Flash fiction

One of my friends writes Flash Fiction -- check out Flash Fiction Online for awesome examples of what I'm talking about.

Agog at the brilliance of her mind, I declared I could never write that short. The shorter the piece, the more challenging for me. Seriously, my natural length is a multi-volume epic saga. After a bit of reflecting, I realized I do write flash fiction. I call it blogging. :)

Have you recently discovered any hereto unsuspected talents?

Music for inspiration

Music puts me in the mood to write.:) Here's the playlist for Demon Hunters 2: A Very Demon Valentine's!


In da Club by 50 cent

Selling My Soul by Black Sabbath

The Only Time by Nine Inch Nails

We’re In This Together by Nine Inch Nails

Beside You In Time by Nine Inch Nails

Your Girl by Mariah Carey

Melt Away by Mariah Carey

When You Put Your Hands On Me Christina Aguilera

Into the Fire by Sarah McLachlan

Sweet Surrender by Sarah McLachlan


What puts you in the mood for romance?

Reader Rule!

Readers really do rule!

Whether you read on Kindle, Nook, Sony, or even dead tree books :shocked: if you enjoyed the title you just read, please take a moment and leave a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Goodreads. Here's a whole article on why reviews have so much power and how to leave one without giving yourself a headache.

In this brave new world of publishing, readers rule more than ever. Make other readers happy, go review the last couple of books you read.

How seriously do you take other reader's reviews?

A Very Demon Christmas

Just for dangerously sexy fans an excerpt from A Very Demon Christmas, Demon Hunters I scheduled to release next Tuesday, December 20!

 

Colin tied the ribbon Diane had given him around Holly’s slender throat. The thin line of color marked her as taken -- his.He loved how her lips were wet and swollen from his kiss. He loved the way she responded to him with total, helpless, surprised, submission. He loved how her abundant curves felt against his raw needs. And he hated not being able to read her. Touching hadn’t made even a crack in her impenetrable thought shield. He also hated being wrong.

In addition to not being able to read a single idea in her beautiful head, he had new problems. Her mouth was an oasis of pleasure in his barren life. Her silken tongue carried a seductive flavor of hot cocoa with a touch of cool mint. He should never have tasted her sweetness. Now it would be twice as hard to maintain his distance. But he had to; there was too much at stake, including her life.

Absently, he stroked the soft, soft skin over her delicate collarbone just below his mark of ownership. Then he watched her pulse at the base of her throat, entranced by the way it fluttered in response to his touch. What he should do was untie the ribbon, then escort her to the holding pen until the slave auction.

Yeah, sure. Not happening. He couldn’t stop touching her. Forget about putting her on the auction block for some other Dom to claim. She was completely untrained. Someone else might be impatient, too harsh, or… Not happening, no way, no how. The whole argument was moot. For now she belonged to him, and he wasn’t strong enough to forgo this chance to play. He was keeping her for tonight.

He’d agreed to do a teaching scene before the auction. Originally, he’d intended to work with hot wax or maybe a bullwhip -- always a crowd favorite. But the idea of marring Holly’s perfect skin, even temporarily, sickened him. Learning her limits and how she responded to pain was part of being her Master, but he sure as hell wasn’t tossing her into an extreme scene with no idea how she’d react.

He let his thumb drift lower, grazing the top curve of her deep cleavage. And lower still, until he skimmed the edge of the lace cups. Through the stretched lace, he watched her nipples darken and pucker even tighter. He teased her swollen tips with a brush of his thumbs, and the thin material peaked over the stiffened points. “Tell me what you want, baby.”

Her breath caught with a little hitch. “A kiss, Sir.”

Damn, she got to him. His cock lengthened and hardened further until it was a pleasurable heavy ache pinned by his slacks against his thigh. He unbuttoned his jacket and leaned closer, crowding her -- letting her softness cradle his raw hunger.
“Where?” The single-word question grated out like he’d swallowed a load of gravel.

Another ragged breath bumped her lush breasts against the starched front of his dress shirt, adding fresh heat to his fever.

“Everywhere.”

Only the fact that they were in a public place, and he was fairly certain he wouldn’t stop at kissing, kept him from stripping off the bits of lace and taking her up on that offer. But he couldn’t resist probing her mind for lascivious images. There weren’t any. More accurately, there weren’t any he could access. He concentrated and tried again and came up just as empty. Apparently, he couldn’t read her thoughts even when he was touching her. He’d been so focused on her physical responses and that tempting body he’d forgotten the disturbing absence of his usual mental connection.

A muffled thunk sounded close to his feet.

“There’s your toy bag. Added some red hemp. Showtime, Master Colin.”

“Thanks.” Colin stayed riveted on Holly.

Duec laughed. “Nice slave.”

Colin whirled, but Duec’s broad back was already halfway across the room and moving fast through the crowd. No way was he going to chase down his boss and leave Holly unprotected. Then what Duec had said sank into Colin’s head. Leave it to Duec to provide the ideal Christmas present. Red hemp -- absolutely perfect.

He cupped Holly’s nape. “Come on. I’m going to put your beautiful body on display.”

A muffled squeak that might have been a protest came from her lips.

“Do we need to talk about your limits?” Colin rubbed his thumb along the side of her neck and deepened his voice with enough compulsion to ensure her compliance. “Or are you going to trust me absolutely?”
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Be sure and stop by next Tuesday for cover goodness and a chance to win an Amazon Gift Card!

Gender bias

From time to time I run across acrid commentary about women writing male male romance or straight men writing gay love stories, or the arrogance of men writing romance between a man and woman.

Seriously? Why on earth would anyone think one gender had a great claim to expertise in writing craft as applied to any particular genre?

History offers many example of women being discriminated against. Here's where I get really confused. I would have guessed our own history of oppression, prejudice, and discrimination would have made women more sensitive and less tolerant to this kind of injustice. Reading commentary written by women, vilifying men who dare to think they can capture romance on the page, dismays me.

Are those women railing against male authored romance unaware of D.H. Laurence, T.S. Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, and William Shakespeare?

Practicing gender bias makes no sense. Thankfully the vast majority of readers are too smart to be bothered by an author's gender or sexual orientation or race or any other irrelevant label.

Right? Uh, you all aren't prejudiced against men writing romance are you?

Apologies

Uh, *blush* *stammer* sorry, folks. My calendar was attacked by dueling highlighters, in the ensuing mayhem I blogged here last Friday... But I feel awful about screwing up so I stole the best apology I could find for y'all.

Alpha males

A few months ago when I wrote A Promise of Amber, the second Treeland Pack Tale, scheduled for release next Tuesday, most of the time I looked like this, except for the curlers.



I love wolfies, but those Alpha males are darn hard to get along with.

Frequently my thoughts turned to how much fun the demon guys had been. Mow that I'm working on the second demon story, I realize my mistake. Demons are not any more reasonable than the werewolves.

What the heck was I thinking? They're demons. Duh.

I actually miss the furry dudes even though they growled and snapped, and made me cry.

One of these days, I'm going try coaxing a story out of some regular human guys.

Contrary Muses

Here I am slaving away with the story just starting to really hum and Swampy, aka my itinerant muse, wanders in blathering on about an entirely new story. This is not the first time he's done this.

I'm a reasonable woman, I can tell he's enthused, which is a very good thing. Swampy continues to rattle on and I dutifully made notes. When he finally pauses, I say,"Thank you I've got it all down in a new file. Now can we please get back to work?"

Swampy starts in again on the new hero, who does sound great, as if I hadn't spoken.

Fine, I turn up the tunes, let him inspire the air.

Real Life Messes Up Plans

Have I whined enough about the pain of interruptions and switching hats?

Probably. But I'm still feelin' it so I'm gonna whine some more. I want to write, just write. While I recognize all these other things need to be done, like housework, laundry, shopping, and errands they aren't nearly as much fun as writing and I do them as little as possible.

 



 

No doubt you noticed that gardening, walking the dog, and reading are not on my avoidance list. The reason is simple those are things I like to do, sometimes even more than I like to write, especially when the writing is not flowing smoothly.

Ah but when the words are flowing smoothly, writing is the world's best job.

What's interfering with your plans?

Fame or Glory?

A shocker for me has been the lack of relationship between the titles the reviewers rave about the most and those that sell best. I expected a strong relationship between a high quality book and impressive sales volume.

I think this is a forest/tree problem, because when I consider for a few moments, it's perfectly understandable. The movies, television shows, and books that are critically acclaimed are seldom the same ones the public embraces.

This is certainly true for me, my favorites have never been the kind of cutting edge masterpieces that win prestigious awards. Sadly, my pets don't usually find glittering commercial success either. I have a real weakness for the scrappy underdogs of the entertainment world.

Still wouldn't it be lovely to be both brilliant and popular? I may have found a new fantasy....

Do your favorites make the top of lists?

The ePublishing Revolution

The publishing industry continues to quiver and shake, as ebooks and ereaders and dozens of smart devices change the way people read for pleasure and for information.

JA Konrath talks about ebooks and marketing regularly on his blog: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. But what he doesn't mention is that the flood of ebook authors is not all one way. Amanda Hocking and HP Mallory, two indie authors with shining success stories of amazing sales, each signed multi-book deals with mass market publishers.

Great writing is great writing whether in the form of digital ink on a back-lit screen or in laser ink on paper. I’m not worrying about the perennial best sellers holding their own in a changing industry. However, in my humble opinion, mid-list authors are in for a real challenge to hold onto their share of a volatile market. I’ve noticed some of these mid-list authors releasing ebook titles again, or fir the first time.

Do you think the ebook customer intrinsically different from the buyer of mass market titles?

Why do you buy ebooks? Inquiring minds need to know.:)

The Fine Art of Shameless Self-Promotion

Marketing remains more mystery than science to me. So whenever I see an article on how to promote better I read avidly. Last month Josh Lanyon posted about simple and free ways writers can market themselves here. Since he's obviously an expert on promotion, I soaked up his words of wisdom.

Alas, I found his excellent advice a tad difficult to follow.

Tip number one: become a regular reader and commenter on popular blogs.


Sounds great, but then reading on I learned the efficacy of this method depends upon being witty and clever. Due to severe limitations on my attention span and energy level, I reserve all my best thinking time for creative writing. Sadly,there's nothing left over for clever blog comments.

Tip number two: write an article for a webzine or popular blog on a topic you know well.

At first glance this advice seemed more promising. After all I do write and there are a couple of subjects where I have some small expertise. Upon further reflection, I fail to see how articles on my specialties: accounting; finance; domestic arts; and how not to train a dog, would further my erotic romance writing ambitions.

Tip number three: use an email address that matches your pen name.

Oh dear, I was supposed to have a pen name? Is there a remedial marketing class?

Tip number four: give away books.

I'm fairly sure my contracts prohibit doing this in anything like useful quantities. Buying my own titles and then giving them away would result in negative income. Plus, the book pirates are doing a fine job of this with absolutely no cost and no effort on my part. But Josh knows marketing. I'm still trying to figure out how to implement his fine idea.

Tip number five: post excerpts.

Thank goodness there's one surefire method I can adopt without qualms!

Bonus tip number six: (from me) Write lots of wonderful stories.

While he didn''t mention the last strategy specifically, it has been working brilliantly for Mr. Lanyon, check out his backlist!

Confessions of an erotic romance writer

A friend said, “I love you dearly, but I don’t know if I should read one of your books. How could I ever look at you the same way again? You’re so quiet, so shy, so sweet, and your books are so....”

This isn't the first time I've heard this reaction. I blame Barbara Cartland for dictating her perennial best sellers from a fainting couch while togged out the the max. Dictating is out of the question for me. My brain only engages when the fingers are connecting with the keyboard. Obviously, I don't look the part of a glamorous erotic romance author. Note to self: stock up on feather boas and backless pumps. On second thought, never mind. I'd feel silly and probably trip over the boa.

Naturally, I murmured something to my friend about how I wouldn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. And while I don’t see myself quite the same way my friends do, my real life persona is quiet, shy, and a bit dull, especially when compared with my characters’ adventures.

Most writers are introverts. Who else would choose such a solitary profession? We do tend to be a shy and sensitive lot. And yet we slave a way at an occupation guaranteed to thrust us into the spotlight (if we succeed)--a shy person’s worst nightmare. One of life’s ironies.

So why do we do it? There are probably as many different answers as there are authors. I can only speak for myself. The characters I write about are very real to me. They are the children of my imagination. I am protective of them. I struggle to bring them to life, and then I fight to give them the very best possible chance at finding a home in readers’ hearts.

Virtual motherhood is a strange, empowering phenomena, one that turns an otherwise mild mannered woman into lionesses willing to brave harsh critics and scandalized friends and family in order to protect and nurture the offspring of her dreams.

What would your friends be surprised to know about you?

Find out what else I'm up to at Evanne Lorraine