Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

Good rainy/foggy morning from southern Oregon. I had to include the qualifier ’southern’ Oregon because today I’m very glad I don’t live in the northern part of the state right now. Wow! Talk about the area forced to a halt due to the snow. I love accessing the road cameras online, especially since I can sit here in my warm house instead of having to put on chains and praying I can reach my destination. For the uninformed, the Portland area knows rain, in spades. What throws a monkey wrench into the works is snow, freezing snow, a lot of it.

On my way up to my office this morning, I tried to put my mind to what I wanted to write about. A number of possibilities came to mind, but in the end I decided I didn’t want to write about writing for a change. Instead, I’m going to give a shot at creating a Christmas wish list with the hopes that others will chime in about their own lists.
1. Number one top of the list: I wish all the best to our incoming President and those he has gathered around him to lead this country. We need direction, strength, and courage as maybe we never have. The bottom line goes beyond how deep and long this recession will take us. Unrelenting economic worries eats away at our hearts. We worry for ourselves, families, friends, strangers, businesses, local, state, and federal institutions. Lately it feels as if there’s nothing but negative news, but a year ago most of us felt secure and optimistic, and that can happen again. Maybe what this all boils down to is that I hope everyone goes into the new year with a positive attitude. We Will stand strong. And we’ll come out of this mess stronger and wiser.
2. A positive future for our planet. This ground beneath our feet, the air we breathe, the water we drink are all being stressed. Mostly I want to hear frogs which my biologist son says are symbolic of an area’s health.
3. Taking on the weight of the world is exhausting so I’m heading closer to home for my next wish. A dear friend has been battling cancer for years. Now there are no more treatments to try, no more tests to take, nothing except facing the end to her life. Pat, I hand you more of the courage and acceptance that has taken you through this journey.
4. Alex, dear 5 year old Alex. My wish for you is that you will always be protected and safe, that your smiles will never fade, and you’ll spend your life surrounded by those willing and able to guide you through a world defined by Downs.
5. Finally, because 5 seems like a doable number, I hope that no matter how much the local wild turkeys aggitate our dogs, they never catch one.
Vonna
www.VonnaHarper.com

There can’t be a published writer who hasn’t heard, at least once, “Where do you get your ideas?” I’ve seen a lot of shrugs and head shakes in response and am guilty of same. It’s not that I don’t know where the ‘idea’ vault is, I know the consequences if I reveal its location. Banisment to a deserted island with nothing to read and no computer. Shudder! What a gruesome way to go! But there are a few things I can reveal without running afoul of the idea police.

What I want to do on this foggy morning when I have house guests descending in a few hours and half a book still to write for Aphrodisia is replay a recent experience. I don’t yet know what I’m going to do with this gem, but it has stuck into a deep spot in my brain, and sooner or later it’ll holler so loudly that it’ll send me running for the computer.

My oldest son has a new girlfriend, a bright, self-confident woman who used to model and now is office manager for a company that makes laser products. The other day she was over using my good sized kitchen. Over wine, we started sharing. Her story completely topped mine. A few years ago she was property manager for an apartment complex. Another employee was the landscaper, a man she’d always gotten along with but didn’t know well. One night she and her young daughter were in their apartment when they heard some metal on metal sounds outside. She looked out her window and saw the landscaper taking a tool (she didn’t see what it was) to her car. He did thousands of dollars worth of damage. But what freaked her out was seeing him leave the car and run toward her front door. She grabbed the door while he was pulling on the other side and somehow, after what to her felt like hours of struggle, managed to lock it. Then she called 911 while the man pounded on the door cursing and threatening. Apparently he’d had a breakdown of some kind and blamed her for much of the pressure in his life. For weeks after, she was terrified of being alone, especially at night and couldn’t let her daughter out of her sight. He was let out on bail and continued to threaten her. She was unable to do her job and desperately needed to move from the apartment complex, which she finally did. Friends gathered around her, she spent some time living with her parents, and got another job. She wrote a 4 page report to the court detailing how much that one night changed her life, and I’m hoping to see it. The man was sentenced to 6 months in jail, 6 months! He’s now out and, she’s heard, still living in the area but stable mentally. She’s no longer looking over her shoulder, but I vividly recall the look in her eyes as she dumped.

Years ago, my brother-in-law’s son’s 18 year old girlfriend was hit over the head and on the back with a hammer by a man everyone considered a friend. The girl’s then 12 year old brother was in the house at the time. Somehow she got a leg lock around her attacker’s head and held him down while her brother called 911 but she had to be hospitalized and needed physical therapy for months after to say nothing of the emotional trauma. Like my son’s girlfriend, she too wrote the court about how those few minutes changed her life and I’ve read that letter.

So where am I going with this? I watch movies where heroines stand up to mass murderers, psychos, hit men, etc, etc. After pummeling the bad guy into the ground, they dust off their hands and go on with their lives. But that isn’t the real world. Reality is spending the rest of one’s life with that trauma. Slowly coming to life in that corner of my brain is a survivor of violence who desperately needs the nightmares to end. A ‘good’ man isn’t going to magically appear in her life and make everything all better. She’s going to have to face up to her demons on her own before she’s healthy enough for that good man. She’ll have successes and failures, strong days and weak. But like Angela and Apple, she’ll eventually embrace life again, and I’d be honored to write about their journey.

And that, to a large part, is why I love telling the IRS that I’m a writer!!!
Vonna
www.VonnaHarper.com

No, I wasn’t procrastinating, nothing like that. I had a perfectly good reason to be plowing through my bookcase a few weeks ago. A new couch was about to be moved into my office and to do so, said bookcase had to be moved. So then I decided to weed through some of the old stuff and in order to make sure I didn’t want to keep certain writing research books, I had to skim them.
Okay, now that hopefully you’re all buying into this essential activity, what I wound up holding onto last was a ten year old book on how to write horror. I write erotica. I used to write category romances and Native American historicals, not horror. But–confession time–I’d love to give horror a whirl. Unfortunately, my last name’s not King or Koontz and reality said, “Vonna, there ain’t a chance in you know what that you’ll get horror published.” So why am I holding onto the book?
Because tapping into my characters’ fears is an incredibly exciting way of getting down to their essence.
Okay, let me think about that for a moment. A new idea is perculating and when sleep wouldn’t come last night, I asked what my still-growing hero and heroine’s greatest fears are. For the heroine, its going to be being lost. As a child, she was left alone (not sure how that came about) in the middle of a forest. As a result, she struggled to get past that trauma by becoming intimately familiar with the wilderness. This will tie into the hero’s need for her. Of course she’s not about to reveal that old fear to this powerful man who is forcing her to guide him against her will. Ah, I’m getting a chill just thinking about what happens between the two of them when what she believes is her greatest weakness is revealed.
So what about our fearless hero who right now has a lot of Konan the Barbarian in him. You know the type, bred and trained to risk his life in service to his king. Whatever’s required of him, he’ll do it in service to the man he considers a god. He’s not afraid of death, considers it a badge of honor to die in service to his country. (Hey, he was brainwashed, ain’t his fault). What he does fear is helplessness. What if he can’t fight? What purpose does his existence have?
My still-birthing characters aren’t afraid of monsters who come out at night, snakes, lightning storms, etc, etc. No, their personal horrors are much closer to the heart. And those vulnerabilities are what, eventually, hopefully, will bring them together.
As for me, probably the thing I’d be the most afraid of is cave exploring. Going into the dark to who knows where with who knows what crawling around? Not gonna happen!!!!!!
Okay, gentle readers. What bumps around you in the middle of the night?
Vonna
www.VonnaHarper.com

No reason to deny it, I’m a research junkie. In many ways its the best part of writing. Oh, I also dig the creative process, the beginnings of a plot and conversations from characters demanding their story. But research–an excuse to waste (ah, spend) days chasing down my interests. I initially became hooked on research when I was writing Native American historicals which explains all my NA nonfiction books (well marked).
Research, for me, is free-flowing. I grab one piece of information which leads to another piece which takes me on a right turn to other possibilities. Most of it I know I won’t use but how do I know what’s important if I don’t explore, right?
Current Example: I’ve been invited to write a novella for an Aphrodisia erotic anthology with a Cowboy themes. In other words, the story isn’t going to be much longer than 25k words, hardly room for world-building or impressing readers with my knowledge of obscure subjects, but I can pretend, right?
I knew I wanted my hero to participate in a program designed to train and tame wild mustangs (there is such a program, sponsored by by Mustang Heritage Foundation) But strange as it must seem, I’m not an expert in handling wild horses so off I went into the Internet yesterday. The focus these days, thank goodness, is no longer on breaking a mustang’s spirit. Instead, natural horsemenship gentling techniques are employed. I now know just enough to be dangerous (never fear, I’m not going to get in a corral with a mustang stallion, I ain’t no fool) I’ve printed out a stack of pages on the techniques, the Mustang Heritage Foundation, and the competition my hero will participate in. I’m tempted to keep exploring, to run to the library, interview the local horse trainer who gave me the idea, maybe trek down to Sacramento and watch the next competition. However, I’ve yet to write page one of the story (or give it a title) and its due sometime soon. (Note to self, check contract)
Another however, I believe my heroine is going to be a vet tech, which I know nothing about so…..
And its a shame to limit my newfound fascination with mustangs to a novella and soon I’ll be done with my current Aphrodisia book contracts and in need of writing a new proposal and since I have all this information….
HELP, I NEED AN INTERVENTION
Vonna
www.VonnaHarper.com

direction they are today. He’s an adult, a teacher, the father of the world’s most awesome grandson, in short a man I’m incredibly proud of. He’s also the most independent cuss I’ve ever known. He truly does his own thing.

As an example of his independence and self-confidence, he decided to celebrate his birthday by climbing an area mountain. This on top of participating in a race the day before. (You don’t want to see the blisters on his heels) He’s climbed this mountain before so is familiar with the terrain. What he wanted was the physical challenge and the chance to spend time close to nature–something that resonates with the whole family. We finished the day by all of us going out to dinner so his day’s adventure was sharp in his mind, and because he’s articulate, I have clear images of what he saw while alone on the backside of that peak.

One day this spring a fierce windstorm hit the mountains. As a consequence, the opening of some area campgrounds have been delayed as cleanup of tree blowdowns takes place. What those of us down in civilization didn’t know was the devistation that had taken place on that mountain. As Ryan explained, his eyes wide and somber, a half-mile wide swatch of old growth pine trees had been leveled. Literally thousands of massive trees were twisted in all directions, piled on top of each other. Nature’s strength at its most impressive. My son, who works summers firefighting and recently returned from two weeks in California, understands the danger inherent in those blowdowns. As he explained, salvaging the timber may be more trouble than its worth. Not only is the area inaccessible to machinery, the trees are piled on top of each other, pinned in places, pinning other trees at the same time. Cutting through one tree can result in a massive and deadly shifting of weight throughout the pile.

My point here: I sit here in my office describing what my son experienced. He goes out and embraces the wilderness, often taking his son with him. In contrast, Grandma relies on her imagination, safe in her calm environment. My imagination is one of my greatest joys. I love mentally and emotionally placing myself in uncounted situations. In my mind I take canoes down raging rivers, fight forest fires, hunt buffalo (as I did when I was writing historicals) and have the kind of sex I can only lust after. But those grand adventures and experiences and people exist only in my mind while my son climbs onto a felled giant of a tree and looks out at a half-mile swath example of a force beyond our comprehension.

I love the path I’ve taken in life but oh do I envy him.

Vonna

www.VonnaHarper.com

Going Down won’t be out for another month but I had to share this cover. I’m particularly taken with the coloring. To be honest, I squirm every time I look at it because I’m darn ticklish on that part of my anatomy. How my heroine is able to sit there and simply enjoy is beyond me. If it was me–and believe me, no one wants to see that part of my anatomy on a cover, shudder–I’d have already kicked the poor man where it counted.

Okay, as I hinted in the title, I’m not in a serious mood today, probably because I’m doing my dangness not to give into this gray and rainy day. (what a contrast after record breaking heat last week). A couple of days ago I updated the news on my website www.VonnaHarper.com and described what my office looks like. Fascinating reading, not. Today I decided to dig into my brain and come up with what my ideal office would look like. How’s this for priorities?
1. Ice making machine so I don’t have to keep going downstairs to replenish my trusty ice water.
2. Snack drawer. (oops, better not)
3. Perfect-running computer. Mine isn’t bad, but it’s pushing 4 years old and I’m getting a little nervous. I don’t care what operating system it has just as long as I somehow am as one with it. No glitches of course, never a need to call the dreaded customer support.. Having it the size of a tissue box would be kinda cool. No games of any kind loaded into it because I might be the only person on earth who doesn’t give a darn about that stuff. I was going to mention some of those interactive video games but without my grandson around to educate me I’d just sound like an absolute idiot.
4. 25″ monitor. The one I have is 19″ and I love it, but if I’m being greedy–
5. Seamless Internet connection. Always on but of course absolutely and completely safe from viruses and spam.
6. Chair molded to my tired old bod. The one I’m sitting in is pretty good but it better be because I swear I sat in every chair for 20 miles around. But the perfect one has to have arm rests that hold up. In less than 2 years, this plastic stuff has started cracking and occasionally jumps up and pinches me.
7. No glare window to look out. The current one is probably 4 by 4 but sometimes I have to close the blind to keep from going blind. And while I’m at it, how about cutting off the roof of my next door neighbor. If it wasn’t for that, I could see forever instead of just half of forever.
8. Bose stereo system with killer speakers.
9. A room full of self-watering plants.
10. Expertly hung pictures of landscape scenes by famous photographers. Start with the Grand Canyon.
11. Massive bookshelf filled with every research book I’ll ever need.

I could probably keep going forever but I keep getting this funky message about how Google blogging connection has been lost and I might not be able to save my blog. Better put that seamless Internet connection at the top of the list.

How about other people? What’s in your perfect ideal room? Is it an office, a denlike retreat, maybe a patio, a sexy bedroom? Anyone who says laundry room will be kicked off the Aphrodisia site and never allowed back.
Vonna

Good cloudy morning folks. Would someone please explain this to me. A week and a half ago it reached 81 degrees here in the Northwest. Then it snowed over the weekend, and this morning I’m looking out at a cloud filled sky.
Ah well, can’t do nuttin’ about it except hunker down and write. Yesterday I was playing email conversation with our own Kate Douglas. She said she was dealing with the cold in her neck of the woods by getting to the getting of a new book. Sounded like good advice so I kicked out about 2500 words.
Hey Kate, I’m further along in this writin’ a book business than you are. I’m into chapter four of the middle book in a three book contract. It doesn’t have a title and I don’t want anyone giving me a hard time about it, because the rest of it’s starting to come together.
Interesting thing about growing a story, at least for me. I start with a blip above nothing and start adding fertilizer until something pops to the surface. In this case, I’ve been holding onto a well-illustrated booklet about Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, a place I visited and fell in love with. The Anasazi once lived in this land of canyons and sandstone, and the dramatic vistas grabbed me around the throat the moment I entered it. Setting is vital to me. I need an emotional hit from an area (real or imagined) or my characters won’t thrive in it.
So step one became keeping the terrain but moving it to a fictional spot so I could play around with reality. Then I needed some characters. Hok’ee was just waiting for me to pull him out of the muddy backwater of my brain. A cougar shapeshifter, he’s a restless and savage soul, wild and primal. There’s nothing politically correct about him. There’s a core of me in him, or perhaps I should say Hok’ee represents a don’t-give-a-damn side to this law-abiding middle class writer I try to keep under lock. He has no need for or interest in money, running water, political campaigns, or even whether he has any clothes. How did he get that way? It took a couple nights of insomnia for the answer to emerge, but I love it. A hint. If you know anything about the Navajo or Tony Hillerman’s writing, you’ve heard about the chindi.
Hok’ee needed a woman, specifically one with a reason to enter his primal world. More insomnia. More ranting to myself. More considering and then rejecting options. Then one morning while I was in the shower, Kai stepped in and started talking about the psychic gift that sets her apart. What’s that you say, psychics are a dime a dozen? True, but how many can tap into the souls of animals? Hot damn but do I love that idea. And her.
Next came the plot, or rather the need for one. Not so much insomnia this time but a lot of sitting at the computer with my eyes closed while I threw down everything that came to mind. Minor characters, check. Theme, check. Goals, check. Twists and turns, check. I’m still working on getting all that to mesh, but I trust that thing called creativity enough to know the minor characters and the direction things are headed will eventually make sense.
Maybe what I’ve written has bored the you know what out of whoever tried to wade through it, but I got a kick out of trying to explain the creative process, at least how it works for me. I’m deliberately not saying more because I lose momentum and interest if I say too much about what I’m doing. I need to be surprised and a bit scared every time something comes out of my mind, through my fingers, and onto the computer screen.
One more thing before I fade off. Last week’s mail brought a couple of great packages. I have a novella in Sexy Beast V which should come out in Sept. and the cover flats arrived. OMG that’s one hunky hunk!!! Only With A Cowboy (another anthology) will hit the stands on April 29 which means I now have a box filled with copies to use for promotion. The cover: another hunky hunk wearing nothing except a trashed pair of jeans and a rope slung around his neck. I can hardly wait to read P.J. Mellor and Melissa MacNeal’s contributions.
Vonna
www.VonnaHarper.com

p.s. Given what little I’ve told folks about what I’m working on, if anyone has an idea for a title, I’d be eternally grateful. In fact, I’ll send you a copy of Only With A Cowboy.

Hmm. I’m a little later creating this than I’d planned. For some reason, Google, which is the power behind the Aphrodisia blogs, decided to disown me. What? I’d signed on with no problem the last time I blogged but now my user name and password seems to have fallen into a black hole. Go figure. Ah well, looks like I’ve jumped through the necessary hoops. (Shaking her head at technology). Speaking of our modern and too-complex world, anyone interested in the hoops I had to jump through in order to replace my husband’s cell phone after he tried to teach it how to swim? Didn’t think so.

Actually I’m stalling. I know what I want to comment on because it’s what kept me awake much of last night, I’m just not sure how to get started. Ah, how about the beginning, if I can find that particular thread. When I started writing erotica, it was a brave new and uncharted world. Plot choices were unlimited, at least it seemed that way to me. Anything from historical to futuristic to sci/fi to paranormal to shape shifting to–you got the picture. Much the same with themes or genre. I tried a little of this and that with my early works which were for Ellora’s Cave. Then in a moment of mad inspiration, I wrote Forced, or maybe I should say Forced used me as its vehicle for getting into print. It was plain and simple, bondage. Bondage has been my fantasy of choice for as long as I can remember. I can honestly say I’ve never plunged deeper into a story (its by far my best-selling e-title).
Forced was followed by other bondage-themed stories because that’s what I wanted to write. The genre is also a hot, hot seller, but that was less important to me than exploring my needs and curiosities. I danced at the edge of BDSM and that shows up in all of my Aphrodisia stories, but my comfort level kept me at the edge. I might be able to read about true submissives, particularly the whole pain thing, but my macho heroes draw the line with elaborate rope work. They don’t crack whips. I simply can’t mark up my heroines. What it gets down to is that I don’t get the pain/pleasure connection and if it’s foreign to me, it’s foreign to my characters.
The point of this is that I’ve written a LOT of bondage and am beginning to suspect I’ve explored most of the situations my brain can come up with. Am I in danger of starting to repeat myself? Shoot, maybe I already have, but fortunately that short-term memory issue insulates me from reality. I don’t want to bore my readers, or myself by playing the same tune over and over again.
So, now that I’m pulling together possibilities for book two in my current Aphrodisia contract, my mind is digging around in all kinds of directions. I love adventure. Adore suspense. Dig man against nature. Maybe I don’t want to fashion those passions in such a way that they’d fit under the bondage umbrella. Maybe I just want hot and heavy sex while fleeing the villains or trying to outrun an avalanche or flood. Maybe I don’t want to deal with the separation of power between master and sub; I need equals. Hell, maybe I even need the woman on top.
That in a less than articulate explanation is my current quandary. Bondage is familiar. I know that dance (or I’ve deluded myself into thinking I do) Just because I’m intrigued by the man against nature plot possibility that went to bed with me doesn’t mean I have the skill to fashion it within the erotica world.
And the thought that I want to end with: has Vonna Harper made such a name for herself as a bondage slut that readers won’t pick up anything else from me? I’d love to read your responses. I really, really need to know. But if you don’t give a darn what I write as long as I shut up, keep that to yourself.
Vonna www.VonnaHarper.com
p.s. Can I get away with a non Aphrodisia plug? On Tues, my first and so far only Samhain book BloodHunter comes out. And yeah, it has bondage running through it along with time travel and shape shifting and the sexiest jaguar on the planet.

I’m part of a local group that’s part friendship, part critique partners. Last night we were mostly about sharing a potluck, watching the lunar eclipse, and catching up. Finally we got around to the business part of things, or to be honest, the rest of us hung on her every word while Gail told us about her most excellent weekend.
The weekend? Glad you asked. Gail is an awesome writer and has had both fiction and nonfiction published, but for reasons I don’t quite get, her first love is screenwriting. To my way of thinking, straight writing is competitive enough while it appears that half of the population is trying to get a screenplay published. Granted, the payoff can be like hitting the lottery–only the odds are even higher. Back when I’d briefly given leave of my senses, I tried my hand at a couple of screenplays and loved the process, but I have all I can do to pay the bills doing what I am which these days revolves around erotica for Aphrodisia.
You think there are a lot of rules to fiction, try screenplays! The workshop Gail attended is taught by Cynthia Whitcomb who knows what she’s talking about. Among Cynthia’s credits: she’s sold more than 80 feature-length screenplays, 30 of which have been filmed. Her scripts have won and been nominated for the Emmy, Cable Ace Award, Edgar Allan Poe Award, Humanities Award, and Writers Guild of America. She’s taught screenwriting for many years, including seven at the UCLA Film School. So what I’m thinking is, Gail’s competition includes Cynthia. Good luck my friend. But Cynthia really cares about her students’ success and is open and honest about what separates a pro from those, like me, who are clueless. Think about it, how many NYT writers teach those who might become their competition?
So Cynthia knows all the tricks that separate her from her students, little things like aiming for over 100 scenes in a script that averages 120 pages, opening with an outdoor scene because it paints a larger landscape, not describing the actors or giving them ages, knowing who you want to play the various roles (yes, that is contradictory), starting scenes in the middle of the action and leaving before the action winds down, keeping the clock ticking, limiting dialogue to three lines, giving no stage directions (that’s the actors’ job) sticking to present tense, using active verbs, keeping it lean and cutting it mean, knowing the format.
Writing those two screenplays was an incredible experience for me. No exposition, no thoughts, no internal monologues. Nothing but dialogue and action. I loved it. I’m also going to stick with print publishing.
Speaking of said print publishing, the anthology Only With A Cowboy will be released April 29, I now have the yummy cover for Going Down which shows a man lapping at a female torso, have turned in Hawk’s Talons, and am in desperate search of a story for book 2 in my current contract.
Anyone with a spare plot or characters hanging around, PLEASE send them my way. Or I could use what was in those screenplays. Hmm. Something to think about.
Vonna
www.VonnaHarper.com