Recently, I’ve been writing blog posts on what has inspired me to write what I write, you know, those little things that spark ideas that turn into stories. Today is January 18th, and I’ve actually written a story called “On the Eighteenth of January, ’78; or, A Night at Valley Forge”, published in Naughty List, the winter anthology from the Naughty Literati.
So what inspired a story that takes place on such a specific date? Continue reading
I thought I’d end the year by starting at the beginning, and by doing so, I have to start with the end of a life. Carl Degler, professor emeritus of American history at Stanford University, died on Saturday, December 27, 2014, at the age of 93. It was an article by Degler that was influential on my embarking upon a career writing Victorian erotic romance. Continue reading
[UPDATE: The Westerman Affair was published in 2017!]
This will be my ninth NaNoWriMo. I’m such a geek about the event that I went ahead and filled in all my novels since 2006 – which just shows how geeky I really am since I’ve kept all that NaNoWriMo documentation over the years. I’ve left the original covers I made for the event and not the covers as published (only two books remain unfinished, and therefore, unpublished). I really like that General’s Wife cover! It’s a detail from Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s amazing Baroque sculpture The Rape of Proserpina, 1621-22, in Rome’s Borghese Gallery. I also like that tag line I made for it: “Will she submit to the enemy?” I should totally use that when I redo the cover. Continue reading
[UPDATE: I’ve had to delete old, broken links in this post.]
Recent news about my publisher Ellora’s Cave is not good. Freelance editors and cover artists have been laid off – including both my editors. I’m worried about my cover artist since she is a freelancer, although she is still listed on the company website. [UPDATE: Alas, she is no longer.]
There was a lot of hullabaloo in the blogosphere and on Twitter about this news, which was originally a private communique to EC authors. Some people complained that Ellora’s Cave charges too much for ebooks especially since so much self-published material is so cheap, some people ruminated about financial concerns at EC, some people wondered about poor business practices at EC (this one about Farrah Abraham’s advance is interesting), and some people thought it was disingenuous of EC to blame Amazon although perhaps Amazon’s launch of Kindle Unlimited had something to do with it.
But what no one seems to be gossiping about is Amazon’s adult filter and how that is quite possibly the reason for EC experiencing a “sharp decline of ebook sales via Amazon.”
And as an indie erotica author, I have some personal experience with precisely that. Continue reading
I was tagged in a Twitter-based writers’ exercise called Lucky Seven (or, rather, because it’s Twitter, #luckyseven): Continue reading
I’ve been tagged in the Writing Process Blog Hop! I was tagged by my colleague Jasmine Haynes who writes erotica and erotic romance (and other books under other names). She has a new release from Berkley Heat, Teach Me a Lesson, the second book in her Let’s Misbehave series.
Jasmine writes very hot sex! There is a voyeur scene near the beginning of The Principal’s Office that is so absolutely scorching I had to look around to make sure no one was watching me as I read it!
Now on to the official Writing Process Blog Hop questions. Continue reading
I’m a really slow writer. Really slow. It’s a combination of: I can’t actually type very quickly, and I think too much. Thoughts pile up in my brain because I cannot type (or write) them down fast enough, and the thoughts at the bottom of that pile get compressed so much so I become, quite literally, at a loss for words. Continue reading
I confess I am fanatical about National Novel Writing Month. The crazy idea thought up by Chris Baty way back in 1999 literally changed my life in 2006. The year before I had undergone a couple of life-altering events, so perhaps I was simply open to new experiences. I don’t know. Whatever psychological process was at play, I ended up catching the writing bug and have been an advocate for the November challenge ever since.
My friends are by now, after eight years, used to my prodding and encouraging them — my pep talks, as it were — to do NaNoWriMo, and I’ve been successful in getting several to attempt—and win!—the challenge. Everyone I’ve encouraged has been gracious or curious or thrilled.
Except one person. Continue reading
National Novel Writing Month begins in 12 days – but who’s counting?
This will be my eighth year doing NaNoWriMo, and my seventh book. Continue reading
I just became a publisher.
What this really means is that I just purchased a block of ISBNs and registered the publisher name. I could have gone with “Kammerotica” but I didn’t. I chose “Viridium Press” — my husband’s idea based on a location in a novel I have yet to finish. Continue reading