Contest!

So, I got my magazines in last night; they are quite lovely. To buy a copy - you can get it for your iPad or other e-Readers - go here. Currently, they're on SALE! so this is a good time to pick up one for yourself.

Or, if you'd like, you can win a copy! Just go to my Facebook page and comment on the photo of the magazines. I'll draw one lucky winner on Nov 1st.

Smokin'....

So, here's my latest cover.

Very nice... yummy, even. Due out in the Spring of 2013... I'll let you know as soon as I know what the actual release date is.

Books by Friends; Recommended Reads

Among the myriad other tasks on my plate; writing a chapter in a collaborative novel, finishing up some short stories, and keeping my day-to-day life from running headlong into a brick wall, I have been reading some books by friends.

First off, Tracy Leung's Branche Olive: Fleur de Lis

Tracy is a friend of a friend. She's good friends with one of my good friends, who recently introduced us via Facebook.

So, I read Branche Olive. Imagine if you will, what Ernest Hemmingway would have written if he'd put it into his mind to write an erotic romance. That's Fleur de Lis. The sentences are concise and sparse on detail, and yet each paragraph is vivid and evocative.

The characters more read like Great Gatsby to me, wounded and vulnerable, prone to making terrible decisions in the name of love...

My biggest problem with the book was my tendency to want to shove things in boxes; the story didn't have quite enough steamy details to count as an erotic novel, but waaaay too much sex for a straight-up romance; there are multiple relationships in play here, including a gay romance. There were many tragedies - abortions, miscarriages, deaths, broken relationships, screwed up family life - so it might count as lit-fic, except that all the people who had sex mostly enjoyed it, so, you know... maybe not. I spent quite a while reading it trying to decide what genre Ms. Leung was going for. I never did really come to a conclusion about that.

I admit to spending some time, while reading it, to quoting bits and pieces of it to a friend of mine while chatting online.

The constantly shifting time-line - there were a lot of flashbacks - confused me a bit, and I had to read a little more carefully than I tend to want to. I read really quickly, but sometimes I don't absorb everything, so if the plot is at all complex, I sometimes miss subtle clues.

I give it 3.5 stars.

Next we have Seductress: Erotic Tales of Immortal Desire

I confess, I haven't read all of this one yet, so I'm not going to rate it, but I'm letting you all know that it's out there, and that I'll be reading it shortly. My friend and editor and co-writer and everything else she is to me, Elizabeth Brooks, has a short contained in this collection, Succubus, Inc.

And, finally, The Dark Hunger; A Paranormal Erotic Compendium

Another friend of mine, Robert M. West, has a story in here, Princess Illia. I've known Rob for a long time, back when I used to lecture him about the importance of writing well, all the time. He wrote the most god-awful un-punctuated, bad grammar, sentence fragmented emails it's ever been my displeasure to try to maul my way through to comprehension with. Excepting maybe my mother's emails.

Obviously, a writer doesn't have to be 100% grammatically correct all the time! There are rules in grammar and for business writing that don't necessarily need to be followed in order to write a good story. In fact, frequently those rules can and should be broken. But before you break the rules, you ought to know what they are. And be breaking them deliberately.

We used to argue about this, a lot. It's an email, it doesn't need to be perfect. Well, no, but when I have no idea what you're talking about, you're not communicating, and therefore the purpose of your email has failed. Also, I believe - firmly - that bad habits are... well, habit forming. Writing poorly in emails and correspondence and blogging can lead to sloppy habits in writing stories and therefore you should have some compassion for your poor editor who has to take your jumble of dialogue and make it into a workable piece.

[and yes, my editor has been known to write DIE EVIL DASH in the margins of my stories! I know. Also.... ellipses do not... make... your... story... more... dramatic... just... more... annoying. And yet... see what I mean about bad habits?]

In any case, I'm delighted that Rob's done so well for himself. I don't know if I was ever any help to him, mind you, or if I just annoyed the crap out of him.

Double Digits

Well, Zombies are popular, so hey...

Thank you for submitting your story, "W.O.L.", to the "He Loves Me For My Brainsss" anthology! I greatly enjoyed your story and think it would be a wonderful addition to the collection.

So, there's that. Six stories in print or e-books available - Steamlust, Shifting Steam, Lustfully Ever After, Blister Effect, Ladies of Steampunk Magazine, and Readerotica, Vol 3 - and four more in the pending publication list... Coming Together: Hungry for Love; Duty and Desire; Smokin' Hot Firemen; and He Loves Me For My Brainssss. For a total of 10 publications!

Originally, back in the beginning of the year, I'd wanted to write one short story per month and submit it... that was my goal... So far this year, I've had seven stories accepted and I have three stories still currently "out" although I haven't heard about Ripped in so long I begin to think that antho's either been cancelled or delayed.

I've had a few stories that I started and never quite got to work out in time for an antho submission; Two Tents, and Alive and Kicking are still incomplete and currently shelved. PBEM has been rejected twice and while it's currently "out", I haven't heard anything in a while. Room for Dessert has been rejected several times now, and I think I finally figured out why. I need to find a collection for cheaters and adulterers, since a lot of times, that's considered a No-no for the Happily Ever After part of erotic romance. Steal Not a Moment is out for consideration and I hope to hear back for that collection soon.

I've got 2 stories in the works right now; Surface Tension and Christmas Miracle, plus a collaborative thing I'm almost done with...

So, you know, so far it's been a good year.

NINE NINE NINE (Nom nom)

So... thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. I might even be so thrilled as to do the Michael Jackson zombie dance... (included here for your edification.)

Ok, maybe not quite that thrilled, but only because I can't dance. I mean, even seriously easy crap like the Electric Slide are beyond my mortal ken.

But I'm very pleased to announce that my zombie piece, Dead in the Water, was accepted to Sommer Marsden's anthology, Hungry for Love.

The Coming Together publications are charity pieces - meaning I get paid in warm fuzzies, and profits from the books go to the charity of the editor's choice, in this case being The American Diabetes Association.

This makes nine acceptances since I started submitting work about 18 months ago... give or take. I can't remember exactly when I submitted "Golden Moment," altho I clearly remember being notified that I'd been accepted on or about my birthday...

It's been a fantastic year and a half. I'm still pulling in about one acceptance every other month.

Special thanks to Jeanne SG for her help with editing this piece, and her wonderful commentary...

PS - If you love zombies and you love erotica (and if you don't like either, what the heck are you doing reading my blog??) I'd like to take this moment to recommend that you read Sommer's Zombie Exterminator series, starting with We Kill Dead Things. It is by far one of my favorite pieces of erotica.

Steamy Magazine

My steampunk erotic story, Deep Breath, is featured in this magazine. So, go buy one. Or I'll be running a contest soonish for a free copy, if you'd rather wait. I'll have to think of something extremely cool, since this magazine is amazing! I'm very pleased that the Seans asked me to contribute to their first issue, and I wish them all the best with the project.

Comparisons

First off, I want to give a huge Thank You to Kim Galloway. On extremely short notice, she helped me edit my story, Deep Breath, which is going to be published in Ladies of Steampunk magazine (or at least, unless the Seans find it unbelievably awful... ) Deep Breath needed grammatical and consistency edits, plus characterization checks, and at least 500 words cut. (The story was a bit on the Long side...)

Kim did a wonderful job, even if she was scarily nice to me. Look for a guest post from her later; her services are for sale (no, not those services! the editing services!) and I'd highly recommend her if you're a writer and need someone to proof and story-content edit your work. Her rates seem reasonable, although I confess I've never paid anyone to proof my work as yet. I'm always more of a "swap work for work" or owing people favors sort of girl. Maybe, when my writing gig starts paying more, I can afford professional services.

I was talking about her with my husband - as you all probably know, he doesn't read my published work, but he does provide a useful sounding board - and being a little embarrassed at the gushing she did.

This was a thorough pleasure to read.  You are a talented and excellent writer and it is obvious that you love what you do, as you do it so well.  :)  It is a rare treat for me to work with something that I so thoroughly enjoy.  Your piece, as is, is strong and well executed before the editorial comments that I made.

::blush::

I told him what she said, and he gave me this flat look. "You're a good writer."

I said, "I feel about average, most of the time. Maybe a little sub-par. And decidedly lazy."

"I want you to go on the internet and look up 'free sex stories' okay? Read a few of those and get back to me about you being average."

"I've read internet porn, hon," I said. Of course I have. If nothing else, I occasionally find good ideas for positions and situations. "I don't compare myself to that. I compare myself to the other writers that share the collections I'm in. I feel like mid- to bottom of the heap in that group."

"So, in essence, you're comparing yourself to all the students who got into William & Mary and saying you're upset that you're not a straight A student?"

"Erm...."

"That still makes you pretty damn smart, you know that, right?"

Comparisons are a bitchy thing... I have a lot of writer friends on Facebook, Sommer Marsden, Rue Volley, Kathleen Bradean, Shanna Germain, and more. And I often see posts like "Wrote 1200 words today, now I can eat breakfast" and I think about my miserable little 500 words that I manage to crank out a few times a week and I feel... vaguely ashamed. Like a pretender. Like I'm just pissing around, wasting time.

And then I have conversations with another writer friend and we're talking about projects I have out and projects I'm working on, and she's like "man, next to you, I feel so slack." (She's published two novellas, and several shorts... so...)

Here's my accomplishments:

In a little over a year - my first writer's acceptance was May, 2011, for a story that came out in October - I've seen 8 stories accepted and three stories rejected. Of those, I was reassured by one editor that a story was very good, just not a good fit for HER collection; one was rejected because I submitted 2 stories to the same collection and the editor had several stories like the first one, and she wanted the 2nd one instead, one that has been rejected twice with no commentary - all of these stories are back out for consideration with other publications. I hope they'll find a home somewhere.

Really, in a year's time, 8 acceptances is really damn good. I've got five stories currently out for consideration, one that I'm about 1/5th of the way done writing and have finished outlining, (due Oct 1) an idea that won't shut up, so I may try to do that one, although the deadline is pretty tight (Sept 15th... yikes!) and at least 3 more ideas that are percolating.

Yeah, ok. Maybe I'm just awesome.