Vixenwriter

Sorry! I’ve been insanely busy since I found out that Touch of Fae was releasing on the 31st as well as dealing with other writerly type business.

Then last night as I’m planning to get back to work on Dark Justice I had a fairly severe allergic reaction to some new medication. It was oodles of fun (not)!

Anyway, I’m back to it tonight around my Friday date night with my husband (hopefully my children will be so exhausted from testing my patience all day they’ll go to sleep!). I hope to get at least 10,000 words by Monday, we’ll see how that goes.

Hey Everyone!

I just got my release date for Touch of Fae - August 31! I’m shocked that it’s coming so fast, I didn’t expect that. But hey, this is a good thing and I’m very excited about it!

So, I want to tell you to mark your calendars for September 9 when I’m taking over the EC Readerboard for the day for “A Touch Of LM” For those of you who hung out with me for my LM day before Triad released, you’ll know just how fun the day can be! I’ll be giving away prizes and putting up great excerpts from Touch of Fae and other great EC authors’ books!

Also, on release day, August 31, please join me at my yahoo loop for a release party. Again, some great excerpts and fun prizes!

My new web page is nearly ready to go, keep an eye out! It’s going to be a busy September!

I finially finished the edits for Second Chances and sent them in to my editor. Of course, I realized some hours later that about 1/3 of them were missing and spent several more hours on Sunday looking through the MS to see what hadn’t taken and re-editing it all. But it’s gone and I’m relieved.

I open my email this morning and the last bit of stuff is there for TOF and then it’s on the way to the FLE. Yeah! I am hoping to get a release date soon.

I’m off to finish the last bit of TOF to turn it around to my editor today and then I’ll post an excerpt of something or other. It’s been a while.

Oh and a reminder, Vixenwriter, my newsletter, is coming out on the 17th to subscribers. There are five chances to win some fun prizes and it’s for subscribers only so if you haven’t subscribed yet, the link is just to the right in the sidebar!

I was talking with another author friend of mine the other day about books that you resisted reading and ended up totally surprised by and loving by the end.

Two of those books were Diana Gabaldon’s, Outlander and Susan Elizabeth Phillips’, Ain’t She Sweet.

When I first read the back cover blurb of Outlander I laughed. Honestly. Time travel? World War II to pre Culloden Scotland? She leaves her husband behind? What? Why on earth would I read this book?

Over the years people whose book sense that I liked and respected continued to praise the book and a friend sent the entire series to me. My TBR pile was empty and so I picked it up. I didn’t stop reading until I’d read the entire series through and Outlander another time just for good measure.

It wasn’t time travel that made the book stand out, it was the connection between Claire and Jamie. Claire is flawed. She does choose Jamie over her husband in the future. Even later when she comes back to the future, she stays with Frank despite still loving a man who was long dead (hundreds of years in the future). And yet, her connection, this great deep love she had with Jamie was just so bright and so clear that all of that stuff falls away.

Outlander is good because it’s the very opposite from a cookie cutter story. It breaks every rule I can think of and yet, in my mind (and there are those who disagree most vehemently on this) it’s one of the greatest romance novels ever written.

Along that line, Ain’t She Sweet is another book that friends kept telling me to read. But why would I care about Sugar Beth? Ugh, this woman is the kind of girl I hated in high school! But Phillips takes this character and redeems her.

It isn’t that she was misunderstood in high school, she was a bitch. But she’s not now and she has to take a lot of shit to make up for what she was. But she does and she does it with class and in a way that does not diminish who the people are that she screwed over when she was young.

Again, Ain’t She Sweet is a fabulous romance because it breaks the rules. It gives us a heroine who is totally unexpected and unworthy even. But she learns. She grows and she’s courageous.

I love these unexpected surprises. I love being proven wrong about a book. And most importantly, I LOVE authors who break rules and who do it well.

What about you all? What are your “surprise” books?

The cover is up at Loose Id and I am now allowed to show you all Scott Carptenter’s excellent work. As far as I know, it’ll still be releasing in late September. I think Scott did a great job with both men in the background and Rori up front. He also made me a banner (how nice is that?).

I’ve seen my cover for Second Chances and it’s gorgeous. In fact, I can’t wait to show it all to you but I can’t until it goes up at the Loose Id site and then I will. Scott Carpenter did a fabulous job and I’m very pleased. I’ve been very fortunate with covers.

Speaking of SC, I’m editing. And editing. And editing. Ugh. I know, my husband constantly reminds me that I do not work in a coal mine, nor do I pluck chickens for a living so I should not complain about doing what I love and occasionally having to do the hard, tedious part. And he is right, as he usually is (which is why he’s such a good husband because he listens to me complain anyway AND brings me chocolate).

I love my children but I will dance the dance of joy when school starts and I don’t have to break up fights all day.

I still love my iPod and my laptop but will refrain from waxing all gooey over them (because I love you Stencil and I promised I would not start composing odes to my iPod).

I have several things I want to read and no time to read them, including (nanny nanny boo boo, Anya Bast’s, Blood of the Damned which I will read soon so I can talk about how great it is until it comes out and you all see for yourselves.)

That’s all for now. Keep an eye out for news and info, I’ve got some great stuff coming up!

I can’t figure out how to use a cut link here to not have an entry that is an entire screen long. So let me link to my Lauren Dane LJ where I have reposted (WITH PERMISSION) the statement. It’s the entry from today (August 7)

Since I bitched about this, I feel it is only responsible of me to post the latest response from SOME of the RWA Board to the RITA debacle:

Permission to forward granted:

The following members of the RWA Board of Directors wish to apologize for the disappointing direction of the Awards Ceremony during the 2005 conference. What should have been a celebration, not only of our finalists and award winners, but also of the growth and success of RWA, was not. Members of the board were repeatedly assured by the Awards Ceremony Board Liaison that the planning of the program was progressing appropriately. It was not until it was too late that we discovered that the focus of the ceremony had strayed from the theme we’d been given.

We thank those members who stepped in at the last moment to try to fix the script. We also apologize sincerely to our award winners, our finalists, and our members that the program was not appropriate to celebrate RWA’s success, as well as theirs. We apologize especially to Nora Roberts, who was not only put in an untenable position, but whose statement as to her reasons for not appearing was not read.

We pledge to move forward from this and to make the Awards Ceremony in Atlanta exactly what it should always be–a night on which we embrace the joys of romance writing and recognize the finalists and winners of our most cherished awards.

Gayle Wilson President-Elect
Kathy Carmichael Secretary
Connie Newman Treasurer
Nicole Burnham Region 1 Director
Lisa Kamps Region 1 Director
Dorien Kelly Region 2 Director
Peggy Emard Region 2 Director
Linda Howard Region 3 Director
Linda Winstead Jones Region 3 Director
Karen Fox Region 4 Director
Sherry Lewis Region 4 Director
Geralyn Dawson Region 5 Director
Jill Limber Region 6 Director
Jennifer Crump PRO Liaison
Teresa Carpenter Chapter Liaison

There are four members not on this list, Tara Taylor Quinn - the outgoing president and the Award’s ceremony board liason, Patricia Potter, Diane Pershing and Lynn Kerstan. I do not know why they were not there. However, TTQ issued a statement that I will also put up in part later.

So, I think the hardest thing for me in this whole journey into writing professionally is the management of my public persona.

You see, I’m a mouthy, opinionated broad. I know! Shocking! I know it doesn’t seem that way at all! That’s me, meek, sweet and mild. HA!

But the thing is, this me is still only at about 7 out of 10 me. I’m constantly having to check what I say. I want to pop off with how I feel about the whole RWA debacle and I have, but I have to stay concise and leave out all of the hot button words that I just say on IM with my friends. Friends who know the 10 out of 10 Lauren and love me anyway, well to my face, I know they roll their eyes at me because I’m just that way.

I see something unjust and I want to say so. I’ve had people tell me, “you can’t say that!” and I know they have my best interests at heart, but damnit, I can’t see stupid bullshit happen and not comment, I’m just not wired that way. Although, I suppose I might avoid saying stuff like “stupid bullshit.”

See, I think like a lawyer. It’s impossible not to, law school breaks you down and rebuilds you into a certain kind of thinker, which is useful but hard when you’d rather not think about stuff or just accept backpedaling at face value despite the volumes of information that points to the contrary. (I know, my sins are racking up, erotic romance writer, mouthy, opinionated AND a lawyer, I can’t help it, I’m just born to be bad)

What I’m saying is this (well, actually there are several things I’m gonna say): This RWA leadership (not all of the BOD but certainly the president and several of her supporters) has been hostile to the subgenre of writing that I inhabit. The things that have flowed out from her desk have been blunt and quite direct in communicating just what she thinks of erotic romance. Now, there are a lot of members of the RWA who feel this way apparently and goody for them, they are most assuredly welcome to believe that erotic romance is a plague upon romance and all of the terrible pornographers with keyboards are bringing the genre down (cause romance is held in such high esteem as a genre dontcha know).

But if you are going to make us use a separate entrance and make us sit in the back of the bus, stop fucking taking our dues. You hear me? You’re only too eager to collect the dues of the authors of erotic romance, to use our sales stats in your own. But you want to treat us like we’re dirt, as if we are lesser writers and human beings than you are because I say pussy and you wouldn’t even think of that “no no place” much less write about it AND take our money! That’s outrageous. I’m gonna say it again, that’s outrageous!

I won’t take pains to remind you of the hundreds of thousands of sales in the sub genre and that by attacking us, you’re attacking our readers - cause that’s obvious, even to a girl who says cock instead of throbbing member.

I’m honestly trying to stay at 7 out of 10 here but this infurates me and I can feel myself slip up to 8 1/2 - The latest RWA debacle with the RITAs is just yet another example of how estranged the president is with the membership.

Seriously, WHO thinks of putting together images of death and destruction with a kicky soundtrack and an ostentatious display? Further, what the heck does that have to do with romance novels? The RITAs are not awards for documentary film making or historical texts. It’s not like there’s a death of creativity in the RWA, either. There are 9200 members, creative people abound. To have such a clueless set of themes isn’t just dumb, it’s offensive because it lacks creativity, it’s lazy.

I’ve read the books of many of the women who are on the BOD - some of them are my favorite authors so I know they have the brainpower to have made the RITA ceremony into something entertaining, fun AND on topic. At this point, I’m just confused really, as to the point of the entire thing and to the hubris of an administration that would offend one of the brightest lights in our genre, Nora Roberts. Nora Roberts, you remember her? Makes 80 million dollars a year, has brought readers from outside romance in, making us all appeal to a wider audience - that Nora Roberts. And it’s not like she has a reputation for complaining about every little thing either so it seems to me when she gets worked up enough to write the statement that she did, things are going to hell in a handbasket with the RWA leadership.

I know I know, I’ve said too much. I’ve been political and opinionated but I can’t help it. Why on earth should I stand by when I’m called names and what I do, along with my readers, gets trashed? Like a woman who thinks it’s cute to have Don’t Worry Be Happy should be played over video of Tiananmen Square is one to judge.

And I’m not one to judge but I will anyway. I’m human, I make mistakes, I’m mouthy and opinionated (as we established above) and I’m sick of this. If the RWA is going to be relevant to its members, ALL of its members need to be included at the table. An awards ceremony with any political perspective is not inclusive, nor is it relevant to romance writing. Sadly, the RITA Ceremony is just the icing on a really crappy cake and our entire genre gets painted with a broad brush over stuff like this and that’s really just sad.

I should be editing but I’m taking a break for diet coke with lime, some sweetpea snaps and a note to say that I’ve read Nora Roberts’ and Jennifer Crusie’s statements about the ridiculous script for the RWA’s RITA ceremonies on Saturday and they both are articulate and brave for standing up and saying what many have been thinking. So I want to thank them both for making me proud to call myself a romance writer.