Vixenwriter

So I’ve just contracted my first erotic fantasy novel with Samhain. This one, Reading Between the Lines, will be out this fall and it’s got a lot of Celtic mythology in it-a favorite of mine. Oh and hot sex, hee!

Other than that, it’s quiet around here. I’m working on Making Chase and tonight I should get to the first kiss.

Off to do laundry, cause my life’s glamorous that way…

Sorta. It’s been a week. Busy, some really good, some really bad - all over the map so I’m glad to be easing out of it.

Anyway, I normally do Booktalk today but I haven’t read anything new this week. I’ve done edits and written and gone to bed. That’s it. Still, I’m really into Making Chase now! I’m so happy about this book. I’ve been sort of dragging my feet and working around it but once I started on it earnestly, Tate just grabbed me. Tate and her family are really the heart of this book. Matt is just realizing how much he likes her, not that he likes her likes her just yet but that’ll be soon enough.

BTW, Taking Chase won the CAPA for Best Romantic Suspense! I was thrilled enough to have been nominated in three categories but to have won? Wow. There were some fabulous books and authors nominated this year so I’m touched, honored and humbled that I won. Thank you to all the reviewers who nominated and voted for me and thank you to everyone who has congratulated me as well, that’s been such a lovely part of my week.

And as a nice little bonus, Taking Chase is out in paper on Tuesday the 20th! Wooot!

Let’s see what else? OH! My Harlequin contracts finally arrived. OMG! SQUEEE! It’s real! It’s real and like a lot of pages and it has a force majeur clause. This always makes me laugh because I have leftover oddness from my law school days. I laughed when I saw it in my mortgage too (although I was also sort of giddy then as well)

By the way, we’re partying down over at my messageboard. Loads of excerpts and fun stuff going on!

Or, cripes, I have to write about Maureen Dowd’s monunmentally stupid and insulting op-ed piece at last or I shall explode.

Many have written on this ridiculously offensive piece of tripe and have done so more coherently than I will do (try Smart Bitches and Jenny Crusie’s Argh Ink) BTW, the girl cooties term is one I quite unashamedly lifted from Candy at Smart Bitches because it’s clever and makes me laugh.

You see, I’m a feminist. I’m not afraid to claim the word, I like the word. It’s a word that espouses the ideals that got me into law school, it’s a word that got me the right to vote, the right to own property in my own name and a word that endeavors to help me earn the same dollar a man with my same qualifications earns. Feminism allows me to make the choice to stay home with my children (although my husband’s job with a fabulous employer is what makes that financially possible) and what allows other women to make different choices. YOu see, it’s that C word (no, not THAT one) that for me, is the heart of the issue of feminism.

And when women, smart women with a lot of power like Dowd, stand up on their NYT pulpit and beat other women who make other choices over the head with the girl cooties card, with a sneer about romance and chick lit and the dreaded “pink” accusation - it’s decidely the opposite of feminism. It’s bully pulpit behavior and it’s boring.

Here’s a little ditty from the opening of the piece (which you can find in blogland in its entirety but you have to be a Times subscriber to see it at the NYT page). She’s in her local bookstore and, gentle readers, becomes alarmed by all the pink. Sigh.

No, I realized with growing alarm, chick lit was no longer a niche. It had staged a coup of the literature shelves. Hot babes had shimmied into the grizzled old boys’ club, the land of Conrad, Faulkner and Maugham. The store was possessed with the devil spawn of “The Devil Wears Prada.” The blood-red high heel ending in a devil’s pitchfork on the cover of the Lauren Weisberger best seller might as well be driving a stake through the heart of the classics

Oh no! Girls got into the He Man Women Haters club of literature. They’re getting their girlyness all over the place and ruining it by telling stories about women who, gasp, work, and have babies and oh, no, fall in love! Oh my god, quick, someone stab a girl, fuck and run, smoke a cigar and drink some scotch before we all get vaginas! Quick, hide your boobies before they figure out you’re a girl too, Maureen! Run!

She uses bodice rippers in her column, she makes a crack about the Red Badge of Courage - as if one cannot possibly read a romance AND read anything else. Because after all, ‘thinking is so hard!” and yes, her biggest crime is using this quote from “her friend” at the New Republic, Leon Wieseltier: America’s reading women could do a lot worse than to put down ‘Will Francine Get Her Guy?’ and pick up ‘The Red Badge of Courage.’

Hey Maureen Dowd and Leon Wieseltier, I’ve read it. I’ve read Kafka, Steibeck, Orwell (love his essays), Salinger - the whole crew. My readers aren’t stupid. I’m not stupid. Your fellow women aren’t stupid and incapable of complex ideas simply because they like to read romance or chick lit and it’s insulting that you’d have the audacity to claim anything of the sort. In addition, it’s simply illogical on your part to assume that since a woman reads a Harlequin romance she doesn’t also read other things.

It’s bad enough that I have to deal with smug men every day who look down on what I write and read, I really don’t expect to have women who’ve achieved a lot of power and position and who openly call themselves feminists to suddenly start attacking women who like to read things other than what you do, Ms. Dowd. I have to tell you I dealt with less smug, pretentious bullshit woman hating from the assholes I went to law school with than I just read in your column.

The Dynamic Trio (me, Shelley Munro and TJ Michaels) are chatting tonight at 6 pm pacific/9 eastern. Come by and say hello!

This morning I came across this entry at LJ, which linked to this blog entry by agent Miriam Goderich on taking criticism.

There’s a lot out in the internet about authors being thin skinned and frankly, that’s bunk. Are some? Sure. But in order to make it and be succesful, to truly make yourself a better writer with each book, you’ve got to deal with rejection and criticism on a regular basis.

One of the most pertinent passages is below:

I sincerely believe that authors (or any artist for that matter) must be able to defend their vision of and approach to their work. But, they should also have the ability (and humility) to look at the manuscript they’ve slaved away on for months or years and see it as a living, evolving thing that is never going to be absolutely perfect and that will probably benefit from an informed and caring review. They should also understand that in this agent/client partnership it’s in no one’s interest to purposely give bad advice and that only a sadist takes pleasure in inflicting pain. Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that knowing how to take criticism with grace is an indicator of success in our business. It’s often what separates those who have thriving writing careers and those who just sit around darkly muttering over their rejection letters.

I like to think of dealing with edits and revision letters as a state of mind. It takes a completely different kind of thinking than writing does. Ego has to be dropped and patience embraced. Your first reaction is defensiveness, this is, after all, your book. something I really try to hold onto is to keep in mind that your agent, or editor is giving you an opportunity to make the manuscript better and also giving you the benefit of their experience.

I’ve learned a lot about writing from my editors. I’ll say that up front and often. Each time a book goes through the process I learn more about streamlining my language, about dangling participles (gah), about how to make a story flow better. A good editor is your best advocate. Does that mean I don’t argue with them sometimes when I think they’re missing something? What it does mean is that I take 90% of their suggestions, reject 5% and discuss the last 5% which can fall either way.

Yes, I have had one negative editing experience. Out of eighteen contracts, that’s not bad at all. And it taught me a lot about what the appropriate time to defend your work is and about what it means to really stand up for yourself versus take editing suggestions. There’s a fine balance there and with an editor you can trust and respect, it’s not hard to see what and when it’s time to argue over.

My agent is also very hands on, which is quite helpful. She puts a lot of time and effort into not just a pitch plan but also revision notes on manuscripts. It’s her job to sell my books so I’d be wasting my time to get upset with her for making suggestions on how to improve the manuscript, no? There are times when she and I see things from totally different perspectives but I respect her opinion and she believes in my writing and so far, we’ve worked well together. I can’t complain about that and I think she’s also contributed to making me a better writer.

In the end, I think the comment in Miriam’s blog entry about humility is spot on. My job is to write books. They are not perfect and the people in my life whose job it is to sell them and buy them is to make them better. Approaching the process of producing a book as a business, as something that is in many ways collaborative, is your path to success. Does that mean I haven’t muttered in the dark about rejection letters while cursing some editor or agent for not seeing my total awesomness? Bwah! ‘Course not. But the key is keeping the muttering short lived and moving on.

Shannon Stacey wrote an entry at RTB last week that got me thinking about how much I crave different kinds of heroines when I read.

Shannon’s point is different than the one I’m going to make - hers is interesting nonetheless about how we may avoid reading storylines or characters because of how they affect us. Certainly, I have hotbutton issues I don’t read - I refuse to read “forced” seduction storylines, slave planet storylines, or any kind of books that have rape as titilation. Not because I fear they may happen to me, but because they make me angry so you know, problem solved, I don’t read em.

But back to me, ME, PEOPLE! Reading Shannon’s entry (and have you read 72 Hours yet, by the way? If not, you should, it’s a great book) made me think about how important diversity in characters is to me.

One thing that continually frustrates me in romance is the lack of heroines over a certain age - and when you do get a heroine over 30 or even more rarely 40, she’s often a stereotype - jealous of younger women, wrinkled, been dumped for her ex husband’s secretary or the nanny. That bugs me. Women over 25 are vibrant, sexual beings and to see them consistently reduced to “issues” makes me sad.

Another thing - the way mothers are written in romance. One thing I really despise is when an author gives children to the heroine to make her seem nurturing but you never see or hear about the children in the story. That makes her seem neglectful to me. TJ Michaels wrote a fabulous mother character in Gift Wrap Optional and Nora does so quite frequently too (and with women over 30 too). If you’re going to make your heroine a mother, don’t forget to write her as one.

I don’t mind heroines who are divorced at all. That’s a reality for 50% of women and certainly it’s nice to see yourself in a character every once in a while. I think it’s important to have heroines with some real life in them but also, to be moving on and not a “victim” of it.

Anyway, I suppose my point after this long ramble, is that I think women are incredible. I think they’re strong and beautiful and they come in many shapes, sizes and backgrounds and I want to see more variety in books. I suppose I could have just said that, it’s a lot shorter than my ramble, but I like to ramble in case you haven’t noticed.

Today was one of those hectic parenting days from hell. Middle kiddo had a birthday party about 40 minutes away, sometime after the start of the party I had to get oldest son to the school for his play. Wee monster stuck with me. I delayed going into the auditorium as long as I could but I knew I’d need a seat where I could stand up if I could or leave as I didn’t know if middle dude and my husband would get back before the play started.

So two year olds hate plays. I’m just saying. Luckily my husband did arrive and he took wee monster out of the theater and I hung out with middle dude and watched the musical which was lovely and oldest kiddo was very cute. All the rushing and splitting schedules makes me tired.

Wee monster however, looks quite adorable in her “princess dress” she insisted on wearing to the play and now won’t take off so she’s dancing around singing and begging for Baaabie Punzo (barbie rapunzel - a dvd Megan sent that my daughter watches daily)

I have work to do so I need to buckle down and get working tonight when everyone goes to sleep.

For the contest minded among you - have you checked out Lacy’s Blog for her What She Craves contest? What She Craves comes out next month and I have to say, if you love historical erotica, this is one anthology you need to grab. Oh and I have an Ohmibod (her prize) and it totally rocks!

I’m working on a post about different kinds of heroines that Shannon Stacy’s piece at RTB last week sort of started brewing in my brain but that brain is mush right now from all the child herding I’ve done today so perhaps tomorrow or Monday.

So I read several books last week but couldn’t talk about them all last Friday so I held a few over for today as I didn’t get much reading done this week with all the edits I needed to finish.

Snap by Shelley Munro

As usual, Shelley Munro produces a story that sucked me in from the first sentence. I think this is actually my favorite Shelley book (which is saying a lot!). I loved the storyline which is filled with interesting twists, Shelley’s signature humor and scorching hot love scenes. This is no chain of sex scenes peppered with some story, it’s a great book with some very hot sex!

In Alice, she gives us a heroine in unusual circumstances – she finds herself the owner of a condom company! A self described “almost-virgin” she’s confronted by the very sexy James who’s my favorite kind of hero – the bad boy who really isn’t so bad after all.

I loved the set up, wacky cult figures shouting “bad bad birth control,” hilarious and snotty family members and ex-fiancés and the need for one-on-one condom testing. What else can I say, Snapped is a winner.

You can read an excerpt at her website

Furthering my Eileen Wilks binge - Tempting Danger

This is the start of Lily and Rule and I loved it. I said before with Blood Lines that I think Wilks’ worldbuilding and Lupi culture is unique and fresh and fascinating and I’ll say it again.

Lily is a homicide cop, a woman and she’s got a secret - she’s a sensitive. Rule Turner is a skirt chasing werewolf prince. When they meet it’s instant attraction but I loved that Wilks makes us wait for the eventual consummation and didn’t have Lily just accept her chosen status immediately.

The mystery, which unfolds further through the next two books, is intriguing and well done as is the action and the chemistry is incredible.

I loved it.