Be sure to pop by the AMF blog today. I’m the author on the spot, and you know I hate looking like I don’t have any friends. 🙂
Here’s the link: After Midnight Fantasies
Archive for the 'General' CategoryMonday, March 21st, 2011
Be sure to pop by the AMF blog today. I’m the author on the spot, and you know I hate looking like I don’t have any friends. 🙂 Here’s the link: After Midnight Fantasies Sunday, March 20th, 2011
I’m a slug. I’m hovering at the end of this BDSM story. I’ve wanted to be done with it for two weeks now, but I keep letting life get in the way. Someone, please nag me. Tell me I’m worthless—no, don’t do that, I might start to wonder if you were someone who read their first DD book and thought it sucked, then I’d suffer all kinds of new issues and NEVER write another word. Maybe if you beg me, very nicely, or tell me your dying sister doesn’t have long to live but wants to read THAT book before she does… You get the picture. I need a kick in the ass. This week, I worked on taxes and things like release planning and promo spending. I also got my copyedits back for Handy Men. It shouldn’t be long before you see it on the Coming Soon page on Ellora’s Cave’s site. This next week, with your well-placed boot, I hope to finish the BDSM story and revise the heck out of a short story, expanding it to novella length. I plan to release that novella in a volume with my sister in a straight-to-kindle project. Oh, and I should start today by finishing the copyedits for HM! Yeah, lots on my plate. I have to stay focused. Now, do your part! Friday, March 18th, 2011
I’m still making great progress on that BDSM story. Yeah, it’s sex, sex and more sex—but with a really yummy hero and a very messed up heroine. Cross McNally is just the sort of warrior-hero that knocks me off my socks every time. I’m hoping to be done with it tomorrow. My EC editor won’t know what to do with herself—having me turn in two stories so close together. Then it will be onto a mad rush of revision as I get a short story expanded into a short novella. Never any rest for the very wicked. 🙂 I was looking at the titles of the email in my spam filter: How’d they know I’m getting restless? Sure, I have a trip planned for nearly every month this year, but they are writing-related conferences. Maybe I’m feeling restless because my sis and family are headed to Italy today. I’m seriously jealous. It’s been forever since I was in Italy. I’d had dreams of going to Iceland with the hellion this year, but her life has gotten busy really, really fast, so that’s not an option, and I don’t want to go alone. What’s a girl to do? What sort of trips do you have planned? Anything close to home? Or are you going pretty far afield for your next adventure? Thursday, March 17th, 2011
Dreams are extremely important. Speaking of dreams, I had a doozy last night. And it feels familiar, like I’ve had it before. I lived in a house in the very exclusive Dominion area in San Antonio, Texas. The house was huge with a pool just outside the door. I sat at a glass table eating breakfast and reading ads from the newspaper. Only these ads were “live” ads that talked and described the items on sale at a department store. I wondered aloud when they’d make ads interactive so I could ask useful questions like, “Would that TV fit in my entertainment system cabinet?” The Progressive woman looked up from her ad and said, “Well, have you measured the space?” I have to put that in a book. Yesterday, I got my butt in gear. I wrote nearly a chapter. All of it sex. And I really, really liked the sex I wrote. My hero’s a big dude with very commanding ways. *sigh* I’d like to finish the story today or tomorrow, but I can’t keep them in bed forever, so today’s likely to drag as I figure out what they’ll say to each other when they aren’t acting like bunnies. Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
Psst! Yesterday’s winner is named at the end of this post! ~DD Using Romance Clichés for Fun and Profitby Anitra Lynn McLeod You’ll never believe what inspired my erotic Onic Empire series . . . wait for it . . . a romance cliché. Yep. You know the one where the woman is almost always a virgin and the man is a total slut? Yeah, that always bothered me because all the guys must be banging one very tired (and IMHO one very lucky) woman. Now, this cliché has really gone by the wayside, but when I started reading, this was practically a standard part of romance novels. So, I was thinking about virginity, and why it’s so sacred for a woman but not a man, and then I got to thinking about what if everyone lost their virginity in the same manner at roughly the same age, and what if the act of taking virginity was a religious rite? And so the Onic Empire was born.
Yesterday’s winner is…Dawn Jackson! Dawn, congrats, and email me about your prize! Sunday, March 13th, 2011
Spin on RealityBy Taige Crenshaw One of my favorite parts of writing is being able to put my own spin on reality. Taking something that is not of the real and making it so. Making it real to this world that readers want to live in that world. Be a part of the story as it unfolds. To do this I can make it up totally in my thoughts and build it or take pieces of history, folklore and other interesting tidbits and molding it into what I want to. Doing this is a powerful aphrodisiac. The balance of creating a story that brings a person into it is just like a seductive dance. First you have to let them get a feel of your rhythm. Once they do then you move to the groove. Spinning it around. Weaving that reality to bring them deeper into the reality you’ve built. This is what I strive for in each world I build. In the world and myths of my upcoming release Indigo Rain this is what I’ve done. I’ve taken many parts of history, folklore and other interesting tidbits to create the world of the story. In writing the book I sank into the myths that I was creating. It was fun to bring in various things I find fascinating. Kalina Erutan, my heroine is an Amazonian Warrior and I was able to create a mythology of her. This mythology is embedded into the very earth. Ryne Garon, my hero is a firebird and I put a major spin on what they are. I’m being deliberately vague about both because I don’t want to give away anything too much about the story. In building the world of the Phoenix Intelligence Agency there are so many beings and things to explore. I’m having a wonderful time laying down the layers of the world. Each time I write a new book I wonder where I can go next. That is the thing with writing you get to do a spin on reality. **** To save the world and humanity from extinction from a being that can herald Armageddon a woman must trust a man whose race destroyed the people she held most dear. There’s more at stake… their hearts. Buy March 14, 2011 at Summerhouse Publishing. Friday, March 11th, 2011
Psst! See my note at the bottom of this post! ~DD Thanks so much to Delilah for the chance to visit! I write hot Regency romances as Maggie Robinson for Kensington Brava and hotter ones as Margaret Rowe for Berkley Heat. Since March is Women’s History Month, I’ve been thinking a lot about my historical heroines and the difficulties they face simply because they are women. Some readers complain when a fictional character exhibits too much of a 21st century sensibility, but it’s easy to see why a writer rewrites some boundaries. We’ve sure come a long way, baby. A Regency era wife could own no property of her own; anything she might bring into the marriage belonged to her husband. And even if he was head-over-heels in love with her, he could only leave her money after he was dead, but not gift her property in life. If they were not head-over-heels, a wife could not sue her husband for divorce, even if he was unfaithful or beat her. After 1857, he could sue her, though. If they did separate, the kids belonged to him, no matter what his sins might be. A husband and wife were considered one person in law, and woe to the independent woman who did not marry. Her father would be bossing her around instead. Sounds pretty grim, doesn’t it? And we’re not even talking about voting. No wonder I don’t want to write about these poor creatures who were totally dependent on men. So my heroines sometimes walk on the wild side of the street, perhaps historically inaccurately, but I can’t help it. They’re not sitting in the parlor stitching samplers waiting for a suitor to come to dispel the boredom, marry him and then die in childbirth. My current heroine Frederica Wells in Margaret Rowe’s erotic March release Any Wicked Thing is a medieval scholar who writes (accurate) history books, but she finds herself the ward of her childhood friend and adult nemesis Sebastian Goddard, Duke of Roxbury. Devilish Sebastian is the last person in the world who should be in charge of demure Freddie, so sparks fly. Pretty soon Goddard Castle is on fire as Sebastian teaches her all the things he’s learned while she stayed home. But Freddie is a quick learner and gives as good as she gets, doing any wicked thing and then some. ;). Which Regency ladylike activity would you excel at? Sewing, singing, playing the pianoforte, painting, archery, riding or perhaps something else? Comment to win a copy of Any Wicked Thing! One disastrous night… At twenty-one, Sebastian Goddard, heir to the duke of Roxbury, desperately sought diversion from a life smothered by peerage and position. His quest led him to one night of reckless passion, resulting in betrayal by his oldest friend Frederica Wells, and the discovery of his father’s darkest secret. Reeling from the devastation, he embarked on a ten-year debauch that well earned him the nickname–”Lord of Sin.” One delicious bargain… Now Sebastian has returned to find his late father’s estate in ruins and Freddie more seductive than ever. He’s determined to drive her from Goddard Castle to pay her back for her deception and to protect his own dark secret. But Freddie makes him an offer he can’t resist…she’ll be his mistress for a month if he’ll consent to sell her the crumbling castle afterward. Everything he could desire… The Lord of Sin plans to shock and scandalize Freddie—to tease her every desire and leave her wanting. But his fiery-willed lover soon teaches him the past may not be what it seemed, the present more tempting than he could have imagined, and the future filled with more promise than he dared dream. For thirty-one nights is not nearly enough when you’ve been given a license to do any wicked thing… www.margaretrowe.net [It always happens! My Access Romance blog doesn’t follow a regular schedule, so I couldn’t plan this in advance. Maggie’s my guest today, but you can also find me at Access Romance, with a pretty picture for you to “Tell Me a Story”. Be sure to say hello to Maggie before heading over to the Access Romance blog. ~DD] | ||||||||||