Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

I can’t believe 2010 is here. I’m sure I’m not the only one still adjusting. And I feel like this is truly a new year – a chance to start new things. I’ve just finished an erotic novella, which I enjoyed writing, and I have more outlined, but I’m also working on something entirely different and having a blast. There’s nothing like hearing voices in your head and having the opportunity to write them down. What’s even better is when those voices tell you a story you’re anxious to get back to each day. I love that! I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

This is also a year for me to do other things. I’m lining up speaking engagements and book signings because I love that stuff! Many writers are introverts, as are many engineers. For some reason, I’m not, in spite of being both.

I don’t do resolutions at the start of the year, but I’ve made a few non-new year resolutions. I do the best I can to improve/maintain our environment, and I’ve started an exercise routine (important when you spend all day in front of a computer!). I have a few things planned that I’m not ready to talk about yet. But my message here is that life is wonderful, and that you don’t have to wait until the end of this year to start something new. A lot of people out there can use your help.

Tell me, what do you plan to do differently in the near future? What will make you happier?

Welcome to winter, everyone! I love this time of year–long nights, short days, snow, cold–the perfect book-by-the-fire season. Unfortunately, I don’t have a fire, but I still have plenty of books. Shelves and shelves of them. And schnapps in hot chocolate is a good fire substitute. (My DH took to an e-book reader years ago. Since he reads a book every few days, that’s probably a good thing. I’m out of shelf space.)

But I want to talk about the holidays. The one thing I love about this time of year, besides the winter stuff, is the goodwill so many people enjoy showing. I’m sorry we don’t see more of it all year long, but any is better than none. I feel good about buying books for school kids at my local bookstore, and adding to the “feed the hungry” baskets at the grocery. I even have an offer on my other author’s website right now to give away free signed books. Granted, it’s partly good will and partly publicity, but it’s still free. (The website is www.SarahStorme.com, in case you’re interested.)

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. However, I’ve made a pledge to myself to do more for others this year. As an author, I plan to sign up for reading days at the local library, and as an engineer, I’ll be working with a high school to help kids get interested in math and science careers.

My question is, what do you recommend to spread goodwill? I’m looking for ideas.

I hope everyone enjoys the holidays. The best part for me is having time off from my day job to write! Woohoo! I’m off to do just that…

This month has been more than a little interesting, so I have to share. On the 14th, I had the opportunity to participate in a wonderful book signing event in Albuquerque – Celeste Bradley, me, Amanda McCabe, Mary Buckham, Dianna Love, and Sherrilyn Kenyon. What a blast! Sherrilyn has very devoted fans who show up in costume and carrying lots of things for her to sign, as well as gifts. We all signed books, and I met a whole slew of vampire fans. Some had already read one of my books and bought another there. All in all, it was one of the most exciting events I’ve participated in. I could have signed all night (you should hear the music from My Fair Lady here)…

Like the month of November in New Mexico, where the cottonwoods and aspen are sporting spectacular colors at the beginning of the month and look like skeletons by the end, I’ve had a few highs and lows. I’m writing this from my desk with a box of tissues at my side on my 5th day of the flu. As bad as it has been, however, I expect to survive, so I know this low is only temporary. When it’s over, I’ll still have the pictures of the book signing to look at and recall how much fun I had.

I’ll keep this short because I’m running a fever and under a writing deadline. I hope you all have had wonderful things happen to you this month. Anything you want to share?

I’m fortunate enough to live in one of the most beautiful states in the US, and one not many people know about. New Mexico. Have you ever visited? (No, I don’t work for the New Mexico Tourism Department.) Fall in New Mexico is amazing. In September, the scent of roasting green chili fills the air, signaling the approach of cooler weather. In October, we have Balloon Fiesta. This year, I stood on my patio drinking mimosas and watched hundreds of balloons pass over. Beautiful! And today, I drove home from Taos, entranced by the beauty of the cottonwoods’ golden and yellow leaves. Sandia Peak wore a lacy shawl of snow that will probably be gone by tomorrow, but it will be back.

Fall is my favorite season. It starts off the holidays with one of my favorites: Halloween. And it inspires me to write. In spite of being overrun with work, I’ve spent more time writing the past two weeks than I had in the past two months. Something about the cold does that to me. I’ve also been inspired to set my stories in New Mexico, which is something relatively new for me. I’m finally feeling comfortable enough with my chosen home to portray it in stories. The first that hit the stands set in NM was ADDICTED, and I thoroughly enjoyed writing that one.

What does fall inspire you to do?

Happy fall, and Happy Halloween! (This time of year, maybe no one will notice my fangs. )

As I write this, DEVOUR ME is headed for the shelves! Yippee!! In case I haven’t told you, it’s the latest in my vampire stories. In the first novella, “Dark Obsession,” set on the east coast north of Boston, Benjamin Bartlett is a sea captain turned vampire. In fact, he was the captain chosed to lead the raid on Nova Scotia in 1690, but he lost his ship and all hands just before he was supposed to set sail. At least, he thinks he lost all hands, but I can’t tell you what really happened. So here’s the blurb:

For three centuries, Benjamin Bartlett’s desire for blood – and for the woman who granted him eternity – has consumed him. But when he discovers a group of four people taking refuge in his home after their van breaks down, he’s immediately drawn to Star Reid – and soon she drives him over the edge in a white-hot lust that won’t be denied…

This is my modern gothic vampire story.

The second novella, “Blood Lust,” is set in the Yucatan and stars a somewhat reluctant vampire. Here’s the blurb:

Vampire Christopher Marsh has searched for years for the talisman that could make him mortal again and give him the chance to fall in love. On the archeological dig he’s supervising, beautiful professor Nicole Stephenson reminds him daily of what he wants but can’t have. But when he abandons all control and gives in to his explosive desires, his quest takes on more urgency – for he can’t lost the woman he’s been waiting so long for…

Too bad I can’t take credit for the blurbs!

I hope you all enjoy the vampires. I just love writing them, and look forward to the next one. I’m now working on something more contemporary (without the vamps). It’s strange, but interesting. (More on that later.) I’m also anxious to work on more Siberian shamans, as started in SEXY BEAST VI. So many ideas … so little time!

So you who are reading this obviously enjoy the hot stuff. Do you prefer vamps, shapeshifters, contemporary (not paranormal), or something else? What would you write if you could write anything … and get paid for it?

We all find inspiration — for writing, life, work, love — in different places. As an author, I’m often asked where I find stories. I’ve got to tell you, I don’t. Stories find me. (I know, it sounds stupid, but it’s true. Ask any author you know and I bet you’ll get the same answer 9 out of 10 times.)

One of the most fun things I get to do now and then is attend writers’ conferences. Since I work as an engineer, it’s always a blast for me to be surrounded by writers. Last week, I spent time with 3,000 of my favorite romance writers. All that wonderful energy attracted stories like you wouldn’t believe. I swear, I think I saw some floating around in the bar looking for homes. I grabbed as many as I could and stuffed them in my brain for the trip home. One or two may have dropped out (joining a few days of life) when we were trying to land in Denver on Sunday and hit wind shear over the runway. Yow! But the rest arrived with me and I’m making notes between dinner and laundry.

I was fortunate enough to hear Janet Evanovich, Linda Howard, and Eloisa James speak (ended up in tears for two of those talks), and I had a chance to meet Kate Douglas, Sharon Page, and a bunch of other wonderful Aphrodisia authors. We drank, ate, and talked books. Too much fun for one person to handle! And BadBarb made my day! (Hey!)

Now that I’m back in my real life, I have to look for inspiration in the usual places: books, newpapers, television, neighbors, family…life in general. There’s so much out there! I’ve warned my family to be careful what they tell me; some version of it may end up in a book. My friends and coworkers are fair game.

I hope my books will inspire you in some good way. Maybe your evening with your SO will be a little hotter? That possibility makes me smile.

Need a new read? I have copies of DEVOUR ME, which is due out September 1st. I’ll give one away here. I have a number between 1 and 50 (it’s written down, so I can’t change it). I’ll give a signed copy to the person who gets the closest in a comment before tomorrow (Thursday) evening at 6:00 pm MT.

May your tomorrow be full of inspiration!

No, I’m not venturing into the realm of incest, just so you know. I don’t write or condone incest. Okay, so I did have a crush on my first cousin when we were young. We even talked about running off to Mexico to get married until we were about 14. And my great-grandmother didn’t have to change her last name when she got married, but Louisiana is full of Broussards, so that doesn’t really mean anything. Out of the 14 kids my great-grandparents produced, only one was a little odd. (Hey, it’s the South. We’re all a little odd.)

But I have something completely different on my mind today. I’m about to embark on a family trip. My little sister lives in Hungary, and she’s arriving in the States this week with her two daughters. My mother, step-father, and I are driving to Texas to pick her up, then we’re all tooling around Texas where my niece will look at colleges. My husband insists on staying home. I can’t imagine why. (I know what you’re saying. “What does this have to do with erotica?” Hang on, I’m getting there. We Southerners like to sneak up on a topic, not run directly at it. It’s kinda like chasing armadillos.)

Don’t you ever wonder about erotica authors? Like, how did they get started writing erotica? How much of what they write is first-hand knowledge? Do their mothers know what they’re doing?

I can’t answer all of those questions. It’s a little like asking a magician, “How’d you do that?”

But I can tell you that my mother knows exactly what I’m doing. In fact, she’s the first reader for my erotica. Having a retired school teacher in the family is a wonderful thing! The rest of my immediate family knows, too. They have kindly been my biggest supporters. (There are some aunts I haven’t giving book information to. I don’t want to be banned from entering certain Southern towns.)

The most important aspect of family, however, is that soul restoration aspect. Those of us lucky enough to have family members we care deeply about know that it’s important to connect with them now and then. They remind us of who we are. And they tie us to the past, as well as (for me) to the future. My nieces will see things I can only imagine.

The other thing family does is give me the confidence to write whatever I want. My mother was wise enough to leave copies of The Sensuous Woman and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask lying around where I could find them as a teenager. (If she hadn’t, I might have ended up in some bad situations. We didn’t have cable TV back then.) I’m so thankful that I learned to enjoy life, love, and sex, and that I feel confident enough to write about them. I hope to share some of that joy with my readers.

Now, I must admit, my family didn’t introduce me to vampires. That kind of went the other direction. But they seem to appreciate them (fortunately). Have I told you how I got into vampires? No? It’s kind of a funny story, but I’ll save that for another time.

My family also makes my world feel secure enough to allow my imagination to run wild. I’m quite sure while we’re riding around in an air-conditioned vehicle looking for shade so we can picnic, we’ll be sharing stories and lots of laughs. I know I’ve saved up quite a few stories just for this trip. I have little doubt I’ll end up with ideas for future books.

Oh, and that’s another thing. Family is definitely where I learned to tell stories. I still remember, when I was a child, sitting on my grandmother’s back porch listening to my relatives swap stories. (Granted, they rarely shared erotic stories–when us kids were around, at least.) I would say that’s another Southern thing, but I guess others share stories, too, huh? After all, that’s what writers are — storytellers, and I know there are writers all over the world.

I hope you’ll read this and think about the family member you haven’t connected with in awhile. Maybe you’ll even give him or her a call and swap stories. Won’t that be fun? If you want to, you can send that person a copy of one of my books, as long as they don’t share it with my aunts.

What do you get from spending time with your family?

I have a question, but you’ll have to read down a ways to reach it. If I weren’t long-winded, all of my novels would be memos.

I love to read and write about specific places. To me, setting–when done correctly–is a major story element. I’ve written (under another name) a number of historical mysteries set in Louisiana that couldn’t have been set anywhere else. Something about living with the humidity, mosquitoes, and marsh gives people a different sense of humor. Ah, wait…perhaps it’s the effect setting has on characters that makes it interesting, or maybe it’s the kind of characters you find in certain places that does it. My shape shifter in Animal Instinct (Sexy Beast VI) is very Russian; his story had to start in Siberia (a wonderful place to visit, by the way). And it moved easily to Alaska where the wilderness is vast enough to accommodate shape-shifting foxes without anyone noticing.

My vampires, on the other hand, tend to reside in historic cities. That’s where they seem to fit best. In Addicted, both novellas are set, at least partially, in Santa Fe. It’s a wonderful old city with lots of winding, dark streets and intriguing doorways. (While we’re talking about books for other publishers, my Nocturne Bites vampire in Shadow Lover also lived in Santa Fe at the time of the story. Of course, he had traveled for centuries.) For my next book, Devour Me (due out the first of September 2009), I moved the settings a bit, but to places still quite historic: Maya ruins in the Yucatan and the east coast near Boston. I love traveling from my desk! Fortunately, the essence of these places is still in my head somewhere. I remember the taste of the evening breeze in Merida while sitting outside at a restaurant eating something baked in banana leaves.

I’m currently reading the first Guido Brunetti mystery by Donna Leon, and enjoying the descriptions of Venice. But it’s more than just description. The author inserts the flavor of Venice into her writing. Without Venetian society and government, Guido’s life would be too easy and probably boring. Instead, we share his frustrations and revel in his joys. And speaking of Louisiana (we were, remember?), if you haven’t read any of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux books, you’re missing the most amazingly accurate portrayal of southeast Louisiana ever written. He even gets the dialect right, him. (Sorry– that’s my Cajun heritage sneaking out.)

I promised a question, and I have one (or two). Do you have a favorite setting? Or do you like variety when you read? Are you sold on small town life with all its ups and downs, or is it the big city for you? How about weather? Cold and snowy, or hot and sunny? Where were some of your favorite books set? Is there one setting you’d love to read about that you never have? I’d appreciate your feedback. I don’t know where my next book will be set. Well, except that one story will be on another planet–I’ve never done that before. I’m hoping someone will give me a new place to consider so I can start planning a vacation.

Happy reading to you all! I hope your summer is off to an extraordinary start.:razz:

Wow! I get to blog on Earth Day. In my ‘other’ life, I spend a great deal of time focused on sustainability and what we can do to reduce our environmental footprint. I know, it doesn’t sound like something someone who writes hot stories about vampires and shape-shifters would be into, but we humans are such complex creatures…multifaceted. (It’s what I do for a living.)

Which leads me to wonder if I enjoy writing and reading paranormal erotica and romance because it is such a great escape from our daily worries. I know, not exactly a head-slapper, is it? We all know that romance sales have continued to climb during this economic downturn. That fact has been all over the major media the past week or two. But it isn’t always that simple. One of the reasons I love writing vampires is that they tend to blur the lines between good and evil. At least, mine usually do. To me, they more accurately mirror real life. How many of us don’t believe we have a good and a bad side? I know, I know — it depends on how you define “bad” and “good.” But don’t we all sometimes do something we know we shouldn’t? It’s part of what makes us human (and interesting).

One of the things I’ve enjoyed as an author has been participating in the change in reading technology. My first book was published by a major publishing house during its first dabble in the electronic world, back in 2001. Three days after my book came out, the publisher shut down the experiment, but I still had a book! Since then, I’ve authored a number of e-books and e-novellas, as well as paperbacks. (Some of them were published under other names. ) I’m glad most of my titles are now available as e-books. A few short years ago, we were arguing over whether or not e-books were here to stay. Today, I don’t think there’s much doubt. Man, things are changing quickly!

Okay, so it’s Earth Day. Most people know about the 3 R’s. For those of you/us who are Boomers, I’m not talking about Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic. Nowadays, it’s Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I’d like to help someone Reduce their environmental footprint by Reusing one of my books, so I’ll return tomorrow evening and pick someone from the comments to receive a signed copy of Sexy Beast VI. All you have to do is tell me what you think about e-books. Do you read them? If so, how? (With an E-book reader? On your PC? Printed?) What do you see for the future of e-books? What do you like or dislike about them? (Hey, if you’d rather have an e-copy of Sexy Beast VI, tell me. If you’re chosen, I’ll send the cost to your PayPal account. You don’t have to post your PayPal account info — I’ll contact you first.)

And have a great Earth Day!

I love spring. It’s my favorite season, next to winter. And this spring will be exceptionally sweet for me. (Yes, I know it’s a little odd to favor winter, but I love cold, dark weather. January in Anchorage is better than heaven.)

“Why is this spring so special?” you ask. (You did ask, right?) I’ll tell you. Some months I get to spend more time being a writer than I do other months. This April will be a good one, and I’m doing a happy dance.

First of all, Sexy Beast VI comes out in April, and my novella, “Animal Instinct,” is in it. It’s my first shape-shifter story, and I had a great time with it. (Hey, it’s set in Alaska and Siberia, two of my favorite places!) At the same time, I have a Nocturne Bites coming out, Shadow Lover. And I just found out it will be included in an anthology this fall. I also have a romance coming out (under another name). What a month!

I’m in a quandary, though, and have a question or two. I really enjoy doing book signings. I love meeting readers and perspective writers, and talking about books and writing. What can be more fun? So here are my questions, and I’d really appreciate your help. As a reader, do you enjoy meeting authors? (I do, but I’m not sure if I’m weird. Well, okay, I’ve fairly certain I’m weird, but I’m not sure about this particular point.) Do you talk to writers you haven’t heard of if you see them signing at your local book store? If so, what makes you feel comfortable approaching them, and what turns you off?

There are several authors I look forward to meeting. (I’m afraid one or two may think I’m stalking them, but that’s a whole other story. I promise I’m not. Really. But if anyone sees an announcement about James Lee Burke signing books, please let me know. Jeez, the man can write Louisiana like no one else!) I’m looking forward to the Literacy signing at the RWA national convention in DC this summer. What a wonderful chance to meet so many of my favorite authors at once! And I hope to be signing this time, too. (Way cool! )

I hope everyone enjoys Sexy Beast VI. I’m thrilled to be in the company of writers like Kate Douglas and Anya Howard!