A story by Dayle, very much worth reading

http://www.fishnetmag.com/archives/2006/03/redemption.html

For those of you just coming in, Dayle=Dayle A. Dermatis=Andrea Dale=1/2 of Sophie Mouette.

Lovely writing and thought-provoking. Disclaimers: Explicit erotica, not safe for work; plot might be uncomfortable-making or even blasphemous to some folks.

Garden of the Perverse is out!

This collection of "adult fairy tales" contains my story "The Unicorn and the Strumpet." (I feel the need to apologize to Peter S. Beagle for this bit of naughtiness; when I wrote it, I was not consciously thinking about his beautiful, and not naughty, The Last Unicorn, but I think it must have been floating in the back of my brain somewhere.)

In any case, you can order it online at amazon.com.

Meanwhile, in other writing news: Dayle and I were both honored to have an editor request that we submit to a particular "invitation-only" anthology. Whee! When we hear about our submissions, we'll tell more.

Meanwhile, slogging on with Making Master Right. I've finally managed to get the hero and heroine sparking off each other. Ultimately, the first chapter may be completely redone, but for now... it moves forward.

I'm also working on edits for Controlled Burn, otherwise known as the Neverending Project. I wrote the first draft for NaNoWriMo 2004 and have been unsure what to do with it since. It's a good story and I'm quite attached to it, but it's a bit short to be "women's fiction" for most publishers and a bit odd to be a "romance." Curiously, though, it might go at Harlequin NEXT, which is their "40ish women encounter new challenges and triumph" line. They might find the style too literary, but what the hell--it's not going anywhere sitting on my hard drive.

Cat Scratch Fever now on Amazon.com

Cat Scratch Fever is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. (It's been on Amazon.co.uk for a while now, but not on the North American site.)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0352340215/qid=1142987983/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4928222-5092863?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Pre-order it now while you're thinking of it, and sometime in August you'll get a lovely surprise in your mailbox. Go on, you know you want to. Make Dayle and me happy.

Read me!

Another piece of my erotica is available for viewing online--and it's a prize-winner!

Definitely not safe for work and not intended for the under-18 crowd (I'm sure some of the under-18 crowd have imagined things that make this look like The Chronicles of Narnia, but that's not the point). Contains gay male sex, group sex, and blatant abuse of Greek mythology.

http://www.torquerepress.com/contest/third1.html

Just got word that one of my erotic shorts was accepted for Secret Slaves: Erotic Tales of Bondage, coming in July from Alyson Books. Whoot! So far I'm three for three with these editors, which makes me happy.

Even though the book is months in the future, it's already on Amazon.com. Go on, preorder it. You know you want to!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1555839622/qid=1142534343/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-4928222-5092863?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

But you can't win 'em all. It's tempting to talk only about the good news, only about the acceptances...But it wouldn't be honest.

Dayle and I finally heard back from FishNetMag.com on a story they'd had a long time. No go. It was a personalized rejection, quite encouraging (the editor's bought both Dayle's work and mine in the past, although so far none of "Sophie's.")

Still, one prefers yes.Oh well, onward and upward!

And it's off!

The proposal and first three chapters of the novel formerly known as Chloe, now called Out of the Frying Pan (thanks, Dayle, for being better at titles than I am), is off to our editor, who has acknowledged receipt.

Now we wait and see if he likes it as is or what changes he might suggest.

Wait, of course, suggests we'll be sitting back on our butts during this time. This isn't true. We'll be sitting on our butts, all right, but with hands firmly on our keyboards, working on other projects. I have a solo novel proposal that I want to hammer out before the Romance Writers New England Chapter (RWA-NEC) conference the second weekend of April, when I'll be meeting with an editor from the Kensington erotic romance lines. Dayle has several projects in the works. And there's always short fiction.

But still, we'll be waiting...

Yesterday's progress: 2 new poems drafted, roughly 1200 words on the new novel (I actually wrote more than that, but realized one scene was from the wrong point of view and had to redo it)

Today I may not get much writing in, between doctor's appointments and rehearsals and doing some (hairball noise) housework. But there will be some.

Introduction

Greetings, curious readers.

Teresa Noelle Roberts/half of Sophie Mouette here, on a New England day that can't decide whether to be glorious or ghastly. It was spitting snow while the sun was out earlier... Yes, you can expect periodic reports on the view out my office window, as well as writing updates.

The new Sophie Mouette proposal (working title: Chloe) is almost ready to go off to our editor. It's been rough going on this one, partly because we're aiming for a madcap comic tone that's hard to maintain if, say, one isn't feeling up to par. But I think we've finally got it under control enough that we can just write the fool thing now. Proposals are not my friend, but one has to do them.

Yesterday, besides the proposal, my self-appointed task was to set up some readings, or at least find about local open-mike opportunities, to promote the new poetry book, The Hawk's Frequency. I knew there would be many venues in Boston, but I'm astonished by how many there are out here in the far-flung suburbs. I've been shamefully lax about getting involved in such things in Massachusetts, although I was an open-mike regular when I lived in Ithaca a millon years ago. Trying to juggle writing, bellydancing, and healthy relationships while having a fulltime+commute job, I guess, made me push a lot of things aside. Now the writing is my full-time job, and it's well past time to find community here, to support others as well as to promote myself.

Because, as I've discovered on several occasions lately, people are actually regarding me as a Real Writer. I find this scary, because I don't feel "real." But then I remember my mother telling me, not that long ago, that she'd never felt like a real adult. She was in her sixties at the time. Maybe no one ever feels real?

Oh well, time to get to work. I think I'll do a bit of poetry today, then on to the kinky romance!