Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

I have this coffee mug that I picked up a few years ago at RWA National. It asks: “What is worse than writing a synopsis?” And you turn it around and it declares in big capital letters, “NOTHING!”

And that’s where I am right now, working on a synopsis. More fun than you can shake a stick at. Not.

What’s worse is that the way I write has changed. I used to be very strong on the beginning and the end, and the middle was a bit wishy-washy, but at some point I’d down writing utensils and figure out what would happen in the middle.

ONE MORE TIME didn’t happen like that. I had a beginning, I had a cute premise and that was it. No idea how it was going to play out or end. I didn’t have to write a synopsis for it, thankfully, but the latest WIP. Woah.

In the latest WIP, I got a scene — possibly in the middle of the book, it might be earlier. At any rate, I needed to start earlier with the characters so I could figure out what they were like and how they interrelated. So now I’m wondering if my first three chapters will end up in the book. I think they will because it’ll be too hard for the reader to find empathy otherwise.

(The prologue is already gone.)

However, for this WIP, that’s all I had to start with: one scene, and a cracktastic idea derived from Exodus (the Bible version). I figured once I wrote the first three chapters, I’d know what happens next, right?

Well, I’ve managed 2.5 pages of a synopsis and I *still* don’t know how this is going to end. Threesomes are so damn complicated and “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” that I usually ask myself is bringing back answers that take this book out of the romance genre and into that “romance” genre where nothing ends happily, and I couldn’t stand that.

So I am stuck, and as it is my turn to blog today, y’all get to hear about it.

Well, let’s see, what’s happened since my last whiny post about the glamor of the writing life….

• ONE MORE TIME is a nominee in the RT Reviewers’ Choice award in the Erotic Romance category. Fellow Aphrodisia author, Noelle Mack, scored two nominations in the same category, so we Aphros are rockin’!
• I am writing again, but not back at my usual productive amount. I think because what I’m writing this time is soooo different.
• I’ve been lugging my laptop to work because experience has shown that I’m not so great about transcribing stuff from longhand. Without carrying anything else besides laptop, power cord and bag, I’ve been lugging 8.5 pounds to and from work today and more because it carries my purse, lunch and any other paperworky stuff I may need.
  So I took the plunge and bought an Alphasmart Neo. Now I’ll be lugging 3.5 pounds to work every weekday. This makes me happy.

Any of y’all use something other than an ancient laptop to write on?

…. to freak out, fa lala lalala lah lah lah …

Although actually, I am doing better this year, which might have something to do with observing the season of Advent, but is more likely because I finally got the Christmas presents mailed off to Australia over a week ago.

So far, I’ve had a great blog tour and a wonderful booksigning at my favorite local indie bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy for my latest release, ONE MORE TIME. (And you can’t look at that bookcover too many times, can you!)

My three Christmas trees are up (yes, three, but two are small), we got an Advent wreath for the first time ever, made of cedar and pine. I’ve made candy (chocolate fudge, milky way delight, chocolate cheese fudge) and might make more (rum balls, springerle and more milky way delight because it is my favorite). I have completely neglected my Christmas cards this year. I bought them, half off, at Marshalls, but haven’t sent a single one.

All of this is to say, that while I was busily working away at my day job, I was constantly reminding myself that I had to come and blog here. And here I am at 7:30am, just sitting down to put a blog together, so clearly,

‘Tis the Season to Ramble…

What’s your holiday season like?

I’ve been catching up on my blog reading and reading about various authors dealing with taking care of their parents, holding down a job as a single parent, and well, the joy of children.

It’s not so different from a life without writing, is it? Published authors still have to do the laundry, cook dinner, be a “soccer mom”, volunteer for a good cause, clean up messes.

And yet there’s that magical something that comes with being a writer. Like our readers, writers escape into another world, but a world of their own creation and have their heroines say all the things they wish they’d thought of when someone comes crashing down on them.

But it’s more than that too. It’s almost like setting up a problem and watching somebody else solve it for you. It’s like watching somebody else go where you’d never dare to go. It’s like…

Well, I don’t know what it’s like because right now, I’m missing it.

I have been referring to myself as a “mundane”. The magic of writing seems to have gone. Something I thought would never happen. I’ve been writing since I could write.

Oh, I’m still thinking about stories, new ones, but actually writing? Not so much.

Anyway, enough whining and back to the glamour part.

Today is the official start to my blog tour (see my website for an almost complete list). At many of these places I am giving away copies from my backlist. So keep your eyes open! Today is my first unscheduled stop over at Fog City Divas (and yes, I am giving a book away there).

And that’s the glamorous life.

I’ve been pondering this one for a while. I have a book out in December (ONE MORE TIME), which is being billed as a time travel (in addition to being an erotic historical), only there are more paranormal elements in this than just a time travel. Er, it gets quite mythical in fact.

So I am most definitely putting it in the paranormal category, but what about these other paranormal elements? What is more important to the reader? That they know they’re getting a paranormal fix at some level or to be spoiled (hey, i t’s a huge plot twist) and know exactly what paranormal stuff is in store?

That is what I’m pondering this week. Although that’s not why I was so late today. No, today I’ve been handwashing, going to the bank, picking up prescriptions waiting for the gas and electric company to come out and check a gas leak. Turns out someone’s been spraying beaucoup buckets of pesticide and it all drifted in my front door. No wonder the smell of it made me ill.

Ah, the glamor of a writer. Probably a post I should have saved for another day, but this one seems awfully short just asking about paranormal stuff without giving away my ending!

So is it the curse of every writer out there that you can’t find anything, ever?

I am madly hunting down my iPod charger, just so I can sync my iPod with my computer (oh, and recharge it) and I cannot find it anywhere. I found my spare charger, but it doesn’t come with a cord. Grr.

I found my 3-hole punch that I had given up finding months ago and had finally bought a new, cheapie one last week.

About this time last year, I packed up my office into boxes. I sorted the magazines into one piles, books into sundry other piles and the space actually looked habitable. I had 12 boxes to start with, and I have 6 boxes left to go through.

I am heading out to the Georgia Romance Writers “Moonlight and Magnolias” conference next weekend, so I declared last night (after 3 days looking for this iPod charger — and I’ve tried positive thinking and prayer — I don’t think my backbrain even subconsciously knows where it is) that the house was getting a complete cleanout when I got back (nothing like putting it off for another weekend). When I’m done emptying my study boxes, one will be hubby’s stuff, one will be books and the rest is getting either filed or tossed. I’m aiming for tossed. If I haven’t needed it for almost a year. That’s got to tell you something.

Meanwhile the detritus on my desk has been magically restored — and I have an excuse for about every piece of paper about why it’s not somewhere else.

So desperate author seeking more organized heads… what do you do to stay organized, or can you relate?

Now that I’ve come up with a title for my post today, Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” is in my head. No, I’m not that old, but I grew up listening to it, thanks to my dad.

Sometimes it seems that characters in erotic romance get “switched on” pretty instantly. They just have to smell a guy and they’re ready to go. I know I’ve written scenes that go that way, but isn’t that part of the fantasy of erotic romance? That we buy into this dream where a drop-dead (and occasionally undead) gorgeous guy gives the heroine (i.e., us) a smouldering look and we get all hot and bothered?

It’s a broad generalization that isn’t always true though, in writing. I know my characters don’t always get aroused straight away, but I lead into it by having them banter in a (hopefully) witty way; or by arousing partners by playing a kind of “Truth or Dare” game.

In MADE FOR SIN and SHOW ME watching others having sex becomes a turn on for various characters.

Then there’s anticipation. I use it when my hero and heroine have already become intimate. I write historical, so there are long dinner parties where they’re forced to sit apart and make polite conversation with other people while casting surreptitious glances down the table at the other. Or they have to dance together, hands touching, hands touching the upper back, joining arms, close enough to have a whispered, teasing conversation, but not close enough for anything else. Not in public anyway.

Alas, there was no dirty dancing during the Regency period (unless you want to include the waltz), so everything has to wait for a private time.

What gets you in the mood quickly?

Hello everyone! I know, long time, no post. So long, in fact, that I just had to convert my old blogger username into the new one.

Anywho, for me, the highlight of RWA National is what happens before it. Every year, the Beau Monde chapter (which is for those who write in the Regency period), hosts its own conference in the same hotel. We start early in the morning (breakfast) and after taking a break for the Literacy Signing, we finish up late with our Soiree.

This year, I got to give a talk about “Sex During the Regency”, which was both prurient and scholarly. Which means, not only did I display pics in my powerpoint slides that were, shall we say, frank, I also had lots of research from the local university library on sexuality to share.

But the absolute highlight?

The Soiree — the conference organizers had hired a contra dance troupe (which is American-style apparently) and a whole bunch of men came along!!!! This is the first time we’ve had more than two males in the room (and one of them is Sir Reginald, one of the authors cross-dressing — although I must say she does it very very well) — so it was really nice to dance with someone taller than me.

Also, I did not manage to trip over the hem of my extremely long gown, although I stood on it a couple of times…

I blogged National over at my own blog

I am astonished and amazed! Amazed and astonished! Well, I suppose it was bound to happen, that the Harriet Klausner would review a romance of mine.

But still, I’m tickled pink.

Here’s what she said about MADE FOR SIN, whose official release date is tomorrow:

“This is a terrific Regency romance that effortlessly merges erotica into its two subplots; starring a sister in each with the hunk they love. The siblings and their men are fully developed while the support cast, mostly two spouses of soldiers, enhances the tale by better understanding the life of a fighting man…sub-genre readers will appreciate this hot historical.”

I found it on her archive and a few other indices… You can find the link on my website, which I’ve finally updated.

Hello all!

A bunch of us Aphrodisia Authors are doing an online chat at Chatting_With_Joyfully_Reviewed@yahoogroups.com You’ll have to sign on to their mailing list to participate. All times below are in US Eastern time. Hope to see you there!

10 – 12:
Celia May Hart
Sharon Page

12 – 2:
Lucinda Betts
Lacy Danes

2 – 4:
Kate Douglas
Susan Lyons

4 – 6:
Genie Davis
Vivi Anna

6 – 8:
Melissa Macneal
Bonnie Edwards

8 – 10:
Jodi Lynn Copeland
Devyn Quinn

Others: Kathleen Dante will make an appearance as her Internet behaves.