Vixenwriter

Hmm, what to talk about on Hump Day? The creepy people who sign up for my messageboard to spam me? Here’s a clue, I don’t want your spam. If you want to talk about prescription medication or really gross porn, start your own messageboard. I’m an author, my messageboard isn’t about pills by mail or really gross porn. Stop. Seriously, just find your own corner of the internet and hang out there, why parasite off other people who don’t want your presence? It’s pathetic really. I don’t show up at a web board about computer gaming to talk about my books, or a board about pills by mail either. Why? Because I have manners and my mother raised me right.

Daniel Craig? HA! I’ve been a booster from the start and I’m so glad he’s proved all the doubtful people wrong. He’s hothothot!

I finally got the new Suzanne Enoch today. I’ve been waiting weeks and weeks. I can’t wait! She’s so wonderful with contemporaries and I love her historicals too. Just goes to show that authors can jump genres and do a great job.

My middle kid is still in school until the end of this week. I had to drag the other two to pick him up, which is a lot like walking very big dogs. Big dogs who ate a lot of sugar and smell a squirrel. There’s lots of hopping and surging and falling over feet. Tripping, climbing on wholly inappropriate things, usually that have sharp edges that are rusty. I wish I had the kind of children who played quietly and never got dirty. I know those kids exist!

My oldest broke a tooth and he’s all freaked to have to go to the dentist tomorrow. Sigh. I need to be more proactive with dental stuff and the kids.

I finished a revision of a partial and it’s off to crit. I’m now going to deal with edits on Ascension and get those done. Then back to The Others and then I need to write the outline of the next novella for Spice. It’s good to be busy. I wish I could say it kept me out of trouble but I can say it keeps me working and focused and that’s a good thing.

And in honor of TT, I want to talk about sex in books. Or to be more specific, the things in sex scenes that drive me nuts and make me wonder if the person writing that scene has ever had sex.

1. The junk jamming hero. Okay, I know penises are wonderful things to have and have used on you. But they’re not wonderful to just have jammed into any old crevice without preparation. If I read an anal scene and the hero just thrusts in there without any prep (no stretching, no lube) it makes me want to sock him in the balls. Repeatedly.

2. The wailing heroine. It’s a general rule of mine that when I write sex the heroine can only scream or wail once during sex. When I read these women who wail and scream and cry out in every sex scene, it makes me snicker. Noise is sexy, screaming, crying, wailing, keening heroines in every sex scene? Not so much.

3. Sex scenes where I have to put the book down and try to position myself to imagine what the hell the couple is doing. Now this is something everyone does. I’ve done it. I think the problem is that the story is in your head so you know what it looks like but it doesn’t translate. That’s when editors come into play and mine have certainly said, “what the heck is her neck doing here?”

4. On the subject above, couples that kama sutra every time. Wheelbarrowing, sex swinging, upside down trapeze fucking, she’s got one leg wrapped around his neck while he’s hanging her off the side of a building and she’s singing the national anthem in French or somesuch. It doesn’t have to be in the dark, missionary or anything but if it’s so farcical that I shake my head, that’s not sexy. It’s confusing and over the top. Sexy isn’t about impossibility and wackiness of position, it’s about the connection of the characters.

5. Heroines that have hair trigger clits. Yes, some women come very easily, but the majority of women can’t come with only intercourse. They need a little help with clitoral stimulation. All these heroines who come the minute penis makes contact with vagina just aren’t realistic.

6. Authors who throw sex into every crevice of a novel with no real purpose. I like sex in books. I write sex in books. But sex is a device, like any other action. If it’s just tossed in every four pages, it becomes tedious and meaningless.

7. Authors who are clearly uncomfortable with writing sex but have added it because someone told them it was new/hot/now. It’s okay to close the door, that can be sexy too. Don’t write it if you hate it or feel uncomfortable with it. That includes writing genres you don’t like or feel uncomfortable with like MM and menages.

If an author is really feeling her characters and is into the book, you’re going to feel the heat. It doesn’t have to be a three way in a glass box suspended above Times Square. Show me the connection and I’ll see the heat. Even if all the author does is kiss and close the door.

I’m working on my newsletter today so if you’re a subscriber, you’ll see it later this afternoon. If you aren’t, why not? It’s free, I’ve got monthly contests and excerpts too. Click here to subscribe.

Samhain has a new blog! It’s very pretty. Go and check it out. Different Samhain authors will be taking different days to blog. So many of us, it’s on a three month cycle right now so it should be a great and varied blog to read. My day is December 27! I have no idea what I’ll blog about just yet though.

Congrats to all my buddies who finalled in the Eppies! Good luck, everyone.

Writerly type stuff - WIPage: I’m 14K in to my partial of The Others. We had consummation last night. Well, that is to say Sam and Nadia had consummation, I just watched as I wrote it because I’m a deviant that way. I do need to set it aside though, to finish up a revision on Enclave, which I should be able to get done by the end of this week (I need to add about twenty more pages or so).

Readerage - Next up I’ve got TJ Michaels’ Gift Wrap Optional and Mackenzie McKade’s Bound for the Holidays. I’ll talk about em Friday!

Anyone do anything exciting this weekend? I made pumpkin bread, which turned out fabulous (thanks to Julia and her recipe I wheedled). My entire family adores this bread, it’s got a chewy crust and a yummy middle. I add chocolate chips because I am a fool for chocolate (and a slave to love, baby!). We also had the lovely and talented Lacy Danes over for drinks and snacky goodness Saturday night, which was really fun.

My middle monster has a cold, again. And he loves to give me mucus updates on the quarter hour. Just in case I needed to know. Which I’ve assured him I really, really don’t. But he takes this responsibility serious and he’s camped beside me in a chair with tissues and his gameboy. Mmm, motherhood is glamorous, no?

I was IMing with a friend this week and the subject of pressure came up. The pressure we put on ourselves so that it’s never enough.

I was saying that I look at multiple book deals like hers and I feel like my novella sale isn’t good enough when measured against that. I see that kind of success in people whose work I adore, friends who I’ve seen work hard and struggle and I don’t resent it or begrudge it, I celebrate that. But I also feel this pressure to measure myself against it and then I find myself lacking.

Funny, she said she looked at how fast I worked and felt like she wasn’t measuring up. (and hello, her writing is outrageously good)

It’s odd to me how hard we can be on ourselves. The pressure to produce and keep out there comes from a good place - readers who want more and publishers who want more. These are good things! But at the same time, it creates pressure.

Most of the time, I find myself in a groove. I work every day. It’s okay, that’s who I am. I’m not vain when I say I work damned hard. I do. I give up sleep to do this but I love it and I’m blessed to be able to live my dream. Anyway, I have my groove and I work on multiple projects and keep moving forward. If I do this, I usually have projects at different places in the chain of release so I can break up my schedule with edits, revisions, writing manuscripts of a few different genres. It keeps things interesting for me and usually I don’t have time for the doubts and the stress.

But every once in a while if things get quiet for five minutes I start to feel the stress of it all. Wondering if I’ll ever make another NY sale. Wondering if the next time I try to write I’ll end up dry.

I read Alison Kent’s blog earlier this week and saw her talking about producing as well - as in the time we spend on our books and not having the time we need because of the need to get more books out there in a year.

Generally, I feel like I give the time to get the backstory right. Too much time sometimes when I obsess about small details (maps are my obsession). It would be nice to put out a book a year so I could spend more time on the obsessive details and not have the pressure to produce more. But you know, I put out nine books in 2007, wrote five of those in the calendar year and another five, a novella, and two partials. That’s damned productive and I think they’re all fine books with good plotting, story and writing. But I still feel like I haven’t done enough and I wonder if it’s just a matter of personality or what.

This sort of touches on something Jordan said at her blog about goals. I keep a list of goals but I try to be general. I used to be very specific but found that I got all bogged down in the details when it’s not the details of title and which story, but the follow through with the overall goals of writing and completing projects, editing, seeking new markets, etc.

So why don’t we give ourselves a break? Maybe people do. Maybe I’m the only one who feels like if if I don’t do it NOW, I’ll never do it. I’ll fail or not measure up, or one of a dozen other things that plagues your sanity and turns a confident person into a mass of insecurity at least for a few days each month.

I was lucky enough to have this fabulous book drop into my inbox earlier this week. Craving Candy is the next insallment in NJ’s Awakening Desires series and it releases from Ellora’s Cave December 27. This book came when I had to finish up two other projects but I found myself sneaking time to read it when I could, I was so addicted!

Here’s the blurb: Candy Logan loves her job as a publicist for TK Publishing, but her newest client is causing her problems. She is determined to meet the elusive Lucas Squires and get him to agree to publicize his upcoming book. She crashes a party that he is giving in hopes of cornering him.

Lucas wishes he’d never let his friend talk him into writing a cookbook. He had his hands full opening a new location of his café, Coffee Breaks. He forgets all about his business problems when a woman straight out of his dreams walks into his party. He knows he can’t let her leave without finding out who she is.

Sparks fly between the Candy and Lucas from the first moment they lay eyes on each other. The sexual attraction is immediate and consuming, but a case of mistaken identity gets their relationship off to a rocky start. Just when things start to smooth out between them, issues from each of their pasts threaten their budding relationship.

Can they overcome the seemingly insurmountable problems? Now that Lucas has had a taste of Candy, will he be able to live without her?

I loved this book. Well let me back up, I love NJ Walters. In the first place, she’s one of the nicest people around on top of being incredibly talented. I love the way she writes and I love the emotion in her books.

Craving Candy starts out on a taut note, lots of action and emotion in those first pages and it only keeps going. Lucas is an emotionally wounded man but he’s not an “Alpha” who’s really just a jerk with an alpha tag.

Candy is a layered heroine - she’s got her own issues in spades but like Lucas, she’s risen above them and has a successful career. Still, she’s wounded like he is.

Their chemistry is off the charts. I won’t give spoilers but NJ does something that I find rarely works in romantica and she does it well. Lucas is the kind of hero who can make you all hot just with a look. Oh and he bakes. Yes. And there’s this scene with chocolate and honey, whew, *fanning self* ANYWAY, I think I’ve given you the idea here - hot, hot, hot!

More than the chemistry though, NJ has written a book with depth and heart. The journey Candy and Lucas take toward understanding each other and themselves is beautiful and heartbreaking in places but ultimately rewarding.

In Craving Candy, NJ Walters has written another winner and a truly wonderful romance.

Well thank goodness for some sanity.

Oy. Seriously people, this sort of thing hacks me off. In the first place, why do people who want to ban books always have absolutely NO true information about them? I remember once someone telling me that Harry Potter had voodoo in it, which of course just goes to show the ignorance of book banning in the first place. Unless Rowling throws it into book 7, I haven’t seen any voodoo yet. Of course, I’ve actually read the books, so silly me.

According to the American Library Association, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books have been challenged 115 times since 2000, making them the most challenged texts of the 21st Century.

There are several, quite obvious things here. In the first place, the books are about loyalty, courage, honor, love and conviction to your beliefs. These are precisely the values children need most. I’ve heard claims that it encourages children to question authority. And um, hello, these children are fighting to save humankind and wizard kind alike with the help of adults. It’s not that they’re questioning all authority, but you know what? Sometimes authority is wrong. Hitler ring a bell? Sometimes, authority is bad and there’s nothing wrong with your child understanding that.

HOWEVER, if you don’t want your children reading fantasy novels because they contain elements you consider bad (although it might be nice if you read the darned things first to see what they were really about), don’t let em. That doesn’t mean though, that you need to become my childrens’ moral compass on such matters. Or anyone else’s for that matter. Why does it have to move from a personal decision for your family to an attempt to decide for mine? It’s so unbearably self righteous.

I fully support parents controlling what their children read and see. It’s a parent’s job to do that. But it’s not Laura Mallory’s job to do it for me and I resent her attempts and the people like her (on both sides of the political spectrum) who seem to believe it’s their job to decide what everyone else thinks, hears, says and reads.

So thumbs up to Georgia Board of Education members for voting to keep the books on the shelves.

Yesterday I finally got around to reading the new RWR and the piece on critique groups caught my eye. Interestingly enough, the always wonderful Alison Kent has blogged on this topic today as well.

I don’t have a crit group. I never did. I started writing by myself and I didn’t really know anyone I felt comfortable asking. I didn’t even know about places like Romance Divas or the RWA at that time. So I sort of got imprinted in a solitary way.

And after a time, I had some readers I trusted and asked to do beta reading for me. One of them has been with me since A Touch of Fae, I count her as a friend and I value her opinion greatly - Tracy kicks butt and I’m sooo lucky to have a beta reader like her. Likewise, Renee, reader extraordinare, has done beta for me for the last five or so books and she’s a huge help as well as being a hoot and a wonderful friend. I’ve got other marvelous folks I can email and ask for help who will drop everything to read for me sometimes at the last minute so that’s a big help to me because it’s not so much that I need the help with syntax or grammar, I want to know if readers are getting what I’m trying to say, if the story flows, if the characters have good chemistry, etc. The function of a good beta reader is to tell you, “okay, I really hated her when she did that” and sometimes I ignore that as a personal quirk but usually I give it attention because if you’re lucky as an author, your beta readers are insightful folks who like your writing and your voice so if you do something drastic enough that they comment, you’ve made an error.

Once, one of my beta readers hated Conchobar. Like seriously loathed him. She still hates him to this day and if he’s in any other books she wrinkles her nose at me and complains, LOL. But Con is probably the hero people comment on loving the most. Still, I had to really examine him and his motivations and actions because I trust her opinion so much. But she was wrong and I lurve to tease her about it!

As for critique? I have crit partners that I absolutely trust with my life as well as my words. Megan Hart and Anya Bast have critted many things for me and they’re both very different in the things they see but together, their crit finds everything! I don’t want to be petted on the head, I need to know, flat out, what doesn’t work (not that I don’t love those little comments when they tell me they really loved some bit of dialog or a scene). I’ve brainstormed with both of them when I got stuck as well and they’ve both given me great advice. I find that sort of support and assistance invaluable and I know my proposals go to my agent way better than if I’d just done it myself. A good cp is going to point out things you don’t see because the story is in your head and it all makes sense to you. Repetitive words, stuff you’ve said more than once, things your characters do that don’t make sense with their overall personalities, etc. I know Anya will make me be more descriptive (what does the alley look like?) and Megan will make me cut repetive stuff (of course she stands “up” you can’t stand down)

I do know that I’ve had crit from people I didn’t find helpful. Mainly because I tend to get annoyed quickly by people who take glee in telling me how harsh they are but they’re not effective critters, they’re just getting off on being mean. I want harsh, effective criticism, if I wanted mean, I’d go back to 10th grade. It does nothing but stroke ego and nine times out of ten, those folks can’t handle constructive criticism of their own work.

I have a thick skin. Tell me what works and what doesn’t. I’ll take what I need and reject what I don’t. If people don’t tell you what’s wrong, how can you improve?

I don’t know if crit groups are helpful or not. They wouldn’t have been for me. The process just isn’t one I find useful. But I know many authors who do find them helpful and continue to participate in them long after they’ve been published many years.

I suppose it’s like everything else in this business - you do what works for you. There are so many things out there to utilize and so pick and choose what helps and don’t do what doesn’t.

Man, kids.

This morning, my daughter has been running around alternately demanding I brush pony hair (My Little Pony is huge at my house, lemme tell you, I brush a lot of pony hair) and taking her shirt off and refusing to put it back on. It’s like a girls gone wild video. Ok, well without creepy men with video cameras and stupid 19 year old drunk girls whose mothers are so going to kick their butts.

Anyway, I had a great discussion about Chased with one of my beta readers who helped me immensely! I knew there were some pacing problems in the middle and so I bounced ideas off her and I think I may have two scenes to fix and it should help the flow a lot.

The time approached where I had to leave to pick up my middle kiddo from preschool so I had to chase the wee monster down, let her hold the pony when I shoved her shirt back on (around her complaints about the 3/4 sleeves) and she refused to wear tennis shoes and only would wear her “princess shoes” which are little black satin dress shoes. But whatever. The person who coined the “pick your battles” phrase had a two year old and so we took off. In the car, she pulled her hair out of the cute little pony tail, sigh, and then whined that her hair was down.

At school, I approached the playground and his teacher gave me the look. Yep. Again. I’ve talked about the look before and maybe other people have kids so well behaved they’ve never gotten the look as they approached a teacher before.

So his teacher, who is a truly lovely woman who loves kids, tells me that my 5 year old was in circle and said, “Blah, blah, blah” when she started her lesson plan. Damn Fairly Oddparents! Oh, and he pushed a kid and in general, was a nasty brat. He wasn’t so spectatular yesterday either. So he’s running around the playground and we’ve got to go and the 2 year old who is in my arms because she’s wearing princess shoes with no socks and she gets wet wood chips in them and whines and so forth, is struggling to get down and I’m trying to be postive parent but I’m about two seconds from that yell, “GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE!” which I’m sure no other mother ever makes but me which is probably why he’s talking back to his teacher in Montessori for goodness sake. How can you talk back in Montessori? It’s freaking Montessori where math is fun. Jeebus.

Anyway, I finally get him to come without having to resort to yelling and he’s attitudinal in the car and the wee babe is kicking the back of my seat and we have no chocolate.

I had the talk with him about respect and he’s on quiet time now. I think he’s actually coming down with something but 5 was this crappy with my oldest too. I’m done with pissy stages, thankyouverymuch. The wee monster is down with a nap and I have three minutes of quiet. But as I gained two pounds last week (uh, which is why we don’t have chocolate) I ate some rice, which was actually quite tasty and I’m staring blearily at the screen now as I wish I could take a nap, LOL.

I am however, nearly done with my Christmas shopping!

over at the EC blog at myspace. Check it out if you’re interested in sending a MS in to them!

Stolen from Ember If your life was a soundtrack - What would the soundtrack be?

Here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…

Here’s mine:

Opening Credits: Mercenary - Go Go’s
Waking Up: Ex Girl Rocket - Keronian
First Day At School: Rhinoceros - Smashing Pumpkins
Falling In Love: Coffee and TV - Blur
Fight Song: Not Even Jail - Interpol
Breaking Up: Chapel Hill - Sonic Youth
Prom: With This Love - Peter Gabriel
Life: Surfin Safari - Beach Boys
Mental Breakdown: Blood - Pearl Jam
Driving: Frogs - Alice in Chains
Flashback: Tightwad Hill - Green Day
Wedding: Undone (Sweater Song) - Weezer
Birth of Child: Duke Ellington - Cotton Tail
Final Battle: Refugee - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Death Scene: Out The Window - Violent Femmes
Funeral Song: Insignificance - Pearl Jam
End Credits: Big Cheese - Nirvana