My Golden Rose Achievment

I WON! I won I  won  I  won  I  won . I. WON!

(Does that word look weird to anyone else now? No? Alrighty, moving on then.)

*clears throat*

Hello, friends! If you haven't already guessed, I recently found out

I placed first in the Contemporary Series category
of the RCRW Golden Rose Contest

that I entered a few months back. It was the first real contest I'd ever entered so I'm absolutely ecstatic! On top of that, the literary agent who judged the final round has asked to see my full manuscript. Yay me!

It looks like this is a great omen for
how I predict my 2012 year to go.

The Power of Projection (or, Stuff I Want to Happen in 2012)

The end of yet another year approaches, and so begins the timeless act of making promises to oneself for the new year. Things we will do better to improve our quality of life and of those around us.

This year I'm going to do something to improve my chances of having a spectacular 2012. I'm going to harness the power of projection by writing about the coming year as though it's already happened. I'm going to carve my goals, wishes, and things I wouldn't mind happening into The Cosmos (otherwise known as the interwebz where anything posted remains in the universe forever and the rules of "take backs" and "do-overs" do not exist), thereby practically ensuring my complete success.

So, without further ado, here is what happened to me in 2012...


Early in the year my dream agent contacted me and asked for a full based on a query I sent her with some sample chapters. After I sent off the full DESIRES OF THE SOUL manuscript, it only took a few days before she contacted me asking if we could speak on the phone.


I had a lovely conversation with her regarding my manuscript. She said it still needed some work, but that she felt passionately about the story and wanted to work with me to build my career. Before we hung up my dream agent offered me representation, to which I accepted enthusiastically (consequently getting me kicked out of the library for interrupting Story Time for Tots with my shouts of "YES YES YES!" while jumping around like a deranged kangaroo).


About this time I discovered a miracle pill that transforms all food into fat-burning, muscle-toning energy. As a result of taking that pill only once I quickly acquired the body I had at seventeen and haven't gained a pound since.

Blasts From the Past (or, Books From My Youth)

Last week my good friend and contemporary romance author, Ruthie Knox, rediscovered the first romance novel she'd ever read thanks to an interview promoting her debut novel, RIDE WITH ME (release date Feb 2012).

Via Twitter, Ruthie regaled us with snippets of the cheesy eighties dialogue and summarized the diabolically complex conflict (hero was vaguely a ladies' man in the past and the heroine has a flawless moral compass which keeps her life firmly on the correct and inexplicably boring path of goodness, hence the implied severe sarcasm with the adjective "complex"). From her tweets, Ruthie, our friend Cara McKenna, and I created a drinking game (every time heroine gets "warm, fuzzy feeling" DRINK) and made plans to send it to each other through the mail at major turning points in our lives, creating our very own Sisterhood of the Traveling Eighties Romance Novel. And although we won't follow through on either of those fun ideas, it was a riot of a tweet thread.

Ironically enough, when I went home for the Thanksgiving week, my mom pulled out a box of books from my youth. It was so fun to go through them all with my kids and reminisce about the plots and characters that started my love of reading (and eventually writing). I didn't find any of my romance novels in there--those would come a few years later I think--but I had a ton of Christopher Pike books, a good chunk of R.L. Stine books, and a smattering of random YA paperbacks, including a few Choose Your Own Adventures which I eagerly gave to my ten-year-old son hoping to convince him to hop on the "reading is fun bandwagon" his young Xbox brain is resisting so vehemently. ("Look! It's just like your video games where you get to choose what you're going to say and where you go next...except it's in your head! How awesome is that?" Seriously, why don't they make the CYOA books anymore? If we have to bring back the oh-so-wrong neon wardrobe of the eighties, why not those books? It only seems fair.) Also in that box? The only Stephen King book I've ever read, THE DARK HALF.

At any rate, my twelve-year-old daughter chose a small stack that interested her and I picked out a select few that I remember really loving (SIX MONTHS TO LIVE and I WANT TO LIVE by Lurlene McDaniel) and a couple that I didn't so much as remember but wanted to read again out of curiosity.

The first book I read was in the latter category, a YA called MOVING TOO FAST. It's a relatively small paperback which would probably be considered a novella by today's standards. Like Ruthie found with her book, this story had very minimal conflict. The plot went something like this:

Meet My Characters: Gabriel

Gabriel Russo*: hero of SOUL SEDUCTION

Age: 26, going on 46
Height: Tall enough (6' 6")
Weight: Enough to throw around (225)
Hair: Black, windblown & fingercombed, unshaven
Eyes: Girly blue (aquamarine)
Occupation: Mechanic/shop owner
Location: None of your business (Arizona desert)
Father: Dominic, vampire & Hunter for the Dark Race
Mother: Angelica, healer angel & pediatric oncologist
Sister: Jenni, empathic oracle & major pain in the ass


Gabriel is the only son of Dominic and Angelica, the couple who set the Prophecy of Souls in motion 26 years ago with Gabriel's birth. As the Chosen One of the prophecy, he's destined to prevent the mass destruction of mankind's souls. But ever since he was kidnapped at the age of eleven and watched people sacrifice their lives to save his, Gabriel repressed his natural powers and disappeared to the Arizona desert in his early twenties to avoid bringing the Devil's army to his family's door.

With only a stray dog as company, Gabriel pretends to be content fixing cars at his shop in Bum-Fuck Nowhere and ignoring the human population as much as possible.

 

 

That is until a wildcat of a woman shows up with her pet puma and refuses to be cowed by his surly attitude and blatant brush-offs. Until he discovers that Ava could be the catalyst to bring about the final battle he's been avoiding, and no amount of denial will save him from his destiny, or her love.

So, what do you think of my current main man? Hunky, right?!

*Pictures are of model/actor Marco Dapper and courtesy of Google Images

I Prefer My Books Nice-n-Steamy

Now, that said, do I love the sex scenes? Hell, yes, I do! Done right, those scenes are absolutely smoking and full of emotion–yes, I said EMOTION. Sex scenes in a romance novel aren’t like reading the assembly instructions for furniture, for chrissakes! (Making sure there was an ample amount of lubrication, he lined up Bolt A with Hole B and inserted it completely until the Nuts at the other end were flush against the opening…)

The characters not only go through a myriad of physical sensations, but emotional ones as well: insecurity, fear, confidence, madness, frustration, elation, revelations, and so many more. And I’ve never read a sex scene that hasn’t altered—either for good or bad—the relationship in some way.

Let’s face it; a couple’s sexual relationship is a HUGE factor in their lives. You can be the Cleavers outside of the bedroom, but if you’re not compatible in the bedroom, you’ll soon turn into the Clintons. And, unless you’ve taken a vow of lifelong abstinence, EVERYONE has sex. So why pretend like it doesn’t happen? Why gloss over what happens between a couple sexually? There are certainly plenty of romances that are of a lighter variety and keep the heated moments “behind closed doors” so to speak. But I hate not knowing what happens in those moments. Was it hot and heavy? Slow and easy? Two minutes or two hours? Did one of them hold back or was it no holds barred?

I once read an interview with one of my all-time favorite authors, Gena Showalter. She told of an early experience she had at one of her book signings, where a woman walked up to the counter and commented with a look of disdain on her face that Gena’s books were those “trashy novels.” Gena’s great response was…

“What’s so trashy about love and monogamy?”

Indeed!  Why are the books categorized as ROMANCE considered by a large majority of the public to be “trashy”? For that matter, why is pornographic material considered to be so taboo? Go into an adult book store (which, for the record, I’m not sure why the word “book” is in there, because I don’t believe I’ve ever actually seen any books in those stores) and the wide variety of items is insane. You can get something as innocently cheeky as penis- or boob-shaped pasta to things you didn’t even have the imagination to conjure up as possibilities in the bedroom. But does that mean that any of it is wrong and shameful? No. It means that there’s a variety of things out there no matter what might float your boat. As long as it’s involving consenting adults there shouldn’t be anything considered wrong with it.

The same goes for what we write or read in our romance novels. Whether the sex is missionary and sweet or upside-down and nasty, it’s a vital part of a relationship.

Top 10 Things I Learned from Writing a Book: #8 Sometimes you must kill that which you love

So I’ve finished my first novel, Desires of the Soul, and it’s caused me to reflect on the things I’ve learned. Naturally, I want to share them with all of you. Maybe you’ve learned the same things; maybe you were lucky enough to already possess this wisdom. Either way, for the next couple of months, I’ll be posting a new lesson-learned every week (or so). I hope you’ll check back each week and weigh in with thoughts or lessons of your own. So without further ado, here is…

#8. Sometimes you must kill that which you love

It’s called “killing your darlings” in the literary world. You can write the most kickass chapter ever with clever phrases, amazing descriptions and phenomenal chemistry…but that doesn’t mean it belongs in your book.

After I finished one of my drafts, I sent it off to my three beta readers for some good ole crit-love. They all came back with a common theme:

The first three chapters are great (*puffs chest out in pride*), but not necessary for the story...(*dagger to the heart…*) Axe ‘em. (*…aaannd twist!*)

I did the whole, “Really? Huh. I’ll look it over and give that some serious thought.”

But what I was screaming in my head was, “Are you effing kidding me?!?! Do you have any idea how much I love those chapters? How will people know what their relationship was like before he was turned into a vampire? How are they supposed to see how viciously he struggled against them to spare the woman he loves the same fate? Not to mention how his turning actually helped his subsequent brilliant escape. It’s just not possible. So put. Down. The crack pipe.”

If All the World had a CP...

I know, I know...I've slacked on my Top 10 list. I promise I'll get back to that soon, but a thought occurred to me the other day that I'd like to share.  So here goes.

I currently have 4 acting CPs (Crit Partners) for my WIP, Soul Seduction.  I will fully admit that I'm probably making things a tad harder than I should by having 4 because the more diverse feedback you receive, the more confusing it can be as to what actions to take with their suggested changes.  However, there's no way I'd ever want to drop any of them because they all bring different talents to the table, and amazingly enough, their comments never conflict with one another.  I'm so grateful to each of them for their insight and unconditional support.

But, the specific incident that brought me to this topic is my one CP, Ella.  That's not really her name, by the way--it's Lea Ann (pronounced as Lee Ann)--but my fingers didn't like typing her full name, so I switched to LA, but saying those letters together sounded awkward, so then I changed the A to the short sound and when spoken (or thought), it becomes Ella.  But I digress...as usual. (sorry!)

So Ella is reading my first novel, Desires of the Soul.  I should also point out that she gets paid to edit fiction for publishing companies.  But when I gave her DotS, I thought, "Go ahead and read it, honey, and tell me if there are any slow parts or parts you think I could cut to get my word count down."  Because I have edited the CRAP out of that book, I figured she'd be more or less just reading for enjoyment with a comment here and there about repeated words or unnecessary sentences.

I certainly did NOT expect her to come back with comments like:

• Why is she acting this way?
• I don't understand his motivation.
• Why is she letting him get away with that?
• I feel like she's not reacting strongly enough here.

When I got the couple of chapters back that said all that, my first reaction was, "WHAT?!?!"

Then when I stopped hyperventilating and read my chapter with a fresh mind, I said, "Holy f&$%, she's right."