Blood Oranges

Got the word this evening that Breathless Press accepted my vampire short story "Blood Oranges" for their Crimson vampire anthology.

That's two anthologies! Woot!

Below is kind a visual representation of how I feel. The leather sculpture is a work by artist Rayna Masters. Isn't it beautiful?
More of her work can be found at  www.raynamasters.com. Check her out.

Ravaged Volume 1 - Available Now

  

Well, it's the big day. The first volume of Ravaged is available for purchase. Available at Breathless Press! Congrats to all my fellow Ravaged authors! 

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!!!

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!

Love Hurts

Well, not a happy post to be sure. Sadly, Cougar's Kiss will not be published any time soon. As it turns out, I must return it to the drawing board and rework it extensively. I do however believe Cougar's Kiss will be published one day. At its heart, it is a really good story and worth putting out in the world. For now, it will go on the back burner to simmer for a while. When the time is right, Sierra and Joseph's story will return to my computer screen. Sometimes the best things in life are hard won. Maybe Cougar's Kiss is one of them.

Hot, Hot, Hot

I had to start a new post. I didn't want too much of my creative endeavors tainted by my vicious, unpatriotic, un-American evil Democrat-loving hate-mongering.

(snicker)

Had a really good idea for yet another story and spent the night outlining it. I don't want to give too much away but...it's...dirty. Yeah, that's it. Dirty.

Got hot just thinking about it! That's a good sign, right?

Next

I am thinking more and more about a web site and even made some preliminary notes for one. I feel kind of stupid though, not knowing if it would be simply one among a million personal pages that litter the world wide web or an actual author site. I know, vanity kills.

I am busy writing my next novel tenatively entitled Blade Dancer, a futuristic. Where this gust of momentum comes from I know not. I haven't been this motivated to write in--well...ever. I wanted to write, managed to write some but not like this, not with such drive and purpose and direction. I know my destination now. It's cool. The irony is that I laughingly said a few years ago that once my life gets complicated I would probably have too much will to write and suffer for not having enough time whereas before I had no complications and all the time I could ever want and hardly wrote a word. Well, it was prophecy. My life has never been so complicated and yet my creative mind wants to purge itself, birth ideas.

I worked up my schedule for my stories, one draft for every two months. So far, so good. I put all my other ideas away out of sight and kept out the first ten. The oldest five are getting my attention. This way they will be completed, submitted and I finally get closure. I can move on to newer ideas without guilt, without the feeling of leaving something behind.

We'll see if the idea works...