One of my poems is going to be published in Italy in an anthology, and they will send me a copy when it comes out. Go me!

Just subbed some erotic poems to Clean Sheets last night. A verdict will take six weeks. The reason I'm doing it is that I can't place fiction without my agent, but maybe I can generate interest via poetry. I want to feel like I'm doing something to get my name out there.

So I have an uber-talented web designer working on a concept for my site and she's offered me three great templates, but I don't know which one I like better. They all have something to recommend them or I wouldn't be dithering.

For the record, I write sexy romantic comedies. There's a significant amount of explicit bouncy-bouncy, but the humor quotient is pretty high too. Here's a sample from my current WIP -- Your Alibi.

As he stood up, the lamplight caught the ring on his left hand. He studied it for a long moment before he made a decision and tugged at it. It had been firmly in place for so many years that he wound up needing shaving gel to work it off. That stripe of white flesh was going to take longer to go away, though, and the memories never would.

He curled his fingers into a fist, thinking he should go wash his hands. But before he could move, a double tap sounded at the door. Shit.

“Sean?” Addie called through the door. “I thought you might need these for a shower…or you might want to go swimming later.”

The whole room smelled like cucumber, aloe and ginger, weird organic shaving stuff Cami had bought him in order to make him more GQ. And right now, it was dripping off his fingers in gooey strings. Addie was going to think he was a freak.

Before he could decide what to do, she let herself in with fresh towels, probably guessing the room was empty since he hadn’t answered. She was humming something, and then she drew up short, sniffing. He felt heat suffuse his face and neck as she focused on his dripping fingers.

“Uh,” she said, clutching snow white towels to her chest. “I can come back if this is a bad time, if I interrupted…something…”

She’d changed into a pair of green shorts—they hung low on her hips, showing the gentle curve of her belly. Sean caught his breath at her casual sexiness. He was pretty sure those were men’s clothes; she wore silk boxers and a plain old Fruit of the Loom undershirt, but the contrast of her tan skin against white cotton spoke to him like a religious experience.

Sean shook his head. He didn’t remember how to speak English, pure mortification paralyzing his vocal cords. Hurriedly he wiped his hand on his pants, where the gel promptly left a stain. Pure malignance, no doubt.

But then, her gaze lit on the wedding ring sitting beside his open laptop and she seemed to draw her own conclusions. Her expression melted from slightly worried to downright sympathetic. “I’m sorry. No wonder you look upset.”

Do I? He felt a faint flicker of surprise, followed by a surge of warmth. It was nice, having someone pay attention, though if anyone had asked, he would’ve said he had a decent poker face. Downside was, now he had two women driving him crazy when he’d never figured out the first one.

Sean mustered up a smile as he took the towels and set them on the bedside table. “Bad news on the phone just now, that’s all.”

He knew what interpretation she would place on that and he had to wonder if she would call Cami to confirm. Did they know each other that well? Sorority sisters? Sean tried to imagine Addie rushing and couldn’t. She just wasn’t the type.

“Would you like to talk about it?” She bumped the door closed with her hip, and the room seemed much smaller, dominated by his unmade bed.

“I don’t think it’s anything you could help with,” he answered, aware that his cock had all kinds of seditionist ideas about how she could assist.

I’m not imagining that look. The air felt charged, and as she moved toward him, he had to force himself not to take a step back. That would be revealing how much she unnerved him.

Addie stopped about a foot away and began tidying up his bed. Sean knew an absurd sense of disappointment; he would have sworn she was thinking something else entirely as she closed the distance. Maybe he was just too horny to read her, and he sure couldn’t remember the last time he’d made love.

As she worked, he caught her scent and his stomach muscles clenched. She smelled clean, apple shampoo and oatmeal soap, a ridiculously delicious combination. He watched the curve of her hip, the swell of her ass cheeks as she bent, straightening the covers, but she didn’t put the pillows underneath.

Addie turned then. “Lie down.”

“I…what?” The sudden rush of heat made it impossible for him to think.

Her slow smile as she patted the bed turned his brain to mush and his cock to titanium. “Lie down, Sean. You’re upset, but you don’t walk to talk. That leaves me no other recourse.”

That gives you an idea what I write. Now I'm gonna post three options, please tell me which one you think fits best in the comments section.

I just finished reading the Key trilogy by Nora Roberts. I literally had to finish the last book before I could go back to working on my own stuff, some that has never happened before. As regards my writing, I tend to be pretty obsessive, like to the point of forgetting to eat or sleep before I had kids. Now they remind me of such things by telling me piteously that they're hungry, and I go cook something.

So imagine my surprise when this series grabbed hold and insisted I read all of it before I could write again. I had the really silly thought as I was reading, "I want to be like Nora Roberts when I grow up." I don't always like the head-hopping but she managed a really difficult feat in these books (and extraordinarily well). By that I mean, she wrote what is, essentially, an ensemble romance. One couple got top billing, but she went into other POVs too and fleshed out the start of other relationships. It can be hard to do that without overshadowing the main story.

The books were a bit fairytale-ish without being cheesy. I suppose they'd have to be called paranormal, although not in the usual sense. No vampires or weres to be found, thank God. I came out of the reading feeling happy and rejuvenated, though there are a few tear-jerker moments as well. I highly recommend this series, and it actually refreshed me so that I felt excited about writing again. I had been sort of worn down, waiting for news about Guide, but this reminded me why I write. It isn't to make the sale; it's to tell the story.

PS Honest Illusions was a brillant read too.

Need I say more, really?

Today, I depart completely from writing-related posts. There have been two events today that must be announced to the blogosphere immediately. First (but not most important) I am the proud owner of a new pink chocolate phone. If you haven't seen one of these, they are hella cool. It's a phone, camera and MP3 player in one -- very sleek and sexy. I am in lurve.



Here's what a leading gadget site has to say about my new gizmo:

Also known as the KG800, the Chocolate phone is one of the first mobile handsets to sport a touch keypad for its navigational controls. Sleek and visually stunning, the phone remains completely black until the touch-pad. Once activated, the phone’s signature design feature, its glowing red touch-sensitive icons, bring to life a ‘hidden’ full-colour screen that completes the phone’s unique look and feel of minimalism with a modern twist.

Its onboard features include a 1.3-megapixel camera, 128MB memory, music player and Bluetooth. Battery life is an impressive 200 hours standby with 3hours 20 minutes talk time. The Pink and White ‘Chocolate’ handsets are identical to the original Black Chocolate phone in terms of features. The phone is also environment-friendly, having gained certification from the European Union regarding its compliance with the Removal of Hazardous Substances legislation that came into effect across Europe this July.

The next important announcement (and this is far more exciting than my new cell phone). I know that's hard to believe! We went out today, big family luncheon (these typically take three hours so lunch runs into dinner) at Rincon, which is an Argentinian restaurant, then we went to see about my phone. The pet store is next door to Telcel, so I told the kids we could look around.

We made it past the fish, the bunnies, the hamsters and the birds, but when we reached the puppy area, all three of us sort of went boneless. I know pet stores are evil and one should never buy from them, but I defy you to resist when an adorable sad-eyed bassett hound puppy sits up and begs when you walk by. She gave us puppy eyes and pressed her little white paws up against the glass. I turned into butter; both my kids gave me puppy eyes. Needless to say, we took her home. She's asleep outside under the laundry room sink. She's pretty timid right now, but I hope she'll get used to us. She is very sweet-natured, though, hasn't made a peep even though bassets are known for howling.

I'll put up a picture soon. Her name is Daisy and she is adorable.

Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer do!
I'm half crazy,
All for the love of you!

Thus ends the non-writing related bulletin. Stay tuned for Daisy updates.

On Smart Bitches, they posted about this article in Publisher's Weekly. Apparently Genesis Books, the largest privately owned publisher of African American books has been screwing over its authors, not paying royalties or issuing 1099s for a while because writers were afraid to speak out. The owner is a powerful attorney with friends who are judges in the state of Mississippi, as I understand it. Well, the first thing I have to say is: this sucks.

I had a similar experience with an e-publisher. The company started out with rave reviews, won a bunch of awards for being the best for e-pubbed authors, so I sold two books to them and basically never got paid. That company was NBI and a lot of people were screwed along with me, some to the tune of thousands of dollars. I lost over 1K myself. So it always sucks when a writer enters into a publishing contract in good faith and then gets fucked over. We turn in our best work and get shit back? I don't think so, not in this lifetime. Unfortunately, if the company is big and powerful, like Genesis, they may have a big expensive legal team on the payroll, and the authors just can't afford to compete. In the case of NBI, the scamming CEO moved to Florida, disappeared with any money that was made and hasn't been punished so far as I'm aware.

Among the posts on SB, it was stated that white people won't care that black authors are getting screwed over. I find I don't like being told what I care about, and it's just wrong for authors to be cheated out of what they've earned. I don't care who does it, a slick attorney in Mississippi or a middle-aged "I want to be your best friend" woman in Massachusetts.

I care, okay? It's not fine with me if authors are mistreated by their publishers. We need to put the pressure on Genesis until they get their business sorted out and these authors get the royalties, statements and 1099s that they're owed. Until then, put Genesis on your DO NOT SUBMIT list because they aren't desirable for authors. They're going to have to earn back the trust they've broken with some serious bookkeeping and maybe some community service besides.

Today I want to open up a discussion on the three(?) different types of heroes. Mind you, the meta-class is much different than the eight archetypes. I may discuss those another day. First let me present some accepted basic definitions.

Alpha Heroes

He has to be successful- a man of achievement. Independent. A ruler – a man of power. Strong, handsome, vigorous. A leader. In human societies, the signs of success are wealth and power – and so the Alpha hero has to have the outward trappings – those visible signs of success that the world values – money, houses, cars, businesses...

Tradition has grown up that – to quote Jayne Ann Krentz in DANGEROUS MEN AND ADVENTUROUS WOMEN – ‘These males are the tough, hard-edged, tormented heroes that are at the heart of the vast majority of bestselling romance novels . . . They are the heroes who carry off the heroines in historical romances.

Beta Heroes

These romances have kinder, gentler heroes, the kind of men who will change your flat tire, open doors for you, help your kid with his homework, and bring you soup when you are sick. They are the anti-thesis of the testosterone-filled chest beaters found in the earlier bodice-ripper romances. These are the guys we all want to find in real life.

There isn't a whole lot to discuss there, apart from which type of hero you most often write about and why. Here's where I can't seem to pinpoint an agreed-upon common definition. Some authors don't even accept that Gamma Heroes exist!

Gamma Heroes

On AAR, they said the following about Gamma Heroes:

One who doesn't fit the image of the macho Alpha male, or the easygoing Beta either. He's a combination--a mutation?--of both types of man, and makes a hero to die for.

The consensus on AAR appears to be that it's a mix of beta and alpha, a man who is tough but tender. But on this writing site, the author says:

This is the darkest of male heroes (See Author Anne Stuart's heroes for perfect example of Gamma Heroes.

What does she mean by 'darker'? Like almost evil? I've read Anne Stuart books and many of them do tend to be grim, dark and full of angst. I love them, of course, but this writer hasn't helped me figure out this Gamma business.

And that's literally all I'm able to find about Gamma Heroes on the Intarweb. That brings me where I want to be in this post, though, because I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether the Gamma Hero exists and if so, what the hell is he like?

Arrr, as today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, I wanted t' gi'e ye all some links t'plunder. Enjoy, gar!

Pirate Speak Translator
What's Your Pirate Name?
The Pirate King
Shiver Me Timbers
Pirates of the Spanish Main

Aye, that should keep ye scurvy lot arse deep in work for a while!

As fer meself:







Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19!
What Pirate do YOU Talk Like?

From Miss Snark:

Yesterday, some poor nitwit asked her blog readers to lobby an editor about the partial she'd just submitted.

Seems some newbie has Ms. Genoese reading her partial. In a spasmodic attack of overenthusiasm, she posted her first chapter and asked all her blog readers to visit Ms. Genoese's blog to tell her how much they loved the book, as if popular opinion could prompt an offer. Yes, that's an utterly bung-headed idea, but that's not my focus today. Here's what Miss Snark had to say in the aftermath.

Pick yourself up.
Apologize.
Sincerely.
None of this "if I may have offended you" or "if I offended you".
A sincere apology is "I fucked up. I'm really sorry. I learned a lot from this. I ask your forgiveness". Those words can be really really hard to say, particularly when you are feeling attacked, and defensive.

Truer words were never spoken.

And so here's tribute to everyone out there who ever fucked up royal, and then had the balls to admit it, no qualifiers, no explanations, no justifications. Accountability is one of the most difficult lessons to learn, whether in our personal or professional lives, but it shows true grace when we manage it.

Hats off to those who know how to say "I'm sorry".

First, the tagline for the premise of Free Lunch.

Add one freegan individualist to a corporate tax attorney. Compound with a midnight meeting inside a dumpster, and let the interest accrue.

Now a basic definition:

freegan [n]
a person who consumes food that has been thrown away, especially someone who wants to protect the environment by reducing waste

A little more detail, taken from here:

In most developed countries, hygiene and safety standards are so high that many foods remain safely edible long after their ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ dates. This fact, and the concerns of many people about unnecessary waste and the consequent negative effect on the environment, led to the advent of freeganism in 2003. Freeganism is the philosophy of minimising impact on the environment by consuming food that has, quite literally, been thrown away. For the freegan - the name given to those who practise this philosophy - the fact that disposed-of goods have already left the production-consumption cycle absolves them of any feeling of responsibility for resources used in the production process. Freegans therefore collect and consume surplus food from supermarket bins and bakery doorways, food that would otherwise have been taken to a landfill site.

Freeganism is usually associated with a political philosophy rather than dietary behaviour, intending to make a strong anti-consumerist statement. It is therefore sometimes associated with the concept of ethical eating, i.e. making considered choices about the food we consume based on ethical principles. However, at the radical end of freeganism are some rather extreme practices, such as what is referred to as plate scraping or table diving, where freegans linger in restaurants to consume discarded food from plates and tables used by other diners. Freegans who engage in this practice are also alternatively described as plate scrapers or table divers.

However, it's not just eating. It encompasses an entire anti-consumer lifestyle. The goal is never to buy anything, and the website provides an astonishing amount of information as to how one can accomplish that. I was impressed, despite myself, particularly by an organization called Food Not Bombs. Apparently they dive for wasted food and then serve up really impressive meals in public parks to anyone who wants to partake, usually this includes the homeless. I have to hiss at Las Vegas, Orlando, Santa Monica, Birmingham, and Fredericton. These towns have outlawed the feeding of the indigent in public parks. People are being arrested for helping others now? What the hell?! According their site, they've been accused of terrorism for feeding the hungry and members in San Francisco have been arrested over a thousand times for doing exactly that. I had no idea.

I hope I can raise some social awareness as well entertain with this project. This book is going to be fun as hell to write. Darby, our heroine, has ginger hair and freckles, she lives in a squat, and she's happy about it. She's going to knock our rather self-satisfied hero, Chaz Montgomery Winthrop, right on his ass. Figuratively and literally. If he wants her, he'll have to give up everything for her, and it's going to be hilarious breaking Mr. High and Mighty Materialist down to that point.

When it comes time to research, I'll get in touch with the Freegan organization and see if anyone will host me. If possible, I'll go dumpster-diving and attend a Freemeet, essentially a barter-based flea market. I know, I know, it's going to be glamorous.

So I'm hitting the home stretch with Your Alibi, where I've cannily avoided disbursing chunks of backstory, but still managed to get everything across. For me, this is also known as the halfway point. Sometimes reaching this point can be a bit of a struggle but once I get the momentum behind me, I'm like a hippo running downhill. Just no stopping me, baby.

It varies from book to book, of course. Sometimes I write like a fiend for about 20K and then taper off as I realize I have no fucking clue where the book is going and I'm not sure whether I have anything that remotely smells like a plot. That kind of happened with Guide and I came up short on word count too. I revised that sweet little bitch two or three times after completion.

Yes, that means I'm a pantser. I've actually written an entire novel extemporaneously with no idea how it was gonna end. Was a sci-fi romance called Falling. That was wicked fun, and I was as astonished as anyone when the book came back from my beta-readers as brilliant, awesome, ass-kicking fun, "I wish I had 1/4 of your talent," and "I'm insanely jealous." Huh? You mean it doesn't have plot holes big enough to drive a truck, through? Well, holy shit, color me surprised.

Outlines? We don't need no stinkin' outlines...

With Your Alibi, I had a little trouble getting started because I had so much plotted out in my head that I wasn't exactly sure how to get there. Which maybe makes no sense, except to say, it was like I had a printout from Mapquest in hand, but with the start of the route missing. Get it?

However, now that I'm rolling, the last half of this book should come really fast. I've set a chapter a day as my goal and I hit it most of the time. Occasionally if stuff crops up, I take two days on a chapter and then I bitch at myself mentally for being so slacktastic. If I keep to my writing schedule, I should be done with the first draft of this book in a little over two weeks. That's the plan anyway. I give myself major credit for sticking with this. I'm not letting my genre ADD gain ascendance and I'm not--

---oooh, shiny---

--stopping til I've written three sexy, funny romances, dammit!

The next one on the docket to be completed is called Free Lunch. As a perk, I always take the most awesome trips while researching my projects. Guide granted me a gorgeous weekend in NYC, and Alibi will have me in Cali two or three times before I'm done, but the the research for Free Lunch is going to ice the cake. When it comes time to start writing about Chaz Montgomery Winthrop and our girl Darby, I'm going to see if I can spend a week with some Freegans in order to write with verisimilitude. I'll post about exactly what that entails next time, but feel free to look up Freegans for extra credit if you want.

So what're you, pantser or plotter?

Want some? Go here.

No, I'm not gonna explain how this ties into my current WIP. Sorry I haven't been posting, but I'm nose to the grindstone, almost to the halfway mark, and my DSL has been out for two days now. I'll be more entertaining forthwith, promise.

If ya pick up some peppermint peckers, try the penis pops too. Hear they're the ultimate all day sucker.

Me too.

I've been a lazy cow, so far as blogging is concerned, but I've been writing my ass off, which you'll have noticed if you're keeping an eye on my progress bar.

On some thread or other on Smart Bitches (because really, what else do I read on the Intarweb?), they were talking about how they are tired of sex by the numbers in erotic romances. It's like the author doesn't feel it, but is just inserting sex according to some internal schedule: straight missionary, female superior, some oral action and a trip to Denny's. Okay, maybe I added that last part because I don't know of anyone who calls eating at Denny's a sexual experience, unless of course it's a new slang term that I haven't heard of. And in that case, I don't want to know what "Eating at Denny's" is slang for. I'm still reeling from having the term "Dirty Sanchez" explained to me.

Anyhow, I digress. I just finished my first sex scene in Your Alibi and it's certainly not by the numbers. I don't begin with straight missionary. I didn't in The Average Girl's Guide to Getting Laid either. So I hope the bitches will absolve me of writing 'sex by the numbers.'

The question I have for all my fellow smut peddlers is this: do your own sex scenes need to turn you on? If you don't get off while writing them, do you figure they're not hot enough to turn anyone else on either? Do you feel like you need to feel it?

PS - The scene I wrote today was a three-alarm fire.

This afternoon while taking a break from coding this dreadful template (still haven't got the bloody sidebar quite right), I realized just how subjective enjoyment of a book can be. People have been recommending the JD Robb novels for a while, so on my last mammoth order from Amazon, I picked up the first three.

Started reading Naked in Death three days ago. Put it down. Started again. Put it down. Partly, I was handicapped because on AAR I read a really hilarious parody that crippled my ability to take the books seriously. And partly, I find the ping-pong POV enormously distracting. But it's good writing; it really is. Only someone who's mastered the craft could get away with that without destroying the story.

I read... four other novels, all of which I enjoyed, including $how Her the Money and Grave Sight.

Today, I picked Naked in Death up again with great determination. I swore I'd make myself focus. Surely if I buckled down, I'd like what other people said was a great book. And as I read, I thought, this is good writing, really spare and elegant. But I had all the emotional response of one reading an advertisement promising 15% off her next gutter cleaning. I think these are good books; they just aren't for me. I can't put my finger on it, but they don't engage me.

What books have you started with high expectations, only to find they don't push your buttons?

People ask me how I write romantic comedy, day after day, no matter how crappy my mood may be. Behold, my secret weapon!



I defy anyone not to watch that and giggle a little bit. Happy September!

PS - IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!