Archive for August, 2007
Thursday, August 30th, 2007
If you don’t like to read about sex, and people having sex, or people thinking about sex, or people talking about sex or talking about having sex or thinking about having sex or wishing they were having sex…
If you are not in the mood to read about sex…
Please don’t read my books. Because most of them, right now, feature a lot of sex. Some of them are better than others. Some have more sex than others.
But I’m going to let you in on a teensy weensy little secret…
It’s in there ON PURPOSE.
I didn’t just toss in the sex because I wanted to jump on someone’s bandwagon or as part of a trend. I’ve been writing about sex and with sexual content for years. I happen to like it, or else I wouldn’t do it. I happen to think that all my published work is the best I could produce at the time I wrote it. (Again. Some is better than others, and I have my opinion as to which is which. If I didn’t grow as an author I wouldn’t be very good.) But all of it was written on purpose. None of it was just tossed in to suit some fantasy market “need.”
I have written the books I wanted to write, the way I wanted to write them. I happen to believe that Dirty and Broken could have been written as non-erotic books. Then they would not have been “erotic novels.” They would have been something else. But guess what? I didn’t write them as something else; I wrote them as erotic novels.
ON PURPOSE.
Why? Because I felt it suited the book and the characters and it gave them motivation and depth and they had reasons for doing what they did and wanting what they wanted. I wrote about the sex because I felt it was necessary to tell the story the way *I* wanted to write it. Yes, I said it. I wrote the books the way *I* wanted them to be written.
And I happen to be very damned proud of them both. As I am about the others that are coming after them.
Sexuality is a very deep well from which to dip a drink. It can slake a lot of thirsts. Most of us do it. Most of us think about it. And you can choose to disagree with me, but most of us use sex for more than just satisfying our need for pleasure, or have at one time or another used sex for something beyond the need to scratch an itch.
Here’s the thing.
I also write books without so much sex. And I wrote them that way on purpose, too. Because guess what? They’re not erotic novels.
So if you don’t like erotic, and you don’t want to read erotic, then find something you do want to read, okay? Life’s too short to waste your time reading (on purpose) books you don’t like.
If a book’s got naked people on the cover and the words “EROTIC” anywhere on the cover, that’s a pretty good indication it might have a lot of sexual content in it. Whether you find it erotic and sexy is a matter of taste, to be sure, but you surely won’t be able to claim you didn’t know what you were going to find inside the pages. Just put it down, and walk away. There are other books to read in the world, some of them will even be mine. And they won’t all be labelled erotic.
–M
PS. And yes, by the way, if I write sex I do hope it turns people on, the same way I hope a scary scene would frighten them or a sad one make them cry. I have no trouble admitting I want to tantalize all the senses.
Oh. And PPS — I won’t apologize for liking to write erotic fiction.
Posted in Things that make me cranky, Writing, life | 3 Comments »
Thursday, August 30th, 2007
Today I want to put my head down on my desk. It hurts. My head, not the desk, but that’s not why I want to put my head down. I feel, today, as though if I just rest my forehead on the wood of my desk, close to my computer, staring at the floor which is in desperate need of being vacuumed…if I do that for a minute, for two, for five for an hour for a week month year…
If I just put my head down somehow, magically, the story will come. It will come out of my head and through my fingers (don’t ask how I’ll type with my head down…it’s magic.) I’ll write. I’ll be writing, instead of thinking about writing.
I was excited for school to start because I would get back to work, and I did do some work but I can’t seem to get into gear. And I was thinking how maybe I’ve already written my “best book evar” and how I wrote it before I “sold big” and maybe just being able to write the book I want without knowing if it will sell is really better for me than writing to a contract.
And I was thinking that I have been a writer for a long time, far longer than I’ve been earning money with it. And I love it. I love losing myself in a story.
So why, then, am I so…
I want to put my head down on my desk and hope for magic, but I know the only way it will happen is if I make it.
M
Posted in Writing, contemplation, life | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, August 28th, 2007
…but it’s an e-book, so, hey, if you wanted to just wait a couple days to order it and get it at once, I guess that would be cool, too…
blurb: Word of Miracula’s unique beauty is known far throughout the land. But when a dark fairie curses her with Desire, it is news of her insatiable lust that attracts dozens would-be suitors to her door, as one by one they attempt to break the curse by bringing her utter fulfillment.
So…yeah…it’s got some boytouching in it, too. They don’t say it but *I* will.  ‘Cuz, you know. I love that.
Also check out the other two stories! I’ll be putting up an excerpt of Kimberly Kaye Terry’s yummy looking story in a day or so. Check for it.
And…without further ado…an excerpt from Gilt and Midnight
Winter eased into Spring with little fanfare. Mira’s parents had done little to fight the fairy’s curse. It pained her to see her beloved mother and father give themselves so quickly to despair, and she was determined not to let them wither away. The lines of men waiting to sample her beauty had dwindled to nothing, no more than one or two a sevenday.
Until one day, as Mira sat in the warming garden where the flowers had just begun to show their heads, two men arrived. One as fair as sunshine, the other dark as shadows. They reached the gate at the same time, one from each direction. From her seat on the stone bench, Mira could see them both, but at first neither looked at her.
“Gerard,” said the dark-haired man.
“Alain,” greeted the fair-haired man.
Mira got to her feet. Both had put their hands to their belts, one to pull a dagger and the other a short sword. Neither moved after that, each watching the other, until the dark-haired man gave a slight nod and stepped aside just enough to let the one called Gerard pass. Both of them came through the gate, and both stopped when they saw her.
“Madame,” said Gerard with a half-bow. “We seek the lady Mira.”
“Many have sought her,” Mira said. “What makes the two of you any different than the hundred others?”
Alain stood an inch or so shorter than Gerard but still towered tall over Mira. He held out his hand for hers, and she took it at once. “I’ve heard she’s been gifted by the dark fairy.”
“Everyone knows that.” Mira tugged away her hand, still tingling from his touch.
“Ah,” said Alain with a half-bow nearly identical to the one Gerard had already bestowed. “But not everyone else has received the same gift.”
Mira looked at them, one to the other. “And you have?”
“Lady,” answered Gerard. “We both have.”
* * *
Most of the other men had arrived intent on seducing her at once. Some had been kind, a few considerate, but none of them had wasted their time with conversation. Alain and Gerard, however, followed Mira into the large dining hall where they set about laying a fire in the long-neglected hearth.
“Wine, lady?” Gerard’s question seemed more command than request, and Mira found herself scurrying to the sideboard in search of a bottle.
Alain watched her, his gaze like sapphires. “Where are your servants, lady?”
“Gone,” Mira said as she poured three glasses of almost sour wine. “My father can’t afford to pay them any longer, and they fear the dark fairy’s taint. My good mother has taken to her bed. And my father has gone mad.”
She expected the blunt statement to take the men aback, but neither looked surprised. She brought the glasses, one for Alain and one for Gerard, and both took them. Gerard drank his off at once with a grimace, but Alain waited for Mira to sip before he drank.
Gerard gave a low grunt and put his cup on the long wooden dining table that had hosted so many guests over the years. “Come here.”
Mira did at once, though she stopped far enough away from him that he would have to reach to grab her, if that was his intent. Gerard didn’t reach for her. He studied her.
“You are beautiful,” he said. “The fairy didn’t give you that.”
Mira shook her head. “No, sir, I don’t believe so.”
She looked at him. His pale hair fell to his shoulders, loose. He had the sharp features of a hawk and the body of a warrior beneath his simple, solid clothes. She shivered, thinking of his muscular arms around her, of his thick legs pushing hers apart. He would not be gentle, she saw this already, and her pulse beat faster between her legs.
“Would you have me?” he asked her, his voice low and rough.
Mira’s mouth parted, and she looked toward Alain, who had not yet put down his glass. “What of your
companion, sir?”
Gerard laughed. “What of him?”
“You both arrived at the same time. You both want the same thing. How am I to know which of you can provide me with what you need, if I don’t sample you both?”
From another woman these words would have made her a doxy, but Mira had long ceased caring. The dark fairy had gifted her with desire, and it built and built inside her every day without cease. Her mother was trying to sleep away her life and her father was gone insane because of it. She would fuck a thousand men if it meant she’d find the one to complete her.
Gerard gave Alain a challenging look. “Would that you had traveled a mile faster, brother of my heart. You might have been the one to fill this lady’s bucket.”
Alain put a hand over his heart and bowed his head to Gerard. “Would that you had traveled but a mile slower, oh my brother. For then, indeed, I might have been the first to reach her.”
Mira looked at them. They had history, of that there was no question. “You are brothers?”
Without looking away from Alain, Gerard said, “we have different parents.”
Without looking away from Gerard, Alain replied, “We have fought at each other’s side and won. We’ve shared much, Gerard and I.”
They both looked at her, but it was Gerard this time who held out his hand. “Lady. Take me to your room, and I will give you what the dark fairy promised would save you and your family.”
Mira, having no reason to decline, took his hand and led him to the stairs. Half way up, she looked back. Alain stared after them, but only she saw him press his lips to the tips of his fingers.
Posted in Gilt and Midnight, Squee, Writing, new book, ten kinds of famous | No Comments »
Monday, August 27th, 2007
Megan Hart’s Video blog, 8.27.07
Posted in Writing | 2 Comments »
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
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Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
She ain’t real pretty, (yet) but she runs reaaaaaal fine.
Posted in Squee, freaky deaky, life, red glitter, supernatural | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
DO NOT WATCH THIS!!!!! DO.NOT. WATCH. IT. *SCREAMS*
No, it isn’t porn. But it will freak your shite out.
M
Posted in freaky deaky | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
My house has many rooms. I occupy but a few. The rest go unvisited.
So…I’m not really writing a lot right now, but I am thinking about what to write. So many ideas. How do I know which are good? Valid? Worth my time?
I don’t, really, not until I actually sit down to write. The idea that so excites me one day might not be sustained, long-term. Ideas that have stayed with me for weeks, months…years…might never come to fruition. I might not write those books for many reasons, even though they live in my head for a long, long time.
Sometimes, the ideas arrive and linger, but the story that grows from them is nothing like the original idea. Nothing like the thought that first flitted through my mind and settled there. Fortunately, usually, time and effort make them better.
I have very few books I’ve started and never finished. Right now I have three. One is the third book in a science fiction trilogy. I love the books, know where the third (which is 3/4 finished) is going…but there’s not much point in writing number three if one and two haven’t sold. One is the book is a futuristic romance called The Avatar that I really, really, really would like to finish one day, if I ever think I have the time and can get into it. And the third is Blackbird, which right now is unfinished only because I wrote the proposel and hope it is enough to secure a contract; I will finish it for sure, then. I will probably finish it sometime this fall, anyway, while waiting.
I have several short stories that aren’t done, I think, but I couldn’t tell you what they are.
My misfortune is not in running out of ideas, that’s for sure.
But right now, right at this moment, I’m feeling low. I think it’s because I haven’t been writing, working, writing, working…I’ve been thinking about it, but not really doing it. And the longer I don’t do it, the more fun it is to goof around and the easier it is to say “oh, in two weeks I’ll get back to it.” Because that’s the way my life is working now. I have a family I need to take care of and the luxury of not being forced to write around them at this moment, which has made the summer far less stressful than it could have been.
I think it’s because I feel so far away, right now, from writing that I can’t recall what it’s like, exactly, to do it. How to find that joy. That time when writing is not just a chore but a relief and a release and something to look forward to. When I can get lost inside a story and be swept away.
Things changed for me when I “sold.” There was more pressure, more stress, for sure. I worked harder, faster, harder fasterharderfasteromgfasterharderharderrrr!
I was afraid I’d run out of ideas.
Well, I haven’t. And right now I don’t have any contracts staring me in the face, I have endless time stretching out in front of me with nothing to do but write the books I want to write, the stories that appeal to me.
Let me tell you wanna be’s…it doesn’t stop when you sell. If anything the anxiety gets deeper. There is a lot of joy to balance it, don’t get me wrong, but once you sell “big” then it’s a matter of needing to keep doing it, and OMG what if I can’t? What if I suck? What if, worse, I do NOT suck but that doesn’t matter?
I read a book today. Yeah, an entire book. I read a whole book the day before that. I’ve been a reading fiend this summer. Some of them were meh, some pretty good. A couple down right frigging awesome. Most, if not all, were more “successful” than my work has been.
I don’t begrudge those authors their success. Their books brought me a few hours of joy and I love reading. So I thank them for providing me the pleasure.
Yet I can’t help but compare myself…my work…my success. Why am I not on a bestseller list? What can I do differently? Is it really because I write erotic fiction, or that my books have been released in trade, not mass market? Is it because I’m not writing “trendy” — no vampires, no werewolves, no witches, nothing paranormal. No suspense. Haven’t I done enough promotion or marketing?
What is the frigging golden ticket, and how do I get one?
I guess the answer is: there isn’t one. All I can do is keep writing the books I want to write and write them the best I can. I might never be more successful than I right now, at this moment. I might never *BITES TONGUE* sell another book.
And what will I do if that happens? What will happen to me?
I have been building another idea for the past…oh, at least a year. But it’s starting to really formulate. Come together. I can see the characters. Better yet, I can feel them. I want to write their story. I’m pretty sure if I were to describe the story to anyone I would get raised eyebrows and a quiet “…uh huh.” Because it’s sooooo not traditional romance or even traditional erotic fiction, but damn, it pushes some of my buttons.
No, it’s not the story I want to write about three friends who go to the beach for the weekend and meet some guys and do random, dirty things with them. (Though I do want to write that, too, bwahaha!)
I’m not ashamed that I write erotic fiction, and I guess if that’s what keeps me off the NYT best seller list, well, then it does. If it keeps me out of the chain stores and off library shelves, whatever, that’s okay, too. I have other books in me. I don’t know if I can sell them. Maybe I will only, can only, sell books about sex. Maybe when the “book” dies, so will my career.
I’m not being pessimistic, just pragmatic and realistic. Just because you want it don’t mean you’re gonna get it. Even if you deserve it.
I’m tired of the whining about how someone’s book would have sold better IF ONLY. If only it was a different genre, or format, or with another publisher, or how it was just “too good” to be appreciated, or how marketing and promotion do NOTHING, or how because you choose to publish in one format or place that somehow, I shouldn’t publish in another. I’m tired of the complaints and foot stomping and the sense of entitlement.
I will keep writing the books I want to write and hope that someone wants to read them. I will keep feeling no small sense of envy when I see someone else earn more money, sell more books, sign more contracts, get more acclaim. I will keep wondering if I really do suck, if I should keep going, if I’m ever going to really “make it” whatever the hell that means.
I’m still going to doubt myself.
But more than anything else, I’m going to keep writing.
M
Posted in Writing, contemplation, life | 6 Comments »
Monday, August 13th, 2007
So we headed down to Dewey Beach, DE for the weekend to celebrate my sister’s thirtieth birthday.
We set off, me, my sister and her friend Stacy…
The drive down wasn’t too bad. We talked a lot about our hero, Dr. Tony Russo (he’s a giver AND a doer!) We spotted a bagel riding a surfboard.
WHEEEEEE!
And I got all atingle when we spotted…
Because you know how I love the boytouching.
It was, of course, time to eat when we finally reached Dewey. (Dewey? Yeah, we do!)
Our hotel room (DTRA — Dr. Tony Russo approved….)
Libations…
Um…stain of undetermined origin…
While we were hanging out on our very cool balcony…
We were introduced to our neighbors from a few rooms down. I was amazed at the preparations those boys made to go out for a night of drinking and dancing. Let me tell you, I was thoroughly impressed by the tooth brushing, but the EAR CLEANING!!! DUUUUUDE! A guy who cleans his ears before he goes out is either super duper hygiene-oriented or he really, really wants to make sure he doesn’t miss a word. (Sean Papadopolous, we thought you were FAB.) As we shouted back and forth it became apparent that we were all going to be heading to the same place…that hotbed of debauchery, The Rusty Rudder. This is, apparently, one of “the” hot spots to hit in Dewey.
It was, indeed, DTRA.
So we headed over.
And because it was Whitney’s birthday, we made sure she was given proper homage by all who attended.
Look! Patrick Swayze!!
Me and Sean Papadopolous. Or whoever he is.
You gotta give da luv to a guy who says things like “You can’t wear that. I won’t be able to control myself.” And who wears a St. Florian medallion. And buys beers. (Thanks, though I wasn’t drinking beer!)
LEAGUE OF CHAOS, UNITE!
Mah sisteh is turning THRITY!
At some point in the night, the live band that was playing took a break and some old school techno hit the speakers. And, just like in High School Musical, the crowd parted and formed a circle and…I can’t quite describe it but to say that there was a lot of gyrating and…wriggling…and…harrum. And so we made the birthday girl get in there and shake her groove thing.
BEST PICTURE EVAR.
More stealth photos…(“Cawl me.”)
OH, snap! CAUGHT!! (And btw, it is NOT sanitary to lick strangers, ew.)
Whitney and Stacy shared a bed. I’m just saying.
DAAAAAAAAVE!!!!
When we got back to the hotel it appeared to be on fire, based on the three fire trucks and two ambulances there and all the people milling around outside, so we went for pizza, instead. And then came back and went to bed. We had to step over drunk people in the hall. Yeah.
(As an aside…I drink very, very rarely, and when I do, I don’t really get drunk. I haven’t been what my sister calls “shithammered” in…a long time. I get giggly but I don’t get trashed. I act crazy without the benefit of booze. So while I’d had a couple of drinks that night and I had a really really good time…I was nowhere NEAR having to pass out on the floor in the hallway of a hotel. Or to fall over myself while walking. Or cross the street against the light and flip off the car that almost hit me. Or to urinate in public. Whatever. I’m all for having a good time but I’m not into getting trashed.)
The next day we spent the day on the beach, then went into Rehoboth for dinner…
Then to the Dogfish Head to watch one of our favorite bands play…Hoots and Hellmouth. THIS is what happened the last time I got to see them. (Sadly, I didn’t get to sign Andrew again.)
We were joined by some of Whitney’s friends…
And we watched the show for awhile. This one is especially for Whitney…
And then we headed back to the Rudder for more stealth photography…
She was thirty. I was Dirty.
Did I mention they also shared a bed?
A sighting of the fabled Unican.
“SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN! CLUTCHING YOUR PILLOW TIGHT!”
The group…
Then it was back home for people watching from the balcony. Some dude peed in the bushes below our room. So did some girl. *eye roll*
Though we did get to watch Eddie AKA Sexual Chocolate bust some fine moves in the middle of the street as he and Will AKA Liam were walking home. And we learned that something called Season’s Bites (or something) are the best post-drinking treat. And that Sean AKA “Half Irish and Half Greek” (he wouldn’t say which half was which) might not be cool with putting sunscreen on a buddy but he’ll demand oral favors from one at 1:30 in the morning from a balcony. You know, sort of like Romeo and Juliet but with boys and beers.
Then it was to bed, and up the next day where we hit the shops in Rehoboth before heading home.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY SISTER!!!!
M
Posted in life, vacation | No Comments »
Friday, August 10th, 2007
 For the first time in…I don’t know how long, I have hair that is all one color. And it is a normal color.
You can see by my expression how thrilled I am by this.
It’s a nice color, don’t get me wrong. But I look in the mirror and it doesn’t really look like me. Which is weird because before I started going blue and purple, I was usually red.
Anyway.
Thought the world should know.
M
PS– going to the beach to help my sister celebrate her birthday. Prepare for the debauchery!
Posted in coloring my hair, vacation | No Comments »
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