Vixenwriter

I was chatting with Megan about theme songs for books earlier yesterday and she was telling me she’d found the one for her newest WIP and I was telling her that Dave Matthews Band - Crash was the theme song for Dirty/Bad/Wrong - my half of our jointly written novel - Taking Care of Business.

For those who’ve never heard the song, the video is a few blog entries below this one. The line “I’m bareboned and crazy is like a touchpoint of how Dix feels for her.

See, we started off pitching it as a dual author anthology with two side by side category novels taking place at the same event. Our heroines are best friends and there’d be some interweaving of storylines, dialog, etc. But a few editors mentioned wanting to make it one novel with alternating chapters and hey, well okay then.

So anyway, my part of the book was originally entitled Dirty/Bad/Wrong and it’s about Katherine Edwards, a contracts attorney who’s having a secret scorching hot affair with the in house counsel for a corporation she’s doing work for. The two are both at a conference and sure yes, hot sexin ensues but she’s now living in the same state he is and he wants more from her than just hanging out and having sex whenever it suits them. They get to each other in different ways but he’s surer of it, of himself. She lives a very bifurcated life - her private life is not something she lives during the day but he challenges that.

So as I began to plot the book I thought about who my hero was.

Oh Dr. Troy. He’s got some of Christian Troy from Nip/Tuck in him. But he’s not as selfish, not as wounded. But he’s still just naughty. I love that about him.

As for Kate, she lives in my head. I don’t see her face as clearly as I see Dix’s face. But I know her heart, I know her mind and I understand her. She doesn’t hate sex or men, she’s just careful. She makes the RIGHT CHOICES. And the right choices are very important to her. The right choices keep her safe. But Dix is sooo the wrong choice, but you know what? Sometimes you have to make the wrong choice just to know you’re alive. And sometimes making the wrong choice is actually the right one. But it’s going to take her a while to figure it out.

Anyway - that’s a little bit about my process, about my part in Taking Care of Business - it’s been really fun to work with Megan on this project. It’s a hoot to write about friends with your friend and the jointly written scenes with their back and forth dialog always makes me laugh. I hope people like it when it comes out late this year.

So I’m writing the tail end of Dirty/Bad/wrong - my part of Taking Care of Business and Dix and Kate are on the precipiece here - he wants her for more than just a woman to have sex with. She’s unsure for a host of reasons but she’s got a major thing for him because he gets to her in a way no one does - in a way she’s never allowed anyone to.

So as it happens, I have this very sex laden soundtrack for this book but one song that I keep returning to is The Dave Matthews Band’s Crash…

He says to her: “Bullshit, Kate. You know what to want. You want what you want.” He shrugged. “That’s not the complicated part. Wanting is easy.”

wanting is easy, needing is hard, loving is hard - love isn’t enough and she knows it.

There’s something about the song that gets at the rawness of desire tinged with love, with adoration. Because it means something more to desire someone you love.

I can now announce all the details! Wheee!

Okay so Megan Hart and I just sold our jointly authored contemporary erotic romance, Taking Care of Business (formerly Risky Business) to Black Lace! It’ll release in the UK in October 08 and here in the US two months later.

This is the story of two women, Leah and Katherine, who are friends attending a conference together - each woman’s story will be told in alternating chapters. Originally we’d planned it as two separate novellas but it’ll be a single novel now.

Working with Megan is hilarious and also, we work well together. We have very different voices and our stories are also VERY different, but we share the same attitudes about writing and work so it’s just like the rest of our frienship, only with a book. Our editor, Adam Nevill really gets the stories, and erotica in general, which is fabulous so I’m so looking forward to this.

We came up with this idea while in line for a party at RT by the way - which is a sort of fun thing I think.

Anyhoodle, that’s my fab news for today (that and I wrote 2500 words on it last night)

So for a while because Megan, Anya and I had been ridiculously busy, we let the Maverick Authors slip a bit but we’ve got a brand new blog up, design courtesy Dreamforge Media (with a lovely helping of some technical stuff from Frauke who is also making me all sorts of shiny things I can’t wait to show you all)

I have some really exciting news but I can’t share it just yet…

BTW - did you all know my buddy Megan Hart (some might even say BFF) has a new release out from Spice? Well she does! It’s a very sexy short called This Is What I Want and you can grab it right now right through this here link!

Also, Lacy Danes has a Brief as well! Hers is called “The Invitation”

Wheee! I finished the polish of my short novel partial, dirty/bad/wrong last night along with the newly revised synopsis and mailed them both to my agent this morning. Megan and I emailed, critted and IM’d back and forth last night until what was quite late for her, working on our intertwined scenes.

It’s interesting to see how a project sort of takes on a mind of its own. The story for me is about dichotomy, about my character and her internal divisions of self. When it came time to write the partial so my agent could pitch, I was like, “meh.” I love the idea, I wanted to write it, but not right when I needed to. So every word was like a job. And then I realized the issue was I didn’t have enough meat and I couldn’t very well have 50K of sex or even 50K of internal discussion or worse, some contrived black moment. So I brainstormed and the story settled into the place it needed to be and I finished it in just a day and a half. By the time I finished last night with the little adjustments after some crit, I was so thrilled with it. I love it and I’m glad I kept at it. I love Megan’s story too and I think combined, they’re just fabulous together. Funny how that works!

Sven progress yesterday - 3125 = and 10,938 words for the first three days! In real terms those words represent a completed partial, a revised synopsis and the start of a new novel. (the partial already had been started).

A very good start to Sven!!

I’ve been guesting in a few places! First over at Amy Smith’splace - there’s a prize so head on over!

And today I’m at RR@H Novel Thoughts and Book Talk talking about secondary characters - also with a contest!