Crimson

I submitted my short story "Blood Oranges" to Breathless Press' Crimson Anthology today.  It features a hero who is a vampire fruit bat and a heroine who owns a fruit orchard.

Here are some images of fruit bats.

This one is eating oranges!

A bell pepper I think. Look how cute!

Check out those wings.

 

This one looks like a wolf with wings.

 Truly vampiric.

Series Titles

A couple of days ago, I submitted my title ideas for both of my series to my editor, the fab April Chapman.

It's official. Both were approved! : D

Look out world. Sexy Scots and Hot Hybrids are coming your way!!!

Eight Is My Favorite Number Or Why I Always Loved Friday The 13th

In the coming future Ellora's Cave will be publishing not one story/book but TWO series of mine for a total of eight books.

http://www.ask8ball.net/

Happy, happy, joy, joy! : D

Eight!

Tweet Tweet Part 2 Or A Dream Come True

This is a continuation of the previous blog entry...

Later that night, Jaid thanked me for posting my comment. She tweeted me and asked if I’d ever subbed to EC. Heart pounding, I replied that indeed I had and come close to getting an offer for a contract once or twice. She said to send her the first chapter of something I was looking to publish.
  
I mentioned my heart pounded. Well, now it quarter-pounded. I know that’s not a word, I’m just trying to convey that I only thought I was about to get nervous. Now, it was official. Jaid Black wanted to read something of mine.

On July 11^th Jaid tweeted me that she was going to read my chapter that night. Did I mention the quarter-pounding heart?

Around 8:30, she tweeted me and told me she replied.

I was scared to death. I checked my e-mail and there it was.

An offer for a contract.

I screamed. I smiled, no—I beamed from ear to ear. To make matters crazier, my husband had gone for a walk and I was alone. I was like a crazy person, giggling, laughing, crying, sighing. On the border of hysteria. I very nearly took off in search of my husband so I could tell him.

Needless to say when he got back, I told him to go read the e-mail. He was so happy for me. We laughed and hugged and cried and laughed some more. It was awesome.

Over the next couple of weeks, I met the Editor-in-Chief Kelli Collins who was super nice. I got assigned an editor, the lovely April Chapman. This is a dream come true. I'm thrilled and excited and honored to be given this chance. : D

Tweet Tweet Pt 1 Or Why I'm Blogging About 50 Shades Of Grey

Twitter has been good to me lately. I've been able to connect with writers/authors/people that I wouldn't have had an opportunity to meet otherwise. Among those people, is Jaid Black of Ellora's Cave.

Late one night, Jaid blogged about the Time magazine article regarding the whole Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon. Like me, she found the article offensive for a number of reasons I won't get into here, except to say, I was impassioned enough to tweet my own similarly-minded opinion to let her know she and I were in agreement.

I said (the article), Does so many hard-working erotic romance authors a HUGE injustice. :\

For the record, Fifty Shades has created a mix of strong opinions. As an author, I’m happy E.L. James has had success with her books. Her success has helped draw readers to the erotic romance genre. On the other hand, I feel she and her handlers have done little to make certain the media understand the genre that’s been so good to her was already doing just fine on its own.

Jaid asked me to leave the comment on her blog. I was more than happy to do so and expanded my opinion there since Twitter only allows 140 characters.

What follows is my comment…

A lot of things about the Time article offend me, but I'm glad Jaid dispelled some popular myths about the erotic romance genre. I've been writing in the erotic romance genre for years. Like so many, I’ve worked hard to achieve my writing goals (and do on a daily basis) and sadly, the media with the help of E.L. James do nothing to help garner respect for the genre or the authors. Disrespect for the romance genre in general is nothing new, but Time’s latest article on the subject hits below the belt.
That would be bad enough but they’ve also insulted us. Take their assessment of our heroines. “She may not be textured or well written or particularly particular in any way, except in mouthing off and making demands and getting what she wants." Anyone who reads quality erotic romance knows that is flat out FALSE. It suggests that erotic romance authors aren’t good writers, that they don’t know how to write sympathetic heroines and furthermore that the heroines of erotic romance are nothing more than mouthy bitches. Whether Time realizes it or not, the article has a subtly sexist tone I find reprehensible. 
Time did all erotic romance authors a HUGE injustice by dumbing down and misrepresenting what we take seriously. If they couldn’t cover our genre accurately, they shouldn’t have covered it at all.
Shame on Time magazine!

PDA Or Public Displays of Awesomeness

It’s been years since I’ve seen fireworks. While out walking the dogs, my husband and I heard the usual pop pop pop and crackle of illegal fireworks. Or at least, we assumed they were illegal, since we could hear them too well for them to be any of the legal local firework displays. 

We got back inside and we heard them again. I looked out my office window. A beautiful spray of color erupted through the air. Fireworks! I raised the blinds and stood for a while, watching each bloom of red, green, white, yellow, blue, purple and orange fill the night sky. 

We figured out we must be far enough south that we were able to see one of the legal displays.  What’s better than looking out your window and seeing a fireworks display? No crowds, no sweat, no traffic.

I’ve forgotten how much I love fireworks.

The Blur Of Summer

In June, Texas became the new Fiery Pits Of Hell. Nothing new there.

In July, someone purchased one of my stories. Whoever you are, thank you. :) I appreciate it and hope you enjoyed it.

In August, Husband and I adopted/rescued a kitten. Stormy. She's a cute little shit and I love her. (Pics to come later.)

Groovin'

The writing gods and goddesses have been good to me lately. The only reason why I can figure is that pound of flesh I left at the dermatologist's office when he whittled away at my finger with a razor blade. I guess that qualified as a human sacrifice.

I hardly miss the finger, by the way...

...kidding.

I've kept busy on three short works that have a real shot at being in print. I re-named them and am currently at work on expanding them. The feedback has been positive and couldn't have made me feel better. Joining a critique group was also a good idea. All their criticisms were legit and insightful.

Even better, the trilogy has inspired a spin-off that could be as equally promising.

I'm still vacillating on whether to enter the Siren contest. I don't want to split the trilogy and feel that the editor at Liquid Silver was right about expanding the stories.

I'll probably pass Siren up as well as Liquid's Zodiac contest and just submit them at a later date when they're all they can be rather than squeeze them into strict guidelines and parameters.

Phaze has a September contest I'm considering but the word count limit is 12K. That's awful short but I may shoot for it anyway. Worst I can do is miss.

Bite Me

Feedback is nice. Nice feedback is really nice. And today I got an unexpected bit of nice feedback. Liquid Silver e-mailed me to inform me that while I didn't win the short story contest, that I was in fact a finalist and that she really liked my story "Scorpio Sweetheart" and wants to read more of my work. Sweet!

While on a bit of a high, I sat down immediately and re-read and edited the aforementioned story. Hours later, it was another thousand or so words thicker (but still within the word limit) and worlds better. And it was good before.

Now I'm in the final edit phase of the next short story "Horns a Plenty" for the same publisher. This story is stronger than the first, so I expect to do even better the second time around. But if not, I've got other contests I can enter this month and next month and the month after that.

Somebody's bound to bite.

It's Like a Heat Wave

To borrow a phrase, it's hot. But no hotter than it usually is down here in Hades--I mean Texas. I'm belly button deep in contests. I joined an online support group and haven't posted yet really. I got some good scores on my January submission. With a little polish, I think that sucker will shine. So that's encouraging. And if you knew about my personal life, well--I take what I can get!
Two more contests to enter with one e-publisher then onto another. It's not about the winning at this stage as it is about the feedback. I got confirmation that I'm good. I'll just be a praise junkie for a while and feed off that.