A red-letter day

I was going to post about getting ready to go to Oregon, the excitement and the nerves and what will be happening there. But I'm saving that for another day because I'm gonna brag instead!

Three stories accepted today! (Which gives me the feeling of accomplishment I needed on a day when, while I got a lot done, very little of it was actual writing. Trip prep? Check Running around trying to find a FedEx center? Check. Taking care of some business-related stuff that needed to get done, oh, now? Check. Getting my desk cleaned up enough from the last project that I can start the next one? Check. Actual writing? About 200 words.)



So on to the bragging!

Two--one Teresa Noelle Roberts, one Sophie Mouette--will be appearing in a Black Lace anthology of paranormal erotica and erotic romance. I'm very excited about these, because I love paranormal, but finding a good market for short paranormal erotica isn't easy. No cover for this one yet, but I'll post it when it becomes available.





The third story is a bit of a departure for me thematically--sexy cowboys. Now, cowboys are kind of a fixture in romance and erotica, and certainly in erotic romance, but they're not really my territory. I'm a child of the northeast, where even in rural areas there are no wide open spaces. (I've never seen a landscape like the one on the gorgeous book cover in real life, except in central Spain. Except there, you'd have a castle in the background.) Still, I had a lot of fun writing the story, thinking of a twist on the cowboy theme. Just think John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara--and yours truly not being able to resist turning the classics upside down and inside out.
More details here.

I hate you, Guy Gavriel Kay

By which, of course, I mean I love you. I sat down and read his new novel, Ysabel, at one sitting. Then I turned around and reread it slowly, for nuances, for all the details and allusions I missed the first mad dash to find out what happened.

And now, despite the stack of lovely, juicy, tempting brand-new books awaiting my attention, I'll have to turn around and reread the entire Fionavar Tapestry trilogy.

*shakes fist at sky Then smiles, because the only thing better than a great new book is an excuse to reread old favorites*

After long silence

I haven't been posting much about the writing life lately, but that's largely because the writing life has been not so fabulous.

Oh, there are good things going on. First off, I'm going to Oregon to do a writers' retreat with Dayle and a bunch of other good folks, leaving on March 2. We'll be staying here, which you can see is very near the ocean and you know how good that is for me. I'm very excited about this and hope it will get my brain back in gear.

For alas, it really hasn't been of late. I've been plugging away on Master Right, and the end is in sight, but it's at the stage where I'm convinced it sucks like a shop-vac and should be deleted. (It's not true. I know it. It's a first draft, so there's some suckage involved, but it is not like unto the vacuum of space.) Dayle and I are hard at work on Out of the Frying Pan, which I know doesn't suck, but is coming slowly (although we'll be focusing a lot on it in Oregon). We've got a paranormal novella started and I'm excited about that, but it's not at the front of the queaue right now.

And that leads me to the problem: excitement. I like Master Right, but it seems like I've been working on it forever. (So finish it already, my common sense says.) I love Out of the Frying Pan, but due to its structure, I get to work on it in fits and snorts, then hand it back to Dayle; it's too closely viewpointed to have us each working as we did with CSF. And the paranormal? I love hot, sexy paranormals and am looking forward to this one, but we have a few things to finish up first. So many projects, so little brain space. I've been feeling very strongly, of late, that writing is work. Which, of course, it is, but more often than not, it's work I love.

Today I realized that it's the time of year when my creative process is always at its lowest ebb. Late winter is a bad time for me. I'd managed to hold off the doldrums with regular outdoor exercise, but we had a fierce cold snap for a few weeks and I just couldn't do it. But for some reason, I just couldn't figure out myself that my writing blahs were related. (Those who have known me for a while are welcome, nay, encouraged, to laugh.) Today, though, was lovely and sunny and relatively warm. I got a massage, took a long walk in the woods (on ice, sure, but I still took it!)--and came home, cleaned the altar in my office, lit some candles, and sat down to write two poems.

Then I read over the last bit of Master Right, which I was convinced was Vacuum of Space or perhaps even Black Hole bad. It's not. It has some rough spots, but it rings true. The sex is hot and disturbing in equal measures, which it's supposed to be because it's angry sex. Angry kinky sex that leads to the black moment.

I may be getting them out of the black moment too easily, but I'm going to write it as it is in my head and worry about it in the second draft.

Then I started making notes for a novella/long short story involving how the secondary couple in Master Right got together.

I think my brain's working again. Glee!

Glad I'm starting to feel better!

Contest: Get Your Free High-Quality Erotica

by high-tailing it over to http://lustbites.blogspot.com/ and following the directions in the Feb. 14 post. You might win a lovely bundle of books, including Sex in Public, a hot brand-new Black Lace anthology featuring a Sophie Mouette story, and possibly Caught Looking, which has stories by both Sophie and me. Sex in Public won't be available in the US until April, so here's your chance to, in the words of our local radio station, "win it before you buy it."

And while you're over there, add Lustbites to your must-read blog list. It's good stuff, a bunch of wacky and literate writers of erotica, many of whom add to the fun inherent in talking about books and sex by sharing a delightfully twisted British sense of humor--and sometimes pictures of mostly naked, hunky men.

And, oh...happy Valentine's Day. Yeah, it's commercial and the pressure is ridiculous, and it often as not leads to more conflict than fun. But how can I not love the idea of a holiday that celebrates love, sex, and romance? (And more to the point, how can I not love all the plot twists it offers a writer? Hookups gone wrong, date gone supremely right, going home with the waiter instead of your miserable date, wacky screw-ups that then have to be resolved, etc., etc.)

Contest: Get Your Free High-Quality Erotica

by high-tailing it over to http://lustbites.blogspot.com/ and following the directions in the Feb. 14 post. You might win a lovely bundle of books, including Sex in Public, a hot brand-new Black Lace anthology featuring a Sophie Mouette story, and possibly Caught Looking, which has stories by both Sophie and me. Sex in Public won't be available in the US until April, so here's your chance to, in the words of our local radio station, "win it before you buy it."

And while you're over there, add Lustbites to your must-read blog list. It's good stuff, a bunch of wacky and literate writers of erotica, many of whom add to the fun inherent in talking about books and sex by sharing a delightfully twisted British sense of humor--and sometimes pictures of mostly naked, hunky men.

And, oh...happy Valentine's Day. Yeah, it's commercial and the pressure is ridiculous, and it often as not leads to more conflict than fun. But how can I not love the idea of a holiday that celebrates love, sex, and romance? (And more to the point, how can I not love all the plot twists it offers a writer? Hookups gone wrong, date gone supremely right, going home with the waiter instead of your miserable date, wacky screw-ups that then have to be resolved, etc., etc.)