Vixenwriter

I’ve done some cleaning up on my link list today. I’ve added some new things and gotten rid of links to blogs that are not updated at least once every two weeks. Some of the ones I’ve unlinked are friends and I apologize but I feel like if I’m sending my readers to places that were last updated November 5 or something, that’s not very fair.

If you see any links I’m missing that I should add, let me know!

I could talk about reviews. AngieW has an interesting post up at RTB about reviews with many interesting comments. This has spilled out, as such things are wont to do, to Smart Bitches and KarenS as well. All interesting perspectives. You should go and read them.

I started to respond at RTB, but decided against it. Enough has been said already there. But as I start to write this I realize I will talk about it because I’m mouthy that way.

I used to review books at a review site and I’ve seen things from both sides. I never fluffed anyone, that’s not in my nature, LOL. I have given less than glowing reviews, but you probably won’t find them and that’s an issue. I love it when I get a glowing review, it certainly makes me happy. But I expect to get less than glowing reviews too and I have. Certainly I respect the ones that gave concrete reasons for not liking the book, for instance at Sequential Tart, a magazine I respect immensely, the reviewer didn’t feel that I gave enough attention to the mystery element (although she did complain about my formatting, which is not in my control).

Another complained that the Charvez family wasn’t dysfunctional enough and well, okay, if dysfunctional families are your thing, you probably won’t like the Charvezes because they’re not. They’re also not race car drivers or spaceship captains, just in case you’re looking for that. I’ve been fairly fortunate although I’m sure as time goes by, I’ll get blindsided by something clearly personal and mean. That goes hand in hand with putting your work out there to see.

I don’t personally believe that one needs special credentials to write reviews but I do prefer to see reviews that get my name right and don’t give spoilers for my book. As a reader, I do look at the reviews at amazon but I disregard ones that are overly gushy and those which are mean or just inappropriate (as in a review for a book clearly marked erotic romance but complains of too much sex, yawn).

Oops, a lot of “not going to say anything” there. I wish I had the same kind of self control that other authors do who never say anything controversial, but I just don’t have that gene.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, the loop party yesterday was quite enjoyable and once again, I realize what great readers I have and count my blessings.

I’m going to be announcing two new contests at my website later today so keep an eye out.

The new issue of my newsletter comes out on the 17th. I’m doing an extra contest for that one, all new subscribers will be entered. Here’s the link to subscribe.

That’s it for now. My kids are driving me nuts and I should go and oh, I don’t know play with them or something, LOL. Have a lovely Friday, all.

My wonderful friend JP, who runs an equally wonderful forum at Delphi, asked her readers these questions and I thought they were some good ones and I stole them to ask you all here

Favorite book of 2005?

Favorite author of 2005?

Favorite new or “new to you” author of 2005?

Favorite hero of 2005?

Favorite heroine of 2005?

Favorite plot of 2005?

Favorite secondary characters of 2005 (may they get sequels!)?

Most romantic moment in a 2005 book?

Best villain of 2005?

Worst book of 2005?

Most annoying hero of 2005?

Most irritating heroine of 2005?

Secondary characters you could have done without in 2005?

Were there any secondary characters whom you liked more than the hero and heroine in 2005?

Most bothersome plot device of 2005?

Hottest moment in a 2005 book?

Most over-hyped book of 2005?

Overall, would you rate 2005 as a good year for romance?

Finally, what was your favorite NON-romance of 2005 and why?

For Christmas, my bestest friend, Julia sent me and my family a Robert Sabuda pop up book of the Night Before Christmas. I’d never seen a Sabuda book before so you must imagine my delight and amazement as I opened it up for the first time. So much intricate detail, it’s truly a work of art and I won’t even let the kids touch it, I’ve put it away to bring out next Christmas to share again.

While waiting for pictures with Santa (sigh, and that was a trial that I won’t even account as it took five years from my life) we were letting the kids play in the children’s area of the bookstore there and I looked for other titles.

That’s when I saw Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up by Robert Sabuda. Holy moly. This book is just breathtaking and the boys, who adore everything dinosaur are nearly as excited as I am about this book. The T Rex actually pops out at you, gnashing teeth. Each page has mini books within it with incredibly small, very itricate dinosaurs. Unbelievable attention to detail.

Anyway, it’s the number fifteen book in the Amazon.com Editor’s Choice Top 50 and I couldn’t agree more. If you have kids or even if you don’t but you love books as works of art, check out Sabuda’s stuff, especially Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up

Finished Grave Sight night before last. It was amusing and I enjoyed it. I did figure out the ending, including the twist, by about 100 pages in, but I truly love Harris’ characters and I’ll definitely be looking into the next books in this series.

Listening to: American Idiot - Green Day still is on my regular play list along with Warning and Dookie. Green Day used to be this fun little punk pop band but they’ve matured and become relevant in a way so few bands become. AI is an excellent record, probably in my top 10 of all time.

Sleater Kinney - The Woods. G*DDAMM I love this record. Love it love it love it. If you like to see live music, try and check them out if they’re in your town, they’re amazing live.

Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane. It’s an old one, but hey, it’s a record all about sex and romance both wonderful and failed. I love that.

Clamm Bon - Japanese jazz pop. I’ve never heard anything like it and I love it. It’s perfect to write with because the lyrics are in Japanese and they don’t catch me when I’m working.

Some oldies - Ministry’s Psalm 69 and NIN, the Downward Spiral

Oh, loop party at the Maverick Author loop on Thursday, don’t miss it

Cascadia Wolves: Tri Mates

45,000 / 65,000 (69.2%)

I’m moving along really well in Tri Mates. I’m expecting to be finished by the end of January. I think this one is going to be longer than my usual 65 or so thousand words but we’ll see. I’m just laying it out and seeing where it goes. It’s a menage and that takes more because you’ve got two primary relationships as well as the actual relationship itself as a feature.

Sleight of Hand, my novella is coming out from Whispers, a start up erotic imprint of Scarlet Publishing, looks like late Feb/early March. As I’m one of their launch authors, my novella releases on their first day of business, which is nice.

Sent three chapters of Witches Knot out to Berkley Heat. Although the process makes me agitated, slightly needy and sleepless, it’s done, out and I’ll do my best to pretend I’ve forgotten it. Gah, I hate being all “eek will she like it?” I’m not used to it and each time I send something out, I swear I lose three pounds and about 30 hours of sleep. (Hmm, note to self: try sending out more ms as a way to lose weight.) I’m normally a very confident woman so the whole “eek” thing makes me crazy. But I suppose it’s good for my moral fiber and all that. (Because I see in a popular romance blog that yet again, I’m apparently the whore who writes porn - better that than a bored housewife, LOL)

After I’m done with Tri Mates I’m going back to the futuristic menage I’m about 1/3 into, Battlefront. I haven’t written a futuristic before but I want to keep challenging myself or I’ll get bored. This one is just a standalone. While I do love mind writing series books, I’d like to not do it every once in a while, too.

Oh, but before that, I need to write a proposal and the first 10 grand or so in my tarot book for EC. The beautiful Anya Bast and I are writing linked books - mine, called Sword and Crown, based on the Queen of Swords card. It’ll be a contemporary with fantasy elements. I’m really excited because this will make me stretch and work. I’ve already sketched out part of the proposal and the story arc so I’m anxious to get started.

I’m going to be re-writing Enclave in March at the mini retreat in Vegas. It’ll certainly take me longer than four days, but I want to have the concentrated time to just start at the foundations and dig in.

I think that’s about it for now. Got an invitation this weekend to write something for a small epub. It was a flattering and generous offer but my plate is rather full and I won’t be adding to it right now. I did thank her and tell her I’d keep them in mind for later in the year.

Last night I wrote five thousand words on Tri Mates. I’ve also changed the title from Rebel to Tri Mates. I think it’s a more accurate title anyway because it focuses on the relationship instead of just one person.

It’s suddenly a very complicated book. When that happens it makes me wonder just how long the book will end up being as I’m already at 42k and I usually end up at about 65k. We’ll see how it goes though.

But I’m at that place where it’s all just flowing and I love that so I want to work it as much as I can before it runs out and gets hard again.

I have Charlaine Harris’, Grave Sight at the top of my TBR pile for after I finish Tony Bourdain’s, Kitchen Confidential - which is a very fun book that’s like reading a really amusing story told to you by your funny friend.

Battlestar Galactica is back! Yeah! And now I can have detailed heated arguments over characters and motivations with my husband and my friends like the geek I am.

I’m thinking of getting an author photo done. A professional one.

That’s about it. I think I need some cinnamon toast and some more tea.

Mari and Annalee have both tagged me in the Seven Things Meme.

Seven Things To Do Before I Die:

1. Be On the NYT Best Seller List, the USA Today Best Seller List (you get the picture) - multiple times would be good, too.
2. Go to see the pyramids at Giza with my husband
3. See all of my children as happy, well adjusted and successful adults
4. Make a good living with my writing due to a very solid career
5. Paris, an expensive hotel, expensive champagne and chocolates and me and the man, nekkid for like, three weeks.
6. Prague again, only this time with actual money
7. Train trip all across Europe and Asia

Seven Things I Can’t Do

1. Serenity - I am an incredibly impatient person. It’s a flaw I’m working on it.
2. Listen to more than three hours’ worth of Pokemon facts per day. I have to say, “okay that’s it, mom has reached her Pokemon satiation point, to tell dad.”
3. Sing. But that doesn’t stop me
4. Eat eggs. I hate them. But I wish I liked them, omlettes look so tasty.
5. Put eyedrops in. It’s why I don’t have contacts. Once when I got conjunctivitis right before our wedding, I had to get special eyedrops and literally, my husband had to lay across me to hold me down and hold my eyes open. He’s a keeper, LOL.
6. Hear music and not want to dance
7. Watch the Exorcist. I watched it once when I was twelve and it’s haunted me forever. The movie scares the crap out of me. I love the idea of it, but I just can’t do it.

Seven Things That Attract Me To My Spouse

1. His intelligence. He’s the smartest person I know.
2. His passion. He believes in things and he works to make them happen. That’s so sexy.
3. His parenting. Nothing sexier than a man who’s a good dad.
4. Okay, so shallow, I know, but his looks. He’s got this black hair and eyes so deep brown they’re black and he’s tall and hard and mmmmm, just damned sexy. Even more so that he’s got grey at the temples now and that despite the fact that his face has been one I’ve seen for nearly twenty years, I still find something new about him to love. Oh, and his ass. The man has a stellar ass.
5. The way he loves me. There’s nothing in the world better than feeling cherished.
6. Watching him do his job, he’s all take charge and ass kicking and it’s very attractive.
7. His sense of humor. It’s dry, really really dry.

Seven Things I Say Most Often (this one is going to be bad)

1. Fuck. It’s a perfect word. It’s an exclamation, a noun, a verb, something good and something bad all rolled into one.
2. Whatever
3. I don’t say this, but I do the rocking devil horns a lot and I have forever. My oldest son does it now, LOL. Megan Hart and I also have made up a little emoticon code lml because she’s goofy like me.
4. Terms of affection like: doll, dollface, darlin, sweetie for people I adore
5. “Oh, uh uh”
6. “Get your finger/hand out of your ____” (this to the kids, all day long)
7. “Can you tell me why you’re doing/not doing that?” (variations of this include, WHY? What the heck do you think you’re doing! Stop doing that!)

Seven Books I love

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Wuthering Heights
3. Dune
4. Foundation
5. Welcome To Temptation
6. Handmaid’s Tale
7. Assorted Poetry of Pablo Neruda

Seven Movies I Could Watch Again and Again

1. Alien
2. Brazil
3. 12 Monkeys
4. Bend it Like Beckham
5. the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice
6. Kill Bill Vol 1
7. The Matrix

Seven People to tag:

1. Anya Bast
2. Megan Hart
3. Lili (who won’t do it and may possibly complain about it, LOL, but I’m tagging her anyway because I love her and she’s cute when she’s grumpy)
4. Mechele
5. Shelley
6. Jan
7. Charli

Of all the offensive phrases used to describe me and my fellow erotic romance authors I think “bored housewives” is the worst. It’s the worst because of what it says about women in general as well as women who write in the genre.

First is the general, incredibly hateful and misogynistic idea that housewives are sitting around, bored and need to write “racy” books because they have nothing better to do. That women are just robots that shut down when their husbands leave each day, only to come back on twenty minutes before he gets home to put on lipstick and pearls and make him dinner.

Secondly, the idea that somehow, what we do is so unimportant that it’s simply a time filler is offensive.

For the record, I work damned hard at what I do. I don’t claim to write nobel prizewinning novels, but writing a book isn’t easy, and it isn’t something I do because I’m bored and need a hobby like a good little wife. I don’t even have time to get bored. And most women I know in the genre are as busy as I am, if not more so.

“Bored Housewives” shows utter contempt for women and more specifically, women who create worlds. It shows contempt for housewives, too. And if Tina Engler is a bored housewife, she’s laughing her bored ass all the way to the bank heading her multi million dollar publishing company and writing books. The Quad who own Loose Id - are they bored housewives? I don’t think so. I’ve met three of them and know one pretty well and none of them struck me as bored or in need of a “little hobby”

People don’t have to like what I write. People don’t for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is that some people have big issues with independent, sexually empowered women - both writing books and as characters in them.

I keep forgetting to put up my review so let me do it now while I remember.

I can see why the movie is getting the accolades it is. First and foremost, beyond politics and hawt male stars, the love story is deep and amazing and heartwrenching. Heath Ledger’s simmering rage and frustration is incredibly well acted and while Jake is nicer to look at in many ways, Heath’s acting stole the movie hands down. Ennis is a man of very few words and so his acting was in his body and his expression and it seriously blew me away. Gylenhall’s devil may care attitude belied a gay man trapped in a straight world. A dreamer in love with a man who has to deal with reality, his part was flashier but in that sense, harder as well.

I admit it, I did cry at the end. I won’t say much other than that one friend said there was a vivid sex scene and I looked for it quite eagerly and didn’t see it. Loads of deeply emotional kissing and struggle against the feelings they had for each other, one sort of sex scene, clearly pretty daring considering how homophobic our culture is, though.

Excellently acted, wonderful screenplay, the physical scenery of Wyoming was breathtaking - I really loved it.