For that reason, I'm hesitant to dive into it. And I worry that the flavor might not be to my liking. I've tried basil infused vodka, so an herbal drink isn't out of the question. I'm not terribly fond of anise though. Or more accurately, I don't like black licorice, so I'm a bit hesitant. But this coming May when I head to New Orleans for Saints and Sinners, I think I'll give it a try. That's the perfect city for indulgence, muses, and maybe a touch of madness.

Just in Time For the Holidays: Government Surveillance of My Blog

2010-12-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

Thanks for dropping by, Army Intelligence.It's been a while since you spied on me, but I didn't miss you. Not really.

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All I Have To Do

2010-12-19T21:31:00.000-08:00

I knew when I was working on my NaNoWriMo novel that the story wasn't right. It lacked, well, everything except snappy dialog. I'm really good at dialog. I should probably write plays instead, since they're all dialog, but I'm pretty sure that there's a law that if you live in LA, you have to write screenplays instead of plays, and I don't want to be yet another one of those LA people who is working on a screenplay. Ever. (Unless a shit ton of money is involved, and the check already cleared.) It's bad enough that I work on the West Side. Lord help me if I turn into a West Side ~~douchebag~~ cliche'.

Anyway, about my NaNoWriMo novel, I kept at it in the hopes that it was just my usual poor opinion of any story I'm currently working on, but after a few weeks away from it, I realized that it was, indeed, total crap. To begin with, it was the wrong story for those characters. What they were doing was interesting, but none of it added up to much of a plot. Plus, they had no compelling reason to work together to solve anything. But the biggest problem was that everything felt so contrived.

Everything in books is contrived. With the exception of typos, every word is there for a reason, every event was planned. Nothing just happens. Part of the craft is making it seem as if it all naturally occurs the way that it does, so when a writer, who knows that it's all contrived, can't even convince herself that it works, you know it's bad. So I'm 22,000 words into the rewrite, and all the puzzle pieces are scattered across the table. All I have to do is start linking them up to build the bigger picture.

All I have to do.

All.

*snort*

Yeah, this writing thing is a piece of cake.

EAA

2010-11-29T08:23:00.000-08:00

EAA news

As many of you are aware, Erastes has announced that she will step down as the director of EAA (Erotica Authors Association). During her tenure, she guided the EAA to a revitalized group with active social network blogs and increased membership. We owe her a big thanks for all her work.

Many of you helped to launch the new efforts, and are actively involved in maintaining those blogs. A big thanks to you too.

With the blessing of Marilyn Jaye Lewis, the founder of EAA, and Erastes, I've decided to step into the director's role. With so much going on, I'm not sure who is involved with what functions, so please contact me offlist to let me know how you contribute and if you plan to continue (please do!).

My immediate plan is to continue to offer members information for submissions and give us a place to announce our book releases, so that aspect will not change. However, I'm also working on an erotica writers convention to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada in August of 2011. Let me know how you feel about that, and be sure to send ideas my way!

I look forward to continuing what Marilyn and Erastes have worked so hard to build.

Thank you!

Slides in home base head first

2010-11-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

And, I'm done!

Now on to all that other stuff I have to do.

No NaNo

2010-11-23T21:39:00.000-08:00

I saw the date and realized I had a review due on Best Bondage Erotica 2011 YESTERDAY, so decided I better read it instead of writing tonight.

Helen Lay Bound by Suzanne V Slate (I don't recognize the name, but plan to look for further work of hers) was amazing. Lesbian, gender queer, and lusciously literate.

Okay, I've written the next line of this blog seven times and have had to delete it every time on the Thumper Principal. So you if want to see me being irritated with a certain BDSM story trope, email me privately, and I'll get seriously vicious about it just for your entertainment.

It's late, and I have miles of kink to read before I rest. 'night.

Almost there

2010-11-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

My NaNoWriMo word count is a little over 42,000.

I wrote to the end of the story and am now filling in those scenes that,at the time, I couldn't get interested in, so I just wrote enough to sketch it out. Between that and a couple scenes that I need to add, I think I can wrap this up this weekend.

It's been an interesting experience, but I'm not sure that I'll do it again. I have so many other projects with deadlines zooming at me that I can't wait to make the minimum word count and then set this story aside for a while. First drafts of novels need to sit for a couple months before being tackled again anyway.

Oh, My Aching Fingers!

2010-11-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

NaNoWriMo word count is 32,609.

What have I learned so far? I've talked about some stuff on earlier posts, so these are just the new revelations:

1) Mind over matter doesn't work with arthritis. I've had pain in my fingers since I was in third grade. Some days it's just this background thing that I can ignore. Other days, it feels as if someone took a hammer to every joint. On any day, I have to be careful not to do too much hand-intensive work or I get to the point where I can't hold anything. So writing every day is thrashing my hands. The impact of typing has made every finger sore in the top knuckle. Must remember to take anti-inflammatory meds before I go to bed or the pangs will keep me awake for hours. (BTW - in addition to the NaNOWriMo word count, I have my weekly article on Oh Get a Grip which runs 1000 words on average, my blog entries here, and I finished two 4000+ word short stories, so my word output for the month is higher than the NaNo count)

2) I can write every day, "inspired" or not. I think that this is the real lesson behind NaNoWriMo. Buckle down and just write! However, there's a huge difference between my output on days that I'm really into it and days that I'm not, so from an artistic standpoint, it would be better to take off those uninspired days.

3) I think another lesson of NaNoWriMo, although possibly unintended, is to show people how very difficult it is to write a novel. Nothing kills the love for a story like having to write every damn word of it.

4) The outline is still working for me, but I skipped about eight scenes when I realized they weren't needed, moved others, and merged a few more. The setting of the ending scenes is going to change, because it made no sense to make all the characters go somewhere they hadn't been before to wrap things up, but the basic ending remains.

5) Research is seductive. It's so fun to spend time looking at ancient paintings of Chinese junks to see if they had a crow's nest, or reading about southeast Asian traditions for warding against ghosts. I love that part of writing. It's a huge time suck though, so if I can't think of a name for a mountain range, I put _ Mountains in the MS. If I don't know a funeral custom, I type ___research funeral custom__ in the sentence and just keep going. On the good side of it, I have tons of research to look forward to on the rewrite.

With 17,301 words to go, I can see that I'm nearing the climax too soon. That's not a problem. I'll write through to the end, then add a few scenes toward the beginning that I know that I need, and I'll clean up some of the scenes I wrote on uninspired days. They aren't hard to find. They're almost entirely dialog. Adding setting and beats could easily take me over the top of 50,000.

Sweet!

2010-11-15T18:12:00.001-08:00

New review of Passion, and they mentioned my story!

Update

2010-11-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

My NaNoWriMo word count is 19945. I could have dashed off another 55 tonight to round it up to 20,000, but I was at the end of a scene and I'm tried. It seemed like a good place to stop. Besides, then I'll have the thrill (?!) of passing 20,000 as I work on it tomorrow.

So what have I learned so far? I know that the motto of NaNoWriMo is "No plot, no problem," but if I had gone into this without my outline, I'd have a couple thousand words at most. I never, ever thought I'd embrace the idea of an outline, but it's working very well for me. Every time I sit down to write, I know what scene I'll be working on and what needs to happen in it. Like most writers, I'm a master at procrastination, but with this outline, I can't fritter away my writing time. So it's efficient, and I still have plenty of space to be creative.

The other thing I've learned is how to keep forward momentum. I'm not editing or rewriting anything. Everything has to be new word count. So I'm saving all that for after I finish the first draft. Sure, it drives me nuts as there are things I'm itching to fix, but I'm moving ahead at a brisk pace. I also have to write every day. I had two low word count days when I worked on short stories that had to be submitted this month, but I at least manged 352 words one day and over 500 the next on my NaNoWriMo novel, so I got to update my total a bit. The discipline involved is good practice.

(oh, and I can't add this blog entry word count to my total. bummer)

NaNoWriMo update

2010-11-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

In case you're following, my word count stand at 16680 tonight. I only wrote 350 words tonight, but I spent my evening working on a short story due in a couple days, so I'm fine with that.

In other news, I got word that I'm in Carnal Machines, an erotic steampunk anthology, with my story In The Lair of the Red Countess. Yay!

Day 3 of the Forced Death March

2010-11-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

It's too early to call NaNoWriMo a forced death march, but it sounded good as a title.

First day, I wrote 2023 words. The second day, I hit around 4500 (total). My three day total is 6844 words.

But much more interesting (to me) is how this whole outline experiment is going. If you've been following along thus far, you know that NaNoWriMo veterans warned me not to go into this unprepared, so I prepared using the snowflake method. What that gave me is a fairly detailed outline to work from. I thought I would hate it. I thought it would kill creativity. I thought I'd get tired of the predetermined arc and chafe until I ignored it and went off on my merry way.

Day 3 is way early to make any definite judgments about it, but so far, I have to say that the outline thing works for me. I know which two scenes I'll write tomorrow. I know which characters are in it and generally what will happen, so I won't waste time staring at the screen as I wonder what will happen next because I already did that at the outline stage. It doesn't feel any less creative.

I know that people hate NaNoWriMo because it seems to value quantity over quality, but I think that the quantity is a way to measure writer's discipline. Pro writers have to create even when they aren't in the mood. NaNoWriMo demands the same thing. Besides, anyone who thinks first drafts are readable hasn't figured out the greatest writer's secret, ever, and that's how to embrace the sucky first draft. NoNoWriMo tells you to stop editing and just write. Finish the first draft. THEN edit it. Let yourself write poorly in the first draft. Rewrites are where true writers are made. So NaNoWriMo is all about embracing the sucky first draft, and I can totally get behind that.

This and That

2010-10-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

Republica Press released the Hearteater Anthology! You can also buy it at AllRomance E Books, or BookStrand. All proceeds go to the charity WaterAid.

And:
Rachel Kramer Bussel accepted my story A Good Stiff One for her anthology Gotta Have It. It looks like a great line up.

Also:
CoffeeTime Romance reviewed Passion and gave it 4 Cups (with a nice mention of my story Rekindle)

Night Owl review gave it 4 1/2 stars and called Rekindle "Sizzling."

EPIC:

Broadly Bound finaled at the EPIC contests. I'm pleasantly surprised.

NaNoWriMo update:

While working with the snowflake method, I realized that his instructions work well for a contemporary novel, but when you're working in science fiction/fantasy, you have to expand the character sketches a lot to include world building. He also didn't have anything about setting, so I had to add a column to the spreadsheet to expand on that.

One Week to Go

2010-10-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

There's one week left to NaNoWriMo madness, so my prep work needs to wrap up soon.

Follow Shanna Germain's progress here at What the Moon Saw . If you have a NaNoWriMo blog or are blogging about it on your regular blog, send a link to me, please.

I decided to try the Snowflake method, which is the exact opposite of the way I usually write. I think I posted a link before, but to sum up:

Start with a one sentence summary of the story. For good examples, search for the New York Times Bestseller List. Every book has a one sentence summary. Look at books you've read and compare how you'd summarize them. Then look at a few for books that you haven't read and figure out why they pique your interest. This is concise writing.

It took several tries to get something that worked for me, and as I went on to later steps of the Snowflake method, I went back to polish that one sentence.

The next step was to write a five sentence paragraph about my story telling the beginning, middle, and end. My first sentence was about my main character and the beginning of the story. The three middle sentences hit the catalyst for the story, the reaction of my main character, and the result of that reaction that brought the story to a climax. The fifth sentence tells how it ends.

Even though I'm on step nine, which is a detailed outline, I have to go back to this and the individual character synopsis to check that it matches the sequence I created for the detailed outline.

One week and counting!

NaNoWriMo

2010-10-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

Next month, I'll dip into the madness that is NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. While 50,000 words is light for a novel*, it's a horrendous amount of output for a one month timeframe. We'll see how it goes.

I blogged about my prep work to date on Oh Get A Grip.

*For those of you who don't write, 50,000-70,000 words is about the page count of a dimestore romance novel., 80,000-100,000 is a trade paperback, 110,000 is a fantasy novel and some science fiction, and I'll guess that the last three Harry Potter novels came in around 120,000 to 170,000 words (but that's just a guess)

Passion is Coming!

2010-10-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

Passion should be out mid-month.

Spank! is out now from Logical Lust.

I'm waiting on a release date for HeartEater.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like

2010-09-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

Halloween.

Sweetest Kiss was released last year, but suddenly, reviews everywhere! The first printing sold out in a couple weeks, so it's popular.

Violet Blue
Dirty Sexy Books

And SPANK! got a nice review too.

SPANK! Blog tour

2010-09-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

I know this isn't supposed to be posted until September 8th, but I'm sure you'll live.

Have you seen the list of contributors to this anthology? (scroll down to the previous entry if you haven’t) It’s a Spankopalooza of my favorite erotica writers. I look forward to reading what they have to say about their stories.

My first idea for this entry was to tell a little, true story about the time SPANK! editor D.L. King flogged me in a leather shop in NYC, but then decided that it might 1) scare erotica writers from submitting stories to an editor who flogs her writers (even though it was my idea), 2) make me seem like a wuss (When I said that the third flogger she used hurt, I meant it as an observation of how it felt, not that I wanted her to stop.), and 3) even for a writer, it’s almost impossible to convey the look of shock and horror on that guy’s face when he came out of the dressing room wearing a tutu and rubber corset to see D.L. flogging me in the middle of the store. Since that wouldn't work, I decided to post a snip from my story instead, and talk a little about my inspiration.

Have you ever wanted to yank a pop princess over your knee and give that pert bottom a good, hard smack or two?

~~
From Apple Bottom Hard Cider:

Mya sprawled against the dark blue leather seat of the limo as it crept down Sunset Boulevard. “You luv mommy, yes you do,” she told her Chihuahua.

The tiny animal was blinged and bedazzled in Mya’s signature color: Mya magenta. The dog silently begged Chuck for help. He knew exactly how it felt.

She shoved the dog into the magenta purse-sized carrier she took everywhere with her. “This better work, Chucky.”

When he didn’t immediately rush in with assurances, she kicked him with her studded black leather hooker boot. He turned away from the window but said nothing. Behind her outsized sunglasses, no doubt her eyes narrowed. Before, that would have made him coo in soothing tones while he fixed whatever it was that had her panties – if she ever wore them – in a bunch, but after tonight, he was done with that.

The contest had been eighteen strokes of pure genius. It was the only reason Chuck stayed with Mya through the release of her latest record. So many times as she’d belittled him, he’d been tempted to walk away. Every time, he closed his eyes and imagined the scene that would finally play out tonight. She thought she had his balls in an iron grip, but he was about to show her who was boss.

Mya squirmed. "Yeah, about that contest..."

Oh no. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Chuck swallowed his alarm and played the part that came naturally to him. “Sweetie. Darling. It’ll be all right. Trust me.” He patted her hand.

Her upper lip curled.

“We’ve talked about this. Your fans are in a feeding frenzy as they fantasize about being the first to tap your forbidden fruit when it finally becomes legal. Of course, that’s why we’ve been playing up the virgin angle so hard. That’s why we delayed the release of your record to coincide with your birthday. This is it. This is your time.”

“I get that. What I don’t get is the whole birthday spanking thing.”

He’d explained it to her about a thousand times. His story was pure bullshit, of course, just an excuse to get his revenge, but he tried to sound as if he knew what he was talking about. “It’s symbolic of taking your virginity. We had thousands of entries for the honor of giving you a little birthday spank in front of your guests. Like I said, your fans all want to be your first.”

She frowned more. “Yeah, but...”

Chuck leaned forward, his hands clasped before him. He widened his eyes. “It’s never been done before. No more ‘Me too, Mya.’”

She glared at him. He’d never dared called her that to her face before.

Before she got angry and took it out on him, he rushed in with soothing assurances. “No one will ever forget this night. You’ll be the top internet search for weeks, maybe even months. More hits than Britney even. Your new singles get more radio air time. Everyone will be talking about you. Lady Gaga will choke with jealousy. Justin Timberlake might do a duet. Madonna… Well, you get the picture.”

“He’s not a creep, is he? The contest winner. You didn’t pick just anyone.”

“Believe me, sweetheart, I took extra special care in choosing just the right man for the job. But of course we told everyone it was a random drawing.”

~~

I didn’t have a specific Diva in mind when I created Mya, but feel free to fantasize that she’s Madonna, J.Lo, Mariah, that Minogue chick (That was just for you, McKinnon), Britney, Shakirah, or whoever gets your pulse racing. I have to draw the line at Lady Gaga though. I’m sorry, but she just isn’t the right girl for this fantasy.

You see, I have a tiny confession to make. I like Lady Gaga. Do not! (I am so serious about this) Do not even try to argue with a fan about her Diva. You’ll only get hurt. So when I tell you that I like her music, keep any snide comments to your misinformed self. However, if you’re also a fan, go ahead and agree with me.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago, I went to Lady Gaga’s concert here in Los Angeles. She has the most incredible fans. Imagine a six foot six crossdresser with soda can curlers in hir hair, feathery pink eyelashes, and fishnet stockings covering those long drink of water legs from the tops of hir sexy black hooker boots to the spot where hir tight, hot pink boyshorts cupped hir tiny, cute butt – and being more amazed by hir companion’s outfit! It was like Paris is Burning meets Pricilla, Queen of the Desert. For once, Los Angeles was just as wildly weird as I wish it always were. Why don’t we dress more daring around here? Fuck bikinis –unless it’s Lady Gaga’s sparkler lazertit bra and undie combo. And Oh.My.God. the frosted (was that latex?) dress. Don’t even get me started on the drag queen wet dream white angel/goddess number with the moving fiberoptic headdress. (You know it was spectacular if I, the least visual human on earth, actually noticed all that.)

So don’t sully Lady Gaga by substituting her into this fantasy of public humiliation. She’s too talented to be my character Mya. But feel free to worship her, because Divas are meant to be idolized, not punished.

**
You can find the next blog on the tour here, but it probably won't be up until the actual date, September 9.
**

SPANK! Blog tour

2010-08-31T18:23:00.000-07:00

Spank! Blog Tour Schedule

From D.L. King:

I'm going to be kicking off the blog tour for my new anthology, Spank! on September 1st. All 20 authors (and Cassandra Park, who wrote the introduction) will be blogging about all things spanking. An interesting and entertaining time will be had by all, so I thought you might want a sneak peek at the schedule, along with all the links.

9/1. D. L. King http://dlkingerotica.blogspot.com

9/2. Cervo http://www.logical-lust.com/blog.html

9/3. Sommer Marsden http://sommermarsden.blogspot.com/

9/4. Anna Black http://jennareynolds.com/journal/

9/5. Jean Roberta http://www.jean_roberta.livejournal.com

9/6. Tara S. Nichols http://tarasnichols.blogspot.com

9/7. Maggie Morton http://www.logical-lust.com/blog.html

9/8. Kathleen Bradean http://kathleenbradean.blogspot.com

9/9. Lee Ash http://www.logical-lust.com/blog.html

9/10. Lisabet Sarai http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com

9/11. Evan Mora http://www.logical-lust.com/blog.html

9/12. Allison Wonderland http://aisforallison.blogspot.com/

9/13. Sean Meriwether http://www.logical-lust.com/blog.html

9/14. Roxy Katt http://roxykatt.blogspot.com/

9/15. Donna George Storey http://sexfoodandwriting.donnagerogestorey.com/

9/16. Beth Wylde http://bethwylde.wordpress.com/

9/17. Sacchi Green http://www.logical-lust.com/blog.html

9/18. A.D.R. Forte http://adrforte.blogspot.com/

9/19. J.Z. Sharpe http://www.logical-lust.com/blog.html

9/20. Jessica Lennox http://www.jessicalennox.com/

9/21. Cassandra Park http://www.mscassandrapark.com/

Whew! What a line-up! So stop by on the 8th to read what I have to say.

Oh La La!

2010-08-16T20:59:00.000-07:00

SPANK! Will be available next month from Logical Lust. Editor DL King gathered some tasty, naughty bits for this one.

Don't you love this cover? I hear that the back cover is boy booty. The cover was shot in fellow contributor Sean Meriwether's (Velvet Mafia) kitchen.

Have you ever wanted to pull a pop star over your knee and spank that sassy butt? In my story Apple Bottom Hard Cider, that's exactly what her soon to be former manager has in mind, except that he's too chicken to do the deed himself, so he hires a pro Dom to take care of it for him. That's a big mistake. Divas are born to be worshiped, not humiliated. Deceitful, gutless managers, however...

Too Many Characters

2010-07-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Jolene Hui (I will always think of her as Princess Hui) turned me on to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I liked it, although Stieg Larrson's narrative style reflects his background in journalism rather than a literary voice. I could live with that simply because of his character Lisabet Salander. I know a few artist who are very much like her, so I had no problem believing anyone could be (something) like that. What I found harder to forgive were the other characters. Scores of them, and each of them with far too much personal history that added nothing to the story.

I see this problem a lot with new writers. They let their casts run into double digits, and each person has a single personality trait to define them. This sort of works in movies, because even you you forget a name, you have a face to remind you that 'oh yeah, that's the neighbor who wears her mink while she prunes her roses,' and you only have to keep track for a couple hours. In a book, you might have to flip back chapters to remember who Jennie is. That pulls you out of the story - always a bad writing mistake. Plus you begin to wonder why, if she's not the proverbial gun in act 1, does Jennie even exist. Can't someone else say her lines? The answer is almost always yes.

I'm supposed to be keeping my word count up on my current novel because it's running under the usual minimum for the genre, but I realized that my cast was getting unwieldy, so in this rewrite I lopped off at least five characters and consolidated two. That translated to about 2700 words being slashed. Not the direction I'm supposed to go, but I like a tightly written story, so I'm just going to have to figure out another way to add words without padding the word count. I promise you that I am not going to tell you the life history of Jennie - unless she shows up in her mink in the last act with a pruned head in her hand.

Writer's Block?

2010-06-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing. That bugs me, but I go into this dormant state every year at this time, so I should be used to it. I've been writing reviews, and doing my weely blog entries at Oh Get A Grip, so it's not as if I haven't produced anything, but it's not paying stuff.

Part of the problem is that I have to finish working on a novel that I've fallen out of love with and I'm so sick of it that I don't want to deal. But part of being a writer is dealing with it even when it isn't fun anymore. Adding to the problem is a new novel that's flirting with me, and I'm all swoony over it. I would love to work on it, but I know better, because at some point, I'll hate it too.

Time to grit my teeth and get back to work on the novel.

Erotica Fatigue?

2010-06-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

True Blood season 3 started last night. I was thankful, oh so thankful, that they didn't begin this season with Sookie screeching as she did last time. I hate that deer caught in the headlights look followed by the pause (I will commence screaming in 5,4,3 ...) and ending with her mouth open and sirens blaring. The next scene with the manager from the restaurant was wonderful. And then... nothing. Downhill at avalanche speeds.

Maybe I have erotica fatigue, because Eric pounding his new dancer made me glance at my watch. Things got promising for a moment there with Bill (The most boring vampire to ever walk the night. My method for dealing with his screen time is to down a shot of vodka every time he lowers his chin and tries to look menacing. It doesn't make him any more interesting. It just makes me care at lot less about how dull he is. If you need some variation - and god knows you crave it when Bill's around - try drinking every time he lowers his chin and says Soooookie.) Anyway - things got promising there for a moment or two with Bill and Sam, but in one of the biggest cheats since Bobby showed up alive in the shower on Dallas, the writers made Sam wake up before the boys got a chance to even touch. If Sookie gets to fantasize about Eric to the point of naked writhing, I demand equal suds and studs for Bill and Sam. Fair is fair.

Sadly, Eric's butt, Sam's chest, Bill's chest, some Jason skin, and a pair of sweaty, bouncing implants weren't enough to distract me from dismal storytelling. Maybe I'm erotica fatigued, but really, True Blood folks? Really? Do you think I'm that easy? At the end of the show, all I could think was "Okay, so that scene with Bill and Sam didn't lead Sam to find and help Bill, so what was the point?" Obviously, to piss me off, and turn on everyone else, but what a waste of potential storytelling time! Yes, I know that there were many story lines to move forward in this episode, and all the characters are being repositioned for this season, but please, if you're trying to distract me from crap storytelling, you're going to have to crank up the sex a lot more. I'm jaded like that.

P.S. True Blood folks - you're doing a great job with the story lines and characters of Lafayette and Jessica (probably because Jessica is original to the show and Layfayette didn't survive the first book so you can do whatever you want with him), but would you stop dressing Pam like a cheap floozy and get rid of the gloopy pink mess she wears on her lips? Oh, and Queen Sophie? I can't tell which is worse, her screen presence or the lines you write for her.

Golden Crown Literary Society Award

2010-06-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

Via Lara Zielinsky, just found out that the Year's Best Lesbian Fiction '08 anthology (Bedazzled Ink), which include my story Words Like Candy Conversation Hearts was named as one of the Golden Crown Literary Society's Best Non-Erotic Anthologies! Whoo-hoo!

Where the Girls Are was a Lambda Literary Finalist, and Coming Together: Against the Odds (I believe) won an EPIC Award for best anthology, so anthologies I'm in are on a roll this year. Yay!

Violet Blue rocks!

2010-06-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

I'm a feminist, and I watch porn.

I'm an adult. I don't need to have the world sanitized for my protection. It's bad enough when the government, Steven Jobs from Apple, and religious folk play the nanny. Now I have to endure the meddling of feminists* too?

*I'm not sure how they can call themselves feminists when they're trying to control my access to porn. It's misogynistic.

Violet Blue started Our Porn, Ourselves, to defend women's right to watch, enjoy, use, and produce sexually explicit material. Visit her site, and show your support for a woman's right to sexual self-determination.

Busy Month

2010-06-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

I traveled a lot this month. Mid-month, I was in New Orleans for Saints and Sinners.

I've been reflecting on my Saints and Sinners experience for a couple weeks because it was not as fulfilling of an experience as it has been in the past. The same issue arises every year, and it bothers me every year, but this time I can't set it aside.

There's an erotica panel every year at Saints and Sinners, with the same three people on it every time. They invite one new person to join them, but truly, it is their panel. It's not that those panelists aren't qualified, but they say the same things every year, and what they say is, "I don't read erotica because it doesn't interest me." My other favorite quote from two years ago was, "I don't read erotica because I only read good writing." This from erotica writers. I'm used to those slams from literary writers by now (and had to endure them during two master classes this time) but don't give much credence to the ignorant pronouncements of anyone who hasn't read my work before judging it. However, it appalls me to hear it from the erotica panel. Can you imagine the outcry if someone at a mystery panel said, "Genre novels are crap compared to literary novels, so I wouldn't be caught dead reading a mystery novel even though I write them?"

Further disappointment came from the erotica reading, which featured the same writers who sat on the erotica panel. Why not spread some of the love? How about maybe inviting writers who had stories in one of the Lambda Literary Award finalist anthologies in the erotica category, or an editor of one of those nominated anthologies? But no. Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to put those anthologies out on the bookstore table. Not one of them. So I came away a bit frustrated.

I'll go to Saints and Sinners next year, and I'll continue to contribute (quite a big check, actually), but for once, I'd like to come away with positive feelings about how erotica is handled.

This Week on Oh Get A Grip

2010-05-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

This week on Oh Get A Grip, my imagination turns to the story of Onan, and why it may just be a huge misunderstanding. That's right - we're talking about solo sex.

Heart Eater

2010-05-18T17:27:00.001-07:00

"Don't let someone take and eat your heart."

Remittance Girl challenged us to create poetry, a story, visual art, mixed media, or whatever we wanted to illustrate this unique moral. Read my entry (erotica) Piquant here.

Tonight! Lambda Literary Finalist Reading in Los Angeles

2010-05-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

Come hear me read- because watching me read is really boring.

Lambda Finalist Reading (LA)
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 7:30pm
Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont
Los Angeles, CA
View Map

Lambda Literary has partnered with libraries, bookstores, and festivals across the country to celebrate finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards. All readings are free and open to the public.

Featuring: @Jim Morrison, @Dexter Flowers, @Stacie Cassarino, @Ariel Schrag, @Dayle A. Dermatis and @Kathleen Brandean.

Hosted by @Noel Alumit and @Tony Valenzuela.

http://www.skylightbooks.com/http://www.lambdaliterary.org/readers/events/04/02/lambda-finalist-reading/

Interview on ERWA

2010-04-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

Writer Ashley Lister interviews me on ERWA. Read it here.

At Lot Of Stuff Coming Up

2010-04-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

Monday (I think it's Monday) May 10th, I'll be at Skylight Books in Los Feliz for the Lambda Literary Awards Finalist's reading series. No, I didn't enter my novel (complicated tale behind that) but I'll read from my short story Don't Fuck With Country Girls that appears in Where the Girls Are.

Then that Thursday I head to New Orleans for Saints and Sinners GLBT Literary Festival. So looking forward to that. Hope to meet Cecelia Tan from Circlet Press for the first time. Planning to hang mostly with Mel Spencer and DL King, although I'm also looking forward to a few moments with Jeff Mann, Sean Meriweather, Steve Berman, Trebor Healey, Greg Herren ... I wonder how I'll ever make it to the classes. But this is my once a year chance to enjoy their company.

I have a bunch of stuff out on submissions. I can't remember ever having this many stories out at the same time. Why I don't feel as if I'm writing, I have no idea. But if something sells (okay, one already did. sent back the contract yesterday. but it's for a different pen name.) I'll keep you posted.

Send a Big Yohoo Out To The Army!

2010-04-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks for visiting my site, Army dudes!
According to Bling, Usaisc stands for USAISC: United States Army Information Systems Command

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Which means they're spying on either the bisexual or queer forums on Craigslist and following threads. Or someone there is goofing off at work. Tsk tsk, soldier.

Something You Never Suspected About Me

2010-04-20T06:46:00.000-07:00

On Oh Get A Grip today, I dissect a few scenes from the movie Strictly Ballroom, and confess to a past you'd never suspect.

Twitter Smut

2010-04-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

I've been on Twitter for a while. I try to post a short story every day. The 140 character limit is daunting.

Tonight, Stan Kent (of Shoe Leather fame, and host of the monthly In the Flesh erotica reading series here in LA), DL King (writer, editor, and the creator of Erotica Revealed), Jeremy Edwards (writer), and I attempted to co-write a story on Twitter.

There were advantages, such as being able to tell the story in more than one Tweet. But it was an experiment, so we had a few problems. Once we hit our stride, the flow improved, but it's still hard to write when you're taking turns. You can't plan anything, because by the time it's your turn, the story is in a different place. You have to build on what came before. It was exhausting. But fun. Stan is going to read it (eep) in front of an audience at this month's In the Flesh.

We're not the first writers to try using Twitter for collaborative writing. As artists, we're driven to explore mediums, and we learn from the ideas of others. So I call it a success.

Wrong Turns

2010-04-02T15:24:00.001-07:00

Somewhere along the way in my short story, I took a wrong turn. It only came apparent when I couldn't write the final scene.

I've written a lot of smut. You'd think by now that I could bring it on home with three humpy, horny vampires primed to jump in the sack and shoot like the fountains of the Bellagio. But no. I couldn't get into it. And I don't mean in a sexual way. I just couldn't type the words.

Every story is a path. It leads somewhere. I thought I'd led my characters to the bedroom, but instead, we were all looking at a dead stop and couldn't figure out how to get around it. Some writers might blast through the wall and make it happen. I retrace my steps. Some paths are false ones. I have to figure out where the misstep happened and get on the right path.

The problem, I finally figured out, was that several thousand words into the story, I switched gears. This short story is part of a connected universe of short stories and novellas. My mind slipped into novella mode, which brings in too much story, too much plot, and way too much talking. Nothing kills short story erotica like characters yakking away when they should be, to put it politely, fucking their brains out.

Oh, how I hate to delete several thousand words. There are writers who tell you to save it, to squirrel away that bit and maybe use it later, but to me, every word has to flow organically through the characters, and trying to force a scene to match up to words written for another situation and other characters doesn't work. So I just erase it. Several days of work, obliterated.

But I was back on the right track. How can I be so sure, considering that I was fooled before? Everything fell into place. It wasn't the sex scene I expected, but it was the right one. And best of all, it effortlessly flowed to the ending sentence I'd hoped for but refused to force. That's how I know.

Greg Herren on Oh Get a grip Today

2010-03-27T07:30:00.001-07:00

Greg Herren is the guest blogger on Oh Get a Grip today.

It was my week to pick the theme. I chose Writing WHERE You Know. Writers are often admonished to write what they know (a mistake, I believe) but nothing infuriates a local more than reading a story where the writer got their hometown all wrong. Greg has seen a lot of that. He lives in New Orleans, and many of his stories are set there. His off-the-record tales of editors who tried to "correct" his localisms are as frustrating as they are funny. But writers who don't bother to do their research and get NOLA wrong drive him nuts.

I can understand that. I'm not a native of Los Angeles, but I love my city. So many times I see this casual disdain for LA in stories by people who don't have a clue about the real thing, so they attack the stereotypical LA. The problem with that - aside from ignorance and sloppy writing - is that the LA they're attacking doesn't really exist. Not that LA lacks real problems. So write about those. And fer chrissakes, stop using reality TV and Melrose Place as primary research tools.

Let's See How This Works

2010-03-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

The dreaded synopsis.

I write book reviews which often include a synopsis. I have no problem writing them for other books. So why can't I seem to write a synopsis for my work? I have no idea.

I'm trying a new approach. As I edited my latest MS, I stapled the chapters and wrote a one line summary of that chapter on the first page. Theoretically, if I string those together, they should form the bones of synopsis. (My last chapter summary is "J&E finally get it on.") It's pure action though. No character detail. So it has to be fleshed out. But I'll report back to you if this helps me write a coherent synopsis.

Coming Together Against the Odds

2010-03-10T06:53:00.001-08:00

Forgot to mention that Coming Together Against the Odds won the EPIC Award for Best Erotica anthology.

Mixed feelings. This line of anthologies for a cause (all proceeds for Against the Odds went to Autism Speaks) is a great idea.

But...

BEGIN RANT

I'm so over EPIC. Getting southern here for a moment, but Bless Their Hearts, the membership consists mostly of romance writers, and they make sure the other genres know it. The obsession with RWA on the EPIC lists is annoying as hell to those of us who don't write romance and aren't desperate for RWA's attention/recognition. Plus there's one very dominant queen bee member. I delete her many daily emails (she's an expert on every subject that comes up, so she has to reply to everything) unread and cringe whenever I see her name. Plus I'm irritated that they use the contest fees to pay for their conference. That's just wrong. No one should have to contribute another writer's vacation because the poor dear couldn't afford it otherwise. This is probably my last year dealing with them. I've lost my patience.

END RANT

On the other hand - Saints and Sinners is only a couple months away!

Some Things

2010-03-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a novel, so my blogging suffers.

New post up on Oh Get A Grip.

A nice mention of my story in Best of Best Women's Erotica 2.

I'll try to get back on schedule soon.

My First Post at Oh Get A Grip

2010-03-02T18:50:00.001-08:00

Read it here.

Oh Get A Grip

2010-02-24T18:59:00.000-08:00

Next week, I join the staff of Oh Get A Grip. The staff is Lisabet Sarai, Devon Rhodes, Michelle Houston, C. Sanchez-Garcia, and Ashley Lister, with a guest blogger every Saturday. Lisabet and Ashley are fellow reviewers of literary erotica on Erotica Revealed.

Helen Madden (Cynical Woman) is leaving OGG, unfortunately. I've known Helen for years. She's a wonderful person, a bundle of energy, and a fantastic writer. She is active in the Erotica Readers and Writers Association's Storytime critique list, does a weekly podcast of her original stories, draws a comic strip, and writes too. Amazing. I hate the euphemism "leaving to seek other opportunities," because that's corporate speak for fired. Helen definitely wasn't fired. But she's got so much going on that the weekly commitment got to be too much, and she wants to be free to, yes, pursue other opportunities. Hopefully this means she'll have more time to write. I'm a fan as well as a friend.

Helen had Friday, but people are shuffling days, so I'll be posting on Tuesdays.

If you would like to see any topics covered, let me know, as I'm supposed to help come up with ideas as well as writing my weekly article. Stop by and see what everyone is talking about on Oh Get a Grip.

Best of Best Women's Erotica

2010-02-13T16:32:00.001-08:00

My story Chill is in The Best of Best Women's Erotica. Most of the reviews on Amazon are from 2007, which is a bit odd, but Amazon rarely makes sense.It isn't listed on Barnes and Nobles yet. (But I'm in the previous Best of Best too, and it's on B&N.)

You're Stuck at Home and Bored Out of Your Skull

2010-02-10T11:21:00.000-08:00

Daytime TV sucks, you're sick of the inside of your house, and you really didn't want to have mini raviolis for lunch.

Have you been to Erotica_Readers.Com? Taken a gander lately at Publish and Be Damned? Oh Get a Grip? Joe.My.God? Glitter For Brains? Lambda Literary? Checked out The Animal Art of Sarah Higdon? Read a Craigs List forum? Checked the live webcam for London? Watched Torchwood or Bring Human on Hulu?

Or you could read a book.

Peering Over the Ghetto Walls

2010-01-30T14:22:00.000-08:00

Once a year or so, I think about the state of erotica. With erotic romance* steaming along in popularity, literary erotica** writers seem to be horrified, angry, resigned, or try to ignore it, but the ramifications affect us.

Publishers that used to put out literary erotica are asking for erotic romance. Given that romance is around fifty percent of the books sold, and probably a much higher percentage of the ebooks sold***, we can't blame publishers for going where the money is. Publishing has enough problems (most self-inflicted, but that's another subject). Some traditional publishers of literary erotica have folded (Blacklace, for example, in one of the sterling moments of publishing stupidity - see "self-inflicted fatal wounds").

But all of this consternation leaves out some important finger pointing back at the literary erotica community.

Listen - it's lovely to sit around with your friends and moan about how the world doesn't understand you. If your aim is to write as a hobby, then more power to you, and don't worry about the rest of this rant. But if you want to be published, stand on your tiptoes and look over the ghetto wall. What ghetto? the insular world of erotic writing.

We've insisted for so long that no one loves us or takes us seriously that we ignored a few important publishing trends. We don't pursue agents or major publishers. Sure, agents say they don't handle erotica, and just five years ago admitting that you wrote erotica was writing-career suicide, but that ignores the fact that a lot of what's being published as literary fiction lately is erotic. Either those writers slipped out of our ghetto, or while we're facing the city gates, they're plundering through the gaping hole in the wall behind us.

Yes, yes, yes, we're all very proud that we write erotica, but what's in a name? Shelf space in a damn bookstore, that's what. Not your dignity. Genre is an artificial construct for marketing purposes, so why not tell an agent that your novel is literary fiction? Keep muttering to yourself that it's really erotica. Go commensurate with your fellow writers about how you had to sell out to sell your book. But at least take a walk outside the ghetto walls and take a hard look at today's publishing world. The view is very different from the outside.

* My definition of erotic romance is a story written in the genre style of romance.

** My definition of literary erotica is a story written in the genre style of literary fiction (and yes, that is a genre, no matter what anyone tries to tell you)

*** With the powers that be of romance sneering down at sex scenes, the romance writers who *gasp* knew that women liked sex, turned to the publishers who welcomed them - epublishers. Now the traditional publishers have seen the folly of their uptight ways and have launched lines that are more inclusive, but epublishing got there first, created the fan base, and gave the readers what they wanted, an almost unheard of approach in publishing. (more "self-inflicted problems")

Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 9

2010-01-12T17:27:00.001-08:00

I just got my contributor copies of Mammoth Book of Best new Erotica 9 in the mail today. It's so nice when a publisher fulfills the terms of their contract, isn't it? *coughCLEIScough*

If you're thinking of writing erotica, this is a good place to see where people are being published as all the stories in Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica were culled form other sources. Most anthologies are built around a theme. You can get burned out after the tenth balloon vampire BDSM tale, but this one shows the range of work out there. If one story doesn't do it for you, the next one might. As always, I'm thrilled to be in such great company. Remittance Girl, Maxim Jakubowski, DL King, Alison Tyler, Jeremy Edwards, Shanna Germain, Donna George Storey, Mike Kimera.... Good company indeed.

Skirt Up, Knickers Down

2009-12-29T20:09:00.000-08:00

Must write a story for DL King's Spank anthology, due January 15th. (scroll down to find the call for submissions) Must fill my thoughts with pert bottoms and reasons for applying a sound spanking. Or just say WTF the don't worry about a deeper story. Just yank a young lady over someone's lap and make her wail. The squirm. And prove she really loves it.

If only.

I suck at writing male Dom/ female sub because nothing about it turns me on. It flatlines my libido. Maybe I've met too many male "Doms." *bites tongue, hard, to stop from going off on a rant*

Kink is hardly a place to try to apply logic, and I'm definitely in the YKIOK camp (Your kink is okay), but if the story doesn't turn me on at some level, I'm doubtful that I can deliver that certain little unidentifiable moment that pushes readers' buttons. So even though I joke about bluffing my way through it, I'm going to have to dig deeper and find something to love (or lust after) before I can write a story. Otherwise, I'll get bored and never finish.

*rummages through brain attic for some scenario that might hold a spark of interest*

*finds dust motes floating through sunbeams infinitely more fascinating*

This is going to be a long two weeks.

The Rewrite

2009-12-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

Someone once said (paraphrased) Even F Scoot Fitzgerald wasn't F Scott Fitzgerald until the rewrite.

I used to hate the idea of rewrites. Everything coming off my fingers the first time was fresh and real and blah,blah,blah - more artsy-fartsy diva ego tripping. Now I know better. Learning to embrace a sucky first draft allowed me to finish the first draft. Learning to embrace the rewrite is what made my work readable.

On a short story, it isn't so bad, but I'm doing a major rewrite on a novel. New chapters, redefined character, huge passages lopped off, and the hardest part, moving stuff around. It's a lot of work. I have to be aware of where I am in the new version timeline versus where passages were in the old timeline. Old and new have to blend. I don't sew, but I feel it's like taking apart a quilt and reconfiguring the patchwork into a different, but related, pattern.

Since there are new passages, it's almost like going back to the first draft. I'm going to have to read it through and rewrite this version when I'm done. At least that will only be polishing runs. I hope. If I have to do this again, I'm going to start typing from scratch.

Who, Me?

2009-11-22T17:41:00.000-08:00

I went to D. Travers Scott's reading at Skylight books Friday night. Finally got to meet Matty Lee (35 Cents), and Tony Valenzuela from Lambda Literary, plus a few other people from the LA queer literati. AS they were started the reading, the guy from Skylight introduced writers in the audience, which was cool, but I was shocked when he said my name. All I can figure was that he asked Trebor Healey to point out people ahead of time, and Trebor generously added me to the list.

Afterward, Matty, Trebor and a writer I was just introduced to but can't remember his name (always have business cards on you is the lesson here) walked down the street to the Dresden Room for cocktails. Dresden room could be straight out of Mad Men. There was a jazz combo, and it was good, but it made conversation tricky. Several times we held a thought until a song ended, rushed out the words, and hoped to get a reply before the next song started. Every time we go there for drinks, I feel as if I've finally managed to sneak into one of those forbidden magical grown-up places. And I always regret not having dressed up a bit more. I may get flustered being recognized as a writer, but sipping my vodka on the rocks in a so-retro-its-chic hipster hangout, I almost felt sophisticated.

Some great reviews of Sweetest Kiss!

2009-11-17T07:42:00.000-08:00

Here and here

I've Had Better Ideas

2009-11-09T20:26:00.000-08:00

At the time, the espresso seemed like a good idea, but by 1AM, sleep was still impossible. One bad idea doesn't necessarily lead to another though. I used the time to think about a science fiction story I wrote for an anthology. It was rejected, but they asked me to think about turning it into a novella. And thought about it, I did. What else was I going to do in the middle of the night?

As I was reading a few writer's blogs today, it seemed that everyone was lamenting unfinished novels. I know how it is. You're so excited about an idea, and the first couple chapters just flow. Then nothing. You lose faith. You fall out of love with your idea. You set it aside and go on to a better idea. And then there you are again, with 40,000 words down, and that novel isn't working either.

The first year I went to Saints and Sinners literary conference, I sat in on a great class led by Jim Grimsley called "The Murk in the Middle of the Novel." Jim talked about how we lose our way in the middle of a story. Novels, he said, were too big to hold in our imagination in one big piece, so we deal with parts. The problem comes when you're over the first part, where characters needed to be fleshed out, the scene set, and the plot put into motion. That's an exciting time. Then we get past that part and can't figure out where to go from there.

Walking away from a novel when you're not sure where to go next isn't always a mistake. Sometimes, we need some distance to be able to see the picture clearly again. While in the National Gallery years ago, I got to the point where I was numb to the art, so I stopped paying attention. I remember thinking that one of the paintings I passed was an ungodly mess. Wanting to get the visit over with, I moved on the next gallery, but my group lagged behind, so I went back to see what was keeping them. And oh my god. That ungodly mess across the gallery was Monet's Waterloo Bridge at Sunset. It was suddenly clear, and nuanced, and beautiful. But only from a distance. Up close, it still looked like swipes of mud.

If I hadn't retraced my steps, I never would have known what I missed. The same holds true for a novel that's stuck in the murk. The problem might not be where you left it, but a chapter or so further back where you took the wrong path. To figure out where you went wrong, you have to know what's right, which means having some destination in mind. Figure out where the story will end - an approximate idea will be enough - and backtrack until you understand where you went wrong.

From that point, you're going to have to be merciless to avoid getting dragged back down into the murk. Jim said every sentence has to have forward momentum. That's advice I always keep in mind throughout the novel, but mostly in the middle. Constant forward motion isn't enough though. Stop focusing on minute brush strokes and take a look at the whole story from enough distance that you can see the whole thing in your mind at the same time. It may not be the ungodly mess you think it is.

SPANK! A call for submissions

2009-11-07T22:02:00.000-08:00

D.L. King is a dear friend. I'm reposting her call for submissions:

Spank!
Edited by D. L. King
To be published by Logical Lust late summer or early fall 2010
Deadline: January 15, 2010
Payment: $25 and a copy of the book in available electronic formats, plus a copy of the print edition, if the book does well enough to go into print.

D. L. King is looking for hot spanking stories.

Sometimes all you need to get hot and bothered is a good bottom warming... Whether getting or giving is your passion, this book is designed to create the same blush on your face as the one found on your bottom after a few good, hard whacks.

What makes for a sexy spanking story? Short, plaid, Catholic schoolgirl skirts? Bent at the waist, a bare bottom with the boxers and pants down around his knees? A stern schoolmarm, or head master, standing in front of a blackboard, holding a rattan cane? A dungeon wall covered with all sorts of paddles, floggers and canes? A scolding? A punishment? A pert bottom settling over charcoal gabardine trousers? A ritualized display of dominance? The crack of a hand coming down on already heated flesh? Send me something guaranteed to make naughty girls and bad boys, the world over, squirm in their seats when they read this book!

I envision this anthology as being primarily heterosexual, but I’ll happily consider GLBT stories, as well. Remember, no underage characters, please. Stories should be between 2,500 and 5,000 words, double-spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman or Courier New. Please indent the first line of each paragraph one-half inch and do not include extra lines between paragraphs. Please make sure your document contains no other pre-set formatting.

Send your story as a .doc (not .docx) attachment and include the title, pseudonym (if applicable) and your legal name and mailing address to spankantho@gmail.com. (If you are unable to send a Word attachment, I will accept an RTF.) Subject line should read: Submission: TITLE. Please include, as a second attachment, a 50 to 75-word bio, along with ways you might help promote the book should your story be accepted for publication. Direct any questions to the same address. Original stories only. You must own all rights to any reprints.

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-01T09:11:00.000-08:00

Today, a hush fell over the writing world as many writers plunged into writing bootcamp. It's NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. People register somewhere (I've never bothered to look up the specifics) and on November 1st, plunge into a writing frenzy. The goal, I suppose, is a finished first draft of a novel or about 50,000 words (which isn't a complete novel).

I know that some writers post their daily work to livejournal, and I assume it's done other places. Again, I haven't cared enough to check it out. They read the work of other writers (if they have time), cheer on progress, and lament their low daily word counts. As the month wears on, many drop out. Few finish. What's the point? Bragging rights, comradeship in an otherwise solitary pursuit, and rarely something that can be polished into a submittable novel.

Is this lunacy? It may sound like it, but there are many reasons to do it. The main reason people drop out is that it's hard to write every day, and you almost have to to meet the word count. But for as long as they are participating, they're developing the habit of sitting down to write every day. Butt in seat is the only cure for writer's block.

Can a person write a good novel in a month? People who have done this before hit the ground running. They don't open a word document on November first and wonder what they're going to write. They've outlined, formally or informally, their plot. They know their characters. Technically, this is all writing, but for NaNoWriMo purposes, only typing words counts, so it's not cheating. I think if you have a background in journalism, you're much more likely to write a high quality first draft. But quality isn't the point here. Quantity is. For writers who sabotage their efforts by insisting on a perfect first draft, NoNoWriMo may be hellish, but it may also teach them to embrace the concept of the sucky first draft. So good is a tricky concept here. Can you write a well-edited novel with no continuity problems in a month? Probably not. But you might just be able to toss down something you can work with later - a good first draft (which may also be a sucky first draft). The point here is to cross the finish line. Many people start novels. Few finish them.

Even though I think it's a good idea, I don't see ever participating in NaNoWriMo. It's tempting. Discussion on all the writer's lists I follow drop away, or center on NaNoWriMo progress. I feel sometimes as if I'm missing out on a rite of passage. But thirty days from now it will all be over, and the writing world will be back to normal. Until then, if you're participating, good luck. Have fun.

Ryan, April, Shy, and all Washington State Residents

2009-10-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

I'm talking directly to you. This is important. Please vote Yes on Referendum 71.

This is why.

It's easier to do nothing than to do what's right, but every vote counts. Your vote matters. Your voice matters. If you don't vote yes, you're saying what these people did, and hundreds of people do every day to gay couples, is okay.

Erotica Fail

2009-10-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

I read a lot of erotica. Sometimes, it's wonderful. Occasionally, it's dull. And then there's the truly dreadful stuff. TDS makes me grumpy, and since I'm suffering through an anthology full of it, I'm going to vent.

People write erotica for many reasons. Many write their personal fantasies. Those stories have a sense of urgency and raw lust that I love. But if you're writing for publication, please follow a few simple rules.

1) Read a lot of erotica. That way, you'll be aware of the cliched plots. The one that's driving me nuts right now is the old "man/woman picks up a stranger for hot sex, but in the end, the stranger ends up being his/her wife/husband" plot. It's not a clever twist. It's stupid. Worse, it's unoriginal stupid.

2) Misogyny isn't sexy. That includes women writers hating on other women. Quit showing women as gossiping, jealous, hateful biddies. It does nothing for your story, and it doesn't make your character fascinating by comparison.

3) Dudes - women generally do not get turned on by feeling up their own breasts. Women do that in porn because their hands are standing in for the viewer's hands. In real life, women do not go around groping themselves. It's not the same feeling as stroking your cock.

4) About 50% of the population in erotica have flashing emerald eyes. In real life, no one does. Knock it the fuck off.

5) Have you ever worn stockings for a romantic evening out on the town? There's a reason pantyhose were invented. About the time the salad is served at that dimly lit romantic restaurant, the garter is digging into the back of your thigh. The reason you're squirming through the main course isn't because of your wet panties or his fascinating discussion. It's because you're trying to figure out how to move the garter without hiking up your skirt to your waist. After you go powder your nose, AKA go to the bathroom and move the damn garters (when you also realize that the bulk of the garter belt below your waist makes you look like you added ten pounds of belly weight), you realize that the pressure mark from the garter feels as if your skin has been sliced open. Then you go back to the table and sit down, which is like rubbing salt into that cut from the garter. Sexy? Not exactly. God help you if you're headed to the theater after dinner. No wonder women in stockings peel off their clothes so quickly.

6) If you're writing a fetish piece, then please, lovingly describe the piece of clothing that inspires the fetish, but spend more time talking about how the character reacts to it. Otherwise, the full back story about how she went shopping with her bff and bought the sexy little dress and push up bra that cost too much and really she shouldn't have, but she has no spine and her bff dared her to so she couldn't say no has no place in your story. So give us all a break and back off the fashion report. It's how your character feels that's important, not the color of the panties.

7) If you have to tell readers that your character is sexy, you haven't written a sexy character.

8) Does you character have amnesia? No? Then why the hell does she have to spend two paragraphs in front of a mirror describing what she sees to herself? Doesn't she know she has flashing emerald eyes? Does she need to remind herself? Does she need to verify it by looking in a mirror? "Why yes, I do indeed have flashing emerald eyes." No doubt she's going to spend a third paragraph describing that push up bra her bff made her buy. I'll be skimming by that point, as will many of your readers. Soon, I will fling the book.

9) No real live human being says, "I feel vulnerable." Few even think those words.

10) Anyone who lets a complete stranger tie them up without telling friends where they're going - at a minimum, a chaperon is better - is an idiot and deserves to be featured on the ten o'clock news after the police find the body.

I feel so much better having ranted. Now on to the second story...

The Flesh is Willing, But the Bank Account is Weak

2009-10-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

I missed Gaylaxicon this weekend. I've wanted to go for several years, but simply can't afford the time off, or the hotel bills. I'd also love to go WisCon, and LitQuake (which was also this weekend), YaoiCon, ComicCon, and several others.

The problem with science fiction cons is that I'm a bit intimidated by the hardcore fans out there who can recite chapter and verse from Farscape universe and Alan Moore graphic novels. I've never been able to immerse myself in anything to that point. There are millions of fascinating worlds. I'd rather gaze at a thousand of them through a telescope than at a drop of water from one world through a microscope. Or you could say that while I recognize fandom as a social construct, I've passed by too many drunk boys wearing fetish offworld military gear in hotel hallways having heart-to-heart talks at three in the morning to find it enchanting. Plus, I truly hate that horrified gasp when I admit that I haven't read any of James Tiptree's short stories. Or know the name of the planet Ripley was on in Aliens 3. Or are familiar with the other works by the director of Ghost in the Shell. But I'll admit I truly enjoyed the Klingon wedding I attended. Didn't understand a word of it (being the only person in the room not fluent in Klingon), but still had a blast. (Word of advice: Blood Ale stains your gums for a couple days, so sip at the toasts, don't guzzle.)

I'm in search of an Erotica writers conference though. I've worked with several groups interest in starting one, but no one has been able to mesh visions enough to get one going. If you've heard of one, let me know. For that, I'll make the bank account submit to my will.

I've Been Bad

2009-09-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

I meant to post something last weekend, but I have a great excuse. I was writing. (Yay!) Vampires (boo!) again (sigh)

I may be the only person in the world who truly doesn't get the whole vampire thing. Considering how easy it is to turn my mind to naughty thoughts, you'd think I'd find something to like about them. There's the whole savage beast thing, the angst, and of course, the costumes! Even without finding them sexy, you'd think my intellectual side would get into the whole vampire as a metaphor for just about everything, with a soupcon of Freudian analysis. But no.

So of course, after I rewrote a vampire short, and produced a new one for an anthology, I was ready to take a break from the bloodsuckers for a while and write something that got my pulse fluttering. But then I was blindsided by a vampire novella that sprung fully formed from my skull like Athena, only with fangs.

I knocked out over 20,000 words last weekend. That's unprecedented output for me. I'm usually a slow writer.

So if I hate vampires, why do I write them? You're so cute. But I'll tell you a horrible truth: if you want to eventually become a professional writer, you have to write what sells. Vampires sell. So I blame the public. And I hope to god their fascination switches to something else soon. Just, you know, please no fairies. I may be a writer whore, but I have limits.

Let It Be

2009-08-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

At lunch with writer Michael Thomas Ford last weekend, he mentioned that as soon as he typed the last word on his gay romance titles, he sent them off to his publisher. That struck me as terrifying. I couldn't do that. There are some huge differences between Mike and me though, the biggest being that he's a professional writer. He probably emerges from a story with a clean draft. He must edit as he goes. Plus he's probably a better typist than I am.

I have to step away from a story for a while and come back to it. For most writers, this is a good idea. You can never have fresh eyes when reading your work, but the more time you spend away from it, the better the chances are that you'll see what you actually wrote and not what you meant to say. For writers like me who make their words pull double duty with layered meaning, distance is even more important.

As tempting as it is to jump in, polish, and send that story out, my advice is to let it be. Move on to something else. Read a good book. After a couple weeks, if you can spare the time, print it out (I don't know why stories read different on paper than they do on a computer screen, but they do.) and look at it with a critical eye.

My biggest faults are language and redundant sentences. I tend to write the way I talk, which can come off as stilted on the page. So I simplify the language the way I would for a business letter. Not terse, just clear. Fewer words, shorter words. I also have to trust the reader's intelligence, so any sentences that bluntly tell what I've already shown have to be cut.

It's not that I'm good at waiting. Recently, I sent out a terrible copy to beta readers because I craved feedback. Luckily, neither one got to it before I made major changes, so they got the new copy and (hopefully) will get back to me soon with their opinions. There's a lesson in that. Let it be. Let it go. Give it time - unless you're Mike and have the skills to do it right the first time.

In The Beginning

2009-08-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

So - you have a great idea for a story. Even if you haven't outlined it (you don't have to), you probably have a sense of your characters and some of the plot in mind (however sketchy that might be, and that's okay too), but where to begin?

The Mad Hatter tells Alice to begin at the beginning, and when you get to the end, stop. On the surface that's sound advice, but what is the beginning? No person (character) springs to life full grown, but unless the story is about how this person came to be who s/he is, then skip the biography.

Other advice you'll often hear is to start in the middle of action. That also seems sensible, but...

Here's starting in the middle of action:

A woman walks to a door, and as she's getting keys out of her purse, a car comes tearing around a corner and there are gunshots. Okay. Who is she, was she hit, and why did someone shoot at her? That's a hook and a half. It presents mysteries, and the reader has to keep turning pages to find the answers. The problem is - Why should the reader care? It's not as if the character has been developed yet. If you're a really good writer, you can evoke a lot with that scene. You can make it horror, noir, maybe even comedy. Instead of character, you'll be setting the tone and scene up front. But very soon, you're going to have to give the reader a reason to care about the woman, which means interrupting the action and going back to character development. I've seen it done well, but I've also lost interest in books that opened like this and then got bogged down in backstory. So be wary of starting with pure action.

In Gone With The Wind, a great deal of the story is how Scarlet deals with the loss of her expected world and adapts to the new one, comparing her survivor nature with others around her (Melanie and Ashley) who can't/don't adapt. The agent of change in that story is the American Civil War. But the story wisely doesn't begin with the war. It gives the reader a little taste of Scarlet's pre-war environment so that the reader understands where she's coming from. Right away, there are rumors of war, and she angrily dismisses them, but soon it's clear that ignoring it won't make it go away. The real action begins with a rider galloping up to the party and breathlessly announcing that the war has begun.

When you think about it, most stories are about how a character handles upheaval in his/her life. So it's fine to start a little before the action. However, if you're going to have that long of a lead in to the action, you better make it worth the reader's time. Gone With the Wind works because Scarlet is such a compelling character that you're willing to follow her around a bit. And you better foreshadow what's coming.

Please don't foreshadow by saying something along the lines of "Little did Scarlet know that the ball at Ashley's plantation would be the end of life as she knew it." Mitchell skillfully handled it by having Scarlet's suitors bring it up when she expects them to be fawning over her. The reader knows it's going to ruin more than an afternoon of pleasant gossip and that she won't be able to ignore the war by resolving to think about it tomorrow. That little taste is enough at that point. And the way Scarlet reacts to it tells us something important about her character, because that's the way she'll continue to react to the war.

Gone With The Wind begins very close in time to a life-changing event for Scarlet. That's where I'd suggest you open your tale. I'm no Mad Hatter, but I say:
Show a little of the world before the action, a lot of how the conflict affects your main character, and when you get to the part where the conflict is resolved and your character has been changed in some way, stop.

Damn ISP

2009-08-16T20:48:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to fire Earthlink as my ISP. I had a long entry ready to go, and as I was posting it, Earthlink crashed - again. Like it always does. Total crap service. The worst part - they know it, and pretend to be surprised every time we call and tell them it's crashed yet again. Worse, they act as if rebooting will fix everything, as if we haven't tried that a bazillion times. Morons.

Anyway, now it's late and I have no energy left to rewrite the post.

Back

2009-08-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

One of the worst parts about vacation is the work that piles up while you're gone.

One of the best parts is lovely packages awaiting your return. Such as:

My story Words Like Candy Conversation Hearts appears in this anthology. I was flattered to be included, and amazed at the fast turn-around. POD rocks.

I also saw some great reviews of Where the Girls Are (here, and here), and Broadly Bound.

Two Weeks, No Computers

2009-07-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

Maybe some computer access, but I think it'll be good for me to step away from the internet for a while. Or I'll go into withdrawals and it'll be ugly. I have my tiny netbook, which has a great keyboard, so at least I can write if the mood strikes.

Hunting the Elusive Call for Submissions

2009-07-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

Most of this info is aimed at the erotica short story market, but I know a few other places to look.

The most comprehensive list of calls for submissions for erotica anthologies (and info on publishers) is on ERWA, the Erotica Readers & Writer's Association website. Without going into the whys - which I don't know and don't care to know, so please don't fill me in if you're hooked into the gossip - the notable exception is that Logical Lust's calls for submission aren't posted on ERWA, so you have to go to their site to find out what Logical Lust is looking for.

Please read books produced by any editor or publisher before you submit to them. Know the difference between literary erotica and romantic erotica. Don't waste your time or an editor's time be submitting the wrong style of story. You may think I say this too much, but I talk to editors, and you wouldn't believe how many writers can't seem to understand this basic idea. Those writers, of course, end up in the rejection pile. Since so many writers seem to suffer terribly over rejection letters, save yourself the emotional pain and only submit your work where it belongs. Really. No one will make an exception for you. This is tough love, but I've lost my patience for neurotic writers and their diva moments.

And speaking of tough love - if you're looking for other markets (other publishers in other genres), get out your Google fingers and search for Duotrope's Digest (play nice and make a contribution to them) or for the Gila Queen's guide to markets. Or just search for calls for submission. Really. If you don't have enough spunk, so to speak, to do a damn Google search, then you don't deserve to be published - ever. M'kay?

Calls for Submission

2009-07-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd continue my hints for new writers series until I leave for vacation. While I've talked about how to behave after you submit, I haven't discussed calls for submissions. As my writing credits under this pen name are in erotica, most of this information will be pitched at erotica writers. However, we all like to stretch out from time to time (thus my other pen names), and all of this is applicable to other markets.

A call for submissions is a public notification that an editor is seeking stories. Normally, these are for anthologies of short stories based around a theme. In the call, an editor who knows what s/he is doing will include vital information such as the type of stories s/he is looking for, length, the pay, rights, publisher, contact information, and guidelines about format and story content. Don't skim any of this. Take it all as gospel. Repeat this mantra: I am not a precious snowflake, and no one will make exceptions for me.

Type of story: paranormal romance, travel erotica about exotic locations, vampire sex, etc. Even though this seems fairly clear, you'd be amazed at what people will submit. If you're not exactly clear what paranormal romance means, politely (always politely) ask. Since you're on at least one writer's list (you are, aren't you?) ask there before you bug the editor. If your story sort of is, sort of isn't, then ask the editor.

Length: always expressed as a word count. Publishers like books to run a certain number of pages, and they have a good idea how many words will fit on those pages. Print anthologies usually run from 18 to 22 stories, and the total word count has to be allocated between them. If your story if running a bit short, but you can't think of anything to add without obviously padding your word count, ask the editor if a bit shorter is okay before you send it. The same holds true if you run long. But please - if the editor says 3,000 to 5,000 words, don't submit your 12,000 word novella. Don't even ask. Find another anthology that wants novellas (such as an epublisher)

Pay: Not negotiable. Yes, it's a pittance. Yes, your editor wishes s/he could pay you more. But it's not in his/her hands, so leave him/her alone. If it isn't enough money, don't submit.

Rights: Never, never, never give anyone all rights forever unless they pay you over $300 for your short story, and even then, think twice. Rights are an entire blog entry unto themselves.

Publisher: Look up the publisher on Predators and Editors. Try to talk to writers who have been published by them before. Just because you recognize a publisher's name doesn't mean you'd want to work with them.

Format: If the editor says "Mail me a hard copy with one inch margins, in Times New Roman 12 font only," you have a choice - do exactly as s/he asks, or don't submit. Don't argue about it. Just don't.

Content: If an editor says "Please do NOT submit a story about a dumpy guy picking up a hottie in a bar, but SURPRISE! she turns out to be his wife," then don't. Even if the editor doesn't say that, don't do it. This isn't in the guidelines, but damn it, if you write a genre, you should read it. (People who write erotica but sniff disdainfully at reading it mystify me. Okay, not mystify. They strike me as stupid.) And if you read your genre, you already recognize hack crap plot #3b when you see it. For the love of all that's hot and sweaty, don't write more of it. But back to the editor - if s/he states that s/he wants to see a twist on the old vampire myths, don't rewrite Dracula or Interview With the Vampire. If s/he asks for noir, find out what noir means. If s/he wants happy endings only *sigh* then don't submit anything too deep or challenging.

I rarely see calls for submission for novels. If you're looking to submit a novel, follow my previous post about finding a publisher. Once you're found that dream publisher, find out if they are currently open for submissions, and if you need an agent. Go to their website (no website? Yikes! In this day and age? Are they going to publish you on stone tablets?) to find that information (if it isn't on their website, you probably need an agent to submit to them). As with anthologies, take every word as gospel.

Next entry - finding calls for submissions.

Small Press versus Big Houses

2009-07-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

This isn't a subject that I can speak from personal experience, as most of my publishers would be classified as small press, but I've heard plenty from authors published by the big NY publishing houses - usually after the 3rd martini - to at least pass on the gist of the differences.

Small presses tend to be started by people with a passion for books. Once upon a time, all big houses were small houses, but the giant media conglomerates that buy them are a bit like slake moths (read Perdido Street Station to get that reference) that leave them alive, but soul dead.

Small presses are usually run by very small staffs, so the decision makers are accessible.

Because the owners have a passion for books, small presses tend to take risks on books that slipstream (fit more than one genre description, one of them usually being science fiction) or that appeal to a smaller audience. Most GLBT focused publishers fall into this category. Many small presses also take risks on newer writers. Many are willing to publish books that have long tails rather than selling most copies in the first six weeks following release.

Most e-publishers will publish a wide spectrum of lengths from individual short stories to long novels. They will keep your book up for sale for as long as your contract states they have it, so e-published works tend to have an extremely long tail. (One of my short stories was on a best-seller's list for almost two years.)

However, small presses have small budgets. They have difficulty getting their books on bookstore shelves. They tend to have little promotion budget (not that the big houses spend anything on promotion these days) And advances tend to be smaller or non-existent (advances are disappearing from the big houses too). I don't know of any e-publishers that pay advances. (let me know if one does)

You can't submit directly to most big houses. You'll have to get an agent who will submit your work. (That subject is worthy of a post of it's own). Big houses want product. They want a book they can slap on the front table at a mega bookstore that has wide appeal and that will sell well in six weeks. If you write best-seller material, they are definitely your best best as they will pay you the most up front and get the wide distribution necessary to drive sales. They will give you exposure in bookstores and on online booksellers (who wouldn't dare accidentally on purpose disappear your NY published book or delete your bio if it included words like gay or queer). The quality of editing in NY has been slipping - they probably laid off the staff - but it's still some of the best work out there (horrifying thought).

The problem - okay, one of the many problems - with going to a big house is that they want writers who will give them the exact same book, only different, each time. They don't want you to experiment. Once you have your audience, your audience has you. It's possible to break out of a genre rut, but not easy. So if big sales are important to you, and you feel you can keep your work fresh and creative within a narrowly defined niche (it can be done), and your work has wide pop culture appeal, then go for it.

With the current dismal state of the publishing industry, it's hard to know where to go with your book. So let me pass on what I've heard from small press publishers: go ahead and try to find an agent and try to get your book published by a big house. Just make the effort. Ultimately, it might not be for you, but traditional NY publishers still have snob appeal, so while the benefits might be an illusion, it's at least worth a shot at the dream, right? After you've decided that route isn't going to work for you for whatever reason, then try to smaller presses.

My advice is this: Every writer has a different definition of success, and none of them are wrong. Figure out what suits your book and your personality, and take that route. You'll be much happier.

Your Dream Publisher

2009-07-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

As promised, let's talk dream publishers.

You may have a dream publisher in mind, but that isn't necessarily your best fit. All publishing houses have a personality. Some dominate a genre, some are known for a type of book within a genre, others are known for treating the writers they publish well - or not. How do you find out? Research.

#1 - Find a house that publishes your genre. As an extreme example, don't submit your puppy training book to a house that only publishes romance novels. Road trip! Go to your local independent bookstore and look for books like yours. What's that? No book is like yours? Yours is unique? Okay, how about this. Picture the perfect reader for your novel. What else are they reading? Who publishes it? Aha! There you go. But wait! There are nine publishers who fit that criteria? Or what if you've decided to go with an e-publisher? Time to follow steps 2 and 3. BTW - self-publishing may be your key to a good publishing experience. Many of these tips also apply.

#2 - Find books even more like yours. If you're writing science fiction horror, find who produces the dark, edgy stuff with a similar feel. At least you'll know that the editor likes it.

#3 - Find books you like the look and feel of. Check the cover art, the quality of the paper, and the binding. This seems a bit extreme, but you're not going to be happy if your book falls apart in a reader's hands. And since you'll have almost no say over the cover art (but you'll get blamed for it), if magna style twinks wit blue hair irk you, stay away from publishers who put out those kinds of covers.

#4 - With your narrowed list now in hand, check Predators and Editors online and get the scoop on the publisher. If you don't understand the issues disgruntled writers have raised, do more research and find out what it means.

#5 - If you're going with an e-publisher, check out their website to see how easy it is to buy one of their books. Does the site look professional? How long ago was it updated? Then go to Fictionwise and see if their books are listed for sale there, because most readers use Fictionwise for their e-shopping. Also check to see if the publisher has a social list where their writers post. Lurk for a while and get a feeling for the general tone. Lots of new writers? That may be a good sign, but check to make sure the writers who were working with them two years ago are still working with them. Writers who are e-published tend to be very accessible online, so don't be afraid to ask them (off-list) for their views on publishers. Many epublishers also do print books now also, but those print editions aren't always available in bookstores.

#6 - If you're going with a traditional print publisher, see how easy it is to find their books where you, and your readers, shop. Small, independent publishers have a harder time getting shelf space in bookstores, but their books are available at online bookstores. To submit to a big NY house, you may have to have an agent. Smaller presses tend to be more approachable and take bigger risks with experimental books. You're going to have to decide which is the best option for you. Unfortunately, there are so many factors involved that I can't cover it all in this post.

#7 - Join. Join writer's groups online, join writer's chats. Get out there and connect with people. The internet has been a huge boon to writers not just for the research aspects, but for the way it allows us to connect. Writing is a solitary pursuit, but it doesn't have to be isolating.

It took months to write your novel. Be patient and be be willing to invest a bit more time to make sure your book is submitted to your best fit publisher. Your ultimate goal is to be happily published - satisfied with the experience, content with the product, ready to do business with the same house.

Simultaneous Submissions

2009-07-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

This subject has come up a lot recently with several of my publishers, so I thought I'd give new writers a heads up.

Simultaneous submissions means that you submit (send) your story to more than one publisher at the same time.

Publishers hate this. If they invest the time to read your story and prepare to put it into their publication schedule or anthology, they don't like to find out later that you sold it somewhere else. they get grumpy about it, and probably won't bother to read anything else you submit to them. Ever.

Writers feel that they increase their chances of selling a piece, and selling it faster, if they submit to all potential markets at the same time. Some publishers are notoriously slow about responding, and some don't bother responding at all if they're not interested, which leaves the writer wondering for months on end if it's safe to send the story out to someone else. That's pure rudeness on the publisher's part, and the industry is rife with it.

So what is a writer to do?

You might be chomping at the bit to get your story published, but unless you write highly topical books, your words aren't going to go stale. So have some patience, and some class. Unless a call for submissions specifically states that simultaneous submissions are okay, assume they aren't. Send your story to your dream publisher* first. If they say they'll be back to you in four weeks, and it's been five, send a very respectful letter** asking if they received your submission and when you can expect to hear back from them. They will probably admit that they passed. At that point, send it to your second choice. If they don't respond to the polite note, assume rejection and move on. If they do suddenly say yes later, you covered your ass with the note and they don't have the right to get huffy about you sending out to a different publisher. I'd caution you against working with anyone who shows such poor communication skills though - especially someone in the media business.

So to recap - submit to only one publisher at a time, no matter how tempting it is to send to more than one. Simultaneous submissions = bad reputation.

* I'll talk about dream publishers in my next blog.
** respectful letters do not include demands, threats, diva attitude, or anything else that will warn a publisher that you're a nitwit who will be a pain in the ass to work with. Strangely enough, in most cases, diva attitude is in inverse relationship to talent.

More Thoughts On Black Lace

2009-07-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

So - the print erotica market has been abandoned by the last major publisher. On one hand, I'd like to believe that no publisher would be stupid enough to kill a profitable line, but on the other hand, we're talking about NY publishing houses. Look how quickly the Neon line imploded.

Where does an author of erotic literature submit hir/her/hir work now?

Most ebook publishers publish more erotic romance than literary erotica, so it seems as if that avenue isn't the best fit for the literary writer.

The only print erotica coming out now seems to be anthologies.

But...

I just finished reading Gordon Dahlquist's The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and The Dark Volume. Those books are saturated with sensuality I haven't seen in ages, probably since Interview With the Vampire. (Don't go off on an anti-Anne Rice rant. For a book that had no sex scenes in it, it still had you reading with wiggling fingers clamped between your moist thighs. Just admit it and move on.) Could it be that we're the ones who missed something? From Killing Johnny Fry:A Sexistential Novel (Walter Mosley) to SoMa (Kemble Scott) contemporary literature is infused with erotic content (some good and some oh so very bad). Even pop culture books are dabbling. True Blood, the Anita Blake series, several writers for Bantam's paranormal lines... to some degree, they're all sexing it up.

For all those writers from Black Lace who don't want to write romantic erotica or who aren't interested in e-publishing, let me toss out this idea. Try writing a literary or contemporary pop culture novel. Use your honed erotica skills to bring good sex writing to the reading public. Submit your work to publishers outside the erotica genre and see who bites. After all, they've invaded our playground. The least we can do is show them how the naughty kids do it.

Black Lace Books

2009-07-05T14:38:00.000-07:00

Current scuttlebutt in the erotica community is that Black Lace Books has stopped acquiring titles. As per the usual published MO, this announcement blindsided authors who have titles pending release. For companies that exist with spread communications, publishers truly suck at it. Or maybe they just lack common decency. Or perhaps they hold writers in more contempt than the rest of the world does.

If you aren't familiar with Black Lace, its premise the past 15 years has been erotica written by women for women. I never submitted anything to them, but I suppose they have some sort of panty check to make sure no icky boys slipped them otherwise perfectly acceptable books their readers might have enjoyed.

15 years ago, most erotica novels were what most people would call porn (while slightly wrinkling their nose) and were written for a male audience. (Women were welcome to write those). The Black Lace came along and supposedly changed all that. The covers were less obvious. They cleaned up the language. They changed to POV to a female character and added touches that weren't exactly the stuff of romance novels, but featured similarities.

Therein lies Black Lace's problem. 15 years ago, no one published stuff like that. Now, many e-publishers do. Even Harlequin has a line of racy novels. The competition is rough. Combine that with the notorious terms of their contracts (the major reason why I never bothered to submit anything to them), writers could find a better deal elsewhere.

While I feel for the writers who have no idea what this announcement means to them, I'm sure that they can find new publishers. It's not as if the entire genre suddenly disappeared. But as for Black Lace, I feel about them the same way I feel about most traditional publishing houses. That is - With willful blindness, they chose to become obsolete, and they've achieved that goal. Congratulations, I guess.

Where The Girls Are

2009-06-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

I received my contributor's copies of Where The Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica in the mail. The reading tour starts in August. I'll keep you posted you dates and places.

Mystery Solved

2009-06-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

The UPS dude brought a package on Wednesday - 5 contributor's copies of Zane's Caramel Flava II, and a check. So I guess I am in it. (Unenthusiastic whoo hoo)

Exciting news - Coming Together Against the Odds is being released in print.

And Broadly Bound will be out soon. (I don't have a buy link yet)

Plus - I'll be on the road for a reading for Where The Girls Are in August. Info posted as soon as I have it.

A Big Win!

2009-06-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

I just got an acceptance letter from Maxim Jakubowski for Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 9! This is always an honor. Remittance Girl and Thomas Roche also announced that their stories will be included. Tough competition. Maxim said he received over 450 submissions. The last time I made it in was 6, so I'm very happy.

Huh. What do you know.

2009-06-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

Well. Three years and zero answered emails later, Caramel Flava II is finally out. I have no idea if my story is in the final edition as the table of contents isn't available, and the publisher's site says nothing about contributors. No check. No contributor's copies in the mail. No communication. Oh, I have a signed contract, but pffft. I guess I'll have to traipse down to a bookstore and look through it to find out. As you can imagine, that's not high on my priority list.

Oh Get A Grip

2009-06-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

I'm a guest blogger over at Oh Get A Grip. This week's topic - writing characters outside your gender and sexuality.

Broadly Bound's First Review

2009-06-03T12:11:00.001-07:00

Jean Roberta from Erotica Revealed reviews Broadly Bound.

Jean says:
Kathleen Bradean’s “Opening Night” focuses on a pair of performance artists, the submissive femme Carrie, who tells the story, and the androgynous Zell, who demonstrates shibari (Japanese rope bondage) on Carrie, the model, for the crowd at Broad Horizons. ... Here the author explores the complex relationship between life and art, or reality and fantasy, as well as the social ambiguity of a relationship between a “lesbian” and a person who is not female-identified.

Beth Wylde, D.L. King, Syd McGinley, and Cassandra Gold have stories in this anthology as well. I understand Beth is working on the next Broadly Bound edition.

Broadly Bound will be available through Phaze next month. I'll post a link when it's released.

Haunted Hearths!

2009-06-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades (Lethe Press, ed. Catherine Lundoff) is nominated in the Best Speculative Fiction category for the Golden Crown Literary Awards!

Plus, my story, Words Like Candy Conversation Hearts was selected (along with the marvelous M. Christian and Melissa Scott) for the first annual Best Lesbian Fiction anthology from Bedazzled Ink. I know Catherine Lundoff submitted my story, so a big thank you to her.

I've Been Falling Behind

2009-05-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

It always takes me a while to recover from Saints and Sinners. This year was a huge networking year for me, so I've been chatting away with new and old friends. And I jumped right into a novel as soon as I got home. So I'm a bit behind, but here's the good news:

Coming Together Against The Odds is out! If you don't know about Alyssa Brio's Coming Together anthologies, they raise money for charities. Most of the proceeds from Coming Together Against The Odds will be donated to autism research. All writers and the editor donated their work to this worthy fundraiser. The EPPIE nominated Coming Together anthologies raise money for different charities, so check out the entire line.

Coming Together Against the Odds features erotic mysteries. My story is The Booty Call Caper, a wicked homage to my favorite 1940s madcap movies - The Thin Man series. Georgie and Jack are friends with benefits, only their benefits seem to always get interrupted by a mystery. Jack wants to investigate the scene of a possible crime; Georgie wants her booty call. The pair manages to satisfy both desires while on stakeout. Nick and Nora Charles were never this naughty.

Back From Saints and Sinners

2009-05-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

I had an amazing time, as usual, but always a different amazing time. D.L. King was a blast as a roommate. I loved seeing everyone. Met some new people I liked a lot. Schmoozed like crazy.

But

There's always a but, and this year it's a big one. I haven't been to the erotica panel in a couple years since it's always the same three people. But this year I figured what the hell then left thinking What The Hell?????

Did every person on that panel actually admit that they don't read erotica? Did one person go on to say they preferred to read "good writing" when they have time to read? Great. Erotica writers calling erotica worthless crap. I-- Fuck it. Never again.

This AM: I can't let this go.

In another panel, one of the "name" people at the conference was talking about his short story collection and how he wanted people to feel it was erotic, but not erotica, because he wanted it to be considered literature. He also left out his science fiction short stories for the same reason. I am so sick of this snobbery.

Thank god for Peter Dube' on the literature versus genre fiction panel. He was the one person who said genre and literary are arbitrary divisions that have no value. Good writing is good writing.

Off to Saints and Sinners

2009-05-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not leaving until Thursday morning, but I doubt I'll have time to make another entry before then.

I blog about Saints and Sinners, the GLBT literary festival held in New Orleans, all the time, so you're probably already aware of it. Still, if you're waffling about going, let me praise it once again.

There's something indescribable about being in a room full of other queer writers. It's comfortable, it's familiar, it's home. Through the years, I've made many friends there, so a lot of the fun is socializing with people I normally only get to talk to via email, facebook, and writer's lists. Plus I get to be fan girl.

The feature that sets Saints and Sinners apart from most writer's conferences is the focus. The first day of master classes is all about improving your craft. Other writer's conferences I've been to have given a nod to craft, but the real focus is usually selling novels. That's important, and every writer who wants to sell stories needs to hear the basics about how to go about being a professional writer. By their nature, those types of conferences are suited for beginning writers. It's the same basic information over and over. Once you've been, there's no reason to go back. On the other hand, Saints and Sinners offers different classes every year, and I take away something new each time.

This year, I have a wonderful roommate who hasn't been to S&S, so I get to introduce her to everyone and hang out with her in the evenings. I'm looking forward to that. Many writers from my publisher will be there, so we're going to have a meet and greet. Unfortunately, the publishers couldn't make it this year. And this year, I hope to finally go on an official tour of New Orleans.

When I get back, I'll try to share the highlights. I'm usually so overwhelmed that I can't, but I'll try. Or better yet, come yourself.

Do-Over

2009-05-09T15:56:00.000-07:00

I was about 8,000 words into a novel when I decided to scrap it and start over. I'd written about 5,000 words of it several months ago, set it aside, and jumped into it again recently, adding the last 3,000 words.

I know there are writers who can crank that word count out in days, but I'm not one of them. So when I decide to walk away after committing that much effort, it's because I know I can't make it work. I lost faith in the story and didn't find it terribly interesting. The funny thing is that I mentioned this to someone in a forum when he asked how my writing is going, and the resident loon jumped into the conversation and called me a shitty writer for scraping it.

This is how I can tell writers from non-writers. I'll bet most writers have written the first chapter or so of many novels they've never completed. Being able to tell if a story will work or not is a sign of experience. Wasting time and sanity trying to make something work is pointless. Only someone who has never written a novel would believe that you sit down, craft the first sentence, follow that up with the exact right sentence, and move on in that manner until the last word. It just doesn't work that way. Paragraphs get moved. Whole sections get deleted. Characters get cut. Dialog gets trimmed. Sometimes, the whole damn thing gets thrown out.

Is that bad writing? Rhetorical question. Of course it isn't.

I'd been discussing a co-authored project with Helen E.H. Madden for some time. While we'd both love to do it, we simply can't. I'd envisioned this great opening scene for our project. Now that it's been shelved, and my novel has been shelved, I still have this strong opening in my head that I hate to waste. So I'm going to take that first scene and run with it. We'll see how I feel at the 8,000 word mark. Hopefully, I'll be just as enthusiastic about it.

Temptation

2009-05-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

In publishing, it's who you know that matters.

I hear this sentiment a lot, usually from people who haven't been published. It isn't entirely true. Trust me, there's no great conspiracy to keep great writers off the market. The publishing industry desperately needs breakout hits. Then they need other writers to create derivative works to cash in on the popularity. No one in the publishing industry makes a killing at it. Most scrape by. They're in the business for the love of it. If they read something that knocks their socks off, they're going to champion it in a big way.

But notice that I said "entirely true." It helps to know people. And by help, I mean that you get a better picture of how the publishing industry works by talking to many published writers. You hear about trends in publishing as they're happening. You get to learn from someone's bad experience, saving you the trouble of a do-it-yourself disaster. Then there are the opportunities that drop into your lap because you know someone.

In the past few months, I've been offered some wonderful opportunities. The temptation to get involved is strong. The potential benefits are almost worth it. And I always regret opting out when I see the project moving forward. But here's the thing - I only have so much time in my life. I do not churn out stories. I am fascinated and astounded by people who can. I'm just not one of them. So I have to pass on anything that isn't a pet project. That kills me, because through years of networking with writers and editors, I finally know people. And it doesn't do me any good.

Updates

2009-04-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Finally! I've started to write again. What a relief.

I'm getting a bit worried that I have too much story for the novel I'm working on (a constant problem for me) but at least I'm working on it! I can scale back later. Right now, the only thing that matters is getting it down.

I knew I'd get back to writing. I've been through enough of these down cycles that I don't get too worried about them anymore, but they are frustrating. It's not that I completely stop working on writing, it's just that I stop putting down words. During these breaks, I think a lot about the characters.

People talk about character driven fiction, and I believe in it, but not the way most people think about it. Yes, everything a character does has to seem natural and right for that character. Most events in the story have to be a result of their actions or their reactions to other characters. But, back up a bit. If the writer wants certain things to happen in the story, the writer first has to create a character who would believably be in that situation and act in such a way as to naturally bring about the events the writer desires. So even though I start of with characters in mind and start writing about them, I need the time when I'm not putting words down to step back and figure out if I have the right characters. If not, they have to change. So yes, I write character driven plots, but I definitely tinker with the make-up of the people doing the driving to make sure they're headed where I want them to go. Forcing characters to follow a plot that doesn't suit them is just bad writing.

The great thing about time away from putting down words is that I can get comfortable with the idea that these are the right characters. Once they're ready to go, so am I. I don't think I could get back to writing without going through that, but it sure is nice to have it flow so easily now that I am putting words down again.

LA Times Festival of Books

2009-04-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

The LA Times Festival of books is a huge 2-day event held on the campus of UCLA. You'd think I'd go every year, but I've only been once before. The good news is that it was still packed at 3PM on Sunday. Several areas were jammed with people.

But...

Few people had anything in their hands. The few people who had bags with books in them were kids, but before you praise the heavens for a new generation of readers, most of those books had a toy packaged with them, and the biggest tent by far in the kids area was Target. Yes, Target. Not a tradtional book store. The longest line I saw was to get autographs from Pixar animators. And the biggest crowd was at the stage where authors of cookbooks were speaking.

I have nothing against cookbooks or their authors. Far from it. I have at least 70 cookbooks. I bought a new one two weeks ago. But flipping through them for dinner ideas isn't the same as reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I have nothing against Target selling books, or Wal-Mart. But they heavily censor the types of books they sell and probably pick those books for cover appeal, not content, which is like serving 2,000 calorie hamburgers at a fast food joint.

I have nothing against a kid getting a toy. But that's not showing them that a book can be enjoyable itself. Chances are the book never gets read and the toy gets recalled as a choking hazard. The only way to turn kids into readers is to read to them, cuddle while you're reading, and read them a story that makes their eyes light up with anticipation.

Call me a glass half-empty kind of girl, but I wasn't heartened by what I saw today. I prefer to think of myself as seeing the glass half-full - of reality.

It's Coming

2009-04-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

(warning - very artsy-fartys entry)

After a four month drought in my writing, I can feel it coming back. It's hovering just beyond. Patience, and will come. It has the heavy feel of monsoon clouds.

While I wait, I'm exploring other erotic visions. Right now, unless they grip me in unexpected ways, I don't want to deal with words, so I'm looking at photography. I'm enjoying John Santerineross' Dream: The Exploration of the photographic image as a manifestation of dream inconography and Jeffrey Scott's Visions from Within the Mechanism.

Interesting to me, and probably only me, is that it's the black and white photography that grips me. I have almost no interest in color. Santerineross' and Scott's images are not easy to look at. Yet they are compelling. Unfortunately, I lack the vocabulary to discuss what I'm seeing. But I have that feeling that what I'm seeing in those photogrpahs isn't what's there. I have that same feeling in Catholic Churches and voodun shrines. I mean, when I visit an altar, I see a candle. But to someone who understands the faith, that candle isn't a candle. It's something else, something more. Or maybe it isn't. I don't know how much of what I see is fate or personal touch, and how much is symbolism. If there's an orange feather on an altar, is it there because orange means something, or is it there because the feather store was out of every color except orange, or maybe the offering was made by someone who just liked the color. And see - I'll never know. I'm not even sure how much of trying to understand is pointless. Which all comes around to this - art isn't always meant to be understood, deciphered, and read. Sometimes, it's just meant to be experienced on your own terms.

That's the frame of mind I want to be in when the words come back.

Kathleen Bradean

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Slides in home base head first